poet which my Berenice has taught me, 'God planted a rose and a woman bloomed.'
'But,' you may say, 'this outpouring of delight is poor return for the grim and grisly chronicle I sent Titus. Does he not reckon what is happening in Rome equal at least in the balance to his bed-tumblings?' So you will chide me, Best (in his own way) Beloved.
Therefore I shall desist from one seriousness – for love is… oh, hang it, I am out of such language. Let me just say, love is one thing, war and politics another, and for the moment you, dear boy, are caught up in the latter.
So, first, what of the war here? We make progress. We have reduced most of the cities and strongholds of Judaea: wearisome work of sieges, and much digging for the troops. But we get on top of the revolt. The better class of Jews have returned to their duty, chief among them their most able general, one Josephus. You would be impressed by him, as I am, for he has none of the bitter temper characteristic of the Jews, but is possessed of a breadth of knowledge and a rare capacity to weigh what is essential against what is inessential, and to judge the advantages and disadvantages of a case. So he has concluded that, since our Empire cannot be overthrown, it must be the will of the Jewish god that we prevail, and therefore it behoves him to collaborate with us; and this conclusion is very helpful to our cause.
Furthermore, Josephus understands what he has learned by experience: that the revolt (in which he formerly took part) is aimed not only at our rule, but at the overthrow of all that is worthy of respect in Jewry itself. 'For,' he says, ''the Zealots',' which is the name given to the most extreme and violent enemies of Rome, 'seek not only to throw off your yoke, but to effect a social revolution also. They would destroy the authority of the High Priests, and raise up the poor and malignant to a position of power. Therefore if we are to defend what has long been established among our People, and the natural order of society, we must ally ourselves with the Romans against these maniacs, who can build nothing but seek only to destroy what has been the work of centuries approved by Almighty God.'
You won't, of course, make any sense of his conception of this 'Almighty God', for whom by the way the Jews have no name (or, if they have, it is one which they dare not utter). You must understand however that this strange people see the purpose of their god in every unfolding of history. This is odd, but makes some sense to them as I cannot doubt, having spoken at length with this Josephus whom I have come to respect.
Moreover, at certain moments anyway, Josephus understands that the day of small nations, or small nation- states, is over. He sees, too, that if the narrow exclusivity of the Jews has maintained their sense of themselves and of their religion (which, as I say, is unlike any other, for they have no image of their god and call the reverence we pay to images, idolatry), it has also denied them opportunities of acquiring a greater culture, and also prosperity. We have had long talks, and I have opened out to him my theory of the new Imperialism which, though it derives from Rome, is more than Roman, and would be diminished if it was only Roman. Consider, my dear: that a huge Empire has grown up around us, full of problems on which our previous experience sheds little light. Our motives in winning this Empire were not admirable. I can't pretend they were. We were driven on by greed and lust for power. Nor was our government good in the days of the Republican empire. Then the only thought of our Proconsuls was to exploit their provinces and enrich themselves. They were extortioners. The noble Marcus Junius Brutus, making loans to the provincials under his care in Cyprus, levied interest at the rate of eighty per cent; deplorable and, by any standard you choose to apply, unethical. It was, as I have learned from my studies, that much maligned Emperor Tiberius who succeeded where even Augustus had struggled in bringing an end to such practices. He said the provincials were his sheep, and must be only sheared, not skinned.
Now things must change, Tiberius' way. No state owes its greatness in any true sense to its material strength, but to the ideas it embodies. And at the heart of our Roman world is the belief in Law, not the Law that is imposed by tyrants, but the true Law that regulates relations between free citizens; and the basis of that Law is contract.
