The World's Greatest Books - Volume 11 Part 20

The young Graccus Pompeius was the most distinguished of the Sullan party; Cra.s.sus was the wealthiest and most powerful of the Equestrian group; Lepidus was the popular leader. A popular insurrection which he headed was suppressed, and he disappeared, but Sertorius, once an a.s.sociate of Marius, had obtained a remarkable personal ascendancy in Spain, and, in league with the Mediterranean pirates, threatened to be a formidable foe of the new const.i.tution. For some years he maintained a gradually waning resistance against the arms of Pompeius, but finally was a.s.sa.s.sinated.

Meanwhile Tigranes, King of Armenia, had been developing a powerful monarchy; and mutual distrust had brought on another war with Mithridates, successfully conducted by Lucullus. Out of this war arose a struggle with Tigranes, on whom an overwhelming defeat was inflicted at Tigranocerta. But the brilliant achievements of Lucullus were nullified by the mutinous conduct of the troops, and the factious conduct of the home government. The gross inefficiency of that government was shown by the immense extension of organised piracy, and by the famous slave revolt under Spartacus, which seriously endangered the state.

Pompeius on his return from Spain was barred on technical grounds from the triumph and the consuls.h.i.+p which he demanded. He was thus driven into an alliance with the democratic party, and with Cra.s.sus. The result was the fall of the Sullan const.i.tution, and the restoration of checks on the power of the senate. Pompeius might have grasped a military despotism; he did not, but he did receive extraordinary powers for dealing with the whole Eastern question, and when that work was settled successfully, he would be able to dictate his own terms.

Pompeius began his task by a swift and crus.h.i.+ng blow against the pirate cities and fleets, which broke up the organisation. He crushed Mithridates in one campaign, and received the submission of Tigranes; Mithridates soon after fell by his own hand, the victim of an insurrection. Anarchy in Syria warranted Pompeius in annexing the Seleucid dominion. The whole of the nearer East was now a part of the Roman empire; and was thenceforth ruled not as protectorates, but as a group of provinces. Egypt alone was not incorporated.

Meanwhile, the democratic party at Rome were dominant, though their policy was inconsistent and opportunist. Probably the leading men, such as Cra.s.sus and the rising Gaius, Julius Caesar, stood aside from the wilder schemes, such as the Catilinarian conspiracies, but secretly fostered them. Catiline's projects were betrayed, and the illegal execution of the captured conspirators by the consul Cicero was hailed by Cato and the senatorial party as a triumph of patriotic statesmans.h.i.+p. Catiline himself was crushed in the field.

The definite fact emerged, that neither the senatorial nor the democratic party could establish a strong government; that would be possible only for a military monarchy--a statesman with a policy and an irresistible, force at his back. But Pompeius lacked the courage and skill. Caesar, as yet, lacked the military force. Pompeius, on his return from the East, again allied himself with Cra.s.sus and Caesar, whose object was to acquire for himself the opportunity which Pompeius would not grasp. The alliance gave Pompeius the land allotments he required for his soldiers, and to Caesar the consuls.h.i.+p followed by a prolonged governors.h.i.+p of Gaul.

The conquest and organisation of Gaul was an end in itself, a necessary defence against barbarian pressure. Caesar's operations there were invaluable to the empire; incidentally, they enabled him to become master of it. Caesar has left his own record. Gaul was transformed into a barrier against the Teutonic migration. But Pompeius, nominally holding a far greater position, proved incapable of controlling the situation in Rome; he could not even suppress the demagogue Clodius, while the prestige of his military exploits was waning. Fear of the power of the Triumvirate was driving moderate men to the senatorial part; that party, without an efficient leader, began to find in Pompeius rather in ally against the more dangerous Caesar than an enemy.

But they would not concede him the powers he required; which might yet be turned to the uses of his colleagues in the Triumvirate; he could not afford to challenge Caesar; and Caesar adroitly used the situation to secure for himself a prolongation of his Gallic command. The completion of his work there was to have precedence of his personal ambitions.

Cra.s.sus was sent to the Eastern command; and Pompeius remained in Italy, while nominally appointed to Spain.

Pompeius, indeed, attained a predominance in Rome which enabled him to secure temporarily dictatorial powers which were employed to counteract the electoral machinery of the republican party; but he had not the qualifications or the inclination to play the demagogue, and could not unite his aspirations as a restorer of law and order with effective party leaders.h.i.+p. Cra.s.sus disappeared; his armies in the East met with a complete disaster at Carrhae, and he took his own life. Caesar and Pompeius were left; Pompeius was not content that Caesar should stand on a real equality with him, and the inevitable rupture came.

