MONOGAMY IS THE DISSOLUTE DAUGHTER OF PAGANISM AND ROMANISM.
I have demonstrated that monogamy is not commanded in the
Bible, and that it is not the doctrine of Christianity. I
shall now account for its origin, by proving that it is the
joint offspring of paganism and Romanism. The social system
of European monogamy is proved to be derived from the ancient
Greeks and Romans (especially from the latter), by the early
histories of the nations of Europe, and by an uninterrupted
descent of traditional customs from them to our own times. It
is one of those pagan abominations which we have inherited,
which the Roman Church has sanctioned and confirmed, and from
which we find it so difficult to emancipate ourselves.
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IMPURITY OF ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN MORALS
The ancient Greek and Roman notions of marriage and of
chastity were in some respects different from ours, but only
as Christianity has made them different. We are ready to
admit, at least in theory, what Christianity requires, that
the laws of chastity are binding upon men and women equally,
and that no person can innocently indulge in amorous pleasure
except with his own wife or her own husband. But among them
this rule of chastity applied to the female sex alone. The
other sex claimed and exercised their freedom from it,
without concealment or palliation, and at the same time
without the loss of moral character or of public estimation.
To be grossly addicted to whoredom and seduction was no
dishonor: it was only when convicted of Sodomy that they were
pronounced unchaste.
Marriage was not expected or intended to preserve the public
purity, or to secure domestic happiness, but was rather
designed to perpetuate their heroic races, to preserve their
rich patrimonial estates, and to maintain the ascendency of
their
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aristocratic families. For these purposes they guarded the
chastity of their wives with vigilant jealousy and punished
their adultery with severity; but the men placed themselves
under no such restrictions either in law or in fact, but they
habitually sought their own pleasures away from home, in the
public haunts of impurity, at the house of an Aspasia, of a
Leona, or of a Messalina, or at some other establishment of
their numerous Cyprian and Corinthian dames; or, if they
could not pay the extravagant prices demanded by these
celebrated beauties, they could at least resort to their
public temples, and gratify their lust among the prostitutes
kept there. *1
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THEIR MARRIAGES NOT PERMANENT
The monogamy of the ancient Romans, from and after the time
of two hundred years at least before the Christian era, did
not require their marriages to be permanent. The principle
of a life-long relationship between the husband and wife,
which both Moses and Christ have insisted upon, formed no
part of their social system. Marriage, among them, was not
so much a religious ceremony inculcating and requiring solemn
vows of binding obligation, as a civil compact, instituted
for purposes of mere present convenience or family
aggrandizement. It originated in policy rather than in love.
They were not, of course, destitute of the passion
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of love, for they were human beings; but that passion was
permitted to influence them but little in contracting their
marriages. They systematically degraded their love into
lust. Their monogamy required it. When-ever they loved a
woman they would manage to enjoy her favors without marriage.
Seduction, adultery, and whoredom were rather the rule than
the exception among them; but marriage was for other and more
important purposes than those of love. It was rather an
alliance of interests than of affections, and an affinity of
families rather than of hearts.
And as policy made marriages, so policy often unmade them. If
a man could, at any time, form a new alliance which would
give him more wealth or influence, he always felt himself at
liberty to divorce his wife, and form that new alliance. It
was not uncommon, among them, for a man to have had half a
dozen different wives, in, perhaps, as many years.
CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR FREQUENT DIVORCE
Imbecility and barrenness, the usual penalties which Nature
inflicts upon the violators of the
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marriage laws, came upon them. Their children were few and
short lived, and in order to maintain their family
influence, and transmit their names and their wealth to
future generations, which it was their great ambition to do,
they were obliged to resort to the expedient of very frequent
adoptions, by taking the children of distant relations, or of
those allied to them by marriage, and calling them their own.
And such were the frequency of their divorces, and the
intricacy of their relationships caused by their numerous
adoptions, that it has been almost impossible for the best
historians and biographers to give us any intelligible
account of their families. Such authors as Gibbon, Anthon,
Keightley, and Merivale, who are usually accurate in other
respects, are found utterly at fault, when they undertake to
state the relationship which the most eminent personages of
Roman history bear to one another.*2
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THE MONOGAMY OF THE CAESARS
In order to give some just conception of Roman monogamy at
that time when it first came in
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contact with Christianity, and when it began to impose its
social system upon the other nations of
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Europe (for these two events are quite synchronous), I will
now, as briefly as possible, give some account of the
domestic life and manners of the six imperial Caesars, who
governed Rome at that period. In this account I shall
enumerate their many marriages, and their numerous divorces
and adoptions, and state their exact relationship to each
other. By this means, I hope to be able to explain the
complexity of Roman affinities, which has baffled the
apprehension of so many acute and learned historians, and at
the same time to exhibit the original nature and true spirit
of Roman monogamy. "Ex pede Herculem;" from the Caesars let
us learn the Romans.
I should hesitate to pollute my pages with these
delineations of Roman manners, if the nature of my treatise
did not require it. But it is necessary to the plan and
scope of this work that the analytical examination of the
origin and early history of our present marriage system
should be conducted with philosophical exactness, - an
exactness that requires explicit facts, which I have spared
no time nor labor to search out, and which I am not at
liberty to withhold, however revolting they
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may be. In order that modern monogamists may clearly see the
justice or the injustice of the boasted claims of their
system to superior purity and virtue, it is very proper that
they look to the rock whence they were hewn and to the hole
of the pit whence they were digged.
