thine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass,
and iron, and marble; and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and
wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep; and merchandise of horses and
chariots and slaves; and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul desired are departed from thee,
and all things which were dainty and sumptuous are perished from thee, and men shall find them
no more at all."^81
Heathen Rome lived a good while after this prediction, but, the causes of decay were already
at work in the first century. The immense extension and outward prosperity brought with it a
diminution of those domestic and civil virtues which at first so highly distinguished the Romans
above the Greeks. The race of patriots and deliverers, who came from their ploughs to the public
service, and humbly returned again to the plough or the kitchen, was extinct. Their worship of the
gods, which was the root of their virtue, had sunk to mere form, running either into the most absurd
superstitions, or giving place to unbelief, till the very priests laughed each other in the face when
they met in the street. Not unfrequently we find unbelief and superstition united in the same persons,
according to the maxim that all extremes touch each other. Man must believe something, and
worship either God or the devil.^82 Magicians and necromancers abounded, and were liberally
patronized. The ancient simplicity and contentment were exchanged for boundless avarice and
prodigality. Morality and chastity, so beautifully symbolized in the household ministry of the virgin
Vesta, yielded to vice and debauchery. Amusement came to be sought in barbarous fights of beasts
and gladiators, which not rarely consumed twenty thousand human lives in a single month. The
lower classes had lost all nobler feeling, cared for nothing but "panem et circenses," and made the
proud imperial city on the Tiber a slave of slaves. The huge empire of Tiberius and of Nero was
but a giant body without a soul, going, with steps slow but sure, to final dissolution. Some of the
emperors were fiendish tyrants and monsters of iniquity; and yet they were enthroned among the
gods by a vote of the Senate, and altars and temples were erected for their worship. This characteristic
custom began with Caesar, who even during his lifetime was honored as "Divus Julius" for his
brilliant victories, although they cost more than a million of lives slain and another million made
captives and slaves.^83 The dark picture which St. Paul, in addressing the Romans, draws of the
heathenism of his day, is fully sustained by Seneca, Tacitus, Juvenal, Persius, and other heathen
writers of that age, and shows the absolute need of redemption. "The world," says Seneca, in a
famous passage, "is full of crimes and vices. More are committed than can be cured by force. There
is an immense struggle for iniquity. Crimes are no longer bidden, but open before the eyes. Innocence(^81) Rev. 18:11-14.
(^82) "Unbelief and superstition, different hues of the same historical phenomenon, went in the Roman world of that day hand
in hand, and there was no lack of individuals who in themselves combined both-who denied the gods with Epicurus, and yet
prayed and sacrificed before every shrine." Theod. Mommsen, History of Rome. transl. by Dickson, Lond. 1867, vol. iv. p. 560.
(^83) "In the excess of their adoration, the Roman Senate desired even to place his image in the Temple of Quirinus himself, with
an inscription to him as θεὸς ἀνίκτος, the invincible God. Golden chairs, gilt chariots, triumphal robes, were piled one upon
another, with laurelled fasces and laurelled wreaths. His birthday was made a perpetual holiday, and the mouth Quinctilis was
renamed, in honor of him, July. A temple to Concord was to be erected in commemoration of his clemency. His person was
declared sacred and to injure him by word or deed was to be counted sacrilege. The Fortune of Caesar was introduced into the
constitutional oath, and the Senate took a solemn pledge to maintain his acts inviolate. Finally, they arrived at a conclusion that
he was not a man at all; no longer Caius Julius, but Divus Julius, a God or the Son of God. A temple was to be built to Caesar
as another Quirinus, and Antony was to be his priest." J. A. Froude, Caesar (1879), Ch. XXVI. p. 491. The insincerity of these
adulations shortly before the senatorial conspiracy makes them all the worse. "One obsequious senator proposed that every
woman in Rome should be at the disposition of Caesar." Ibid., p 492.
A.D. 1-100.