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Chapter 7: Computer Networks
TRUE/FALSE
1. A network, in general, is a connected system of objects or people.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 257
2. Mobile phones are also called wireless phones.
3. The most common type of mobile phone is the satellite phone.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 259
4. GPS receivers are commonly used by individuals to determine their geographic location while hiking
and to obtain driving directions while traveling.
5. Some monitoring systems in use today use the RFID tags and RFID readers to monitor the status of
objects (such as shipping boxes, livestock, or expensive equipment) to which the RFID tags are
attached.
6. PC conferencing is the use of networking technology to conduct real-time, face-to-face meetings
between individuals physically located in different places.
7. Collaborative computing takes place via both private company networks and the Internet.
8. Physicians can use telemedicine to perform remote diagnosis of patients.
9. In a bus network, all the networked devices connect to a central device (such as a server or a switch)
through which all network transmissions are sent.
ANS: F PTS: 1 REF: 266-267
10. Client-server networks are frequently referred to as peer-to-peer networks.
11. Transferring data from a client PC to a server is referred to as downloading.

12. A personal area network (PAN) is a network of personal devices for one individual, such as his or her
portable computer, mobile phone, and printer.
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 268-269
13. The conventional phone system uses digital signals.
14. When parallel transmission is used, the message is sent at least one byte at one time with each bit in
the byte taking a separate path.
15. The accompanying figure shows a coaxial cable, in which pairs of copper wires are insulated with a
plastic coating and twisted together.
16. Communications satellites are space-based devices launched into orbit around the earth to receive and
transmit microwave signals to and from earth.
17. TCP/IP is the protocol used for transferring data over the Internet.
18. Because geosynchronous satellites are so close above the surface of the earth, there is no delay while
signals travel from earth, to the satellite, and back to earth again.
19. One of the early Ethernet protocols (called 10BASE-T) supports transmission rates of 10 Mbps.
20. In general, Wi-Fi is designed for medium-range data transfers—typically between 100 and 300 feet
both indoors and outdoors.
MODIFIED TRUE/FALSE
1. A(n) computer network is a collection of computers and other hardware devices connected together so
that network users can share hardware, software, and data, as well as electronically communicate with
each other. _________________________

2. The most common type of mobile phone is the cellular (cell) phone. _________________________
3. The RedStar system built into many GM cars uses GPS to locate vehicles when the occupant activates
the service or when sensors indicate that the car was involved in an accident.
_________________________
ANS: F, OnStar
PTS: 1 REF: 261
4. Electronic medical monitors are available that take the vital signs of an individual (such as weight,
blood-sugar readings, or blood pressure) or prompt individuals to answer questions.
_________________________
5. With telesurgery, at least one of the surgeons performs the operation by controlling the robot remotely,
such as over the Internet or another network. _________________________
ANS: T PTS: 1 REF: 264-265
6. A(n) star network uses a number of different connections between network devices so that data can
take any of several possible paths from source to destination. _________________________
ANS: F, mesh
PTS: 1 REF: 267

7. The accompanying figure illustrates a(n) ring network. _________________________
ANS: F, bus
PTS: 1 REF: 267

8. With a(n) partial mesh topology, some devices are connected to all other devices, but some are
connected only to those devices with which they exchange the most data.
_________________________
9. With a(n) peer-to-peer (P2P) network, a central server is not used. _________________________
10. A(n) small area network (SAN) is a network that covers a relatively small geographical area, such as a
home, office building, or school. _________________________
ANS: F
LAN
local area network
local area network (LAN)
LAN (local area network)
PTS: 1 REF: 269
11. Most networking media send data using analog signals. _________________________
ANS: F, digital
PTS: 1 REF: 271
12. TCP/IP uses a technique called packet switching to transmit data over the Internet.
_________________________
13. Support for TCP/IP is built into virtually all operating systems, and TCP addresses are commonly used
to identify the various computers and devices on networks such as LANs.
_________________________
ANS: F
IP
Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol (IP)
IP (Internet Protocol)
PTS: 1 REF: 279
14. Wi-Fi is a wireless standard that is designed for very short-range (10 meters, approximately 33 feet, or
less) connections. _________________________
ANS: F, Bluetooth
PTS: 1 REF: 285
15. Because there may be many Bluetooth devices within range, up to 10 individual Bluetooth networks
(called piconets) can be in place within the same physical area at one time.
_________________________

MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. One type of mobile phone that is not commonly used is the ____.
a. roaming phone c. satellite phone
b. landline phone d. analog phone
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 260
2. The ____ network consists of 24 Department of Defense satellites that are used for location and
navigation purposes.
a. location positioning system (LPS) c. cellular phone
b. satellite positioning system (SPS) d. global positioning system (GPS)
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 260
3. An emerging type of mobile phone is the cellular/satellite ____ phone that can be used with cellular
service when it is available and then switches to satellite service when cellular service is not available.
a. dual-mode c. duplex
b. dual-core d. digital
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 260
4. A global positioning system (GPS) consists of ____ and a group of GPS satellites.
a. GPS transmitters c. GPS amplifiers
b. Wi-Fi receivers d. GPS receivers
5. __________ technology is commonly used to monitor the status of objects, such as shipping boxes,
livestock, or expensive equipment to which these types of tags are attached.
a. IrDA c. RFID
b. cellular d. Bluetooth
6. The ____ allows individuals to “placeshift” multimedia content from their home TVs and DVRs to
their portable computer or mobile device.
a. Singbox c. Singmedia
b. Slingbox d. Shiftmedia
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 262
7. Monitoring systems may also use ____, which are devices that respond to a stimulus (such as heat,
light, or pressure) and generate an electrical signal that can be measured or interpreted.
a. transmitters c. IAs
b. interpreters d. sensors
8. ____ is the use of networking technology to conduct real-time, face-to-face meetings between
individuals physically located in different places.
a. Online conferencing c. Phone conferencing

b. Videoconferencing d. VoIP conferencing
9. Microsoft Office markup tools and specialized ____ are used in conjunction with networking
technology to allow multiple individuals to edit and make comments in a document without destroying
the original content.
a. collaboration software c. job software
b. online software d. OCR software
10. ____ is the use of networking technology to provide medical information and services.
a. Telecommuting c. Telemedicine
b. Remote medicine d. Remote health
11. In a ____ network, there are a number of different connections between the devices on the network so
that data can take any of several possible paths from source to destination.
a. bus c. ring
b. star d. mesh
12. The accompanying figure shows a ____ network.
a. star c. bus
b. ring d. mesh
13. A ____ is a network that covers a relatively small geographical area, such as a home, office building,
or school.
a. small area network (SAN) c. local area network (LAN)
b. metropolitan area network (MAN) d. personal area network (PAN)
14. Some wireless ____ are created by cities or large organizations to provide free or low-cost Internet
access to residents of a particular area.
a. WANs c. LANs

b. MANs d. PANs
15. ____ refers to the amount of data that can be transferred (such as over a certain type of networking
medium) in a given time period.
a. Bandwidth c. Modulation
b. Bluetooth d. Throughband
16. With ____, data is sent one bit at a time, one after the other along a single path.
a. serial transmission c. digital transmission
b. parallel transmission d. wireless transmission
17. In ____ transmission, data is sent at the same time as other related data to support certain types of
real-time applications that require the different types of data to be delivered at the proper speed for that
application.
a. synchronous c. asynchronous
b. isochronous d. endrosynchronous
18. The technique used for data sent over the Internet is ____.
a. docket switching c. packet switching
b. wideband switching d. data switching
19. ____ transmission is relatively uncommon in data transmissions since most devices that are mainly
one-directional, such as a printer, can still transmit error messages and other data back to the computer.
a. Half-duplex c. Full-duplex
b. Simplex d. Asynchronous
20. In ____ transmission, data can travel in either direction, but only in one direction at a time.
a. duplex c. half-simplex
b. simplex d. half-duplex
21. In ____ transmission, data can move in both directions at the same time, such as with a telephone.
a. full-duplex c. half-simplex
b. full-simplex d. half-duplex
22. ____ was originally developed to carry a large number of high-speed video transmissions at one time,
such as to deliver cable TV service.
a. Twisted-pair cable c. Coaxial cable
b. Fiber-optic cable d. Single-wire cable

