Социально-утопические идеи
и миф о «золотом веке» в древнем Риме

Часть II
РАННИЙ ПРИНЦИПАТ

с.150

CHER­NYS­HOV Ju. G.

THE SO­CIAL-UTO­PIAN IDEAS AND THE MYTH OF THE “GOL­DEN AGE” IN AN­CIENT RO­ME.

SUM­MA­RY¹

Both parts of this book are de­vo­ted main­ly to the prob­lem of the spe­ci­fic fea­tu­res of the uto­pian (or, as so­me scho­lars sug­gest, an­tiu­to­pian) men­ta­li­ty in an­cient Ro­me. Si­mul­ta­neo­us­ly с.151 the de­ve­lop­ment of the “Sa­tur­nia reg­na” po­pu­lar le­gends and their con­nec­tion with the res­pec­ti­ve de­ve­lop­ment of the so­cial-uto­pian ideas are exa­mi­ned. From the aut­hor’s point of view it is hard to ad­mit that “the Ro­mans did not know an Uto­pia”: mo­re exactly would be to say that at pre­sent Ro­man uto­pian ideas (or “Ro­man uto­pia” in a wide sen­se), un­li­ke the Greek ones, ha­ve not ex­pe­rien­ced a se­rio­us and pro­found in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

One may re­cog­ni­ze the re­la­ti­ve weak­ness of the Ro­man po­li­ti­cal Uto­pia, which spread on­ly in the se­cond half of the 2-nd cen­tu­ry B. C., when the ci­vi­tas cri­sis had be­gun. Be­fo­re this pe­riod the Ro­mans had been usual­ly sa­tis­fied by the ima­ge of the “ideal Ro­me”, be­quea­thed by their an­ces­tors. Du­ring the epoch of the ci­vil wars so­me at­tempts were ma­de “to cu­re” the Ro­man sta­te with its ideal “mi­xed con­sti­tu­tion” (de­moc­ra­cy, aris­toc­ra­cy and mo­nar­chi­cal power) by eit­her the smal­ler с.152 or big­ger strengthe­ning of the last, i. e. mo­nar­chi­cal ele­ment. In ac­cor­dan­ce with the ge­ne­ral evo­lu­tion ten­den­cies of po­li­ti­cal li­fe the­re was the great world em­pi­re which had co­me to rep­la­ce the for­mer “ideal po­lis” projects, and ideal ru­ler must be “sup­re­ma lex” in it. The ima­ge of “ideal Ro­me” af­ter the es­tab­lishment of the prin­ci­pa­te was expres­sed in the of­fi­cial pro­pa­gan­da appro­xi­ma­te­ly by the for­mu­la: “RES PUB­LI­CA RES­TI­TU­TA — PAX RO­MA­NA — RO­MA AETER­NA — AUREA SAE­CU­LA”, and the “gol­den age” was dec­la­red in ma­ny ca­ses as al­rea­dy ad­van­ced. Non-of­fi­cial in­terpre­ta­tions were mo­re va­rio­us. For example, the idea of the “OP­TI­MUS PRIN­CEPS” see­med rea­so­nab­le for tho­se, who pre­ser­ved their ho­pes on the “ter­restrial” Ro­man sta­te; and on­ly “COS­MO­PO­LIS” — the world pe­ren­nial sta­te of the gods and man­kind — did not seem sen­se­less for the “anar­chists”. In any ca­se “AUREA SAE­CU­LA” took an im­por­tant pla­ce. So, per­haps the main re­sult of the po­li­ti­cal uto­pia evo­lu­tion was the con­cep­tion of the “world sta­te”, which will bring the bles­sings of the “gol­den age” for all peop­les and at all ti­mes.