The single family of the Caesars is selected as an example,
not because it is the worst example which those times
produced, for, on the contrary, there is abundant evidence
that Sylla and Catiline and Clodius and Sejanus, and the
emperors Domitian and Commodus and Caracalla, and many others
of their contemporaries, exceeded the Caesars in profligacy;
but the domestic history of the latter family is given,
because it is the most authentic, and the most familiar to
all classical and historical scholars. Caius Seutonius
Tranquillus, commonly called Suetonius, is the principal
authority for the facts cited; and his testimony is confirmed
by all the other authorities of his own age, and fully
allowed by those of every subsequent age. As he was born
A.D. 70, very near the time of those whose lives be records;
as he has maintained a reputation for candor and
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impartiality; as he was private secretary to the Emperor
Hadrain, and had access to the secret archives of the
Caesars, and often alludes to their handwriting, - no one has
ever questioned either his authenticity or his credibility.
1. JULIUS CAESAR. - Caius Julius Caesar, the dictator,
married successively four wives, whose names were, 1.
Cossutia, 2. Cornelia, 3. Pompeia, and, 4. Calpurnia.
Cossutia was a wealthy heiress, and was married for her
money; but she was divorced before Caesar was eighteen years
of age (which was, according to Roman law, during the first
year of his majority), upon the occasion of the triumph of
the party of Marius, to which Caesar had attached himself;
when the ambitious youthful politician and future conqueror
was permitted to marry Cornelia, the daughter of Cornelius
Cinna the consul, and the friend and colleague of Marius; by
which alliance Caesar brought himself at once into public
notice, and began to aspire to the highest offices of state.
Cornelia died young, after having given birth to Caesar's
only legitimate child, a daughter named Julia; who was
married to Pompey the Great, at the formation of the first
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Triumvirate, but who died without issue. Pompeia, Caesar's
third wife, was divorced, in favor of Calpurnia, who
survived him. He repudiated Pompeia in consequences of the
affair of the infamous Clodius, who had introduced himself
into Caesar's house, disguised in female apparel, for the
purpose of assailing the virtue of Pompeia, at the festival
of the Bona Dea, when, by law and by custom, it was deemed
the greatest sacrilege for any male to be found upon the
premises. Caesar at once divorced his wife, but brought no
charge against Clodius; but he was tried for the sacrilege
upon the accusation of Cicero. When Caesar was called as a
witness, and was asked why he had put away his wife, he
answered with the proud remark, that his wife's chastity
must not only be free from corruption, but must also be above
suspicion. Yet Caesar himself, who made this memorable
remark, was excessively addicted to gross sensuality, and was
the father of several illegitimate children. Suetonius says
that he committed adultery with many ladies of the highest
quality in Rome; among whom he specifies Posthumia the wife
of Servius
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Sulpitius, Lollia the wife of Aulus Gabinius, Tertullia the
wife of Marcus Crassus, Mutia the wife of Pompey the Great,
Eunoe the wife of Bogudes, Cleopatra Queen of Egypt, and
Servilia the mother of Marcus Brutus, to whom he presented a
pearl costing six millions of sesterces (equal to two hundred
thirty-two thousand, one hundred and seven dollars); at the
same time seducing her daughter Tertia. Yet in another
paragraph Suetonius says the only stain upon Caesar's
chastity was his having committed Sodomy with Nicomedes, King
of Bithynia; which proves what has before been said, that the
Romans did not consider fornication, or even adultery, as
constituting unchastity in men, but only in women; and that
they expected and permitted licentiousness in the most
respectable men, as a necessary part of their social system
of monogamy. It is evidently with similar opinions of their
social system that Dr. Liddell thus sums up the character of
Caesar: - "Thus died 'the foremost man in all the world,' a
man who failed in nothing that he attempted. He might,
Cicero thought have been a great orator: his 'Commentaries'
remain to prove that
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he was a great writer. As a general, he had few superiors;
as a statesman and politician, no equal. His morality in
domestic life was not better or worse than commonly
prevailed in those licentious days. He indulged in
profligate amours freely and without scruple; but public
opinion reproached him not for this. He seldom, if ever,
allowed pleasure to interfere with business, and here his
character forms a notable contrast to that of Sylls," &c.*3
2. Augustus. - He was the grand-nephew and adopted son of
Caesar, being the grandson of his sister Julia, wife of
Marcus Atius. Their daughter, named Atia (sometimes written
Attia or Accia), married Caius Octavius, and became the
mother of Augustus and his sister Octavia. His name at
first, was identical with that of his father, Caius Octavius;
but Julius Caesar, having failed of any direct male heir,
adopted him in his last will and testament, as his son; and,
upon the publication of the will, he assumed his adopted
father's
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family name; twenty years afterwards the additional name or
title, Augustus, was conferred upon him by vote of the
Senate, and then his full name became Caius Julius Caesar
Octavianus Augustus.
Like his great-uncle, Augustus had four wives, named, 1.
Servilia; 2, Claudia; 3, Scribonia; and, 4. Livia Drusilla,
whom he successively married and successively divorced,
except the last, who survived him. And like Caesar he had
but one child - a daughter - also named Julia, who was the
daughter of his third wife Scribonia. This wife he divorced
soon after he obtained supreme power, and at the same time
married Livia Drusilla. She was already married to Claudius
Nero: she had borne her husband two sons, and was then six
months advanced in pregnancy with her third child; but
Augustus demanded her on account of her beauty and
accomplishments, and her husband durst not refuse the demand.