23. The accompanying figure displays a ____.
a. coaxial cable c. fiber-optic cable
b. twisted pair cable d. single-wire cable
24. ____ transmissions are used with cell phones and are sent and received via cellular (cell) towers.
a. PM radio c. Cellular radio
b. Wi-Fi radio d. Satellite radio
25. ____ are earth-based stations that can transmit microwave signals directly to each other over distances
of up to about 30 miles.
a. Satellite stations c. Wi-Fi stations
b. RFID stations d. Microwave stations
26. ____ satellites travel at a speed and direction that keeps pace with the earth’s rotation, so they appear
(from earth) to remain stationary over a given spot.
a. Microwave c. Isochronous
b. Geosynchronous d. Full-duplex transmission
27. ____ is typically used with LANs that have a star topology and can be used in conjunction with
twisted-pair, coaxial, or fiber-optic cabling.
a. Ethernet c. Wi-Fi
b. Token Ring d. 80xx2.11
28. ____ is the fastest and most current Wi-Fi standard.
a. 802.11a c. 802.11n
b. 802.11g d. 802.11x
29. The original first-generation cell phones were ____ and designed for voice data only.
a. digital c. analog
b. discrete d. magnetic
30. Similar to Wi-Fi, ____ is designed to provide Internet access to fixed locations (sometimes called
hotzones), but the coverage is significantly larger.
a. WinMax c. WiMAX
b. EMax d. 802.11b

31. ____ is a wireless standard that is designed for very short-range (10 meters, approximately 33 feet, or
less) connections.
a. IrDA c. Wi-Fi
b. xMax d. Bluetooth
32. A standard that is designed to connect peripheral devices, similar to Bluetooth, but that transfers data
more quickly is ____.
a. WiMAX c. Mobile-Fi
b. xMax d. wireless USB
33. A network adapter, also called a ____ when it is in the form of an expansion card, is used to connect a
computer to a network.
a. network interface card (NIC) c. data communications card (DCC)
b. powerline card d. USB
34. Technically, to be called a ____, a device must convert digital signals (such as those used by a
computer) to modulated analog signals (such as those used by conventional telephone lines) and vice
versa.
a. hub c. switch
b. modem d. router
35. A ____ transmits all data received to all network devices connected to it, regardless of which device
the data is being sent to.
a. bridge c. gateway
b. router d. hub
Case-Based Critical Thinking Questions
Case 7-1
Robert is a medical writer for a pharmaceutical company. The company allows Robert to work from
home.
36. Every day, Robert uses ____ to have a real-time, face-to-face meeting with his boss.
a. intranets c. virtual networks
b. telemarketing d. videoconferencing
ANS: D PTS: 1 REF: 263 TOP: Critical Thinking
37. Robert’s job is a(n) ____ job.
a. telemarketing c. videoconferencing
b. telecommuting d. e-working
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 264 TOP: Critical Thinking

Case-Based Critical Thinking Questions
Case 7-2
Gabrielle is the network administrator at a medium-sized company. One of her responsibilities is to
purchase network devices to maintain the company network.
38. Gabrielle realizes that to improve network performance, she needs to buy and install a ____, which
identifies the device on the network for which the data is intended and sends the data to that device
only.
a. switch c. bus
b. node d. bridge
ANS: A PTS: 1 REF: 288-289 TOP: Critical Thinking
39. Gabrielle would like to purchase a new ____, which would be used to connect the company’s LAN
and the Internet.
a. hub c. router
b. USB port d. bridge
ANS: C PTS: 1 REF: 289 TOP: Critical Thinking
40. Gabrielle is planning to connect selected devices to the network wirelessly with a wireless ____.
a. hotspot c. hub
b. access point d. data point
ANS: B PTS: 1 REF: 289 TOP: Critical Thinking
COMPLETION
1. The term communications, when used in a computer context, refers to ____________________.
ANS: telecommunications
PTS: 1 REF: 257
2. Mobile phones are phones that use a ____________________ network for communications instead of
being connected to the regular telephone network via a conventional telephone jack.
ANS: wireless
PTS: 1 REF: 259
3. ____________________ phones are most often used by individuals—such as soldiers, journalists,
wilderness guides, and researchers—traveling in remote areas where continuous cellular service might
not be available.
ANS: Satellite
PTS: 1 REF: 260
4. The ____________________ is a satellite-based location and navigation system.
ANS:
GPS

global positioning system
global positioning system (GPS)
GPS (global positioning system)
PTS: 1 REF: 260
5. ____________________ networking devices (such as digital media receivers) can be used to share and
deliver digital content throughout the home via a multimedia network.
ANS: Multimedia
PTS: 1 REF: 262
6. ____________________ networks can be used during transport to monitor the temperature inside
cargo containers to ensure that products stay within the allowable temperature range.
ANS: Sensor
PTS: 1 REF: 262
7. A Slingbox is designed to ____________________ multimedia content—that is, to allow viewers to
view content of their choosing at a more convenient location.
ANS: placeshift
PTS: 1 REF: 262
8. Workgroup computing is also referred to as _________ computing.
ANS: collaborative
PTS: 1 REF: 264
9. ____________________ is a form of robot-assisted surgery, in which a robot controlled by a physician
operates on the patient.
ANS: Telesurgery
PTS: 1 REF: 264
10. The physical ____________________ of a computer network indicates how the devices in the network
are arranged.
ANS: topology
PTS: 1 REF: 266
11. With a(n) ____________________ topology, each device on the network has a connection to every
other device on the network.
ANS: full mesh
PTS: 1 REF: 267

12. A(n) ____________________ is a network that covers a large geographical area.
ANS:
WAN
wide area network
wide area network (WAN)
WAN (wide area network)
PTS: 1 REF: 269
13. A(n) ____________________ is a private network, such as a company LAN, that is set up by an
organization for use by its employees
ANS: intranet
PTS: 1 REF: 269
14. ____________________ are set up like the Internet, with data posted on Web pages that are accessed
with a Web browser.
ANS: Intranets
PTS: 1 REF: 269
15. A company network that is accessible to authorized outsiders is called a(n) ____________________.
ANS: extranet
PTS: 1 REF: 270
16. In ____________________ transmission, data is sent when it is ready to be sent, without being
synchronized.
ANS: asynchronous
PTS: 1 REF: 271
17. ____________________ cabling can be used with both analog and digital data transmission and is
commonly used for LANs.
ANS: Twisted-pair
PTS: 1 REF: 273
18. ____________________ cable is the newest and fastest wired transmission medium.
ANS: Fiber-optic
PTS: 1 REF: 274
19. Backed by seven major electronics companies, ____________________ is designed to transfer
full-quality uncompressed high-definition audio, video, and data within a single room at speeds up to
25 Gbps.

