rule is proved to have been fraught with ruin. The same cause will ever insure like results. "The universal record of history teaches that all republics which have risen and fallen, owe their destruction to foreign influence-unseen at first,-permitted till too strong for resistance,-at last fatal."* During the greatest successes of Cæsar, just after his defeat of Pompey at Pharsalia, the Senate was crowded with aliens and soldiers, instead of Roman citizens. Michelet remarks, the victory of Cæsar bore all the character of an incursion of barbarians into Rome, and into the Senate. In the commencement of the civil war, he had given the right of the city to all the Gauls between the Alps and the Po, and he raised to the rank of Senators a whole host of Gaulish Centurions in his army, as well as soldiers. Thus the conquerors of Pharsalia came to stammer out Latin by the side of Cicero. Thus that body, once so august, was now under the control of the thriceelected Dictator. This Senate decreed a general celebration of his various victories, during forty days. A bronze statue of him was to be set up in the Capitol, inscribed "the demigod !" His triumphant processions, one for Gaul, another for Egypt, a third for Syria, and a fourth for Numidia, bore him four times, in the highest state which mortal could sustain, up to the temple where his image testified to immortality, while to all classes of the people, revellings, games, and fastings, were continued with unsparing prodigality. His fifth and last triumph was that obtained over the sons of Pompey, of Munda. The Senate still continued to lavish upon him every kind of extravagant homage, even acknowledging him as the Julian Jupiter, and ordaining a temple and a priesthood to be consecrated to his worship. So fell the liberty, and so trembled the religion of Rome. There was now but one man for those "that talked of Rome," to praise as their sovereign, and to confess their deity.t Thus by their vices were the Roman people brought to servitude, not as they were unwilling, but as if bondage had become more acceptable to them than liberty. Gov. Gardner of Mass. + Elliot's Liberty of Rome. "But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt, The almost superhuman influence which Cæsar exerted as Emperor was, however, destined to a swift annihilation. His work of massacre and spoliation had ceased, and now the retributions of Providence were to follow. The story of his subsequent career to its end is already familiar to the reader. With the accession of Octavius Cæsar, who assumed the title of Augustus and Emperor, may be said to have ended the greatest commonwealth the world has ever seen, and the commencement of the greatest monarchy. The empire of Rome was extended over the whole globe; in Europe, it comprised Italy, Gaul, Spain, Lusitania, Greece, Illyricum, parts of Britain and Germany;in Asia, Armenia, Syria, India, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Media;-in Africa, Egypt, Numidia, Mauritania, and Libya. But it was under the tyranny of her prætorian guards that the liberty of Rome was sacrificed. There is a voice which yet speaks to us from Marius, and Sylla, and Philippi. The ruin of the free classes of Rome, and the consequent depopulation of the empire, appears to have been the specific malady of the state, and under which it suffered dissolution.* Gibbon forcibly portrays the skepticism and its usual accompaniments, which obtained among the higher ranks of Roman society. "It was indifferent to them what shape the folly of the multitude might choose to assume, and they approached with the same inward contempt, and the same external reverence, the altars of the Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline Jupiter." The Abbé Lamennais asserts, "that in such a frame of society, the human mind had nothing to rest upon. Despoiled of its faith, and even of its opinions, it was drifted upon an ocean of uncertainty and doubt. There was no more of paganism—no more of philosophy, unless you call by that name those idle vagaries with which the Romans amused their leisure in the gardens of their villas, or under the porti *Michelet. coes of their palaces, but from which proceeded no guide to the conscience, no fixed rule of conduct. They descanted upon their gods only to doubt their existence-on their duties, to elude them-on death, to determine how life could be enjoyed most; and the whole was terminated by abandoning themselves, heedlessly, to the current which carried, pell-mell, the wrecks of social order, men, institutions, and the empire itself." Montesquieu, and other reliable authorities, do not essentially differ in their opinions. Last, but greatest of all the causes that rendered the Roman people incapable of existing any longer as a Republic, that made their subjugation to the rule of some military adventurer inevitable, was the universal spread of irreligion and profligacy.