She was therefore divorced from Nero, and married to
Augustus. Her child was born not long afterwards, and died
at birth. She was at this time twenty years of age, and
highly educated. She had already travelled in foreign
countries, and, to the fascinations
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of rare personal beauty, she added the charms of a cultivated
mind.
Augustus's only child, Julia, was married three times. Her
first marriage was to Marcellus, her cousin, only son of
Octavia, her father's sister. Marcellus died young, much
lamented, and left no issue. Augustus had, some time before,
compelled Agrippa, commander-in-chief of the army, to divorce
his wife Pompeia, and marry Marcella, his sister Octavia's
daughter; but now, on the death of Marcellus, he commanded
Agrippa to divorce his niece, Marcellus's sister, and marry
his daughter, Marcellus's widow. By this second marriage,
Julia had five children, three of whom were sons, the
youngest of which was born after his father's death and his
mother's third marriage, and was named Agrippa Pastumus: the
other two sons were called Caius and Lucius. This final
marriage of Julia was to Tiberius Nero, the stepson of
Augustus, and was without issue: it will be alluded to again
under the notice of Tiberius. Julia was one of the most
dissolute women of that dissolute age. And there can be no
doubt that the age and the monogamous system were even more
dissolute than
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the women, and caused them to become so when they were not
so. The chastity of the Roman matrons and virgins was prized
and honored as highly by themselves, and by their husbands
and fathers and brothers, as it has ever been among any
people in the world; as the legends of Lucretia and of
Virginia and others can testify. The ordinances of God and
of Nature in behalf of female purity were enforced among
them, both by their ancient traditions and by their current
laws; and all combined to cause them to preserve their
chastity to the last possible extremity. But that extremity
had, with many of them, been reached. The unbounded license
of the other sex, permitted by public opinion to be practised
with the utmost impunity; the scant and insufficient
opportunities for lawful marriages, and the frequent,
unjust, and arbitrary divorces from those marriages; in
fine, the whole theory of monogamy, - finally drove women to
desperate recklessness and ruin. It had been Julia's happy
lot to be the wife of two honorable men, both eminent for
their manliness, - Marcellus and Agrippa. She had also been
the happy mother of five healthful children. And now,
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while still young, she found herself hastily and forcibly
united to a man against his will; and that man a monster and
a beast. It is not strange that she fell, nor that, in her
fall, she dragged down many others with her. Her exalted
rank easily seduced some of the noblest men of Rome to
become her paramours. "And she became at length so devoid of
shame and prudence as to carouse and revel openly, at night,
in the Forum, and even on the Rostra. Augustus had already
had a suspicion that her mode of life was not quite correct,
and, when convinced of the full extent of her depravity, his
anger knew no bounds. He communicated his domestic
misfortune to the Senate; he banished his dissolute daughter
to the Isle of Pandateria, on the coast of Campania, whither
she was accompanied by her mother Scribonia. He forbade her
there the use of wine and of all delicacies in food or dress,
and prohibited any person to visit her without his special
permission. He caused a bill of divorce to be sent her in
the name of her husband Tiberius, of whose letters of
intercession for her he took no heed. He constantly
rejected all the solicitations of the people for her recall;
and when, one
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time, they were extremely urgent, he openly prayed that they
might have wives and daughters like her." Her confidential
servant and freedwoman, Phoebe, having hanged herself when
her mistress's profligacy was make known, Augustus declared
that he would rather be the father of Phoebe than of Julia.
This treatment of his daughter, and this remark concerning
her, is another confirmation of the different regard had in
those times to the unchaste conduct of women and of men; for
Augustus himself was a seducer and an adulterer, and was as
profligate as his uncle Julius. Suetonius declares, that he
constantly employed men to pimp for him, and that they took
such freedom in selecting the most beautiful women for his
embraces, that they compelled "both matrons and ripe virgins
to strip for a complete examination of their persons." He
also says, upon the authority of Marc Antony, that at an
entertainment at his house, "he once took the wife of a man of
consular rank from the table, in the presence of her husband,
into his bedchamber, and that he brought her again to the
entertainment with her ears very red and her hair in great
disorder," plainly implying that every one could see that he
had ravished her.