ANS:
WiHD
wirelessHD
wirelessHD (WiHD)
WiHD (wirelessHD)
PTS: 1 REF: 286
20. The accompanying figure shows a(n) ____________________.
ANS:
cable modem
USB/Ethernet cable modem
PTS: 1 REF: 288
ESSAY
1. List some common uses for computer networks.
ANS:
Sharing an Internet connection among several users.
Sharing application software, printers, and other resources.
Facilitating Voice over IP (VoIP), e-mail, videoconferencing, IM, and other communications
applications.
Working collaboratively, such as sharing a company database or using collaboration tools to create or
review documents.
Exchanging files among network users and over the Internet.
Connecting the computers and the entertainment devices (such as TVs, gaming consoles, and stereo
systems) located within a home.
PTS: 1 REF: 257 TOP: Critical Thinking
2. Define and discuss the advantages of telecommuting.
ANS:

The increased availability of videoconferencing, collaborative computing, and other tools (such as the
Internet, e-mail, and mobile phones) that can allow an individual to work from a remote location, has
made telecommuting a viable option for many individuals. With telecommuting, individuals work at a
remote location (typically their homes) and communicate with their places of business and clients via
networking technologies. Telecommuting allows the employee to be flexible, such as working
nontraditional hours or remaining with the company after relocation. It also enables a company to save
on office and parking space as well as office-related expenses, such as utilities. As an environmental
plus, telecommuting helps cut down on the traffic and pollution caused by traditional work
commuting. In addition, it gives a business the possibility to continue operations during situations that
may affect an employee’s ability to get to the office, such as during hurricanes, during a bridge or
highway closure, or during a flu outbreak.
3. Describe the star network topology.
ANS:
Star network topology is used in traditional mainframe environments, as well as in small office, home,
and wireless networks. All the networked devices connect to a central device (such as a server or a
switch) through which all network transmissions are sent. If the central device fails, then the network
cannot function.
4. What is a virtual private network (VPN)?
ANS:
A virtual private network (VPN) is a private, secure path across a public network (usually the Internet)
that is set up to allow authorized users private, secure access to the company network. For instance, a
VPN could allow a traveling employee, business partner, or employee located at a satellite office to
connect securely to the company network via the Internet. A process called tunneling is used to carry
the data over the Internet; special encryption technology is used to protect the data, so it cannot be
understood if it is intercepted during transit. Essentially, VPNs allow an organization to provide
secure, remote access to the company network without the cost of physically extending the private
network.
5. Describe the TransferJet wireless standard.
ANS:
TransferJet is a new wireless standard designed for very fast transfers (maximum speed of 560 Mbps)
between devices that are extremely close together (essentially touching each other). Developed by
Sony, TransferJet is designed to quickly transfer large files (such as digital photos, music, and video)
between devices as soon as they come in contact with each other, such as to transfer data between
mobile phones or between digital cameras, to download music or video from a consumer kiosk or
digital signage system to a mobile phone or other mobile device, or to transfer images or video from a
digital camera to a TV set or printer.

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Christianity. It was more probably due to Nero’s frenzied desire to
give a unique burial to so unique a goddess, as the Senate declared
her to be. It is unthinkable that Nero should make such a concession
to Christian ideas, even if she had shared them in any measure, and
her life does not dispose us to claim that honour for her. The legend
has no foundation in history, and the early Church may easily be
relieved of the stain of having counted Poppæa among its adherents.
It is not our place to pursue the insanity of the Emperor through
all the forms it assumed after the death of Poppæa, but he took a
third wife, whom Mr. Baring-Gould seems to have overlooked, and
we must briefly relate the story of her experience. Immediately after
the death of Poppæa Nero took a consort whom the pen almost
shrinks from describing. It seemed to him that he discovered a
resemblance to his beloved Poppæa in one of his freedmen, Sporus.
The man was entrusted to the surgeons for a loathsome operation,
and then solemnly married to the Emperor. Dressed in the Empress’s
robes and jewels, he travelled in Nero’s litter, and was publicly kissed
and caressed by him.
This abominable comedy soon lost its interest, and Nero decided
to marry Octavia’s sister, Antonia. Recollecting the recent fate of her
sister, she boldly refused, and she was put to death on a charge of
aspiring to the throne. Nero then chose Statilia Messalina, the
granddaughter of a distinguished and wealthy Senator who had
been driven to take his own life under Agrippina. The last part of the
“Annals” of Tacitus, which would cover this date, is missing, and if
we are to believe the less reputable chroniclers, Messalina had
already been familiar with Nero, and had married, as her third
husband, one of his close companions in debauch, Atticus Vestinus.
She is described as beautiful, witty, wealthy, and lax; but the
description is applied to so large a proportion of the ladies of the
time that it gives little aid to the imagination. From some later
details we shall conclude that she had more culture, and probably
more character, than most of the courtly ladies of Nero’s time. One is
disposed to think that she married Nero on the maxim, literally
interpreted, that it is better to be married than burned. Her husband

was one night entertaining his friends when soldiers from the palace
entered the room. They took him to his bath, opened his veins, and
let him bleed to death; and Statilia Messalina became the tenth
Empress of Rome.
POPPÆA
BUST IN THE CAPITOLINE MUSEUM, ROME

There is every reason to believe that she shrank, with prudence,
from the executions and entertainments which again proceeded with
ghastly alternation. Her five predecessors had been murdered; the
preceding lady of Nero’s choice had been murdered; and she had
herself been divorced by murder. Messalina seems to have
concentrated her resources upon remaining alive, until a last and
most just murder should release her from her odious connexion.
Men were wearying even of Nero’s ridiculous performances, and
were stung by his cruelty. He put soldiers amongst his audience, to
note the absent and detect the scoffer, so that his festivals became
an affliction. Men were driven to the subterfuge of shamming death,
and being borne out by their slaves, to avoid the exacting part of
admiring spectators. Nero swore that he would exterminate the
whole senatorial order; it is the most honourable mention we find of
them in the chronicles for many decades. To their relief he now
announced that he would proceed with his Greek tour. The silver-
shod mules and the gay regiment of the Augustans were set in
motion, Nero’s hair was permitted to attain an artistic length and
negligence, and the comedy was transferred for a time to the land of
Aristophanes. How he won every prize for which he competed, how
he plundered the temples and the mansions of the Greeks, how his
retinue passed like a flight of locusts over the helpless province,
must be read elsewhere. After some eighteen months he was
recalled to Italy by grave tidings.
It has been impossible to refrain from speaking in accents of
disdain of the way in which Rome had silently witnessed, or joyously
acclaimed, the successive follies of Nero, but, as I have previously
noticed, it was in a peculiarly difficult situation. The Prætorian
Guards were an army of twenty thousand disciplined soldiers, and
were paid for personal service to the ruling house, and blind to any
other interest than their own. They kept an irresistible check upon
every impulse to rebel. That there were such impulses, and probably
some attempt to seduce the Guards, the unfailing stream of blood at
Rome justifies us in believing. The hope of the Empire was in the
more sober and more industrious provinces, and it was here that the

