(M943) The author of the law, fearing for his personal safety, no longer appeared in the forum without a retinue of three or four thousand men, another cause of bitter hatred on the part of the aristocracy. He also sought to be re-elected tribune, but the Assembly broke up without a choice. The next day the election terminated in the same manner, and it was rumored in the city that Tiberius had deposed all the tribunes, and was resolved to continue in office without re-election. A tumult, originating with the Senate, was the result. A mob of senators rushed through the streets, with fury in their eyes and clubs in their hands. The people gave way, and Gracchus was slain on the slope of the capitol. The Senate officially sanctioned the outrage, on the ground that Tiberius meditated the usurpation of supreme power.

(M944) In regard to the author of this agrarian law, there is no doubt he was patriotic in his intentions, was public-spirited, and wished to revive the older and better days of the republic. I do not believe he contemplated the usurpation of supreme power. I doubt if he was ambitious, as Caesar was. But he did not comprehend the issues at stake, and the shock he was giving to the constitution of his country. He was like Mirabeau, that other aristocratic reformer, who voted for the spoliation of the church property of France, on the ground, which that leveling sentimentalist Rousseau had advanced, that the church property belonged to the nation. But this plea, in both cases, was sophistical. It was, doubtless, a great evil that the property of the State had fallen into the hands of wealthy proprietors, as it was an evil that half the landed property of France was in possession of the clergy. But, in both cases, this property had been enjoyed uninterruptedly for centuries by the possessors, and, to all intents and purposes, was private property. And this law of confiscation was therefore an encroachment on the rights of property, in all its practical bearings. It appeared to the jurists of that age to be an ejection of the great landholders for the benefit of the proletarians. The measure itself was therefore not without injustice, desirable as a division of property might be. But the mode to effect this division was incompatible with civilization itself. It was an appeal to revolutionary forces. It was setting aside all constitutional checks and usages. It was a defiance of the Senate, the great ruling body of the State. It was an appeal to the people to overturn the laws. It was like assembling the citizens of London to override the Parliament. It was like the French revolution, when the Assembly was dictated to by the clubs. Robespierre may have been sincere and patriotic, but he was a fanatic, fierce and uncompromising. So was Gracchus. In setting aside his colleagues, to accomplish what he deemed a good end, he did evil. When this rich patrician collected the proletarian burgesses to decree against the veto of the tribune that the public property should be distributed among them, he struck a vital blow on the constitution of his country, and made a step toward monarchy, for monarchy was only reached through the democracy—was only brought about by powerful demagogues. And hence the verdict of the wise and judicious will be precisely that, of the leading men of Rome at the time, even that of Cornelia herself: "Shall then our house have no end of madness? Have we not enough to be ashamed of in the disorganization of the State?"

(M945) The law of Tiberius Gracchus survived its author. The Senate had not power to annul it, though it might slay its author. The work of redistribution continued, even as the National Assembly of France sanctioned the legislation of preceding revolutionists. And in consequence of the law, there was, in six years, an increase of burgesses capable of bearing arms, of seventy-six thousand. But so many evils attended the confiscation and redistribution of the public domain—so many acts of injustice were perpetrated—there was such gross mismanagement, that the consul Scipio AEmilianus intervened, and by a decree of the people, through his influence, the commission was withdrawn, and the matter was left to the consuls to adjudicate, which was virtually the suspension of the law itself. For this intervention Scipio lost his popularity, unbounded as it had been, even as Daniel Webster lost his prestige and influence when he made his 7th of March speech—the fate of all great men, however great, when they oppose popular feelings and interests, whether they are right or wrong. Scipio, the hero of three wars, not only lost his popularity, but his life. He was found murdered in his bed at the age of fifty-six. "Scipio's assassination was the democratic reply to the aristocratic massacre of Tiberius Gracchus." The greatest general of the age, a man of unspotted moral purity, and political unselfishness, and generous patriotism, could not escape the vengeance of a baffled populace, B.C. 129.

(M946) The distribution of land ceased, but the revolution did not stop. The soul of Tiberius Gracchus "was marching on." A new hero appeared in his brother, Gaius Gracchus, nine years younger—a man who had no relish for vulgar pleasures,—brave, cultivated, talented, energetic, vehement. A master of eloquence, he drew the people; consumed with a passion for revenge, he led them on to revolutionary measures. He was elected tribune in the year 123, and at once declared war on the aristocratic party, to which by birth he belonged.