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But it is the judgement of that distinguished scholar and
historian, Dr. Liddell, that in these "and other less
pardonable immoralities there was nothing to shock the
feelings of Romans;" and Keightley thus sums up his
character. "In his public character, as sovereign of the
Roman empire, few princes will be found more deserving of
praise than Augustus. He cannot be justly charged with a
single cruel, or even harsh action, in the course of a period
of forty-four years. On the contrary, he seems in every act
to have had the welfare of the people at heart. In return,
never was prince more entirely beloved by all orders of his
subjects; and the title 'Father of his Country,' so
spontaneously bestowed upon him, is but one among many
proofs of the sincerity of their affection." "He was
surrounded by no pomp; no guards attended him; no officers
of the household were to be seen in his modest dwelling; he
lived on terms of familiarity with his friends; he appeared
like any other citizen, as a witness in courts of justice,
and in the senate gave his vote as an ordinary member. He
was plain and simple in his mode of living, using only the
most ordinary food, and wearing no clothes but what
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were woven and made by his wife, sister, and daughter. In
all his domestic relations he was kind and affectionate; he
was a mild and indulgent master, and an attached and constant
friend."*4
3. Tiberius. - Tiberius was the son of Claudius Nero and
Livia Drusilla. He was not at all related by blood to the
Julian family, but belonged by birth to the ancient Claudian
gens; being allied to the former family only by marriage and
adoption. His mother married Augustus when he was five years
of age; he himself married Julia, Augustus's only daughter,
when he was thirty; and Augustus adopted him as his son when
he was forty-five: so that he was at once the step-son, the
son-in-law, and the adopted son of Augustus. His name, at
first, was Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero; to which, after his
adoption by Augustus, he added simply Caesar. Augustus, with
his characteristic prudence, as soon as he perceived that
direct heirs in the male line were likely to fail him, began
to make provision for the perpetuation of his name and
fortune, as well as for
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the preservation of the peace of the empire, by making sons
by adoption. He first adopted his two oldest grandsons,
Caius and Lucius Agrippa, in their early childhood; but they
both died during the lifetime of Augustus, and left no
issue, - Lucius at the age of nineteen years; and two years
afterwards, Caius, at the age of twenty-four.*5
Drusus Nero, the younger brother of Tiberius, and the
favorite step-son of Augustus, had also died before them;
but he left two sons, Germanicus and Claudius. These with
Tiberius, and his only son Drusus, by his first wife
Vipsania, and Agrippa Posthumus, the only remaining son of
Julia, were all the males allied to Augustus. Upon the death
of Caius, therefore, A.D. 6, Augustus adopted both Agrippa
Posthumus and Tiberius, and caused Tiberius at the same time
to adopt Germanicus: so that all the males of the family then
became Caesars, except Claudius Nero; but he was considered
foolish, and was not included. Tiberius, as has been
observed,
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was, at this time, forty-five years of age; and each of the
three young men, Agrippa, Germanicus, and Drusus, was about
nineteen.
Tiberius was married twice; first to Vipsania, eldest
daughter of Agrippa, and after divorcing her, as usual, he
married Julia, Agrippa's widow. It is but justice to
Tiberius, to say that both the divorce and the marriage were
hateful to him, and were consummated only upon the order of
Augustus. He had lived happily with Vipsania, who was the
mother of his only son, and who was then pregnant with her
second child, while Julia was also pregnant with her fifth
child by Agrippa.
Upon the death of Augustus, Tiberius commanded his
step-brother Agrippa Posthumus to be put to death, and
assumed sole command of the empire. His first order was but
a sample of his government; for he soon became one of the
most odious tyrants that ever cursed the world. His vices
were of the most infamous character, and comprised all that
are alluded to in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the
Romans, and for which the ancient city of Sodom was destroyed
by fire. In order to give loose rein to his worse than
beastly propensities, he retired
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from Rome to that lovely sequestered island in the Bay of
Naples, which was then called Capreae, and which in modern
Italian is now named Capri. "But," says Keightley, "this
delicious retreat was speedily converted by the aged prince
into a den of infamy, such as has never, perhaps, found its
equal; and it almost chills the blood to read the details of
the horrid practices in which he indulged amid the rocks of
Capreae." Like all the other Caesars, Tiberius left no son.
His son Drusus was married, and had a son and a daughter; but
he was poisoned by his own wife Livilla, and died during his
father's lifetime. The grandson named Tiberius, and the
grand-daughter named Julia, both survived him. His adopted
son Germanicus, after achieving an excellent reputation as a
man and a military commander, had also died, about five years
after the accession of Tiberius, at the age of thirty-four
years, attributing his death to slow poison secretly
administered by the command of his adopted father.
Germanicus left nine children; but all the sons were
destroyed before the death of Tiberius, except one, named
Caius, but commonly called Caligula. Tiberius therefore left
two male heirs only, - Caius
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Caligula, his grandson by adoption, and Tiberius, his
grandson by birth.*6
4. CALIGULA.- Tiberius, by his last will, had appointed his
two grandsons his joint and equal heirs; but Germanicus, the
father of Caligula, had always been greatly beloved by the
people, while Tiberius had been hated. The will was
therefore unanimously set aside, and the sole power
conferred upon Caligula. Thus was the line of the Caesars
still continued by adoption. Caligula was born A.D. 12, and
became emperor at twenty-five years of age, A.D. 37. He was
married four times. His wives' names were, 1. Junia
Claudilla; 2. Livia Orestilla; 3. Lollia Paullina; and, 4.
Milonia Caesonia. The first died, the next two were
divorced, the last survived him. Soon after the death of
Junia, which was some time before he attained the supreme
power, he took Ennia, the wife of Macro, as his favorite
mistress, promising to procure a divorce from her husband,
and to marry her himself when he should attain the empire;
and Macro appears to have acquiesced in this arrangement,
selling his wife's virtue and
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the honor of his house for such rewards and emoluments as
Caligula was pleased to accord to him. But in the second
year of his administration, instead of fulfilling his
engagements to Ennia and her husband, he neglected and
disgraced them; so that they both committed suicide. Caligula
then took his own sister Drusilla, and lived in incest with
her, having forced her husband, Lucius Cassius, to divorce
her for that purpose; but, in order to cover the affair, he
caused her to be married to one of his attendants, Marcus
Lepidus, his cousin, with whom he was at the same time
practising the still more horrid and unnatural crime of
Sodomy. Upon the death of this sister, which occurred during
the same year, he mourned for her with the most extravagant
grief, and caused her henceforth to be worshipped as a
goddess; building a temple and consecrating priests in her
honor. His own solemn oath ever after was, "By the divinity
of Drusilla."