revolt began. The leader of the troops in Gaul, Vindex, entered into
correspondence with the troops in Spain. The Spanish commander,
Servius Sulpicius Galba, was a Roman of illustrious family, venerable
age, and stern character. Nero had heard that the purple had been
offered to Galba, and that the legions of Gaul and Spain were
preparing to advance on Italy.
On his return to Italy, however, Nero hears that the German
legions are advancing against those of Gaul, and that Galba is
hesitating. He gaily resumes his follies, and is deaf to political
exhortations. At last a manifesto is put into his hands, in which
Vindex refers to him as a “miserable player,” and the insult to his art
cuts deeply. He writes to the Senate to demand redress, and sets
out for Rome. Nothing in the whole of his extraordinary career is so
tragi-comic as this penultimate scene. Clothed in a mantle of purple
embroidered with gold stars, wearing the Olympian chaplet on his
head, he enters Rome as the god of art. Servants bear before him
the 1,800 crowns or chaplets he has won in Greece; the five
thousand Augustans march behind his chariot. A sacrifice is made to
Apollo, and the games resume their familiar course. Then Nero is
told that, though Vindex has committed suicide, the German and
other legions have joined Galba, and the fire of revolt is spreading
round the Empire. He announces that he will advance on Gaul. The
ladies of his harem, who form a fair regiment, have their hair cut
short, and, with toy shields and other theatrical properties,
masquerade as Amazons.
The last scene is brief and inevitable. Galba is marching on
Rome, the Prætorian guards have been won for him, the nobles find
it safe to desert Nero. The nerveless brute whimpers and weeps in
his helplessness. He will fly to Alexandria, and earn his living as a
musician. The great “golden house” is silent and deserted. Rome is
openly deriding him. His servants have fled; one has even stolen the
box in which he kept poison for such an emergency. The faithful
Acte, Sporus, and a very few of those who fed on his folly, remain
with him. Messalina has deserted him, and will appear later as the
friend of one of his successors.

In the great silent house, with its walls of gold and its ceilings of
ivory, he puts off the purple robes and clothes himself in an old shirt
and a ragged cloak. On a miserable horse he rides with them across
the vast deserted park, and makes for the house of one of his
dependents, a few miles from Rome. There they admit him by a hole
they have made in the wall, give him black bread and water, and
cover him with a blanket. They discuss the situation, and conclude
by offering him a dagger. He shrinks, like Julia, like Messalina, from
the horrible darkness, and vainly strains his eyes for a ray of hope.
At last they hear the clatter of cavalry on the road, and Nero feebly
points the dagger at his breast, for a servant to drive home. And
when the customary cremation is over, there are none but Acte and
a faithful old nurse to lay the degraded ashes in the tomb.
So the tenth Empress of Rome laid down her brief dignity.
Statilia Messalina had had little reason to follow Nero in his
humiliation. Whether the charge of laxity that is brought against her
be true or no, she was a woman of exceptional intelligence and
culture, and had probably only married Nero out of fear. We meet
her again, at a later stage, in the chronicles. After Galba’s short hour
of supremacy we shall find an equally short reign of Salvius Otho,
the man who once pillaged taverns with Nero in the Subura.
Provincial government had sobered him, and he wrote affectionate
letters to Messalina. He would, no doubt, have made her Empress
once more if he had lived, but the throne was wrested from him,
and Messalina retired to the calmer world of letters and rhetoric. Our
last glimpse of her discovers her delivering orations of great
eloquence and learning among the intellectual ladies of Rome.

T
CHAPTER VII
THE EMPRESSES OF THE TRANSITION
HE house of Cæsar had perished with Nero, and few sober folk
can have regretted that it had no living representative to win
the fancy of the frivolous people or the blind cupidity of the
Guards. There must have been men living in Rome who had
witnessed the whole of that appalling degradation, so swift it had
been. The Cæsars had sunk in little over forty years from the
sobriety of Octavian to the insanity of Nero; their consorts had fallen
from the strong standard of Livia to the insipidity of Poppæa; the
resources of the Empire had been squandered in spectacles that had
left its people nerveless and debauched; the old Roman ideal of
character had been almost obliterated in the Imperial city. It was our
concern to see what part the Empresses played in this lamentable
history of four decades. It is, on the whole, one that their biographer
must blush to acknowledge. We must remember, however, that
corrupt rulers would necessarily choose weak or corrupt wives, and
we cannot affect surprise or disappointment when we find them
floating in the swift current.
We have now to open a new and more attractive gallery of
Imperial portraits, to pass in review the wives of those great
Emperors who restored the high character of Rome and
strengthened anew the fabric of the Empire. A very brief summary of
events will suffice to link the Cæsars with the Antonines, and
introduce to us one or two curious types of Empresses who dimly
figure in the transition.

For a year after the fall of Statilia Messalina the throne of the
Empress was vacant, and that of the Emperor had three successive
occupants. Galba was a widower at the time of his elevation to the
throne. We saw in an earlier chapter that Agrippina had wished to
marry him twenty-six years earlier, and he had refused. His wife,
Lepida, was a delicate woman, of high character, and he refused to
divorce her. She had an energetic champion in her mother, who
fought Agrippina sturdily and, if the story be true, laid fair patrician
hands on her. But Lepida died long before her husband was made
Emperor, and he refused to marry again. His reign was brief.
Tradition has blamed him for an excessive sternness and parsimony.
They were not inopportune vices, but Rome had been too long
habituated to indulgence, and Galba was too confident. The
discontent at Rome was inflamed by the news of the revolt in the
provinces, and within a few weeks the Guards, to whom he had
refused the customary donation, set up a new Emperor, and put
Galba to death.
The new ruler was no other than the first husband of Poppæa,
the companion of Nero’s revels, Salvius Otho. Rome acclaimed the
choice, and expected that the circus and theatre were about to
reopen their doors. But Otho, who had matured during his years of
office in Spain, turned from them in disgust. He did, it is true,
restore the statues of Poppæa, and contemplated restoring the
discarded statues of Nero, but the alienation of Roman feeling from
him is a proof that he intended to rule with sobriety. The same spirit
is seen in the fact that he corresponded affectionately with Statilia
Messalina, and apparently thought of marrying her. But the legions
in the provinces almost immediately rebelled against him, and, in the
midst of the struggle, he committed suicide.
There had been no Empress of Rome for twelve months. With
the death of Otho, and the accession of Vitellius, we come to the
eleventh Empress, Galeria Fundana, a very new and incongruous
type in the series of Imperial women.

The name of Vitellius is already familiar to us. His father was the
fulsome courtier who had inspired Caligula with the idea that he was
a god, and who had worn one of Messalina’s little silk shoes under
his tunic. His wife, Sextilia, was a woman of strict morality and
unambitious temper, but their son, the younger Vitellius, lived in too
tainted an atmosphere to prefer the plainness of his mother to the
craft and greed of his father. He had learned vice in the band of
young men who brought so evil a fame on Tiberius’s villa at Capri,
and had made his way astutely through the successive reigns of
Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. He had made a considerable fortune as
proconsul of Africa, and had, on his return to Rome, married
Petronia, the daughter of a wealthy consul. She settled her large
fortune on her son, and when Vitellius, having consumed his own
wealth in luxury and riot, went on to sacrifice his son for the purpose
of securing the fortune held in his name, Petronia angrily
remonstrated, and was divorced.
He then married Galeria Fundana. She was, says Tacitus, “a
pattern of virtue,” and since this defect—as Vitellius would find it—
was united with plainness of person, modesty of taste, and dull, if
not defective, conversation, the match was a singularly unhappy
one. Vitellius had so far squandered his money that he was unable
to pay his expenses to Lower Germany when Galba gave him the
command of the troops there. How he obtained that important
appointment is not clear. Some say that Galba selected him because
he was not ambitious; others that he secured it through the
influence of the “blue” faction at the Circus, of which he was a
partisan. He mortgaged his house, and Sextilia sold her jewels, to
obtain funds for the journey. Fundana and her child were left in a
poor tenement at Rome, little dreaming that they would be
summoned from it to Nero’s “golden house” in a few weeks.
It is expressly recorded that Sextilia and Fundana had no
ambition, and dreaded lest Vitellius should aspire to reach the dizzy
heights which some early prophet had promised him. They were,
therefore, dismayed to hear, shortly after his arrival on the Rhine,
that the troops were offering to secure the throne for him. His genial