The Ro­man li­te­ra­ry uto­pia con­tains ve­ry ma­ny prai­ses of this hap­py being bles­sings, of­ten as­so­cia­ted with the li­fe of the “bar­ba­rians” or with the “simple li­fe” in any idyl­lic country li­ke Ar­ca­dia. At the sa­me ti­me a gra­dual “dep­ri­mi­ti­vi­sa­tion” and “pat­rio­ti­sa­tion” of the “Sa­tur­nia reg­na” myth de­ve­lo­ped. An ideal of “simple li­fe” was no mo­re con­nec­ted with the wild (“bes­tia­rum mo­do”) being of the first man, but as­so­cia­ted with the “mo­res majo­rum”, which were yet in ho­nour among the Ita­lian pea­sants, heirs of Sa­turn. Du­ring the prin­ci­pa­te se­mi-of­fi­cial wri­ters and poets pre­sen­ted Ro­me of the em­pe­rors as the hig­hest sta­ge of the cul­tu­ral and mi­li­ta­ry de­ve­lop­ment, gi­ving its bles­sings to all the na­tions. In non-of­fi­cial ver­sions mo­re tra­di­tio­na­lis­tic and “pri­mi­ti­vis­tic” views were expres­sed. They or­di­nar­ly pla­ced the reign of Sa­turn in the pat­riar­chal past or, ra­re­ly, in the fu­tu­re ti­mes, which must co­me af­ter the es­ha­to­lo­gi­cal ruin of the old world. In any ca­se the descrip­tions of the “gol­den age” in se­mi-of­fi­cial and in non-of­fi­cial li­te­ra­tu­re were sty­li­sed: the­se “to­poi” were of­ten used as a form for the prai­sing of the ru­ler or for the bla­ming of the con­tem­po­ra­ry mo­ral deg­ra­da­tion.

The most in­te­res­ting and im­por­tant chan­ges are to be found in the re­li­gio­us—my­tho­lo­gi­cal uto­pia. Just in the Ro­man pe­riod es­ha­to­lo­gi­cal and mes­sia­nic ideas of the co­ming blissful epoch were spread, and just at that ti­me FIRSTLY the “gol­den age” (not “gol­den ra­ce”) con­cep­tion ap­pea­red. Ac­cor­ding to He­siod’s ver­sion of the myth the spe­cial с.153 “gol­den ra­ce” (“chry­seon ge­nos”) had re­mai­ned in the past not to re­turn, and for the mo­dern “iron ra­ce” on­ly destruc­tion by Zeus is pre­pa­red. Yet in the I-st cen­tu­ry B. C. ex­pec­ta­tions of Ro­me’s ruin had brought not on­ly the calls to es­ca­pe by sai­ling to the “is­lands of the Bles­sed”, but al­so the op­ti­mis­tic pro­phe­cies of the co­ming world’s re­newing. Firstly in the clas­si­cal li­te­ra­tu­re proc­lai­med in the 4-th ec­lo­gue of Ver­gil, this idea was then de­ve­lo­ped in the “Aeneis”, whe­re we find the ve­ry term “gol­den age” — “aurea sae­cu­la”. Sin­ce this ti­me his­to­ry was rep­re­sen­ted li­ke a chan­ge of the ages, not of the ra­ces. The­re was an Et­rus­can se­cu­lar con­cep­tion, and va­rio­us (main­ly Stoic) phi­lo­sop­hi­cal theo­ries about “apo­ka­tas­ta­sis”, and Judaeo-hel­le­nis­tic pro­phe­cies of the “Si­byl­li­ne books” that had been laid in the foun­da­tion of this new ver­sion. Two re­li­gio­us phe­no­me­na of this pe­riod — the em­pe­ror cult and the ear­ly Chris­tia­ni­ty — both ref­lec­ted an evo­lu­tion from the cyc­li­cal to the li­nean con­cep­tion of his­to­ri­cal ti­me. They had both over­co­me an idea­li­za­tion of the past — cha­rac­te­ris­tic ele­ment of the po­lis ideo­lo­gy, they were both using the idea of a Sa­viour as a me­dia­tor between the hea­ven and the earth, they were both pro­pa­ga­ting pro­vi­den­tia­lis­tic ideas of the blissful epoch as the fi­nal aim and the fi­nal re­sult of the who­le his­to­ri­cal evo­lu­tion. But if for the of­fi­cial im­pe­rial ideo­lo­gy main­ly pre­sen­tism (with the “growing pre­sent hap­pi­ness” idea) was cha­rac­te­ris­tic, ac­cor­ding to Chris­tian doctri­ne a “new pa­ra­di­se” must be­gin on­ly in the fu­tu­re, af­ter the se­cond ar­ri­val of the Christ.

