Read Ebook: Famous Assassinations of History from Philip of Macedon 336 B. C. to Alexander of Servia A. D. 1903 by Johnson Francis

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Philip contracted a second marriage with Cleopatra, a niece of Attalus, one of his generals; and it is said that at the wedding feast Attalus, half intoxicated, expressed the wish and hope that Cleopatra might give the Macedonians a lawful heir to the kingdom. This remark, overheard by Alexander, so enraged him that, throwing a full cup at Attalus's head, he shouted to him: "What, you scoundrel! am I then a bastard?" Whereupon Philip, taking Attalus's part, rose from his seat, and rushing with his drawn sword upon Alexander would have run his son through, if he had not, being himself more than half drunk with wine, slipped and fallen on the floor; at which sight Alexander scornfully said: "See there the man who is making great preparations to invade Asia at the head of a powerful army, and who falls to the ground like a helpless child in going from one seat to another."

It is more than likely--although absolute proof of it has never been furnished--that Olympias, in her revengeful jealousy, planned the assassination of the King who had so cruelly offended her pride as a woman, and who, she supposed, was also plotting to exclude her own son from the throne and place upon it the son of her young rival. An opportunity for this act of revenge soon presented itself. A young Macedonian, named Pausanias, had been mortally offended by Attalus and Queen Cleopatra. He appealed to the King for reparation of the wrong done to him; but this being refused, he resolved to revenge himself by taking the King's life. All historians seem to agree that Pausanias was encouraged and incited to this act of revenge by Olympias; but whether or not Alexander was cognizant of the murderous plot, and approved it, has never been satisfactorily explained, and remains one of the unsolved problems of history.

The occasion for the murderous act of Pausanias was the wedding of Alexander's sister with her uncle Alexander, King of Epirus. Philip considered this marriage between his daughter and the brother of his first wife, Olympias, an act of consummate statesmanship, inasmuch as it transferred an enemy and an ally of Olympias to his own side and made a friend of him. He therefore resolved to make the nuptials of this ill-matched couple as brilliant as possible. Grand Olympian games and spectacular festivities were arranged, and an incredible display of luxury and pomp, unheard of in those days, was planned to show to the wondering eyes of Greece the court of the new master of the civilized world in matchless splendor and grandeur. All the cities of Greece had sent delegations to these brilliant festivities; most of them came with costly wedding presents, among which golden crowns were conspicuous. Poets sent nuptial hymns and poems celebrating the beauty of the bride and the genius of the father in the most extravagant terms; and a noted dramatist of that age, Neoptolemus, composed a tragedy for the occasion, in which Philip, under a fictitious name, was represented as the conqueror of Asia and the triumphant vanquisher of the great Darius.

It was at the theatre, in which this tragedy was to be performed, that Philip met his doom. Accompanied by a brilliant cort?ge of all that were renowned at his court for birth, talent, and wealth, he proceeded to the theatre. On approaching the entrance, he bade the noblemen surrounding him to advance, and his body-guard to fall back, so that he might be personally more conspicuous before the enraptured eyes of his subjects. The procession was led by priests in white robes, each carrying a statue of one of the twelve principal gods; and a thirteenth statue, even more richly draped and ornamented than the others, with the insignia of divinity upon it, was that of Philip himself.

It was the supreme moment of his pride and happiness; but it was also his last. The noblemen and courtiers had already disappeared in the building. The body-guard, obedient to the King's orders, remained behind. Just at the moment when the King stepped forward, alone, under the gateway of the theatre, a man sprang from a side corridor, thrust a sharp short sword into his side, and hurried off as the royal victim reeled and fell. In the tremendous confusion which arose, the assassin came very near making his escape. He ran toward a swift horse which was kept in readiness for him by friends who evidently knew of the murder and were in the plot; and, dazed as the people were who witnessed the assassination, he would probably have escaped, had not his sandal caught in a vine-stock and caused him to fall, which gave some of his pursuers time to lay their hands on him before he could get up. In their rage, they killed him with their spears and tore him to pieces.

The surroundings and execution of this plot bear a strong resemblance to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In both cases there was an individual murderer, the scene was a theatre, the act was done with incredible audacity in the presence of a large concourse of people, and the murderer was crippled by a misstep after the fatal blow.

The assassination of Philip of Macedon was not only one of the boldest and most dramatic in history, but it was also one of the earliest in point of time.