and indulgent treatment of the soldiers was a betrayal of his trust to
the stern Galba, and may have been deliberately effected to win
their support. He became very popular, and was hailed as a second
“Germanicus.” Galba was presently murdered, and, as the German
legions had had no part in the choice of Otho, they urged Vitellius to
lead them against him. Vitellius wavered for a time between the safe
and considerable means of self-indulgence, which he had as
commander, and the uncertain, but immeasurably greater, prospect
which the throne suggested to his sensual dreams. The officers
conquered his hesitation, and he set out for Rome in the rear of the
eight legions who had declared for him.
Sextilia and Fundana seemed to be in peril when the news came
to Rome that Vitellius was marching upon the city. It is said that
Vitellius threatened reprisals if his family were injured, but there is
no indication that Otho would stoop to take a revenge on women
and children. They saw him march out at the head of his troops to
give battle to Vitellius, and waited anxiously, with all Rome, to hear
the issue of the civil war. And while Senate and people were
enjoying the mummery of the theatre, a horseman rode in with the
news that Otho had taken his own life, and Vitellius was leading his
German troops upon Rome. Senate and people united at once to
receive him, and sent him the title of Augustus. He politely declined
it for the time, and continued his leisurely march upon the city.
There had been many a triumphant march over the roads of Italy in
the annals of Rome, but never one so singular as that of the new
monarch. “The roads from sea to sea groaned with the burden of his
luxuries,” says Tacitus; and, if we distrust Tacitus, as an admirer of
Vitellius’s rival and successor, all the Roman writers agree that his
first use of supreme power was to command a stupendous
ministration to his sensual appetites. He ordered his legions to move
slowly southward, while he, in their train, exhausted each successive
region of its delicacies, and filled the days and nights with his
princely feasting. His example encouraged his wild German troops,
and their line of march could be traced across Gaul and Italy by their
pillage, cruelty, and debauchery.

The repeated messages from the provinces filled Rome with
laughter, in spite of its anxiety. People remembered this princely
epicure sheltering, a few months before, in the poorer quarter of the
town and evading the duns. The modest and virtuous Sextilia and
Fundana shrank in pain from the hollow flattery which was paid
them, and followed the march of the Emperor with disgust. He was
approaching Rome at the head of sixty thousand men. Legions of
tall, fierce, fur-clad Germans, with heavy javelins, were thundering
along the Italian roads and terrifying the peasantry. In their rear was
a vast army of slaves, cooks, comedians, charioteers, and other
ministers to the Imperial appetite. He had sent for the whole of
Nero’s servants and appointments. It was said that he even intended
to outrage one of the most sacred traditions of the city by entering it
in full armour, at the head of an army with drawn swords; but the
friends who met him at the Milvian Bridge persuaded him to change
his costume, and sheathe the swords of his soldiers. He entered, in
civil toga, at the head of the terrible Germans, his officers clad in
white as they bore the eagles. After visiting the Capitol, and
addressing the Senate in terms of pleasant submissiveness to that
body and of somewhat nauseating praise of himself, he settled in
Nero’s magnificent palace with Fundana and her child. His troops,
debauched with the license of their march, scattered in disorder
through the city; and Rome resigned itself to the inauspicious rule of
its eighth Emperor.
We may dismiss the nine months in which Galeria Fundana was
Empress of Rome in a phrase: she was a helpless and disgusted
spectator of the most imperial debauch that Rome had yet
witnessed. Dio strangely accuses her of haughtily complaining of the
poverty of the robes she found in Nero’s golden house, but the
testimony to her modesty is too strong for us to admit this. A more
credible statement in the chroniclers is that she begged to be
allowed to retire to a humble dwelling of her own, and Vitellius
refused. His mother did not long survive her mortification. One
rumour preserved in Suetonius is that Vitellius had her starved to
death, as it was predicted that she would outlive him; another

version says that he sent her poison, at her own request. Fundana
was left alone to bewail his colossal gluttony. She saw his chief
officers encourage him in his stupefying orgies, while they enriched
themselves; and she had to submit in silence while his sister-in-law,
Triaria, “a woman of masculine fierceness,” goaded him to continued
excesses. During the few months of his reign he spent 900,000,000
sesterces (about £7,000,000) in eating, drinking, and entertainment.
He had three meals during the day, and ended with a costly and
drunken supper. His brother one day entertained him at a banquet,
at which two thousand choice fishes and seven thousand rare birds
were served. Vitellius in return gave a banquet, at which one dish—a
compound of the livers of pheasants, the tongues of flamingoes, the
brains of peacocks, the entrails of lampreys, and the roes of mullets
—cost more than the whole of his brother’s dinner.
From this loathsome and stupid dream of Imperial power
Vitellius was at length awakened by the echoes of rebellion in the
provinces. After a few futile executions, and several relapses into his
besetting gluttony, he was forced to set out for the north. He quickly
returned, however, and wandered about Rome in hysterical
impotence, while the followers of Vespasian closed upon the city.
Civil war had broken out, and the Romans gazed with horror on the
sacred Capitol besieged by the German troops and bursting into
flames. At last Vitellius came out with Fundana and her child, in
mourning dress, and announced that he would resign. The consul
refused his sword, and the mournful procession directed its steps
towards his brother’s house. He was persuaded to return to the
palace, but the Vespasianists captured Rome, and he was taken to
Fundana’s house on the Aventine. From this he somehow wandered
back to the palace. “The awful silence terrified him; he tried the
closed doors, and shuddered at the empty chambers,” says Tacitus.
Dazed and incapable of flight, he hid in the sordid room where the
dogs were kept. Here the soldiers found him, torn and bleeding, and
forced him to walk the streets, while they kept his head erect with
the point of a sword, and the people flung filth and epithets at him.

They then inflicted on him a slow and painful death, and flung his
remains in the Tiber.
Fundana was spared, and her daughter honourably given in
marriage, by his magnanimous successor. From the brief and
unwelcome splendour of the “golden house” she passed into private
life, and lived only to bemoan the cruel fate that had lifted her
husband to the intoxicating height of the Roman throne.
There was no Empress in the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, but
a word may be said of the two remarkable women who shared their
power to some extent. Vespasian, whose sober and solid
administration it would be pleasant to contrast with the orgiastic
reigns of his predecessors, was a rough soldier, of humble extraction
and homely ways. He had, in the time of Caligula, married the
mistress of a knight, Flavia Domitilla, who remains little more than a
name in the chronicles. He had won distinction under Narcissus, but
the triumph of Agrippina drove him and Domitilla into exile. Nero
employed him to crush the rebellion in Judæa, and it was during this
campaign that his wife died, leaving him with her two sons—his
successors—Titus and Domitian. He was, therefore, a widower when
the Eastern troops made him Emperor, but he took into his palace,
and treated as Empress, an emancipated slave of the name of
Cænis.
The mistress of Vespasian has the distinction of being associated
—actively and usefully associated—with him in one of the soundest
attempts to restore the decaying Empire. She had been in the
service of Antonia, the grandmother of Agrippina, and is said to have
been the one who first disclosed to Tiberius the perfidy of Sejanus.
From the first she was a dangerous rival of Domitilla, and, when his
wife died, Vespasian entered into the quasi-matrimonial relation with
her which is known in Roman law as contubernium. She would
probably have been Empress if the law had permitted him to
contract a solemn marriage with her. She had considerable ability,
but an unhappy reputation for extortion and the sale of offices. It is
not clear, however, that the wealth she obtained did not contribute

