ities; the outward signs of prosperity
remained,--all the glories of art, all the wonders of imperial and
senatorial magnificence; the people were fed and amused at the expense
of the State; the colosseum was still daily crowded with its
eighty-seven thousand spectators, and large hogs were still roasted
whole at senatorial banquets, and wines were still drunk which had been
stored one hundred years. The "dark-skinned daughters of Isis" still
sported unmolested in wanton mien with the priests of Cybele in their
discordant cries. The streets still were filled with the worshippers of
Bacchus and Venus, with barbaric captives and their Teuton priests, with
chariots and horses, with richly apparelled young men, and fashionable
ladies in quest of new perfumes. The various places of amusement were
still thronged with giddy youth and gouty old men who would have felt
insulted had any one told them that the most precious thing they had was
the most neglected. Everywhere, as in the time of Trajan, were
unrestricted pleasures and unrestricted trades. What cared the
shopkeepers and the carpenters and the bakers whether a Commodus or a
Severus reigned? They were safe. It was only great nobles who were in
danger of being robbed or killed by grasping emperors. The people, on
the whole, lived for one hundred years after the accession of Commodus
as they did under Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. True, there had been great
calamities during this hundred years. There had been terrible plagues
and pestilences: in some of these as many as five thousand people died
daily in Rome alone. There were tumults and revolts; there were wars and
massacres; there was often the reign of monsters or idiots. Yet even as
late as the reign of Aurelian, ninety years after the death of Aurelius,
the Empire was thought to be eternal; nor was any triumph ever
celebrated with greater pride and magnificence than his. And as the
victorious emperor in his triumphal chariot marched along the Via Sacra
up the Capitoline hill, with the spoils and trophies of one hundred
battles, with ambassadors and captives, including Zenobia herself,
fainting with the weight of jewels and golden fetters, it would seem
that Rome was destined to overcome all the vicissitudes of Nature, and
reign as mistress of the world forever.

But that century did not close until real dangers stared the people in
the face, and so alarmed the guardians of the Empire that they no longer
could retire to