He inaugurated revolutionary measures, by proposing to the people a law which should allow the tribune to solicit a re-election. He then, to gain the people and secure material power, enacted that every burgess should be allowed, monthly, a definite quantity of corn from the public stores at about half the average price. And he caused a law to be passed that the existing order of voting in the Comitia Centuriata, according to which the five property classes voted first, should be done away with, and that all the centuries should vote in the order to be determined by lot. He also caused a law to be passed that no citizen should enlist in the army till seventeen, nor be compelled to serve in the army more than twenty years. These measures all had the effect to elevate the democracy.

(M947) He also sought to depress the aristocracy, by dividing its ranks. The old aristocracy embraced chiefly the governing class, and were the chief possessors of landed property. But a new aristocracy of the rich had grown up, composed of speculators, who managed the mercantile transactions of the Roman world. The old senatorial aristocracy were debarred by the Claudian ordinance from mercantile pursuits, and were merely sleeping partners in the great companies, managed by the speculators. But the new aristocracy, under the name of the equestrian order, began at this time to have political influence. Originally, the equestrians were a burgess cavalry; but gradually all who possessed estates of four hundred thousand sesterces were liable to cavalry service, and became enrolled in the order, which thus comprehended the whole senatorial and non-senatorial noble society of Rome. In process of time, the senators were exempted from cavalry service, and were thus marked off from the list of those liable to do cavalry service. The equestrian order then, at last, comprehended the aristocracy of rich men, in contradistinction from the Senate. And a natural antipathy accordingly grew up between the old senatorial aristocracy and the men to whom money had given rank. The ruling lords stood aloof from the speculators; and were better friends of the people than the new moneyed aristocrats, since they, brought directly in contact with the people, oppressed them, and their greediness and injustice were not usually countenanced by the Senate. The two classes of nobles had united to put down Tiberius Gracchus; but a deep gulf still yawned between them, for no class of aristocrats was ever more exclusive than the governing class at Rome, confined chiefly to the Senate. The Roman Senate was like the House of Peers in England, when the peers had a preponderating political power, and whose property lay in landed estates.

(M948) Gracchus raised the power of the equestrians by a law which provided that the farming of the taxes raised in the provinces should be sold at auction at Rome. A gold mine was thus opened for the speculators. He also caused a law to be passed which required the judges of civil and criminal cases to be taken from the equestrians, a privilege before enjoyed by the Senate. And thus a senator, impeached for his conduct as provincial governor, was now tried, not as before, by his peer, but by merchants and bankers.

(M949) Gracchus, by the aid of the proletarians and the mercantile class, then proceeded to the overthrow of the ruling aristocracy, especially in the functions of legislation, which had belonged to the Senate. By means of comitial laws and tribunician dictation, he restricted the business of the Senate. He meddled with the public chest by distributing corn at half its value; he meddled with the domains by sending colonies by decrees of the people; he meddled with provincial administration by overturning the regulations which had been made by the Senate. He also sought to re-enforce the Senate by three hundred new members from the equestrians elected by the comitia, a creation of peers which would have reduced the Senate to dependence on the chief of the State. But this he did not succeed in effecting.

(M950) It is singular that he could have carried these measures during his term of office, two years, for he was re-elected, with so little opposition—a proof of the power of the moneyed classes, such, perhaps, as are now represented by the Commons of England. The great change he sought to effect was the re-election of magistrates—an unlimited tribuneship, which was truly Napoleonic. And he knew what he was doing. He was not a fanatic, but a Statesman of great ability, seeking to break the oligarchy, and transfer its powers to the tribunes of the people. He desired a firm administration, but resting on continuous individual usurpations. He was a political incendiary, like Mirabeau. He was the true founder of that terrible civic proletariate, which, flattered by the classes above it, led to the usurpations of Sulla and Caesar. He is the author of the great change, which in one hundred years was effected, of transferring power from the Senate to an emperor. He furnished the tactics for all succeeding demagogues.