TIBERIUS GRACCHUS

ASSASSINATION OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS

In the history of ancient Rome there occurs one political assassination which stands out as an event of special significance, not only on account of the great celebrity of the victim, but also owing to the fact that it is the first occasion on record in which the conflicting economical interests of different classes in a republic were settled by a resort to arms, instead of being adjudicated on principles of equity and justice, or simply by public authority.

This great historical event was the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, which was soon followed by the forced suicide of his brother, Caius Gracchus,--the immediate result of their attempt to enforce an agrarian law passed as an act of justice to the poorer classes of Roman citizens. The law was violently opposed by the rich, who organized an armed revolution against its originators and were powerful enough to do away with them.

There is in the whole conflict about that agrarian law a modern feature which makes it especially interesting to Americans at a time when party issues turn largely on economical questions, and when the antagonism between capital and labor threatens to enter the acute stage. It will be noticed that at that early age capital already had a power and commanded a political influence against which right and justice, allied to poverty, battled in vain. History, both ancient and modern, has been written largely in conformity with the ideas and prejudices of the ruling classes, and in praise of them, while their enemies and opponents have generally been unjustly criticised and denounced as disturbers of public order and peace, or even as anarchists and rebels against public authority. The two illustrious brothers, the Gracchi, have shared this unjust treatment of historians, and in the estimation of many, pass to-day as dangerous and seditious characters whose death alone could have saved Rome from greater calamities. An impartial investigation of their case will, in our opinion, furnish sufficient proof to reverse this historical judgment.

The two Gracchi were the sons of Sempronius Gracchus, the famous Roman tribune, who won distinction by his great independence and ability in the administration of his office, and of the equally famous Cornelia, daughter of Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the renowned vanquisher of Hannibal. The brothers, so closely united and so much alike in political sentiments, designs, and efforts, were of different character, temperament, and appearance. Tiberius, who was nine years older than his brother, was gentle and mild in conduct; and his countenance, his eyes, and his gestures were of peculiar and winning gentleness. His brother Caius was animated, vehement, and high-tempered. His eloquence was distinguished by the same characteristics, while that of Tiberius was tactful, persuasive, and conciliatory. Tiberius would have made an ideal preacher; Caius seemed to be predestined for the part of a popular advocate and orator.

Tiberius had seen military service and won distinction both by his bravery and prudence in Spain as aid to his brother-in-law, Scipio AEmilianus, who was the commander-in-chief. It was, therefore, not his illustrious birth alone, but individual merit also, which caused him to be elected tribune of the people in the year 133 B.C. As such he introduced a bill for the re-apportionment of the public lands and their distribution among the poorer citizens of Rome. Various explanations have been given for this action of Tiberius Gracchus. It has been said that he was instigated by others to introduce a measure which could not fail to arouse against him the strongest hostility of the rich proprietors of some of these lands. But from a statement in writing left by his brother Caius, it appears that the idea of the bill originated with Tiberius himself, and that its introduction sprang much more from a noble and generous impulse than from political ambition.

Even to-day the traveller who traverses the silent and depopulated desert of the Roman Campagna, which is owned by a limited number of large proprietors and is left in an almost uncultivated state, is struck forcibly with the thought that the unwise and unjust distribution of the land has had much to do with the desolate and unproductive aspect of this district, which under judicious and scientific cultivation might yield rich harvests and contribute materially to the welfare of the inhabitants of Tuscany. The same thought struck Tiberius Gracchus as, on his departure for Spain, he travelled through Tuscany and found it almost a desert, or, at best, only rudely cultivated in some parts by barbarian and imported slaves. It was at that time that he first conceived the idea of bringing about a change--an idea which continued to haunt his mind until he was in a position to realize it. And in doing so he found a precedent for legislative action.

