been far from the truth, according to his standpoint of what human
happiness consists in,--that external prosperity which was the blessing
of the Old Testament, and which Macaulay exalts as proudly as Gibbon
before him. There _was_ this external prosperity, so far as we know, and
we know but little aside from monuments and medals. Even Tacitus shrank
from writing contemporaneous history, and the period he could have
painted is to us dark, mysterious, and unknown. Still, it is generally
supposed and conceded that the Empire at this time was outwardly
splendid and prosperous. Certainly there was a period of peace, when no
wars troubled the State but those which were distant,--on the very
confines of the Empire, and that with rude barbarians, no more
formidable in the eyes of the luxurious citizens of the capital than a
revolt of the Sepoys to the eyes of the citizens of London, or Indian
raids among the Rocky Mountains to the eyes of the people of New York.
And there was the reign of law and order, a most grateful thing to those
who had read of the conspiracy of Catiline and the tumults of Clodius,
two hundred and fifty years before. And there was doubtless a
magnificent material civilization which promised to be eternal, and of
which every Roman was proud. There was a centralization of power in the
Eternal City such as had never been seen before and has never been seen
since,--a solid Empire so large that the Mediterranean, which it
enclosed, was a mere central lake, around the vast circuit of whose
shores were temples and palaces and villas of unspeakable beauty, and
where a busy population pursued unmolested its various trades. There was
commerce on every river which empties itself into this vast basin; there
were manufactures in every town, and there were agricultural skill and
abundance in every province. The plains of Egypt and Mesopotamia
rejoiced in the richest harvests of wheat; the hills of Syria and Gaul,
and Spain and Italy, were covered with grape-vines and olives. Italy
boasted of fifty kinds of wine, and Gaul produced the same vegetables