(M951) Great revolutionists are doomed to experience the loss of popularity, and Gracchus lost his by an attempt to extend the Roman franchise to the people of the provinces. The Senate and the mob here united to prevent what was ultimately effected. The Senate seized the advantage by inciting a rival demagogue, in the person of Marcus Livius Drusus, to propose laws which gave still greater privileges to the equestrians. The Senate bid for popularity, as English prime ministers have retained place, by granting more to the people than their rivals would have granted. The Livian laws, which released the proletarians from paying rent for their lands, were ratified by the people as readily as the Sempronian laws had been. The foundation of the despotism of Gracchus was thus assailed by the Senate uniting with the proletarians. An opportunity was only wanted to effect his complete overthrow.

(M952) On the expiration of two years, Gracchus ceased to be tribune, and his enemy, Lucius Opimius, a stanch aristocrat, entered upon his office. The attack on the ex-tribune was made by prohibiting the restoration of Carthage, which Gracchus had sought to effect, and which was a popular measure. On the day when the burgesses assembled with a view to reject the measure which Gracchus had previously secured, he appeared with a large body of adherents. An attendant on the consul demanded their dispersion, on which he was cut down by a zealous Gracchian. On this, a tumult arose. Gracchus in vain sought to be heard, and even interrupted a tribune in the act of speaking, which was against an obsolete law. This offense furnished a pretense for the Senate and the citizens to arm. Gracchus retired to the temple of Castor, and passed the night, while the capitol was filled with armed men. The next day, he fled beyond the Tiber, but the Senate placed a price upon his head, and he was overtaken and slain. Three thousand of his adherents were strangled in prison, and the memory of the Gracchi remained officially proscribed. But Cornelia put on mourning for her last son, and his name became embalmed in the hearts of the democracy.

(M953) Thus perished Gaius Gracchus, a wiser man than his brother—a man who attempted greater changes, and did not defy the constitutional forms. He was, undoubtedly, patriotic in his intentions, but the reforms which he projected were radical, and would have changed the whole structure of government. It was the consummation of the war against the patrician oligarchy. Whether wise or foolish, it is not for me to give an opinion, since such an opinion is of no account, and would imply equally a judgment as to the relative value of an aristocratical or democratic form of government, in a corrupt age of Roman society. This is a mooted point, and I am not capable of settling it. The efforts of the Gracchi to weaken the power of the ruling noble houses formed a precedent for subsequent reforms, or usurpations, as they are differently regarded, and led the way to the rule of demagogues, to be supplanted in time by that of emperors, with unbounded military authority.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE WARS WITH JUGURTHA AND THE CIMBRI.—MARIUS.

The fall of the Gracchi restored Rome to the rule of the oligarchy. The government of the Senate was resumed, and a war of prosecution was carried on against the followers of Gracchus. His measures were allowed to drop. The claims of the Italian allies were disregarded, the noblest of all the schemes of the late tribune, that of securing legal equality between the Roman burgesses and their Italian allies. The restoration of Carthage was set aside. Italian colonies were broken up. The allotment commission was abolished, and a fixed rent was imposed on the occupants of the public domains, but the proletariate of the capital continued to have a distribution of corn, and jurymen or judges (judices) were still selected from the mercantile classes. The Senate continued to be composed of effeminated nobles, and insignificant persons were raised to the highest offices.

The administration, under the restoration, was feeble and unpopular. Social evils spread with alarming rapidity. Both slavery and great fortunes increased. The provinces were miserably governed, while pirates and robbers pillaged the countries around the Mediterranean. There was a great revolt of slaves in Sicily, who gained, for a time, the mastery of the island.

(M954) While public affairs were thus disgracefully managed, a war broke out between Numidia and Rome. That African kingdom extended from the river Molochath to the great Syrtis on the one hand, and to Cyrene and Egypt on the other, and included the greatest part of the ancient Carthaginian territories. Numidia, next to Egypt, was the most important of the Roman client States. On the fall of Carthage, it was ruled by the eldest son of Masinassa, Micipsa, a feeble old man, who devoted himself to the study of philosophy, rather than affairs of State. The government was really in the hands of his nephew, Jugurtha, courageous, sagacious, and able. He was adopted by Micipsa, to rule in conjunction with his two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal. In the year B.C. 118 Micipsa died, and a collision arose, as was to be expected, among his heirs. Hiempsal was assassinated, and the struggle for the Numidian crown lay between Adherbal and Jugurtha. The latter seized the whole territory, and Adherbal escaped to Rome, and laid his complaint before the Senate. Jugurtha's envoys also appeared, and the Senate decreed that the two heirs should have the kingdom equally divided between them, but Jugurtha obtained the more fertile western half.