There already existed a law at Rome--the so-called Licinian law--which limited the number of acres to be possessed by any one citizen to five hundred. But this Licinian law had been a dead letter for many years, and there were many rich citizens in Rome who counted the number of their acres by the thousand or even ten thousand. It was this violation of the Licinian law, and the open injustice done to the poor by this violation, which Tiberius Gracchus wanted to correct. He therefore introduced a new agrarian law which aimed to revive the Licinian law, but at the same time greatly modified and attenuated its provisions. The change in the law which Tiberius Gracchus proposed was in one respect an act of injustice, because it put a premium on the violation of the law as it had existed, instead of punishing that violation by imposing an adequate fine. Under the new law a citizen might hold 500 acres of the public lands in his own name, and in addition, 250 acres for each son still under the paternal roof and authority. Moreover, the new law provided that, whenever a citizen should be compelled to give up land which he held in excess of the share which the law allowed him, he should be reimbursed for this loss, at the appraised value, from the public treasury. Tiberius Gracchus also favored the immediate distribution of the confiscated lands among the poor as their absolute property, and proposed that, whenever a Roman colony was founded on conquered territory, a similar distribution of the newly acquired land should be made.

The new law was enthusiastically applauded by the Roman people, even before it had been legally adopted; but the Senate most violently opposed it, because many Senators would have been deprived by its passage of most valuable lands. In order to defeat it they prevailed upon one of the ten tribunes to object to the third reading of the law. The unanimous support of the tribunes was necessary for its passage. When the day for the public vote on the law had come, an immense multitude of people was assembled at the Forum. The ten tribunes entered and took their seats on the platform. Tiberius Gracchus arose and ordered the clerk to read his law, but was immediately interrupted by Octavius, who ordered him to stop. The interruption caused an immense sensation and commotion among the spectators. Tiberius, after having vainly tried to persuade Octavius to withdraw his objection, adjourned the meeting to a later day. During this interval he used all his power of persuasion to overcome the resistance of Octavius, but in vain. It was then that Tiberius Gracchus, in his intense desire to pass a public measure which he considered highly beneficial to the people and almost indispensable to the public welfare, resolved to resort to an expedient which was really unconstitutional and which is the only public act of his that gives the least foundation to the charge of sedition so generally preferred against him. He came to the conclusion that the only way to overcome the veto of Octavius was to depose him from his office by a popular vote. This was a clear violation of the Constitution, and he carried out his intention in spite of the loud protests of the Senate.

The scene on the Forum in which Octavius was deposed must have been very pathetic and impressive; and while it signified an immediate victory for Tiberius Gracchus, it nevertheless incensed a great many Roman citizens and turned them against him. It is safe to say that this scene sealed his doom and furnished the principal reason for his assassination. Plutarch, a reliable and impartial authority, describes the scene as follows:

"When the people were met together again, Tiberius placed himself in the rostra and endeavored a second time to persuade Octavius. But all being to no purpose, he referred the whole matter to the people, calling on them to vote at once whether Octavius should be deposed or not; and when seventeen of the thirty-five tribes had already voted against him, and there wanted only the vote of one tribe more for his final deprivation, Tiberius put a short stop to the proceedings, and once more renewed his importunities; he embraced and kissed him before all the assembly, begging with all the earnestness imaginable that he would neither suffer himself to incur the dishonor, nor him to be reputed the author and promoter of so odious a measure. Octavius did seem a little softened and moved with these entreaties; his eyes filled with tears and he continued silent for a considerable time. But presently looking toward the rich men and proprietors of estates, who stood gathered in a body together, partly for shame, and partly for fear of disgracing himself with them, he boldly bade Tiberius use any severity he pleased. The law for his deposition being thus voted, Tiberius ordered one of his servants, whom he had made a freeman, to remove Octavius from the rostra, employing his own domestic freed servants instead of the public officers. And it made the action seem all the sadder that Octavius was dragged out in such an ignominious manner. The people immediately assaulted him, while the rich men ran in to his assistance. Octavius, with some difficulty, was snatched away, and safely conveyed out of the crowd; though a trusty servant of his, who had placed himself in front of his master that he might assist his escape, in keeping off the multitude, had his eyes struck out, much to the displeasure of Tiberius, who ran with all haste, when he perceived the disturbance, to appease the rioters."

The law was then passed, and commissioners were immediately appointed to make a survey of the lands and see that they were equally divided.

The forcible ejection of Octavius and the subsequent passage of the new agrarian law opened a chasm between Tiberius Gracchus and the patricians, which nothing but his death could close up. He had made himself immensely popular with the poor, and other laws which he introduced increased that popularity. But the more the poor idolized him, the more the rich hated and abhorred him; and a large number of the better and more thoughtful class of plebeians resented his bold violation of the Constitution in removing Octavius from office.

