Rights In Civil Society
Appendix 8. (2240).
During the civil wars of the Roman empire one party sought to destroy the power of the other. Even the magistrates were put to the sword, which is what happened when Severus captured Byzantium from Niger and Albinus. Gibbon writes:
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For forty years, if we except the short, doubtful respite during the reign of Vespasian, Rome groaned under a continual tyranny which exterminated the ancient families of the republic and was almost fatal for every virtue and talent that appeared at that unfortunate period. (Storia della Decad., c. 3) |
The crime of lèse-majesté was the pretext for numerous public and solemn assassinations. The fratricide, Caracalla, considered extirpating all the families related to his slaughtered brother. Commodus had been attacked by a man who cried out as he struck the blow, `This comes from the senate'; this was sufficient for the emperor to carry out an horrendous butchery against the senate. Gibbon says, `Suspicion replaced proof; accusation was condemnation. The torture of an illustrious senator meant the destruction of all those who would weep or revenge his action.' Describing the reign of Gallienus, whose cruelty in extinguishing illustrious families was extreme, he says, `The only family, among all the ancient families of Rome, to survive the tyranny of the Caesars was the Calpurnia' (c. 10). The last branch of this family was killed at the order of the tyrant Valens. The author of Delle morti de' persecutori says that Maximian, who could exercise his cruelty only on new families, `extinguished the lights of the senate through trumped-up crimes'.
The barbarians completed the work. The Goths, Vandals and Huns reduced to slavery everything they found illustrious in the Roman empire. Nobles less capable of mechanical work were humiliated and despised by the barbarians who were at a loss to appreciate or even know what culture was. The well-known author of Discorso storico, the preface to Adelchi, narrates two facts concerning the barbarians' slaughter of the leaders of the cities they conquered. He then says:
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These two facts alone do not allow us to suppose that the killing of the principal owners was part of the Lombard system of conquest. But if we had more facts to establish this, we cannot deny that it would help us to explain why, among all the stories of barbarian domination, the indigenous population is less evident where the Lombards hold sway. It would be even more easy to argue to the condition to which those left alive were reduced. |