AGE OF THE FLAVIAN AND ANTONINE 



EMPERORS 



XXXIV. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 



It is riot easy to find a satisfactory line of division between the 

 period of the Flavian emperors and that of the adoptive series that 

 came after them. The Plebeian Flavians had no family claim, through 

 birth or adoption, to a preeminent position in the Roman world, and 

 the rise of Vespasian to power was indeed a revolution. Henceforth, 

 though outward forms and machinery remained, the real control of the 

 empire rested with those supported directly or indirectly by the great 

 armies. But the sound administrative policy set going by the common 

 sense of Vespasian long maintained the imperial fabric in strength, and 

 it is commonly held that from 69 to iSoAD was the Empire's golden 

 age. Nevertheless its vitality was already ebbing, and the calamities 

 that beset it in the days of Marcus Aurelius found it unable to renew 

 its vigour after holding in check its barbarian invaders. The Flavian- 

 Antonine period must be treated as one, and from the point of view 

 of the present inquiry certain significant facts must always be borne in 

 mind. The Italian element in the armies was becoming less and less. 

 Military policy consisted chiefly in defence of the frontiers, for the 

 annexations of Trajan were not lasting, and they exhausted strength 

 needed for defence. It was an ominous sign that the Roman power 

 of assimilation was failing. Mixed armies of imperfectly Romanized 

 soldiery, whether as conquerors or as settlers, could not spread Roman 

 civilization in the same thorough way as it had become at length estab- 

 lished in Spain or southern Gaul. To spread it extensively and not 

 intensively meant a weakening of Roman grasp; and at some points 1 

 it seems as if the influx of barbarism was felt to be a menace in time 

 of peace, not effectively counteracted by the peaceful penetration of 

 Rome. 



Now, if the protection of Italy by chiefly alien swords was to relieve 

 the imperial centre from the heavy blood-tax borne by it in the old 

 days of Roman expansion, surely it remained an Italian function or 

 duty to provide carriers 2 of Roman civilization, that is, if border lands 



1 See Tacitus Germ 41 on the exceptionally favourable treatment of the Hermunduri, with 

 Schweitzer-Sidler's notes. 



2 Seneca ad Helviam 7 7 refers to the colonies sent out to the provinces in earlier times, 

 and is rhetorically exaggerated. 