Such were the conditions when the time for the expiration of his official term as tribune approached, and he as well as his friends saw the necessity for his re?lection as a measure for protecting his life. He therefore appeared as a candidate for re?lection; and when on the first day of the election no choice had resulted from the vote, the next day was appointed for the final decision. Tiberius knew that not only his political career, but his very life depended on the result, and he therefore left no stone unturned to rally his friends to the rescue. But unfortunately, it being harvest time, many of his adherents were absent from the city, and could not be reached in time for the struggle.

On the day following, the Senate convened at an early hour, while the people assembled at the Capitol to proceed with the vote. However, great confusion prevailed, and a large number of outsiders tried to force their way in and establish themselves among the voters. And even the appearance of Tiberius Gracchus, although he was received with loud acclamations, failed to restore order in the assemblage. Moreover, he showed by the depression in his countenance and conduct that he had lost confidence in the success of his cause. Several evil omens which he had encountered on his way to the Capitol disturbed his mind. At daybreak a soothsayer, who prognosticated good or bad success by the pecking of fowls, informed him that all his efforts to induce the fowls to eat had failed. Tiberius then remembered that, a short time before, two serpents had been found in his helmet. On stepping out of the house he stumbled on the threshold and hurt his great toe so badly that it bled profusely. As he walked through the streets he saw on his left hand two ravens fighting on the roof of a house, and suddenly a stone, detached from the roof, fell at his feet. The friends of Gracchus, who surrounded him, all stopped, and he himself hesitated as to whether he should proceed or return to his house. However, a philosopher from Cuma, one of his intimates, who was credited with inspiring Gracchus with his democratic ideas and who was free from the superstition of the Romans, persuaded him to continue on his way to the Capitol.

There the voting of the tribes was proceeding with great noise and confusion. All at once Gracchus noticed that one of his friends, Lucius Flaccus, a Senator, had mounted an elevation from which he could be easily seen, but where he was too far off to be heard, and was indicating by motions of his hand that he wished to communicate some important news. Tiberius told the crowd to let Flaccus pass. With great difficulty the Senator reached Tiberius and informed him that at the session of the Senate, after the Consul had refused to have him arrested, a resolution had been passed to kill him, and that the Senators had armed a large number of their clients and slaves to carry out this purpose. Tiberius immediately informed the friends who surrounded him of the action of the Senate, and signified to those at a greater distance the danger in which he was placed, by raising his hands to his head,--and it was this motion, entirely innocent in itself, which hastened his ruin. His enemies construed it as a desire on his part to wear a crown, and carried this ridiculous news to the Senate chamber. It caused a perfect explosion of maledictions and threats among the Senators; and Scipio Nasica, the most violent of all, immediately made a motion that the Consul be instructed to save the Republic and to exterminate the would-be tyrant. The Consul replied that he would resist any factious and criminal attempt against the Republic, but that he would not put to death a Roman citizen without trial. On this Scipio Nasica turned to the Senators, exclaiming: "Since the Consul betrays the city, let those who want to defend the laws follow me!" and followed by a large number of Senators and their clients, he rushed toward the place where Tiberius Gracchus, surrounded by his friends, was observing the progress of the election. Immediately a riot and fight ensued. The Senators, who were armed with clubs, canes, stones, or whatever weapon they could lay their hands on, rushed upon the crowd of voters, overthrew, beat, and killed them, stamping them under their feet and quickly and irresistibly advancing toward the spot where they beheld the man who was the object of their rage and bloodthirstiness. Tiberius, unarmed and forsaken by his friends, turned round to seek safety in flight, but, stumbling over those who had been knocked down, fell to the ground. It was at that moment, while Tiberius was trying to get on his feet again, that one of his own colleagues, a tribune of the people, dealt him a powerful and fatal blow, striking him on the head with the leg of a stool. Others rushed up and struck him again and again, but it was only a lifeless corpse which suffered from their abuse. Three hundred of his friends had fallen with him. It was the first Roman blood which had been shed in civil war, and this first conflict deprived Rome of one of its most illustrious citizens.

JULIUS CAESAR

ASSASSINATION OF JULIUS CAESAR

Caesar was at the height of his power. His achievements had eclipsed the military glory of Pompey, and by his wonderful career he might truly be looked upon as the "man of destiny." On his return from Gaul, when the Senate had rejected his request for a prolongation of his command, and had ordered him to disband his army and to give up the administration of his province, his popularity was so great that his homeward journey, escorted as he was by his victorious army, was but a continuous triumphal march. Not only Rome, but all Italy welcomed him home as its greatest man, and was ready to heap its greatest, nay even divine honors upon him.