to Vespasian’s rehabilitation of the resources of the Empire. They
abandoned and destroyed the golden house of Nero, the central site
of which is now marked by the Flavian Amphitheatre, or Coliseum.
In their quiet gardens in the Quirinal they received any citizen who
cared to visit them, and maintained no timorous hedge of soldiers
between themselves and their people. They wished to see money
spent on public purposes, or hoarded for public emergencies, rather
than squandered. “My hand is the base of the statue: give me the
money,” Cænis is said to have told a wealthy man who proposed to
raise a statue to her; but Dio informs us that this and other stories
of Cænis’s avarice properly belong to Vespasian. She died, however
—if the date assigned in Dio is correct—in the second year of
Vespasian’s reign, and must not be credited with too large a share in
that great purification of Rome and reinvigoration of its life with
healthy provincial blood which Tacitus regards as the beginning of
the recovery of the Empire.
Titus, who succeeded his father in the year 79, and reigned for
two years, threatened at one time to give Rome an even more
singular and unwelcome type of Empress. He had in early youth
married Arricidia Tertulla, who died soon afterwards, and then
Marcia Furnilla, a lady of illustrious family. He left his wife in Rome
when he took command under his father in Judæa, and became
infatuated with a brilliant princess of the Herod family, Berenice. He
divorced Furnilla, and brought Berenice to live with him at Rome. But
the Romans resented the prospect of a Jewish Empress, and she
was forced to return. On his accession to the throne he made no
attempt to enforce her on them. He reigned alone for two years,
“the love and delight of the human race,” and maintained the sober
administration of his father.
With the accession of his younger brother, Domitian, Rome
received a new Empress, and, by an unhappy coincidence, saw the
imperial palace return to the evil ways of the Cæsars. Those of our
time who attach almost the entire importance to stock or birth, and
little to circumstances, in the formation of character, will find a
peculiar problem in Domitian and his wife. The Emperor was the

second son of the “plain Sabine burgher” and sturdy soldier,
Vespasian, and of the lowly provincial woman, Flavia Domitilla. The
Empress, Domitia Longina, was the daughter of Domitius Corbulo,
one of the strongest and ablest generals that Rome produced in the
first century. Yet of these sound and vigorous stocks came, in one
generation, one of the most morbid of the Emperors and an Empress
who, in some respects, rivalled Messalina. Rome knew them both,
and had no false hope.
Domitia—as she is usually called—makes her first appearance as
a young girl of great beauty and promise, caressed and protected by
the wealth and prestige of her distinguished father, who, it is
interesting to note, was a brother of Caligula’s masculine wife
Cæsonia. She was married to a noble of distinction and character,
Lucius Ælius Lamia Æmilianus, and she seems to have been an
estimable young matron until her father incurred the anger of Nero
and was forced to commit suicide. Procopius and Josephus, indeed,
represent her as virtuous to the end, but there seems to be little
room for doubt that the nearer and less indulgent authorities are
correct. Her young mind opened on the sordid scenes of the closing
part of Nero’s reign and the folly of Vitellius. She then met the
fascinating and effeminate Domitian, and very speedily capitulated
to his assaults.

DOMITIA
BUST IN UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE
Gibbon speaks of him as “the timid and inhuman Domitian,”
while Dio opens his biographical sketch of the Emperor with the
deliberate epithet, “bold and wrathful.” We shall find a very natural
dread of assassination in Domitian’s later years, but he was
undoubtedly bold and crafty in the service of Venus, and a stranger
to moral sentiment. His elder brother Titus had developed the manly

qualities of their father on the battlefields of Judæa, and had proved
strong enough to crush his irregular feelings on his accession to the
throne. Domitian had remained at Rome, discharging only civic
duties, and had become one of the most heartless dandies in the
group of degenerate young patricians. During the civil strife of the
Vitellianists and Vespasianists on the streets of Rome he had made
his escape in the fitting disguise of a priest of Isis. Titus knew his
vicious and luxurious ways, and endeavoured to check him by
offering him his own charming daughter Julia in marriage; but
Domitian was engaged in fascinating the pretty and accomplished
wife of Lamia Æmilianus, and refused. Titus, on his accession,
associated him in the government, and his first act was to separate
his mistress from her husband, and marry her.
Domitia’s triumph was quickly tempered with mortification. Julia
married her cousin Sabinus, and, out of pique or devilry, Domitian
now discovered her charm and seduced her. To such a pair as these
the attainment of supreme power meant an occasion of Imperial
license, and sober Romans saw their community rapidly lose the
ground that had been won in the previous reigns. It was even
rumoured that Domitian had hastened his brother’s death by putting
him in a box of snow during his last illness, though this remains no
more than an idle rumour. At all events, Domitia soon discovered the
despicable character for whom—or for whose prospects—she had
abandoned her saner husband. While the affairs of the Empire
needed his most strenuous attention, he would spend hours catching
flies and spitting them with a bodkin; and from the spitting of flies
he presently passed to the larger sport of murdering men. He
conducted his little frontier-wars from safe and luxurious quarters,
and came home to enjoy a triumph and erect a colossal bronze
memorial of his valour. He banished eunuchs from Rome, and kept
them in his palace; waged war against vice in all forms, and
practised it in all forms. In the general relaxation of Roman manners
even the Vestal Virgins had been for some decades permitted an
alleviation of their onerous vows. Domitian posed as a moralist, on
no other apparent ground than that he was closely acquainted with

every shade of immorality, and drastically punished them. He raised
fine public buildings, and depleted the public treasury by reckless
expenditure and incompetent administration; prosecuted officials for
extortion, and put men to death for their wealth; gave brilliant
entertainments, and darkened the city and the Empire with his
sanguinary brooding.
If we were to accept Josephus’s estimate of the virtue of
Domitia, we should conceive her as living in melancholy isolation in
the gloomy palace, an outraged spectator of her husband’s relations
with Julia. But there is good evidence that she sought relief with
something of the freedom of a Messalina. An authentic occurrence in
the third year of Domitian’s reign puts her guilt beyond question. He
had the actor Paris murdered in the street, and divorced Domitia.
The people boldly sympathized with her, and covered with flowers
the spot on which Paris had been killed. The Emperor had a number
of them executed, but public feeling seems to have been expressed
so strongly that he was forced to recall Domitia to the palace, and
the sordid comedy ran on amid the jeers of Rome. A poet was put to
death for making it the theme of his verse; Domitia’s former
husband and others were executed for their freedom of speech.
Then the beautiful and captivating Julia perished miserably in an
attempt of Domitian’s to destroy the too obvious proof of their
incest, and he became more sombre than ever.
This is not the place to tell the long and dreary story of the reign
of Domitian, of which, for twelve further years, the Empress remains
an inconspicuous, and perhaps a sobered, spectator. For a few years
he maintained his singular and obscure mixture of good and evil, but
the brighter features of his administration gradually faded, and a
horrible gloom settled on the palace and the city. Hosts of spies and
informers sprang up; large numbers of nobles, of both sexes, were
executed or banished, on the slightest suspicion, and their wealth
divided between the informers and the Emperor’s shrinking treasury.
So great was his dread of assassination that he lined the portico at
the palace, in which he used to walk, with white glazed tiles that
would reflect the approach of any person behind him. But an