It should be stres­sed that even in the qui­te dif­fe­rent “gol­den age” descrip­tions the sa­me bles­sings were of­ten re­pea­ted: the­se are the pea­ce among the li­ving crea­tu­res, the abun­dan­ce of na­tu­ral pro­ducts, the soft cli­ma­te, the ab­sen­ce of sin’ etc. The­se uni­ver­sal “pa­ra­di­si­cal” mo­ti­ves were the main ingre­dients of the myth ar­chaic ver­sions, and on­ly la­ter they were supple­men­ted or sub­sti­tu­ted by the va­rio­us pri­va­te in­terpre­ta­tions. The old sac­ral-ar­chaic con­tents of the myth were gra­dual­ly being squee­zed out by the new so­cial-uto­pian in­terpre­ta­tions, which were of­ten using on­ly the form of the po­pu­lar myth. So­me “uto­pio­lo­gists” say that the pla­ce of uto­pia is between the myth and the scien­ce. If it is so, we may call the myth of the “gol­den age” as the “most uto­pian” an­cient myth, as the “myth-uto­pia”, as the ini­tial point and the con­centra­te expres­sion of the an­cient so­cial uto­pia. But the­re is no rea­son to dis­cuss the in­dis­pen­sab­le “com­mu­nis­tic” or “so­cia­lis­tic” ten­den­cies of this myth and the­se uto­pias. In Ro­me, for example, the cri­ti­cism of lu­xu­ry and the prai­se of с.154 “com­mu­ni­ty of pos­ses­sions” were, main­ly, the na­tu­ral so­cial reac­tion to the destruc­tion of the pat­riar­chal ci­vil col­lec­ti­vism with its tra­di­tions of the “ci­vi­tas” and its pro­per­ty on the “ager pub­li­cus”. Be­si­des it was the wide-spread rhe­to­ri­cal “lo­cus com­mu­nis” that was used by ma­ny aut­hors (such as Ovid, Ger­ma­nic, Se­ne­ca the Phi­lo­sop­her etc.), ac­tual­ly ve­ry far off from any “com­mu­nism”.

If it’s true that “his­to­ria est ma­gistra vi­tae”, we can find the answer to one ques­tion: is it real­ly, as so­me so­cio­lo­gists say, that the end of uto­pia be­gan in the se­cond half of our cen­tu­ry? In or­der to es­ti­ma­te the pre­sent si­tua­tion, we must see so­me his­to­ri­cal perspec­ti­ve. The “cri­sis of uto­pia” took pla­ce in the 1-st cen­tu­ry A. D. too. Then the peop­le’s uto­pia, ha­ving been tur­ned from the feet to the head, at first be­ca­me the “of­fi­cial uto­pia” and then — “ful­fil­led (rea­li­zed) uto­pia”, which was de­ge­ne­ra­ting to apo­lo­ge­tism. But the true uto­pia, as the Phoe­nix, grew from the as­hes and ro­se even on a hig­her le­vel, as it was in the Chris­tian con­cep­tion of the “mil­le­nial reign”. So, to ma­ke a long sto­ry short, any at­tempts “to end with uto­pia” are cer­tain­ly uto­pi­cal. Uto­pia­nism is one of the main ca­pa­ci­ties of the “ho­mo his­to­ri­cus”. And it may be a great for­ce in cri­sis epochs. Augus­tus (that is whe­re his dif­fe­ren­ce from the ma­ny la­ter cha­ris­ma­tic lea­ders lies) used this dan­ge­rous for­ce main­ly with the crea­ti­ve, not with the destruc­ti­ve in­ten­tions. In his ti­me, it should be ad­ded, the sta­te had not de­ve­lo­ped in­to such a power­ful bu­reauc­ra­cial sys­tem with so va­rio­us tech­ni­cal means to influen­ce hu­man minds, as in the to­ta­li­ta­rian sta­tes of the 20-th cen­tu­ry. The mo­dern ci­vi­li­zed so­cie­ty can­not be free from uto­pias, but it can and should avoid the dic­ta­torship of any single uto­pia or, mo­re exactly, the dic­ta­torship of po­li­tics spe­cu­la­ting on such an uto­pia. The dream of the “gol­den age” is eter­nal but should be left shi­ning in the dis­tan­ce for on­ce rea­li­zed the gol­den paint will ine­vi­tab­ly peel away, re­vea­ling the rust of an “iron age” un­der­neath.