The Senate and its chosen commander-in-chief, Pompey, had fled on the approach of Caesar. In the decisive battle of Pharsalus Caesar defeated Pompey, and by this victory became the sole ruler of the Roman Republic. Pompey was assassinated on landing in Egypt, as a fugitive, and Caesar returned to Rome, where he was received with the tumultuous acclamations of the people, and conducted to the Capitol as the savior of the country. The Senate, which had just made war upon him and outlawed him as an enemy of the fatherland, appointed him dictator for ten years with absolute and supreme power, gave him a body-guard of seventy-two lictors to proclaim his majesty and inviolability, and ordered his statue to be placed beside that of Jupiter on the Capitol. A public thanksgiving festival, continuing for forty days, was proclaimed, and four brilliant triumphs for his victories in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa, were accorded to him.

Never before in the history of Rome had such honors, which seemed to pass the human limit, been conferred on any Roman citizen. It was evident that of the Republic nothing but the name remained, and that Caesar, the dictator, was in fact the absolute monarch of the immense Empire. Once more the friends of liberty made an effort to shake off the yoke which Caesar had imposed on the Republic. They flocked to the standards of the sons of Pompey, but the bloody and hard-fought battle of Munda sealed their fate; and Caesar, again victorious, remained the absolute master of the civilized world,--not without an enemy, but certainly without a rival.

On his return to Rome new honors and new ovations awaited him. The dignity and pride of Roman citizenship seemed to have been lost entirely in the crouching servility with which the most distinguished and most highly stationed citizens prostrated themselves at the feet of the all-powerful ruler. Resistance to Caesar had apparently disappeared. All bowed to his surpassing genius and ability, and to these qualities he added acts of clemency, kindness, and gentleness, which won him the hearts even of those who, from political principle, had opposed him. But while thus openly the more than imperial power of Caesar was generally recognized, and while the Senate and the tribunes had been degraded to the position of mere tools to his autocratic will, there still remained in the hearts of a number of high-minded patriots the hope and anxious desire to save the republican form of government from the grasping ambition of the conqueror, who was evidently not satisfied with being Imperator in fact, but wanted to be also Imperator in name. At least the repeated attempts of the most intimate friends and most trusted lieutenants of Caesar to induce him to accept the crown at the hands of a subservient people, and his rather hesitating conduct in refusing these proposals, seemed to confirm this suspicion.

These enthusiastic Republicans cautiously disguised their hostility to the Imperator under the mask of devoted friendship. Their hope was, perhaps, that Caesar's imperial r?gime would be but temporary and that, like Sulla, he would sooner or later get tired of his dictatorship, and resign his imperial honors. But Caesar did not think of abdicating the honors he had won; on the contrary, every act and every public utterance of his indicated that he wished to prolong and augment them rather than to abandon them. In public he was anxious to show his pre?minence. He appeared dressed in the costume of the kings of Alba, and with royal insignia. One day, when the entire Senate waited upon him in front of the temple of Venus, he remained seated while he was addressed, during the entire ceremony. His statue at the Capitol was placed beside those of the ancient kings of Rome, as though he were to continue their line. New titles of honor, not to say worship, were added to those which had been conferred upon him at the first moment of his brilliant victories, and his lieutenants and followers welcomed and adopted them as something that was due to his superhuman wisdom and greatness. He was called not only "Father of the Country," but "Demi-God," the "Invincible God," "Jupiter Julius,"--as though Jupiter himself had taken mortal form and shape in him.

This public adoration irritated the Republicans we have mentioned, to the highest degree. They secretly charged Caesar with encouraging or instigating this worship of himself, because they knew that his friends would not have proposed it unless confident that he would be pleased by it. Brutus and Cassius were at the head of these Republicans. Brutus, a stern Republican, a Roman in the noblest acceptation of the word, was reputed to be Caesar's son, the offspring of an adulterous love-affair, and was openly favored and distinguished by him. Cassius, a distinguished general, was much more prompted by jealousy and envy than by civic virtue and republican principle. When these two men and their friends became thoroughly convinced that Caesar's ambition would stop at nothing, and that the new imperialistic r?gime was to be permanent, they came to the conclusion that nothing but Caesar's death could prevent these calamities. They therefore resolved to assassinate him.