Josephus accepts this, but then he asks, provocatively, why it was necessary for us Romans to range the world and add states and kingdoms, once free and independent, to our Empire. I could enquire of him what their freedom meant – without an understanding of the law of contract; but I choose not to, and I admit that, as I have said, we acquired Empire for no noble motive. And yet, to you, I may say that the extension of our Empire was also necessary to cure the disease of the Roman State. We were like a man fainting from foul air and revived under the winds of heaven. Indeed, I shall put this argument, which I have just thought of, to my friend Josephus and invite him to apply it to his own nation – pestilential narrow-minded monotheists, who in their own eyes are ever right and all the world wrong. Will they not, I shall ask him, expand and fructify if liberated from their narrow estate and set to roam in the lanes and highways of the world? That indeed is why this Jewish War, which I detest, must be carried to a successful conclusion: that the Jews may also become part of the great imperial scheme.
The Empire is Roman, but it is not merely Rome; and if it was it would be a mean thing. I am not, as an Imperialist, inclined to any cheap complacency. On the contrary, I burn with ardour when I consider the magnitude of our task. For, ultimately, the Empire is peace – peace, justice and that prosperity in which alone true liberty, the liberty of the untrammelled philosophic mind, can flourish. You can tell, can you not, that it is late at night, when I write like this. Indeed it is so late that the hills of Galilee are touched with dawn's rose-pink fingers.
Yet, excited by my rhetoric, and reassured that you, my audience of one, will understand my sentiments and feel them with me, I can scarce bring myself to stop.
The aim of Imperialism then is not conquest, though conquest was needed to make its realisation possible. But conquest was the preliminary to the great task of consolidation and development, and the still greater task of bringing all the subjects of the Empire into citizenship, that they may share in the traditions, faith and liberties of Rome.
Read Virgil, and you will find the meaning of Empire stated more clearly than I can define it.
I believe that I am destined to make the dream of Imperialism a reality for all within the borders of the Roman world. There is great work to be done, by me or my successors. For example, one evil that I see is that too many men are rich beyond their needs and too many miserably poor. There is a great work to be done in reorganising what I call the world economy. Prosperity should benefit all, not merely fat, greasy bankers and speculators, and those granted the farming of the taxes. Oh, I have so many ideas…
But – you will say – Titus is mad, he is running ahead of reality. He is not Emperor, he is not even a provincial Governor, only the son of Vespasian who was pelted with turnips by citizens, and meanwhile Rome itself is like a beautiful woman threatened with rape by conflicting suitors. Indeed the poor lady is being raped daily; the city brought into being by the kindness of a she-wolf is now laid waste by wolves that know not, or have forgotten, the very word kindness; forgotten humanity, forgotten duty, and think licence liberty.
Your account of the fall and death of Galba was pitiful, because it was evident that Galba had no understanding of his position, that, lacking such understanding, he had recourse to ancient manners and modes of thought meaningless today. He was a man born to play a subsidiary role, as a mere functionary, thrust by his own foolish ambition into a part that had not been written for him – you were right there, in questioning why he did not turn aside the offer of the purple, which he was incompetent to wear. And to have chosen that Piso as his son, heir, and companion in Empire, bespeaks a mind that was dull and conventional.
And how, I ask myself, could Piso have supposed himself capable of Empire – Piso who had never commanded an army in his life, not even a legion, who had no imagination and never once entertained a generous thought.
Now there is Otho… well, he will be popular for a few months – and then? Then he will be revealed for what he is, a clever fellow, witty, charming, everybody's friend – and respected by nobody. It is impossible to govern if you are not respected.
Meanwhile the German legions are on the march, as if we were back in the days of the Republic and the Civil Wars. Which indeed is where we seem to be.
But don't be deceived. Either a strong Emperor must emerge, which won't be either Otho or – save the mark! – Vitellius, or the Empire will crumble and disintegrate – which is impossible, since our Destiny, promised to the pious Aeneas, has not yet been fulfilled. Hence my confidence and my serenity.
There are three words I would have you lodge in your mind, for they express my purpose, which is Rome's: Humanity, Liberty, Felicity. If we are guided by the principles incorporated in these words, then Rome will indeed be the Eternal City.
But, though I am sure in my destiny, I am not so great a fool as to suppose that it is wise, or even possible, to
