British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIV July and October, 1871

(1.) Les Césars, par Franz de Champagny. 3 vols. Paris: Bray.

(2.) Les Antonines, par le Comte de Champagny. 3 vols. Paris: Bray.

The history of the Roman Empire must ever have an interest peculiar to itself. It stands alone. Nothing in the past has been, nothing in the future can be, like it. It was the whole civilized world. It gathered into itself the traditions of all that had ever been great and illustrious in the human race, Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Hebrew, Phoenician, Greek, Etruscan, as well as those of the multitudinous western tribes--Italian, Gallic, Iberian or Teutonic, which had only made themselves known as warriors. The civilization, the arts and sciences, the laws and institutions, the poetry and philosophy, the whole accumulated literary treasures of all past generations were risked on a single venture. Rome had no rival on earth, and could have no successor. She was the ark in which were preserved all the riches of the past, all the hopes of the future. For many centuries the most gifted races of men had been toiling and suffering, and there was no reason to suppose that man was capable of doing more than had been effected by their united efforts. If that was lost, all was lost. It was no idle boast, then, when men said, 'When Rome shall fall, the world will fall with her.' In those ages no man looked forward to anything greater or better. The idea that 'progress' is the natural law and condition of the world, is one quite characteristic of modern times. The ancient notion was that its law was that of decay and corruption. The utmost that anyone dared to hope was that things might not change for the worse.

And so far as appears, their judgment was well founded. Man had done all he could. The Roman Empire exhibited the highest state of society, which, without some supernatural interference of a higher power in the affairs of the world, he was able to develope. Viewed in this light, as the last act of a vast drama which had been going on for ages, it must ever be most worthy of study. And in truth there was in it very much that was really great and noble. The impression left on the mind by ordinary histories, which is little more than a vague idea of mad and grotesque tyranny on the one side, and abject servitude on the other, is very far from doing it justice. If, as we know, there has in fact arisen out of its ashes a new world, on the whole vastly superior to the old, this is because, by the mercy of his Creator, man has no longer been left to find his way without light and guidance from on high; because after having, in the old world, left man to work out to the end all that he could do by himself, God Himself has been pleased, in the new world, to stretch out His own right hand and His holy arm, and to work in man and by him. Here, then, is the striking contrast between ancient and modern history. The one shows man working without God, the other God working by man; and man, alas! but too often, crossing, interfering with, and maiming His work.

But this was not all; for although, while the Empire of Rome still lasted, the kingdom of God was not as yet visibly set up among men, yet, almost from its very foundation, the germs of that future kingdom were working in it. It was under the reign of the first heathen emperor that the Prince of Peace was born into the world. The grain of mustard-seed was already sown, and through all the centuries occupied by the heathen empire it was growing night and day, at first unobserved by men, in later times forcing itself on their notice, until it became a tree whose branches overshadowed the whole earth.

There are, then, two subjects which must attract attention in any worthy description of the Roman Empire; first, the political, social, moral, and religious condition of the heathen world, both in itself and in comparison with that of Christian nations, and next the effect produced on the heathen themselves by the gradual growth and development of Christianity in the midst of them. The internal history of Christianity, indeed, belongs in strictness to ecclesiastical history, but no subject has a more direct claim upon the general historian than that of its effects upon the political, moral, and social standard, and upon the religious opinions of those who were not Christians.

We know, however, no English book which throws light upon either of these two subjects. Indeed, we doubt whether there is any which ever attempted to do so. The greatest English writer who has described those times, was made incapable of it by his hatred of Christianity, and by his low standard of moral feeling. In our own times, no doubt, we have had an interesting history of the 'Romans under the Empire' from a writer whom it would be most unjust to compare to Gibbon; but this has not been continued so far as the period when Christianity would have forced itself on the writer's attention. And so far as appears, his thoughts have not been sufficiently turned to the subject to lead him to detect its influence, where it is quite as unquestionable if not as prominent. The result is, that although Mr. Merivale no doubt fully believes and admits the truth and importance of Christianity, he has given us a history of the Romans under the Empire, in which, except in one or two short recognitions of its truth, there is nothing to remind the reader that the old world was ignorant of the fact that God had been manifested in the flesh, while all that is specially worth notice in the new world that has succeeded it, is founded upon that fact.