Caesar has had many worshippers and admirers, and comparatively few calumniators and belittlers. Unquestionably he was one of the most extraordinary geniuses that ever lived, equally great as a general and as a statesman, as an orator and as a historian. In the whole range of history there is but one man--Napoleon--who, in the vastness of his conceptions and the masterly perfection of their execution, can be justly compared with him. All other men whom national vanity has occasionally placed by Caesar's side only suffer from the comparison; their immense inferiority appears on even superficial investigation. He was in fact the foremost man the world had seen to his day, and, but for his equally great rival in modern times, would still occupy the pinnacle of human greatness alone. Very likely, if he had lived, Rome would have been the happier.

TIBERIUS, CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, NERO

ASSASSINATIONS OF TIBERIUS, CALIGULA, CLAUDIUS, NERO

At the time of the assassination of Julius Caesar, the Roman people, and especially the higher classes, had reached a degree of perversity and degeneracy which appears to the modern reader almost incredible. They had become utterly unfit for self-government. The most atrocious public and private vices in both sexes had taken the place of the civic virtues and the private honor for which the ancient Roman had been famous the world over. In public life, corruption, venality, and bribery were general; a public office-holder was synonymous with a robber of the public treasury. Nepotism prevailed to an alarming degree, and the ablest men were unceremoniously pushed aside for the incapable descendants of the nobility. In times like those, only the very strongest hand and the sternest character and mind can restrain the masses from falling into anarchy and civil war, and impose on society moderation and the rule of law.

The assassination of Caesar had a most demoralizing effect on the Roman people. The hand of the master who might have controlled the unruly masses and restrained the degenerate nobility lay palsied in death; the giant intellect, which had embraced the civilized world in its dream of establishing a universal monarchy, thought no more; and the results were chaos, anarchy, and civil war. The absence of the master mind was lamentably felt; his heirs were unable to control the wild elements which the assassins had set free; and for many years, rapine, bloodshed, murder, and spoliation ruled supreme throughout the vast extent of the Roman Republic, until finally, in the year 30 B.C., Octavianus Augustus, Caesar's nephew, succeeded in establishing that imperium of which Caesar had dreamed, and for which his genius and his victories had paved the way.

The imperial era, beginning with a display of magnificence and splendor, both in military achievements and literary production, soon degenerated into an era of crime, which, at least in the highest classes of society, has never been equalled in history. Its worst feature was, perhaps, the utter degradation and depravity of the women even of the highest classes, and their readiness to sacrifice everything--chastity, shame, name, and reputation--to the gratification of their passions. Soon the women excelled the men in assassinating, by poison or dagger, their victims or rivals. Augustus, the first Emperor, showed on the throne much less cruelty than he had manifested as a triumvir; but Livia Drusilla, his third wife, was the first of those female monsters on the throne of the Caesars--Livia, Agrippina, Messalina, Domitia--who never shrank from murder, if by blood or poison they could rid themselves of a rival or of an obstacle to their criminal ambition. Livia, who wished Tiberius, her son by a former marriage, to be the successor of Augustus on the imperial throne, caused Marcellus , and also Julia's two sons, to be poisoned; and by these crimes secured the succession for Tiberius. She is also suspected of having poisoned Augustus himself.

Tiberius, the second of the Roman Emperors, lives immortal in history rather by his crimes than by his valorous deeds. So does Caligula, the third, and Claudius, the fourth, and Nero, the fifth Emperor,--who were all assassinated after comparatively short reigns, but who had exhausted all forms of cruelty and crime; while their wives, Messalina, Agrippina, and Poppaea will live in history forever as the unrivalled types of female depravity. Above all, Messalina, the wife of Claudius, who ruled from the year 41 to the year 54 of the Christian era, became notorious for every species of vice. In her libidinous and voluptuous excesses, as well as in the demoniacal conception of her murderous plots against her enemies, she was easily first and foremost,--the real empress of the vicious and fallen women of Rome: she became their open rival in the houses of ill-fame in her capital, she contended with them for the palm of obscenity and prostitution, and vanquished them all.