In effect Pompeius used his dictators.h.i.+p to extend his own military command and to curtail Caesar's. The position resolved itself into a rivalry between the two; Caesar declaring as always for the democracy, Pompeius now a.s.suming the champions.h.i.+p of the aristocracy, and the guardians.h.i.+p of the const.i.tution.

For Caesar the vital point now was that his own command should not terminate till he exchanged it for a fresh consuls.h.i.+p. As the law now stood, he could not obtain his election without resigning his command beforehand. But he succeeded in forcing Pompeius to break the law; and in making the official government responsible for declaring war. He offered a compromise, perhaps, in the certainty that it would be rejected--as it was. He was virtually declared a public enemy; and he struck at once.

At the head of his devotedly loyal veterans he crossed the Rubicon. His rapid and successful advance caused Pompeius to abandon Italy and fall back on the Eastern Provinces. The discipline preserved, and the moderation displayed by Caesar won him unexpected favour. Having secured Italy, he turned next on Spain, and secured that. Swift and decisive action was pitted against inertness. When Caesar entered Epirus the odds against him on paper were enormous; but the triumphant victory of Phansalus shattered the Pompeian coalition. Pompeius hurried to Egypt, but was a.s.sa.s.sinated while landing. The struggle, however, was not over till after the battle of Thapsus nearly two years after Phansalus.

Caesar was now beyond question master of the whole Roman world. He had made himself one of the mightiest of all masters of the art of war; but he was even more emphatically unsurpa.s.sed as a statesman. In the brief time that was left him he laid the foundation of the new monarchy which replaced the ancient Republic of Rome.

Mediaeval History

EDWARD GIBBON

The Holy Roman Empire

The third of Gibbon's divisions of his great history was devoted to that period which is comprised between the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire in 800 and the final extinction of the Eastern Empire with the conquest of Constantinople by Mahomet II. in 1453. Although this was the longest period, Gibbon devoted much less s.p.a.ce to it than to the preceding parts of his history. This fact was partly due to the gradual diminution of Roman interests, for the dominions of the empire became contracted to the limits of a single city, and also to the fact that the material which the most painstaking search placed at his disposal was distinctly limited. But though the conquest of the Normans, to instance one section, has been dealt with inadequately in the light of modern research, the wonderful panorama that Gibbon's genius was able to present never fails in its effect or general accuracy. The Holy Roman Empire is, of course, properly cla.s.sified under Mediaeval History, which accounts for its separation from the rest of Gibbon's work.

_I.--Birth and Sway of the Empire_

The Western Empire, or Holy Roman Empire, as it has been called, which was re-established by Charlemagne (and lasted in shadow until the abdication of Francis II. under the pressure of Napoleon in 1806), was not unworthy of its t.i.tle.

The personal and political importance of Charlemagne was magnified by the distress and division of the rest of Europe. The Greek emperor was addressed by him as brother instead of father; and as long as the imperial dignity of the West was usurped by a hero, the Greeks respectfully saluted the _august_ Charlemagne with the acclamations of "Basileus" and "Emperor of the Romans." Lewis the Pious (814-840) possessed the virtue of his father but not the power. When both power and virtue were extinct, the Greeks despoiled Lewis II. of his hereditary t.i.tle, and with the barbarous appellation of _Rex_ degraded him amongst the crowd of Latin princes.

The imperial t.i.tle of the West remained in the family of Charlemagne until the deposition of Charles the Fat in 884. His insanity dissolved the empire into factions, and it was not until Otho, King of Germany, laid claim to the t.i.tle, with fire and sword, that the western empire was restored (962). His conquest of Italy and delivery of the pope for ever fixed the imperial crown in the name and nation of Germany. From that memorable era two maxims of public jurisprudence were introduced by force and ratified by time: (1) That the prince who was elected in the German Diet acquired from that instant the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome; (2) but that he might not legally a.s.sume the t.i.tles of Emperor and Augustus till he had received the crown from the hands of the Roman pontiff.

The nominal power of the Western emperors was considerable. No pontiff could be legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate of the Church, had graciously signified his approbation and consent. Gregory VII., in 1073, usurped this power, and fixed for ever in the college of cardinals the freedom and independence of election. Nominally, also, the emperors held sway in Rome, but this supremacy was annihilated in the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century the power derived from his t.i.tle was still recognised in Europe; the hereditary monarchs confessed the pre-eminence of his rank and dignity.

