people with one accord, and one voice, swore that it was true*. Generally, too, the whole people were compelled to swear to ratify whatever the prince ordained: and this oath was to be renewed every year+. Of the value of these sweeping oaths, we have a very good criterion in Tacitus. The whole senate were compelled to take one and the same oath, involving the character of individuals: "some, says the historian, came forward voluntarily, others reluctantly, each when his name was called; and those whose conscience shrunk from the oath, had recourse to every expedient and subterfuge to evade the plain sense and real meaning of the oath." So did they, and so will worldly men ever do. We must not leave these two chapters on the oaths of Greece and Rome, without quoting the sentiments of Polybius on the different degrees of faith and obligation in which they seemed to him to bind the conscience among each people respectively. In citing the opinion of this most candid and upright and dispassionate, as well as most accurate and well-informed historian, we must not forget that prejudice might have given a colouring even to his picture. At all events, nothing was more frequent in those ages than sweeping charges and *Cic. Ep. ad Met., Lib. v. 2.-Orat., Pison., c. 3.-Plut: in Cic. Vit. † Tac. Annal. i. c. 7, 8.; xvi. 22. Tac. Hist. iv. 41. counter-charges, criminations and recriminations, on the ground of perjury and breach of faith. Thus, we find "Greek Faith," "Punic Faith," bywords at Rome; whilst the Persians were subject to the same accusation at the hands of the Greeks; and among the Greeks themselves, when Aristophanes pours out, in Athens, invectives on the same score against the Spartans, he well knew what would be acceptable to an Athenian audience. The testimony of Polybius runs thus: "The great superiority of the Roman constitution appears to me to consist in their sentiments towards their Gods; and what seems to be held as a reproach among other nations, appears to me to be the preservative of the Roman state, a superstitious reverence for their divinities; for this principle is carried to such an extravagant pitch among them, that nothing can exceed it, whether in the lives of individuals, or the general conduct of the state. A circumstance this, which to many might seem marvellous: I, however, am persuaded that they adopted this system for the sake of the body of the people. Had they had to form a commonwealth of wise men only, such a system would perhaps not have been necessary; but since every populace is full of levity and lawless desires, * Asioidaínovia. The word employed by St. Paul when describing the state of Athens, and which our translators render "too superstitious," is an adjective in the comparative degree, derived from this word.—Acts xvii. 22. anger uncontrolled by reason, and impetuosity of temper driving them on to violence, the only expedient left is to restrain them by invisible terrors and such-like alarming fictions. The ancients consequently, in my opinion, brought in their doctrines about the Gods, and the affairs of Hell, for the belief of the people, not at random, and by chance. But, much rather do they of the present day seem to be acting with rashness and a want of reason in rejecting them. One consequence, out of many, is this; that whilst, among the Greeks, if the public officers of state have the value of only one talent intrusted to them, let them have ten sureties, and as many seals, and twice as many witnesses, they cannot be faithful to their trust; among the Romans, whether in the magistracies or embassies, let them have never so large a sum in their hands, they discharge their trust in conse quence of the pledge given merely by their oath*; and whilst, among other people, it is rare to find a man abstaining from peculation, and guiltless of wrong, among the Romans it is rare to find any one detected in an act of dishonesty +." * This reference of the honesty of the Romans to their reverence of an oath, must not be forgotten, whenever the expediency of retaining Oaths of Office may be under consideration. I think, however, that Polybius is not in the least contrasting the value of an oath with a bare promise among the Romans, but Roman integrity, as the offspring of a religious principle, with the perfidy of the irreligious Greeks. † Polyb., b. vi., c. 56. CHAPTER V. OTHER FORMS OF OATH IN THE ANCIENT WORLD. THE Persians, as we learn from various ancient authors, swore by "Mithra." There is somewhat of doubt as to the identity of the deity worshipped among them under that name, in consequence of Herodotus having plainly stated that Mithra was the Persian name for Venus* ; whereas most writers represent Mithra as the sun, the same with Apollo, and with Osirist. Be this as it may, Xenophon introduces Cyrus as binding himself by that god in an oath, the conditions of which ran thus: "I swear to thee, Lysander, by Mithra, never, when in health, to take my chief meal before I have discharged the duties of exercise, &c.‡" The Indians swore by a stream that flowed from a fountain held sacred by the Magi. This oath is the same in kind, though I have not ascertained whether it is identically the same with their oath now taken by the "Waters of the Ganges." The Syracusans§ were sworn laying their hands on lighted torches ; the Ionians, by colewort; some individuals, as Athenæus tells us, by cabbages. Herod. i. 131. Xenoph. Econ. Statius Theb. i. 720. For not only had different nations different forms of oath; individuals had their own favourite form in those days, as they have had in later times, when the practice was less excusable. And not only did men select an oath for themselves, but philosophers instructed their followers to adopt their master's oath; at the same time, probably, not feeling displeasure should the pupil instead of adopting the oath used by his master, swear by his master's name: a practice very frequently adopted. Sometimes, and naturally too, their choice was guided by their occupation. Thus, an old weatherbeaten pilot (no less a personage than the renowned Palinurus) swore by the "rough seas* ;" and probably Chaucer's representation is not far from the truth, when he makes Theseus swear "By Mighty Mars the Red+." Pythagoras swore by the air he breathed, and by the water he drank; Socrates by a dog and a plane-treet. Tradition, indeed, intimates that these and other countless frivolous oaths were the consequence of a prohibition of Rhadamanthus, who forbade as irreverent towards the immortals and dangerous to men, the introduction of the name of any of their own country's gods into an oath. A scholiast on Pindar informs us, that to avoid perjury, the ancients used to stop short in their form before the name of any divinity *Eneid, vi. 351. Canterbury Tales. |