Then war arose between the two kings, and Adherbal was defeated, and retired to his capital, Aita, where he was besieged by Jugurtha. Adherbal made his complaints to Rome, and a commission of aristocratic but inexperienced young men came to the camp of Jugurtha to arrange the difficulties. Jugurtha rejected their demands, and the young men returned home. Adherbal sent again messengers to Rome, being closely pressed, demanding intervention. The Senate then sent Marcus Scaurus, who held endless debates with Jugurtha, at Utica, to which place he was summoned. These were not attended with any results. Scaurus returned to Rome, and Jugurtha pressed the siege of Aita, which soon capitulated. Adherbal was executed with cruel torture, and the adult population was put to the sword.

A cry of indignation arose in Italy. The envoys of Jugurtha were summarily dismissed, and Scaurus was sent to Africa with an army, but a peace with Rome was purchased by the African prince through the bribery of the generals. The legal validity of the peace was violently assailed in the Senate, and Massiva, a grandson of Masinissa, then in Rome, laid claim to the Numidian throne. But this prince was assassinated by one of the confidants of Jugurtha, which outrage, perpetrated under the eyes of the Roman government, led to a renewed declaration of war, and Spurius Albinus was intrusted with the command of an army. But Jugurtha bribed the Roman general into inaction, and captured the Roman camp. This resulted in the evacuation of Numidia, and a second treaty of peace.

(M955) Such an ignoble war created intense dissatisfaction at Rome, and the Senate was obliged to cancel the treaty, and renewed the war in earnest, intrusting the conduct of it to Quintus Metellus, an aristocrat, of course, but a man of great ability. Selecting for his lieutenants able generals, he led over his army to Africa. Jugurtha made proposals of peace, which were refused, and he prepared for a desperate defense. Intrenched on a ridge of hills in the wide plain of Muthul, he awaited the attack of his enemies, but was signally defeated by Metellus, assisted by Marius, a brave plebeian, who had arisen from the common soldiers. After this battle Jugurtha contented himself with a guerrilla warfare, while his kingdom was occupied by the conquerors. Metellus even intrigued to secure the assassination of the king.

(M956) The war continued to be prosecuted without decisive results, as is so frequently the case when civilized nations fight with barbarians. Like the war of Charlemagne against the Saxons, victories were easily obtained, but the victors gained unsubstantial advantages. Jugurtha retired to inaccessible deserts with his children, his treasures, and his best troops, to await better times. Numidia was seemingly reduced, but its king remained in arms.

(M957) It was then, in the third year of the renewed war, that Metellus was recalled, and Marius, chosen consul, was left with the supreme command. But even he did not find it easy, with a conquering army, to seize Jugurtha, and he was restricted to a desultory war. At last Bocchus, king of Mauritania, slighted by the Romans, but in alliance with Jugurtha, effected by treachery what could not be gained by arms. He entered into negotiations with Marius to deliver up the king of Numidia, who had married his daughter, and had sought his protection. Marius sent Sulla to consummate the treachery. Jugurtha, the traitor, was thus in turn sacrificed, and became a Roman prisoner.

(M958) This miserable war lasted seven years, and its successful termination secured to Marius a splendid triumph, at which the conquered king, with his two sons, appeared in chains before the triumphal car, and was then executed in the subterranean prison on the Capitoline Hill.

(M959) Numidia was not converted into a Roman province, but into a client State, because the country could not be held without an army on the frontiers. The Jugurthan war was important in its consequences, since it brought to light the venality of the governing lords, and made it evident that Rome must be governed by a degenerate and selfish oligarchy, or by a tyrant, whether in the form of a demagogue, like Gracchus, or a military chieftain, like Marius.