He next married Livia Orestilla; and in this strange and
cruel manner. He had been invited to the wedding-feast of
Caius Piso, a man belonging to one of the noblest families
of Rome, whose bride
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was the same Livia. Caligula accepted the invitation; the
marriage ceremony took place, and the feast was at its
height, when, struck with the beauty of the bride, he
resolved to appropriate her to himself, and saying to Piso,
"Do not touch my wife," he took her home with him. The next
day he caused proclamation to be made for the information of
the Roman public, that he had purveyed himself a wife after
the manner of Augustus. It is not strange that under such
circumstances he did not find her an agreeable consort, for
her affections had been given to Piso, and with him only
could she be happy. He therefore divorced her again, within
three days of her marriage, but would not permit her to have
her former husband.
The occasion of his marrying his next wife, Lollia Paullina,
was equally strange, but quite different. He heard some one
extol the beauty of her grandmother, and was inflamed with
passion to enjoy hers. She was already married to Memmius
Regulus, and was then away from Rome, in a foreign province,
with her husband; but Caligula sent orders to Regulus to
divorce his wife, ordered her home and married her. He lived
with her about a year,
Page 105
when he divorced her for her barrenness; and then married his
last wife, Caesonia, with whom he had already been having
illicit intercourse for many months, and who was now far
advanced in pregnancy. She was a woman of infamous
character, and had had three illegitimate children before;
but he married her, and she was very soon delivered of a
daughter, which was Caligula's only child.
During most of this time, since the death of Drusilla, he was
living in incest with both his other sisters, Agrippina and
Livilla, while at the same time he would prostitute them to
his male favorites, the ministers of his more heathenish
lusts. Suetonius says, that, in addition to these incests
and adulteries already specified, he debauched nearly every
lady of rank in Rome; whom he was accustomed to invite, along
with their husbands, to a great feast: he would then examine
them, as they passed his couch one after another, as one
would examine female slaves when about to purchase; and after
supper he would retire to his bedchamber, and then send for
any lady present that he liked best.
During his administration public prostitutes paid twelve and a
half per cent of their fees into the
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imperial treasury; and in order to increase this branch of
the revenue he opened a brothel in his own palace, filled it
with respectable (?) women, and sent out criers into the
forum to advertise it, and invite the people to resort to it.
Caligula was slain by the officers of his own guard, in the
twenty-ninth year of his age, after governing the Roman world
less than four years. During the first year of his
administration he had first adopted and then murdered the
younger Tiberius Caesar, then about seventeen years of age,
who left no issue; and a few hours after his own death his
wife Caesonia was slain, and also their infant daughter, who
had its little brains dashed out against a wall: so the last
of the Caesars seemed to have perished. But there was one
old man left, who, if he was not a Caesar, was certainly
related to all the Caesars, and it was determined to make him
a Caesar, and raise him to the supreme power. This old man
was Claudius Nero.
5. CLAUDIUS.- He was the uncle of Caligula, and the nephew
of Tiberius. His name at first had been Tiberius Claudius
Nero, to which
Page 107
he now added that of Caesar. He was married six times. His
wives' names were, 1. AEmilia Lepida; 2. Livia Medullina
Camilla; 3. Plantia Urgullinilla; 4. AElia Paetina; 5.
Valeria Messalina; and, 6. Agrippina. Of these, the first,
third, and fourth were divorced, the second died, the fifth
was executed, and the last survived him. Aelia Paetina, the
fourth, was divorced soon after Claudius obtained the empire,
in order to make way for Messalina, whose principal
recommendation was that she had already become pregnant by
him.
They were accordingly married: the child was born, and was a
boy, whom they named Britannicus. She afterwards bore him a
daughter called Octavia. Messalina's lust and cruelty were
so unbounded, that her name has become the synonyme of every
thing most vile and detestable in the female character. She
has been called the Roman Jezebel; but the comparison is an
injustice to the Samaritan queen. She was as much more
wicked than Jezebel as Roman monogamy is more impure than
Jewish polygamy. Her husband's chief officers became her
adulterers, and were allied with her in all her abominations.
She cast an eye of lust
Page 108
on the principal men in Rome, and whom she could not seduce
to gratify her vile propensities she would contrive to
destroy. She was so excessive in her sensuality, that she
often required the services of the strongest and most
vigorous men to satisfy her lusts; and often for that reason
chose gladiators and slaves: but such persons would not
always venture to incur the risk of discovery, and then she
would make her stupid husband the unwitting broker of her
adulterous pleasures. As an example of this mode of
procedure, in such cases, it is recorded that "when Mnester,
a celebrated dancer, refused to yield to her solicitations
or her threats, she procured a written order from Claudius,
commanding him to do whatever she should require. Mnester
then complied. The same was the case with many others, who
believed they were obeying the orders of the prince when they
were yielding to the libidinous desires of his wife.
"But she was not content with being infamous herself, she
determined to make others so; compelling many respectable
married women to prostitute themselves, even in the palace,
and in the presence
Page 109
of their husbands, who were powerless to prevent it, for she
brutally destroyed those who would not acquiesce in their
wives' dishonor. Meantime her own excesses were unknown by
Claudius; for she caused some one of her maids to occupy her
place in his bed, and purchased by rewards, or anticipated
by murder, those who could give him information. At length
her enormities were discovered and brought to light in this
manner, - a manner so strange and unnatural, that the grave
historian Tacitus expressed his doubts whether posterity
could be made to believe that any woman could be so wicked.