Unless the great historians of Rome had recorded these excesses as facts abundantly substantiated by irrefutable testimony, the reports would have been relegated to the domain of fable, because they are too revolting to be believed without sufficient authority. Can the human mind conceive, for instance, an act of greater criminal insolence than that which the Empress Messalina committed by marrying, publicly and under the very eyes of the capital, a young Roman aristocrat, Caius Silius, for whom she was inflamed with an adulterous passion, while her husband, the Emperor, was but a few miles away at Ostia? And yet Tacitus, a stern and truthful historian, records this as an undeniable fact, adding that future generations will be loath to believe it.

When, in the year 68 A.D., Nero expired by the dagger of a freedman, courage having failed him to commit suicide, the family of Caesar the Great became extinct, even in its adopted members. Only one hundred and twelve years had elapsed since the greatest of the Romans had fallen by the daggers of the Republican conspirators; but that short period had sufficed to subvert the Republic and to erect a despotic Empire on its ruins, to flood the vast territory of Rome, which embraced the entire civilized world, with streams of blood, to place imbeciles and assassins on the throne of the Caesars, and to adorn the brows of courtesans and prostitutes, their partners in crime and depravity, with the imperial diadem. Never before in human history had human depravity and human lust displayed themselves more shamelessly; never before had the beast in man shown its innate cruelty so boldly and so openly as during the reigns of these five Roman Emperors. It is almost a consolation for the sorrowing mind to read that Tiberius was choked to death; that Caligula was beaten down and stabbed; that Claudius was killed by a dish of poisonous mushrooms; and that Nero, the last of Caesar's dynasty, was helped to his untimely death by the poniard of a freedman. Quick assassination was all too light a punishment for these monsters of iniquity who had so often feasted their eyes on the tortures of their innocent victims.

HYPATIA

ASSASSINATION OF HYPATIA

Never, perhaps, did the wonderful genius of Alexander the Great appear to better advantage than when he selected Alexandria as a commercial centre and distributing point for the products of three continents, and as an intellectual focus from which Hellenic culture should be transmitted to those countries of Asia and Africa which his victories had opened to Greek civilization. The rapidity with which the city--to which Alexander had given his own name--grew to the dimensions of a great capital and a world-emporium, proved the sagacity and ingenious foresight of its founder, and was unrivalled among all the cities of the ancient world. It became the greatest seaport of the world, surpassing in the grandeur and magnificence of its buildings every other city except Rome itself; and when, through the genius of the Ptolemies, the successors of Alexander as rulers of Egypt, the great library was added to its monuments and treasures of art, it became also the intellectual capital of the world, rivalling and in some respects eclipsing the city of the Caesars. It is true, long before Alexandria had reached its greatest prosperity, the creative power of Hellenic genius in the higher spheres of poetry and philosophy had passed its zenith. In the so-called Alexandrian age of literature the most beautiful and most poetical inspirations were the idyls of Theocritus. But Alexandria was the first city in the ancient world which became the seat of a many-sided, methodical scholarship, and of systematic, zealous studies of the exact sciences,--a university in the modern sense. It also became the great library city of the world.

The audacity of Theophilus had inflicted terrible defeats on the non-Christian population of Alexandria, and had utterly disheartened it. On the other hand, the Christian inhabitants showed by their increasing arrogance that they were conscious of the supremacy of their church and of the exclusive protection to which their religion entitled them. However, in spite of this cruel discrimination there still remained at Alexandria a large and intelligent element true to the old religion, or rather to the old philosophy.

Theophilus died in the year 412 A.D., and was succeeded by his nephew Kyrillos, better known as St. Cyril, who continued the vindictive policy against the Jews and pagans which his uncle had inaugurated. It was not long before Cyril had fanaticized the mob against the Jews to such an extent that the latter, driven to despair, took up arms against their aggressors, who had undertaken a regular crusade against their lives and property. Pitched battles and massacres took place in the streets of Alexandria. Hundreds of the unfortunate Jews were slain, and very likely the Jewish population would have been entirely exterminated or expelled from the city, had not Orestes, the imperial governor, interfered in their behalf, and defeated the infuriated mob and the monks of Nitria, who as usual had taken a hand in the fight. But it was a long and stubbornly contested battle. Although Cyril personally did not show himself, it was nevertheless well known that he directed the attacks against the Jews from his hiding-place. Moreover all his most intimate friends actively participated in the riot and strenuously resisted the efforts of the governor to restore peace.