The persecution of images and their votaries in the East had separated-Rome and Italy from the Byzantine throne, and prepared the way for the conquests of the Franks. The rise and triumph of the Mahometans still further diminished the empire of the East. The successful inroads of the Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Russians, who a.s.saulted by sea or by land the provinces and the capital, seemed to advance the approach of its final dissolution. The Norman adventurers, who founded a powerful kingdom in Apulia and Sicily, shook the throne of Constantinople (1146), and their hostile enterprises did not cease until the year 1185.

_II.--Latin Rulers of Constantinople_

Under the name of the Latins, the subjects of the pope, the nations of the West, enlisted under the banner of the Cross for the recovery or the release of the Holy Sepulchre. The Greek emperors were terrified and preserved by the myriads of pilgrims who marched to Jerusalem with G.o.dfrey of Bouillon (1095-99) and the peers of Christendom. The second (1147) and the third (1189) crusades trod in the footsteps of the first.

Asia and Europe were mingled in a sacred war of two hundred years; and the Christian powers were bravely resisted and finally expelled (1291) by Saladin (1171-93) and the Mamelukes of Egypt.

In these memorable crusades a fleet and army of French and Venetians were diverted from Syria to the Thracian Bosphorus; they a.s.saulted the capital (1203), they subverted the Greek monarchy; and a dynasty of Latin princes was seated near three-score years on the throne of Constantine.

During this period of captivity and exile, which lasted from 1204 to 1261, the purple was preserved by a succession of four monarchs, who maintained their t.i.tle as the heirs of Augustus, though outcasts from their capital. The _de facto_ sovereigns of Constantinople during this period, the Latin emperors of the houses of Flanders and Courtenay, provided five sovereigns for the usurped throne. By an agreement between the allied conquerors, the emperor of the East was nominated by the vote of twelve electors, chosen equally from the French and Venetians. To him, with all the t.i.tles and prerogatives of the Byzantine throne, a fourth part of the Greek monarchy was a.s.signed; the remaining portions were equally snared between the republic of Venice and the barons of France.

Under this agreement, Baldwin, Count of Flanders and Hainault, was created emperor (1204-05). The idea of the Roman system, which, despite the pa.s.sage of centuries devoted to the triumphs of the barbarians, had impressed itself on Europe, was seen in the emperor's letter to the Roman pontiff, in which he congratulated him on the restoration of his authority in the East.

The defeat and captivity of Baldwin in a war against the Bulgarians, and his subsequent death, placed the crown on the head of his brother Henry (1205-16). With him the imperial house of Flanders became extinct, and Peter of Courtenay, Count of Auxerre (1217-19), a.s.sumed the empire of the East. Peter was taken captive by Theodore, the legitimate sovereign of Constantinople, and his sons Robert (1221-28) and Baldwin II.

(1228-37) reigned in succession. The gradual recovery of their empire by the legitimate sovereigns of the East culminated in the capture of Constantinople by the Greeks (1261). The line of Latin sovereigns was extinct. Baldwin lived the remainder of his life a royal fugitive, soliciting the Catholic powers to join in his restoration. He died in 1272.

From the days of the Emperor Heraclius the Byzantine Empire had been most tranquil and prosperous when it could acquiesce in hereditary succession. Five dynasties--the Heraclian, Isaurian, Amorian, Basilian, and Comnenian families--enjoyed and transmitted the royal patrimony during their respective series of five, four, three, six, and four generations. The imperial house of Comnenius, though its direct line in male descent had expired with Andronicus I. (1185), had been perpetuated by marriage in the female line, and had survived the exile from Constantinople, in the persons of the descendants of Theodore Lascaris.

Michael Palaeologus, who, through his mother, might claim perhaps a prior right to the throne of the Comnenii, usurped the imperial dignity on the recovery of Constantinople, cruelly blinded the young Emperor John, the legitimate heir of Theodore Lascaris, and reigned until 1282.

His career of authority was notable for an attempt to unite the Greek and Roman churches--a union which was dissolved in 1283--and his instigation of the revolt in Sicily, which ended in the famous Sicilian Vespers (March 30, 1282), when 8,000 French were exterminated in a promiscuous ma.s.sacre.