Messalina had set her heart upon Caius Silius, the consul
elect, who was esteemed the handsomest man in Rome. In order
to obtain sole possession of him she drove his wife Junia out
of his house; and Lilius, knowing that to refuse her would be
his destruction, while by compliance he might possibly
escape, yielded to his fate. But the infatuated adulteress
became so reckless that she disdained concealment and came
openly to visit him, heaping wealth and honors upon him,
transferring the slaves and the treasures of the prince to
his house. Silius then saw that he was
Page 110
so deep in guilt that either he or Claudius must perish, and
proposed to Messalina to murder her husband and seize the
supreme power. She hesitated; not from regard to her
husband, but from the fear that when Silius should be
invested with the empire he would cast her off. She
therefore proposed, as an amendment to his plan, that they
should be married first, and then murder the prince and seize
the empire afterwards. This plan was agreed to; and while
Claudius was absent from the city to perform a sacrifice at
Ostia, when he was building the new harbor there, they were
publicly married, in due form, and with much ceremony. But
their own attendants were shocked. They informed the prince;
and the whole plot was discovered and the guilty parties put
to death.
Claudius then took for his sixth and last wife his brother's
daughter Agrippina; and as such a union was regarded as
incestuous by the laws and customs of the Romans, Claudius
first repaired to the senate-house, and caused a new law to
be passed legalizing marriages between uncles and nieces, and
then formally espoused her. Agrippina, the new imperial
consort, was sister to the late emperor
Page 111
Caligula; and besides having lived in incest with him, she
had been married twice before. By her first husband, Cneius
Domitius Ahenobarbus, she had a son, named Lucius, who was
nine years of age at the time of her marriage with Claudius,
and three years older than his only son Britannicus. To
promote the interests of her own son Lucius, and to destroy
Britannicus, was now the ruling passion of Agrippina; to
gratify which she paused at nothing. Yet she was not, like
Messalina, naturally inclined to licentiousness; but in order
to win the influence and assistance of powerful men for
promoting her ambitious designs in behalf of her son, she
stooped so low as to prostitute herself to their lusts, when
they could not be purchased by any other means at her
command. At first she managed to have Octavia, the sister of
Britannicus, divorced from Silanus, to whom she had been
betrothed, and married to her son Lucius, and, in a year or
two afterwards, to have Lucius adopted by Claudius as his
son. Three years afterwards she procured poison from the
notorious Locusta, and put her husband, the Emperor Claudius,
to death, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, after
Page 112
he had governed Rome a little less than fourteen years.*7
6. NERO. - Agrippina carefully concealed the death of
Claudius until secure measures had been taken for setting
aside Britannicus, and for the succession of her son; when
the death was announced and the new emperor proclaimed. Nero
was successively the grand-nephew, the step-son, the
son-in-law, and the adopted son of Claudius; and, by
adoption, the great-grandson of Tiberius; being son of
Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus, adopted son of Tiberius.
He was also, by birth, the grand-nephew of Augustus, by the
collateral female line; his father, Domitius Ahenobarbus,
being son of Antonia Major, eldest daughter of Octavia,
sister of Augustus. His name, at first, was Lucius Domitius
Ahenobarbus; but upon his adoption by Claudius, into the
Julian family, he took the name of Nero Claudius Caesar. He
was married seven times. The names of his consorts were, 1.
Octavia; 2. Poppaea Sabina; 3. Octavia again; 4. Poppaea
again; 5. Statilia Mes-
Page 113
salina; 6. Sporus; and, 7. Doryphorus. It will readily be
seen, from this list, that his marriages and divorces were
more numerous than his brides, and that the last two names
are those of males.
Nero had no affection for his first wife, the chaste and
modest Octavia, whom he had married from policy, and not for
love: and his mother, the ambitious Agrippina, who loved
power so much, was pleased with this indifference; for she
hoped to maintain an undivided influence over him, and
through him to rule the world. But in the second year of his
administration he conceived a violent passion for an Asiatic
freedwoman named Acte; a passion which his preceptor, the
celebrated philosopher Seneca, and his other councillors of
state, encouraged; permitting him to take her as his
acknowledged mistress, without rebuke, hoping that this
attachment would keep him from a life of promiscuous
licentiousness and from debauching women of rank. But
Agrippina was furious; not because Acte was a low-bred woman
(though this was the excuse for her opposition), but she felt
that her own power would be diminished by her: and she
threatened that if he did not give her up, she
Page 114
would herself abandon him, and would set up Britannicus;
and, as the daughter of the beloved Germanicus, would appeal
to the army against her son, in Britannicus' behalf. This
was a powerful argument, and Nero knew that his mother was
capable of any thing to maintain her power; but he resolved,
that, instead of giving up his mistress, he would murder his
innocent brother. He procured poison from Locusta and gave
it him, but it proved too weak; he then sent for Locusta
again, and reproached her and beat her, and bade her prepare
a stronger dose. She obeyed him; and having proved the
potency of the venom upon a kid and a pig, he had it given to
Britannicus, in some cold water, at dinner. Its effect was
instantaneous, and the poor boy dropped down dead. Nero
carelessly remarked to the company that he had been subject
to fits from infancy, and would soon recover. Agrippina and
Octavia were struck with terror, and said nothing; the
latter, young as she was, having learned to suppress her
feelings, and the former perceiving that her son was fast
becoming her superior both in cruelty and in craft.