One of these friends personally assaulted and seriously wounded the governor. After the revolt had been quelled, this man was put on trial and sentenced to death. In vain Cyril appealed for mercy and tried to save the life of the accused man. Orestes was implacable, and the condemned man was executed. The disdain with which he had been treated by the governor, enraged the prelate and stimulated him to revenge. A large procession of priests and citizens took the body of the criminal from the gibbet and carried it to the principal church of Alexandria, where the Archbishop read high mass and delivered a sermon full of admiration and eulogy for the victim, filling the hearts of the congregation with hatred and contempt for the authorities, and invoking the punishment of Heaven upon their heads. But even this public demonstration did not satisfy the Archbishop; and with consummate cruelty he hit upon a plan for deeply wounding the governor without attacking him personally.

At that time there lived at Alexandria a young lady of great talent and renown. Her name was Hypatia. She was the daughter of Theon, a celebrated mathematician who lived at Alexandria, and whose genius for mathematics she seemed to have inherited. She first became his pupil, but soon surpassed him in ability and reputation. She also applied herself with great zeal and rare penetration to the study of the philosophy of Plato, whom she greatly admired and much preferred to Aristotle. Since Alexandria had no professors superior to herself in attainments and learning, Hypatia went to Greece and for several years attended the lectures of the most famous professors of Athens. She then returned to Alexandria, and was immediately invited by the authorities to the chair of philosophy in the University. Hypatia accepted this honor and filled the position with brilliant success. It was not only her profound and extensive learning, embracing the entire compass of the exact sciences, but also the charm of her persuasive and mellifluous eloquence which filled her hearers with admiration.

Her reputation as a public lecturer soon equalled her renown as a mathematician and philosopher, and a number of the most distinguished men of Alexandria and other cities were among her regular disciples, listening with delight to her dissertations. One of her most enthusiastic students was Synesius, afterwards Bishop of Ptolemais, who always held her in affectionate reverence, although she had steadily refused to profess the Christian religion. Orestes, the governor, was also among the number of her admirers and was frequently seen at her lectures, which were attended by Christians as well as by pagans. To the great qualities of her mind were added rare physical beauty and a suavity of manners which won the hearts of all those who became acquainted with her. Several of Alexandria's most prominent citizens desired to marry her, but she refused all proposals because she wanted to live only for the sciences to which she had devoted her life. In spite of her great popularity and the steadily increasing number of admirers, Hypatia's reputation was spotless; she had many friends, but never had a lover. While this eminent woman's celebrity as a thinker--which entirely eclipsed his own--would have been sufficient to fill the heart of Cyril with envy and jealousy, there was an additional reason for his hatred and hostility. Orestes, the governor, was a frequent visitor at her house and was known to consult her frequently on important public questions. The Archbishop, perhaps justly, attributed to Hypatia's influence the governor's evident leaning toward paganism and his open admiration for the philosophical doctrines of the Greek philosophers. Seeking for a victim on whom to vent his spite against Orestes, he therefore selected Hypatia as the one whose destruction would hurt him most deeply, while at the same time it would deliver himself and the church from their most dangerous opponent. It was comparatively easy for him to inflame the minds of the ignorant masses with rage against the woman who was represented to them as the implacable enemy of their religion, and whose pernicious teachings had led so many others from the path of virtue and salvation.

Everything was carefully but secretly prepared for the fatal blow, which was struck in the month of March, 415. It was a beautiful sunny day, and Hypatia got ready to proceed to the University, where she was to lecture that forenoon. A carriage was waiting for her at the door of her residence. When she entered the carriage she was surprised at the unusual number of people filling the street, and at the great number of monks passing through their ranks and apparently haranguing them. She could not account for this strange gathering, for it was not a Christian holiday, nor was any civil procession to come off that morning.

All at once she noticed that this great assemblage of people began to move in the direction of her own house. As it came nearer she heard wild exclamations and threats, without comprehending, however, that she was the object of this hostile demonstration. At the head of the procession marched Peter, the reader, one of the most fanatical of the priests of the city; he had played a very prominent part in the previous riots, and was evidently the leader in this new movement. With growing astonishment Hypatia saw them coming, but in the consciousness of her innocence she had no fear. She was soon to be cruelly disabused.

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