extraordinary incident that Dio relates will suffice to give some idea
of the reign of terror under which the Empress and all Rome
suffered.
A number of the leading citizens of Rome were summoned to a
banquet at the palace at a late hour of the night. They were frozen
with horror when they found that the entire dining-room—walls,
ceiling, and floor—was draped in black, and a miniature tombstone,
with his name engraved on it, was placed opposite each guest. As
they gazed, a number of nude boys, whose bodies were washed
with ink, burst into the room and danced amongst them, and then
the dishes of a funeral banquet were served. The guests sat silent
and shivering; the Emperor grimly discoursed to them of deaths and
executions. When the banquet was over, they were relieved to find
themselves dismissed. They found, however, that their litters had
been sent away, and they were put into strange vehicles, with
strange servants. The gloomy journey ended at their own houses,
and they were beginning to breathe, when they were thrown into
fresh alarm by the news that a messenger had come from the
palace. The messenger to each guest was one of the dancing boys,
now cleaned, perfumed, and clothed with flowers, bearing the gold
and silver vessels which the guest had used at the banquet. The
boys and the dishes were presented to them with the Emperor’s
greeting.
Unhappily, Domitian did not confine himself to intimidation. The
heads of the wealthier nobles fell in quick succession, and, in great
secrecy, amid an army of spies, the Empress and a few others came
to an understanding. The story of the actual fall of the tyrant has
clearly been embroidered with a good deal of unauthentic detail in
popular gossip, but even in its most sober version it does not lack
romance.
The version which Dio assures us he “had heard” is one that the
conscientious historian must hesitate to accept. The Emperor, he
says, had been informed of the conspiracy, and had drawn up a list
of those who were to be executed for taking part in it. He put the list

under his pillow, with the sword which he always kept there, and
went to sleep. We have previously seen something of the bejewelled
boys who used to run with great freedom about the palaces of the
Romans of the first century. Domitian, the great censor of other
people’s vices, had a number of them, and the legend is that one of
them, playing in his bedroom, noticed the parchment under his
pillow, and took it out into the palace. Domitia met the boy, and idly
glanced at the parchment. She saw her own name at the head of
the list of the condemned, and at once summoned the other
conspirators. They entered the Emperor’s room, snatched the sword
from under his pillow, and despatched him.
Pretty as the story is, we must prefer the more prosaic account
given us by Suetonius, who lived in the next generation. Domitia felt
that the Emperor had at last conceived a design on her life, and she
sent her steward to despatch him. He offered Domitian a fictitious
report of a plot, and stabbed him while he read it. Other servants
rushed in at the signal, and completed the assassination. It is the
one action that historians have recorded to the honour of the twelfth
Empress of Rome, and we leave her company with little regret. She
was an ordinary woman of the patrician world at the time—fair, frail,
accomplished, and luxurious. With the death of her husband she
merges in the indistinguishable crowd of selfish and wayward ladies
on whom Juvenal was then beginning to pour his exaggerated
rhetoric.
It remains to describe very briefly how the sceptre passes into
the nobler hands of the Stoic Emperors and their wives. The throne
was offered to, and accepted by, M. Cocceius Nerva, an aged noble
of known moderation and long public service. He at once removed
all traces of the hateful reign of his predecessor, and entered upon a
sober and useful administration of the Empire. He was in the later
sixties of his age, and we find no mention of a wife. But the task of
enforcing sobriety on so corrupted a population was too great for his
age and moderate ability. A conspiracy against him was discovered.
He disarmed the conspirators by inviting them to sit by him in the
theatre, and even putting a sword in their hands and asking them

what they thought of its keenness; but he saw that a stronger man
was needed, and he chose as his colleague Marcus Ulpius Nerva
Trajanus, a Spaniard of great military ability and commanding
personality, who was then at the head of the troops in Germany.
Nerva died soon afterwards, and, with the accession of Trajan, we
come to the thirteenth Empress of Rome and the commencement of
a new and more splendid chapter in the story of the Empire.

“I
CHAPTER VIII
PLOTINA
F,” says Gibbon, “a man were called to fix the period in the
history of the world, during which the condition of the
human race was most happy and prosperous, he would,
without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of
Domitian to the accession of Commodus”; and he observes of
Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius that “their united reigns are
possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great
people was the sole object of government.”
This monumental eulogy of the period which we now approach—
a eulogy which the more penetrating study of Renan and the more
recent research of M. Boissier and Dr. Dill have not materially
lessened—will suffice to warn the inexpert reader against the ancient
and popular legend that Rome continued to sink under the burden of
its vices until it tottered into the tomb of outworn nations. Under the
Empresses whom we have now to consider there was a great
improvement of character and recovery of vigour in the Roman
Empire, but before we pass to that brighter phase I would enter a
brief protest against the general exaggeration of the darkness of the
period we have traversed. Even under its worst rulers Rome was far
from being wholly corrupt. The vices of a Messalina, the crimes of an
Agrippina, and the follies of a Poppæa, stand out so prominently in
that period only because they were perpetrated on the height of the
throne. Even they were hardly worse than the crimes and follies of
the wives or mistresses of kings in many a less censured period of

history; and, if you care to count them, the lilies were as numerous
as the poppies in this first series of Empresses, but the lilies drooped
earlier, and have been less noticed. Whenever, in the course of our
story, the light has passed from the throne to the less elevated
crowd, we have found fine character mingled with the corrupt even
in the darkest years of the early Empire. The heads that fell before
the Imperial monsters were as many as the heads that bowed.
The truth is that, if we are not misled by the hasty
generalizations and plebeian diatribes which Juvenal, in his “Satires,”
founds upon the dubious bits of gossip that he picked up on the
fringe of Roman society, and against which historians now warn us,
there was much the same diversity of conduct in the early Empire as
in most of the corresponding periods of luxury. The wealthier women
of Rome assuredly fell far short of the cloistered virtue of the maid
and the matron of Greece; but Greece had only succeeded in
maintaining that standard of domestic virtue in its wives and
daughters by cultivating a high caste of courtesans for their roaming
husbands. It may be admitted, too, that the Roman woman was
morally inferior to the wife of the Egyptian noble, and to the wife of
the noble or the wealthy merchant of Babylonia. But the patrician
women, even of Cæsarean Rome, will compare with the women of
most of the later civilizations at the same stage of development; at
the stage, that is to say, when the nation relaxes from the strain of
empire-making, and its veins are flushed with the wealth of its
conquests. I would instance the women of the early Teutonic nations
as soon as they settle on southern Europe; the women of Italy in the
early Middle Ages; the women of England under the Stuarts and,
after a later expansion, under the Georges; the women of France
under Louis XIII and Louis XIV; the women of Russia in the
nineteenth century. At Rome, in spite of the positive insistence on
vice of Caligula, Messalina, and Nero, in spite of their determined
effort to weed out the good, we have found virtue and courage
springing up afresh in each generation.
We now come to a period when, three centuries before the fall
of Rome, the Empire is purged of its exceptional corruption, and