Nero next became enamored of Poppaea Sabina,
Page 115
a lady of great beauty and of noble birth, who had been
divorced from her first husband, Crispinus, and was then
married to her second, Marcus Otho; but Otho was sent out as
governor of the distant province of Portugal, and Nero gave
himself up to the enjoyment of his adulterous passion. Then
Agrippina became more furious than ever, for she saw, that if
he should divorce Octavia, and marry Poppaea, her own
influence would be gone forever. But she set at work in a
different manner than before; for such was her insane love of
power, that, in order to retain her influence over her son,
she began herself to pander to his vices, diverting and
distracting his mind with a succession of beautiful ladies,
offering her purse, and the use of her own apartments for his
private assignations, and even attempting to seduce him to
unnatural incest with herself; and nothing but the fear of
the army and of the people prevented them from the
consummation of that abominable crime. Still the influence
of Poppaea increased; and so did Agrippina's hatred and
jealousy of her, until at length Nero resolved upon the
crime of matricide, which he effected in
Page 116
the most barbarous manner. He first attempted to drown her,
in a manner that might appear accidental, by sending her to
sea in a unseaworthy vessel laden with lead; the deck of
which was to give way at the proper time, and the vessel
itself to fall to pieces. She went on board, and the deck
fell, with its freight of lead, as was expected; but she was
saved by the devotion of her attendants. He then sent
assassins to shed her blood. When they entered her
apartment, and one of them drew his sword, she exposed her
womb, and cried out. "Strike here:" he obeyed, and thus she
perished. But it was only after the lapse of three years
more, that he divorced the virtuous Octavia, by whose
alliance he had obtained the empire, and who was greatly
beloved by the people. He effected her divorce, however,
and married Poppaea; but the murmurs of the people were so
alarming, that in a short time, he divorced Poppaea, and
married Octavia the second time. But his affections were
still unchanged, and he at length induced Anicetus, the
assassin that had slain his mother, to make oath that Octavia
had committed adultery with him; and,
Page 117
although nobody believed the wretch, this served as a
pretext for divorcing her again. She was then banished to
the usual place, the Island of Pandataria, where she was soon
afterwards put to death, at twenty-one years of age, and her
head sent as a present to Poppaea; to whom Nero was then
married the second time. Soon after this marriage, to his
great joy, she bore him a daughter, his first and only child,
which lived, however, but a few months.
It was the next year after the birth of this infant, that
Rome was burnt [A.D. 65]. The loss of lives, as well as of
property, was very great. The streets of the city were
narrow and crooked, and the flames spread so rapidly, that
escape was difficult. The fire raged six days.
Five-sevenths of the city was laid waste. Nero has often
been charged with having caused the fires himself; but the
charge has never been proved. He was strongly suspected at
the time, and, in order to divert suspicion from himself, he
laid the blame upon the innocent Christians. They had become
already numerous in the city, and were generally hated and
despised. They were
Page 118
put to death, upon this suspicion, with torture and insult;
some torn to pieces by dogs, after being sewed up in the
skins of wild animals, some crucified, and some wrapped in
pitch and set on fire, to serve for lamps in the night. Two
years after the great fire, Poppaea came to her death in as
brutal a manner as mother, sister, and brother had done
before. She was killed by Nero, in a fit of anger, by a
violent kick when in an advanced state of pregnancy.
He then celebrated his fifth marriage, with a lady named
Messalina; with whom it happened to be her fifth marriage
also. Her last husband was Atticus Vestinus, whom Nero put
to death in order to obtain possession of his wife. But he
soon divorced her, yet that did not break her heart, for she
outlived him, and preserved her beauty to captivate the fancy
of another emperor, in future years.
Nero was married the sixth time to a boy. His name was
Sporus. Nero fancied that his beauty resembled that of his
slain Poppaea, whose death he repented and bewailed. He
caused Sporus to be made a eunuch, and exhausted the
Page 119
powers of art in trying to make him a woman. He then
espoused him, with the most solemn forms of marriage; and it
was cleverly remarked by the people, that it was a great pity
that his father Domitius had not had such a wife.
His seventh and last marriage was to Doryphorus, his own
freedman; but in this case Nero himself was the bride, and
his manumitted slave the groom. Nero was a musician and a
comedian, and was accustomed to spend a great part of his
time in rehearsal and in public performance, as an actor. He
chose the crowded theatre as the place in which to celebrate
this marriage. He first covered himself with the skin of a
wild beast, and in that dress, before thousands of assembled
men and women, committed rapes upon persons of both sexes,
who were tied to stakes for that purpose. Having thus
demonstrated his manhood, he appeared as the bride in his
marriage to Doryphorus, to whom he was married in the same
solemn form that Sporus had been married to him; finishing
the representation by consummating the marriage in the
embraces of Doryphorus, himself imitating the cries and
shrieks of young virgins when they are ravished.
Page 120
Nero died by his own hand, A.D. 68, in the thirty-first year
of his age, and the fourteenth of his imperial power. He
left no child, either by birth or by adoption. He was the
last of the Caesars. That name was henceforth only an
honorary title. Can any one regret the extinction of the
dissolute and degenerate race? Is it not a happy provision
in the laws of God, that "monsters cannot propagate"?*8
Such was monogamy at the commencement of the Christian era;
for it was during the reign of Augustus that Christ was
born, and during that of Nero that Paul was beheaded. Such
was the social system imposed by Rome upon the nations of
Europe. This is no fancy sketch, nor have the facts here
cited been herein exaggerated. My authorities are accessible
to every scholar, and I invite criticism and investigation.