He saved his empire by involving the kingdoms of the West in rebellion and blood. From these seeds of discord uprose a generation of iron men, who a.s.saulted and endangered the empire of his son, Andronicus the Elder (1282-1332). Thousands of Genoese and Catalans, released from the wars that Michael had aroused in the West, took service under his successor against the Turks. Other mercenaries flocked to their standard, and, under the name of the Great Company, they subverted the authority of the emperor, defeated his troops, laid waste his territory, united themselves with his enemies, and, finally, abandoning the banks of the h.e.l.lespont, marched into Greece. Here they overthrew the remnant of the Latin power, and for fourteen years (1311-1326) the Great Company was the terror of the Grecian states.

Their factions drove them to acknowledge the sovereignity of the house of Arragon; and, during the remainder of the fourteenth century, Athens as a government or an appanage was successfully bestowed by the kings of Sicily. Conquered in turn by the French and Catalans, Athens at length became the capital of a state that extended over Thebes, Argos, Corinth, Delphi, and a part of Thessaly, and was ruled by the family of Accaioli, plebeians of Florence (1384-1456). The last duke of this dynasty was strangled by Mahomet II., who educated his sons in the discipline of the seraglio.

During the reign of John Palaeologus, son of Andronicus the Younger, which began in 1355, the eastern empire was nearly subverted by the Genoese. On the return of the legitimate sovereign to Constantinople, the Genoese, who had established their factories and industries in the suburb of Galata, or Pera, were allowed to remain. During the civil wars the Genoese forces took advantage of the disunion of the Greeks, and by the skilful use of their power exacted a treaty by which they were granted a monopoly of trade, and almost a right of dominions. The Roman Empire (I smile in transcribing the name) might soon have sunk into a province of Genoa if the ambition of the republic had not been checked by the ruin of her freedom and naval power. Yet the spirit of commerce survived that of conquest; and the colony of Pera still awed the capital and navigated the Euxine till it was involved by the Turks in the final servitude of Constantinople itself.

_III.--End of the Roman World_

Only three more sovereigns ruled the remnants of the Roman world after the reign of John Palaeologus, but the final downfall of the empire was delayed above fifty years by a series of events that had sapped the strength of the Mahometan empire. The rise and triumph of the Moguls and Tartars under their emperors, descendants of Zingis Khan, had shaken the globe from China to Poland and Greece (1206-1304). The sultans were overthrown, and in the general disorder of the Mahometan world a veteran and adventurous army, which included many Turkoman hordes, was dissolved into factions who, under various chiefs, lived a life of rapine and plunder. Some of these engaged in the service of Aladin (1219-1236), Sultan of Iconium, and among these were the obscure fathers of the Ottoman line.

Orchan ruled from 1326 to 1360, achieved the conquest of Bithynia, and first led the Turks into Europe, and in 1353 established himself in the Chersonesus, and occupied Gallipoli, the key of the h.e.l.lespont. Orchan was succeeded by Amurath I. (1389-1403). Bajazet carried his victorious arms from the Danube to the Euphrates, and the Roman world became contracted to a corner of Thrace, between the Propontis and the Black Sea, about fifty miles in length and thirty in breadth, a s.p.a.ce of ground not more extensive than the lesser princ.i.p.alities of Germany or Italy, if the remains of Constantinople had not still represented the wealth and populousness of a kingdom.

Under Manuel (1391-1425), the son and successor of John Palteologus, Constantinople would have fallen before the might of the Sultan Bajazet had not the Turkish Empire been oppressed by the revival of the Mogul power under the victorious Timour, or Tamerlane. After achieving a conquest of Persia (1380-1393), of Tartary (1370-1383), and Hindustan (1398-1399), Timour, who aspired to the monarchy of the world, found himself at length face to face with the Sultan Bajazet. Bajazet was taken prisoner in the war that followed. Kept, probably only as a precaution, in an iron cage, Bajazet attended the marches of his conqueror, and died on March 9, 1403. Two years later, Timour also pa.s.sed away on the road to China. Of his empire to-day nothing remains.

Since the reign of his descendant Aurungzebe, his empire has been dissolved (1659-1707); the treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the riches of their kingdom is now possessed by the Christians of a remote island in the northern ocean.

Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy. The ma.s.sive trunk was bent to the ground, but no sooner did the hurricane pa.s.s away than it again rose with fresh vigour and more lively vegetation. After a period of civil war between the sons of Bajazet (1403-1421), the Ottoman Empire was once more firmly established by his grandson, Amurath II.

(1421-1451).

One of the first expeditions undertaken by the new sultan was the siege of Constantinople (1422), but the fortune rather than the genius of the Emperor Manuel prevented the attempt. Amurath was recalled to Asia by a domestic revolt, and the siege was raised.