character assumes the normal diversity that it has in any old and
wealthy civilization. The city of Rome was assuredly vicious and in
decay. But the city was not the Empire, as those rhetoricians forget
who talk of its entire demoralization. Rome had been drenched with
degrading agencies for half a century; but there was a quite normal
amount of stout will and high character in the provinces, and this is
now infused more freely into the metropolis. It is only by a similar
influx of sounder blood from the provinces that any great city
survives the feverish waste of its tissue. The remedy was retarded in
Rome because the provincials, even of Italy, but especially of Gaul
and Spain, were of alien race. Rome jealously remembered that it
was the conqueror; the rest were the conquered. Under Vespasian,
however, the provincials were admitted more freely, and with the
accession of a Spaniard, Trajan, the process increased.
In the remote and primitive settlement which Agrippina had
established on the banks of the Rhine, where the towers of Cologne
Cathedral now keep watch over a splendid city, there dwelt, in the
year 97, the commander of the forces in Lower Germany, Marcus
Ulpius Trajanus, with his wife and a few female relatives. Trajan was
of a moderate Spanish family, and had, like his father, cut his own
path in the military service of the Empire. He was unambitious, but
popular. A large, handsome man, in his forty-fifth year, of singularly
graceful bearing and serene features, he charmed everybody by his
simplicity and affability of manner, and liked a good carouse and a
rough soldierly jest. His wife Plotina was a plain, honest matron of
unknown origin. It has been conjectured that she was related to
Pompeius Planta, at one time Governor of Egypt, but the only
ground for the conjecture seems to be that Planta was a friend of
Trajan’s. As she had neither beauty of person nor romantic defect of
character, the chroniclers have left her largely to our imagination;
but she was a type of woman whom it is not difficult to picture—a
woman of plain features, level judgment, and of what is
euphemistically called grave but agreeable conversation. She was by
no means brilliant, but her close friendship for Hadrian suggests that
she was not too dull and prosy, and had pretensions to culture. Her

ways were simple, and her character can be relieved of the one
imputation made against it. She compares well with Livia, but as a
higher bourgeoise compares with a grande dame. In a word, she
had none of the autumnal colour, the beauty of decay, of the
Cæsarean women, but she had the less æsthetic and more useful
quality that they lacked, conscientiousness. To the courtly Pliny
(“Panegyr.,” 83) she is the embodiment of all the virtues.
With her at Cologne was Trajan’s sister Marciana, a widow of
much the same complexion as Plotina, and Marciana’s daughter
Matidia, who in turn had two daughters, Sabina and Matidia. We can
imagine the agitation of this tranquil establishment among the
forests of Germany when a courier came from Rome with the news
that Trajan was chosen as colleague of the Emperor. They had left
Rome six years before, in the middle of Domitian’s reign. However,
they seem to have received very sedately the prospect of a removal
from the camp on the Rhine to the Imperial palace. Although Nerva
died in the following January (98), Trajan remained for the year in
Germany, completing his task of strengthening the frontier against
the northern barbarians. Then the family set out on the long journey
to the capital.
The fame of Trajan’s simplicity and geniality of manner had
preceded him, but Rome looked with surprise on an Emperor who
could wait a year before occupying the palace, enter the city on foot,
without guards, and talk so affably with any of his subjects. Nor was
Plotina long before she showed that they had received a new type of
Empress. As she ascended the steps of the palace, she turned round
and said to those below: “As I enter here to-day, I trust I shall leave
it when the time comes.” The refreshing amiability, simplicity, and
moderation of the Imperial couple captivated the Romans, and
Trajan responded to their good will with the most judicious and
untiring exertions in the public service. He trod out at once the
hideous brood of informers, checked corrupt officials, and appointed
the best men to public offices. Indifferent to the splendour and
luxury of even the modest palace of Vespasian, he spent most of his
reign in frontier-wars or in long journeys for the purpose of bracing

the relaxed frame of the Empire; and he enriched and adorned
Rome as no Emperor had done since Octavian.
That he was vigorously supported by Plotina is quite certain, and
there is evidence that she was much more than a sympathetic
witness of his labours. It is related by the Emperor Julian that Trajan
often sought the advice of Plotina, and that it was always sound. At
the beginning of his reign she had occasion to use her influence.
Trajan’s dislike of informers was carried so far that, when a case of
real extortion occurred in the provinces, the injured were prevented
from bringing it to his notice. They appealed to Plotina, and she put
the case judiciously to her husband and secured relief. In many
other ways she gave useful assistance, so that the Senate offered
the title of Augusta to her and Marciana. They declined, as Trajan
had refused the special title offered to him, but he relented, and
they followed his example.
The reign of Trajan and Plotina was thus one long episode of
strenuous and enlightened public service, but before we enter into
the particulars of their achievements it is proper to endeavour to
obtain a nearer view of their personalities. In this the chroniclers
give us little assistance, and the result cannot be very interesting. It
is ever the painful reflection of the biographer that the description of
a sober life—a life which neither sinks to the lower levels of vice nor
soars to some unaccustomed height of virtue—has little interest for
the majority of his readers; and this was the life of the Imperial
court during the twenty years of Trajan’s reign. The Emperor himself
was no paragon. Preferring the easy ways of a camp, he drank
somewhat deeply of nights, his jests were apt to be coarse, and he
was popularly accused of the vice which so generally infected the
men of the Empire. Yet he had this distinction in a long line of
Emperors, in the prime of life, that no woman ever shared, or
sullied, his affection for Plotina. Gibbon has remarked, in extenuation
of the conduct of his successor, that “of the first fifteen Emperors,
Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct.”
That would be a high compliment to Messalina, but in point of fact,
as we saw, Claudius was not entitled to that distinction. The charge

against Trajan is vague, and we must rather award the distinction to
him. Merivale somewhat harshly speaks of him as only maintaining
his self-respect because of the bluntness of his moral sense. If we
put his strong sense of public duty and his fidelity in the scale
against his one certain indulgence, in drink, we shall hardly agree to
that verdict.
The virtue of Plotina, on the other hand, has been more
seriously assailed by both ancient and recent writers. In the service
of the Emperor was a very handsome and accomplished youth
named Hadrian, an orphan, with great taste and skill in art and
letters. He had been employed by Trajan at Cologne, both in military
service and in filling up the long nights with an occasional carouse,
and, after their return to Rome, he was a great favourite of the
ladies at the palace. They formed a little circle in which letters were
discussed and literary men were patronized. There was something of
a literary revival; it was the age of Juvenal, Martial, Quinctilian, Pliny,
Suetonius, Celsus, and Dio Chrysostom. Hadrian was a brilliant
student, and he appreciated this open and easy way to distinction.
Trajan is represented as using the young man for companion, but
not regarding him as fitted for promotion, so that it fell to Plotina to
urge, and ultimately to make, the fortune of the future Emperor. The
magnificent mausoleum which Hadrian raised in memory of her long
testified to his ardent and grateful attachment.
There is a good deal of exaggeration in this conception. We shall
see that Trajan promoted Hadrian in such a way as to mark him in
the eyes of all as his successor; and his chief advisers in this were
the statesmen Sura and Attianus. In any case, there is no proof that
Plotina, who must have been twenty years older than Hadrian, felt
more than a very natural fondness for the gifted and charming
youth. Pliny mentions that her friendship for him gave rise to gossip,
but insists that she was “a most virtuous woman.” The “Augustan
History” leaves her unassailed. Suetonius has no scandal to record.
Dio alone describes their attachment as “erotic love”; but on an
earlier page Dio has expressly said that her career was stainless.
When he has described her standing at the top of the palace steps,

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