The question now arises, How was Roman monogamy affected by
its contact with Christianity? And this question I shall
proceed to discuss in another chapter.
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*1 "The Greeks had but little pleasure in the society of
their wives. At first, the young husband only visited her by
stealth: to be seen in company with her was a disgrace." -
Bulwer's Hist. of Athens, book i. chap. 6.
"In the times of Corinthian opulence and prosperity, it is
said that the shrine of Venus was attended by no less than
one thousand female slaves dedicated to her service as
courtesans. These priestesses of Venus contributed not a
little to the wealth and luxury of the city." - Anthon's
Classical Dict. art. "Corinthus."
Strabo, in his great work on Geography, in speaking of the
temple of Venus in Corinth says, "There were more than a
thousand harlots, the slaves of the temple, who, in honor of
the goddess, prostituted themselves to all comers for hire,
and through these the city was crowded, and became wealthy."
- Book 8, p. 151.
"Gravely impressing upon his wife and daughters that to sing
and dance, to cultivate the knowledge of languages, to
exercise the taste and understanding, was the business of the
hired courtesan, it was to the courtesan that he repaired
himself for the solace of his own lighter hours." -
Merivale's Hist. of the Romans, vol. ii., chap. 33, p. 32.
D. Appleton & Co., 1864.
*2 Contradictions and Inaccuracies of Eminent Historians.
ANTHON. - In art. "Drusus," In his Classical Dictionary, Dr.
Charles Anthon says that Drusus "was born three months after
his mother's marriage with Augustus;" but in art. "Livia" he
says, "She had already borne two sons to her first husband,
viz, Tiberins and Drusus, and was six months gone in
pregnancy with another child, which was the only one she ever
had after her union with Augustus, and which died almost at
the moment of its birth.
In art. Julia II.," he calls her the mother of Augustus; and
in art. "Augustus," he says his mother was Atia, the
daughter of Julia.
In art. Julia IV.," he calls Scribonia the first wife of
Augustus; but in art. "Augustus," he calls her his third
wife.
In art. "Messalina," he says she was the first wife of
Claudius; and in art. "Aelia Paetina," he says Aelia was the
former wife of Claudius, and that she was repudiated to make
way for Messalina. And, according to Suetonius, AElia was in
fact, the fourth, and Messalina the fifth, of his wives.
In art. "Julius Caesar," he says his first wife was divorced
in consequence of the affair of Clodius; but in art.
"Clodius," he says it was against Pompeia that Clodius had
illicit designs, and in art. "Pompeia," he says she was
Caesar's third wife, &c.
KEIGHTLEY. - In his Hist. of Rom. Empire, p. 11, he says,
Scribonia was the first wife of Augustus; but she was his
third. On the same page he says Tiberius married Agrippina,
who was the younger daughter of Agrippa: but older sister;
and his brother Drusus married Agrippina, and he was the only
husband she ever had, which was a remarkable circumstance for
Roman ladies in those days. On the same page he repeats the
error of Anthon mentioned above,- that Drusus was born after
his mother's marriage with Augustus. Two similar errors occur
on p. 13.
LIDDELL.- On p. 726 of Dr. Liddell's Hist. of Rome, there
are three errors of this kind within the limits of twice as
many lines, viz., he calls the name of one of Augustus's
wives Clodia for Claudia; he says Scribonia was his second
wife, for his third; and says Livia, at the time of her
marriage to Augustus, was pregnant of her second child
instead of her third. Thus it is demonstrated that very
respectable modern historians are accustomed to perpetuate
error by compiling and copying from each other, when they
should, every one of them, go back to the original and exact
authorities, and thus eliminate the truth. Messrs. Harper &
Brothers, New York, have republished the above work of Dr.
Liddell, so faithfully as to give us page for page, line for
line, and word for word, an exact reprint of the English
edition by John Murray; reproducing not only such historical
blunders as those above noticed, but even the most obvious
typographical errors; e.g., on p. 250, under the bust of
Scipio there is L., for Lucius Scipio Africanus, instead of
P., for Publius Scipio Africanus; and on p. 453, footnote, we
are referred to the end of chapter 50, &c. Such exact
faithfulness in following copy is worthy of the well-known
skillfulness of the Chinese tailor, who, when about to make a
new garment in European style, took home an old one for a
pattern, which he succeeded in imitating with exactness, even
to the patches.
*3 Suet. Vit. Jul. Caesar, par. 40-50. Liddell's Hist.
Rome: London, 1857; book 7. Anthon's Class. Dict., art.
"Caesar, Mutia," &c.
*4 Suet. V it. Aug. par. 60-69; Liddell's Hist. of Rome,
book 7; Keightley's Hist. Rom. Emp., chaps. 1,2.
*5 Caius married Livilla, sister to Germanicus, and
grandniece to Augustus, but had no offspring; his widow
afterwards married Drusus, son of Tiberius, by whom she had
two children, Tiberius and Julia.
*6 Suet.; Keightley; Anthon.
*7 Suet. Vit. Claud.; Tacitus Ann.; Keight.; Anthon.
*8 Sueton. Vit. Neronis, par. 20-29.; Tac. Ann.; Keight.
Hist. Rom. Emp.
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