* This is disguised, or lightly passed over by some modern writers; but no one can become familiar with the classics, without having it perpetually forced upon his notice in a thousand different forms; no mistaken delicacy should prevent us from dwelling and reflecting on the facts. They teach the great moral, that, to preserve freedom, piety and virtue must not be suffered to decay. The Romans, whose foreign conquest and domestic concord Polybius witnessed, believed firmly in a future state of rewards and punishment; hence, as Polybius remarked, came the probity that honorably distinguished their nation. The Romans of Cæsar's time had learned to look on such ideas as vain and ridiculous. Among the Roman virtues, not the least conspicuous, was her sublime patriotism. It was this that added such august dignity to the Roman character; but, with the loss of her virtues, came the fall of the great commonwealth. No people has ever been destroyed unless internal division has first prepared the way for an invader. Nationality is of too strong a power to be seriously affected by external attacks: its foes are in its own household, and cliques and feuds are its most dangerous enemies. The armies of Joshua found the Canaanites an easy prey, for that ancient people were split up into numerous principalities and tribes, * Merivale. though of common origin, language, and customs. Their several kings or chieftains could resolve on no settled action against the invader; internal jealousies prevented a united action, and the several nations were annihilated in detail. Carthage, the mistress of the world when Rome was yet in its infancy, flourished peacefully so long as concord and unity influenced her citizens in the common good, but faction wrested victory from her brow, persecuted and banished the immortal Hannibal, and left her palaces in ruins at the feet of her conquerors. Rome, eternal Rome herself, felt the terrible evils of division. Against such treason to the Republic, Cicero thundered in fearful elo-. quence, denouncing the Catilines and anarchists of the age who sought to divide a united people. It was by such divisions that Cæsar and Pompey destroyed the Republic, and left it the prey of emperors. Feuds and civil war delivered Italy to the barbarians, and the rival houses of the Arsini, Colonna, Medici, &c., plunged her in mediæval darkness. Poland shone among the nations, and drove back the Moslems from the walls of Vienna, for she was then moved by one principle, and patriotism had an existence in her midst. But an evil day came, and her nobles forgot their country, and thought but of their own selfish interests. Then, what the mighty Turkish power had failed to injure, trembled before a northern invader; Poland was still the same nation, the same heroic people; but her soldiers were slain, and her scythemen annihilated, because the bond of union, the common action, was now no more. History has graven on the granite columns of Time the incontrovertible maxim, “Union is Strength." Ambition and Tyranny have divined its import, and embraced the only course which could affect it. That course is, Diviser pour regner: (Divide, in order to reign.) It is only by such a policy that liberty can be attacked; she is safe against all foreign enemies; storms will pass harmlessly over her; but dissension will induce rancor, and rancor, anarchy: thus the State is quickly left to bemoan its loss of freedom, when it sees itself the prey of ever-changing tyrants. The loss of a firm national character, or the degradation of a nation's honor, is the inevitable prelude to her destruction. Behold the once proud fabric of a Roman empire, an empire carrying its arts and arms into every part of the eastern continent; the monarchs of mighty kingdoms, dragged at the wheels of her triumphal chariots; her eagle waving over the ruins of desolated countries: where is her splendor, her wealth, her power, her glory? Extinguished forever. Her mouldering temples, the mournful vestiges of her former grandeur, afford a shelter to her muttering monks. Where are her statesmen, her sages, her philosophers, her orators, her generals? Go to their solitary tombs and inquire. She lost her national character, and her destruction followed. The ramparts of her national pride were broken down, and Vandalism desolated her classic fields.* Thus has the mighty mother of nations fallen-with all her pride of beauty, her majestic power, her intellectual greatness, and her sublime patriotism! "Ah, eloquence, thou wast undone,— And blotted out the stars of heaven!" Yet the world ceases not to do homage to her lost virtues, as well as her triumphant exploits in arts and philosophy; and in all coming time, will there be found admiring multitudes who will delight to gaze up into those bright blue skies, which inspired the muse of Virgil, to linger amid the ruins of her Forum, so memorable for the stupendous eloquence of Cicero, and to bend before that Temple of Liberty, in which Rienzi vowed to her protection in her last asylum. "Her ruined columns stand sublime, Flinging their shadows from on high; Other great cities of past ages may attract us-Thebes, Babylon, * Maxcy. |