Mr. Merivale, of course, would reply to this criticism that he undertook to relate the history of the Romans as it had been recorded by Tacitus, Suetonius, Dion, and others; and that if there was nothing in Christianity which arrested their attention, and which they have thought worthy of record, there could be nothing which came into his subject. This, however, implies a total mistake as to the duty of an historian. He has to tell us, of course, what really happened, and nothing else. But it is certain that events, in their consequences of the greatest importance, are often so much undervalued by those who see them in progress, that they pass them over unmentioned, devoting their attention to things which at the moment seem more important, but which after-times see to have been of little interest. It is Arnold's remark, that Phillip de Comines,[1] whose memoirs 'terminate about twenty years before the Reformation, and six years after the first voyage of Columbus,' writes without the least notion of the momentous character of the times which he was describing. His 'memoirs are striking, from their perfect unconsciousness. The knell of the middle ages had already sounded, yet Comines had no other notions than such as they had tended to foster; he describes their events, their characters, their relations, as if they were to continue for centuries.' And he justly blames Barante, because, while fully able to analyze history philosophically, 'he has chosen, in his history of the Dukes of Burgundy, to forfeit the benefits of his own wisdom, and has described the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries no otherwise than might have been done by their own simple chroniclers.' What else has Merivale done in describing, for instance, the times of the Antonines as they appeared to contemporary heathen writers, not as we know them really to have been, who have the means of estimating the effects even then produced upon heathen society by the influence of the Christians, already so numerous in the midst of it, and of comparing them with periods in the history of many Christian nations in many respects similar.

In contrast with the deficiencies of histories in our own language, we would call special attention to the historical works of M. de Champagny. We have been surprised to find how little they are known in England, not merely by men of general culture and intelligence, but by many whose studies have been especially directed to the history of the Roman Empire. In France they are not only well known, but so highly appreciated that they have won for their author a seat in the Academy, the great object of literary ambition; and this, although the tone of religious earnestness which runs through them, if it did not hinder, assuredly in no degree tended to promote their popularity. At different periods during the last forty years, M. de Champagny has published four works on Roman history, the first two of which we have placed at the head of this article. None of these works are called by the author, or are exactly entitled to be called histories. They contain, indeed, a narrative strictly confined to the facts recorded by ancient authors, and full of life and interest; yet the narrative is the least valuable part of the work. They are études, a term which, for want of one more exactly expressing it, we may render essays. This character pervades even the narrative: but less than half the three volumes of 'the Cæsars' is narrative even in form. It contains a 'picture of the Roman Empire,' giving innumerable details, full of life and reality, of the provinces, the capital, the daily life of the Romans, their worship, their family and social life, their morals, their literary habits, their public amusements, and ending with an account of the Neo-stoic philosophy which filled (so far as it was filled at all) the place of a religion, as that word is understood among ourselves. And throughout the whole, the comparison of the old world and the new is kept in view. We know no work in the English language, as we have already said, which supplies what we have here. In 'the Antonines,' the proportion devoted to similar pictures, especially to the estimate of the indirect influence of Christianity, is equally large and equally important.

It would be impossible within the limits of an article, to give any idea of the contents of essays in which our author presents, in the lucid epigrammatic form peculiar to his country and language, the results of a life of study and thought. What we specially desire is, that our readers should consider for themselves whether it is not the fact, that great as is the proportion of time and attention devoted to the classics, in English education, the Roman Empire has been far too much overlooked, especially in comparison with the Republic. For this it is very easy to account. It is the natural result, not of any love for a republic, but of that too exclusive love for the writers of the Augustan age, which has long formed a characteristic feature in the cultivated Englishman. The historians of the Empire, and even those who, like Pliny, Seneca, &c., reflect its manners in contemporary writings not professedly historical, but often of even more historical value, are wanting in the especial charm which attracts a fastidious scholar to the earlier history. And hence we greatly doubt whether ninety out of one hundred boys educated at a classical school do not practically think of Roman history, as if its interest ended with Augustus. Before Gibbon turned attention to the 'Decline and Fall of the Empire' this must have been still more the case. Account for this as we may, we are sure that it is greatly to be regretted. For, beautiful as is 'Livy's pictured page,' the state of society which it presents--(that of a simple people, denizens of a single city, retaining many of the virtues and faults of a rude age, esteeming courage in the field as for all citizens the first and most necessary of virtues, and valuing temperance, a life of labour, &c., chiefly, as conducing to it)--has so little in common with our daily life and habits, that the practical lessons impressed upon us are hardly more than if we read as many pages of the 'Thousand and One Nights.' In saying this, we by no means desire to discourage the study of writers whom we heartily love and admire. It is a great thing to store the mind (especially in the plastic season of youth) with images of beauty; nor do we believe that the peculiar refinement of taste formed by such an education is attainable by any other means. The first decade of Livy, for instance, ranks high in that class of books, at the top of which stand the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey.' Still, history has an importance of its own, and it seems to us indisputable that the strictly historical value of later Roman times is (at least in the present age of the world) far greater than that of the golden age of the Republic. Allowing for the immense difference between a heathen and a Christian society, the world ruled by Marcus Aurelius is one in which we can easily imagine ourselves to be living. We are sure that no thoughtful man can read many pages of M. de Champagny's works without finding his mind filled with thoughts and lessons which bear immediately on the state of society in which our lot is cast. The evils and corruptions which were undermining the Roman world were, in many respects, those against which we are called to guard or contend. Where there is a contrast, it is one which it is well for us to observe; for it may easily be traced to the special blessings which the indirect action of Christianity has conferred upon every class of modern society, even upon those who have, more or less wilfully, rejected it.