(M960) But a more difficult war than that waged against the barbarians of the African deserts was now to be conducted against the barbarians of European forests. The war with the Cimbri was also more important in its political results. There had been several encounters with the northern nations of Spain, Gaul, and Italy, under different names, with different successes, which it would be tedious to describe. But the contest with the Cimbri has a great and historic interest, since they were the first of the Germanic tribes with which the Romans contended. Mommsen thinks these barbarians were Teutonic, although, among older historians, they were supposed to be Celts. The Cimbri were a migratory people, who left their northern homes with their wives and children, goods and chattels, to seek more congenial settlements than they had found in the Scandinavian forests. The wagon was their house. They were tall, fair-haired, with bright blue eyes. They were well armed with sword, spear, shield, and helmet. They were brave warriors, careless of danger, and willing to die. They were accompanied by priestesses, whose warnings were regarded as voices from heaven.

(M961) This homeless people of the Cimbri, prevented from advancing south on the Danube by the barrier raised by the Celts, advanced to the passes of the Carnian Alps, B.C. 113, protected by Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, not far from Aquileia. An engagement took place not far from the modern Corinthia, where Carbo was defeated. Some years after, they proceeded westward to the left bank of the Rhine, and over the Jura, and again threatened the Roman territory. Again was a Roman army defeated under Silanus in Southern Gaul, and the Cimbri sent envoys to Rome, with the request that they might be allowed peaceful settlements. The Helvetii, stimulated by the successes of the Cimbri, also sought more fertile settlements in Western Gaul, and formed an alliance with the Cimbri. They crossed the Jura, the western barrier of Switzerland, succeeded in decoying the Roman army under Longinus into an ambush, and gained a victory.

(M962) In the year B.C., 105 the Cimbrians, under their king Boiorix, advanced to the invasion of Italy. They were opposed on the right bank of the Rhone by the proconsul Caepio, and on the left by the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, and the consular Marcus Aurelius Scaurus. The first attack fell on the latter general, who was taken prisoner and his corps routed. Maximus then ordered his colleague to bring his army across the Rhone, where the Roman force stood confronting the whole Cimbrian army, but Caepio refused. The mutual jealousy of these generals, and refusal to co-operate, led to one of the most disastrous defeats which the Romans ever suffered. No less than eighty thousand soldiers, and half as many more camp followers, perished. The battle of Aransio (Orange) filled Rome with alarm and fear, and had the Cimbrians immediately advanced through the passes of the Alps to Italy, overwhelming disasters might have ensued.

(M963) In this crisis, Marius was called to the supreme command, hated as he was by the aristocracy, which still ruled, and in defiance of the law which prohibited the holding of the consulship more than once. He was accompanied by a still greater man, Lucius Sulla, destined to acquire great distinction. Marius maintained a strictly defensive attitude within the Roman territories, training and disciplining his troops for the contest which was yet to come with the most formidable antagonists the Romans had ever encountered, and who were destined in after times to subvert the empire.

(M964) The Cimbri formed a confederation with the Helvetii and the Teutons, and after an unsuccessful attempt to sweep away the Belgae, who resisted them, concluded to invade Italy, through Roman Gaul and the Western passes of the Alps. They crossed the Rhone without difficulty, and resumed the struggle with the Romans. Marius awaited them in a well-chosen camp, well fortified and provisioned, at the confluence of the Rhone and the Isere, by which he intercepted the passage of the barbarians, either over the Little St. Barnard—the route Hannibal had taken—or along the coast. The barbarians attacked the camp, but were repulsed. They then resolved to pass the camp, leaving an enemy in the rear, and march to Italy. Marius, for six days, permitted them to defile with their immense baggage, and when their march was over, followed in the steps of the enemy, who took the coast road. At Aquae Sextiae the contending parties came into collision, and the barbarians were signally defeated; the whole horde was scattered, killed, or taken prisoners. It would seem that these barbarians were Teutons or Germans; but on the south side of the Alps, the Cimbri and Helvetii crossed the Alps by the Brenner Pass, and descended upon the plains of Italy. The passes had been left unguarded, and the Roman army, under Catulus, on the banks of the Adige, suffered a defeat, and retreated to the right bank of the Po. The whole plain between the Po and the Alps was in the hands of the barbarians, who did not press forward, as they should have done, but retired into winter quarters, where they became demoralized by the warm baths and abundant stores of that fertile and lovely region. Thus the Romans gained time, and the victorious Marius, relinquishing all attempts at the conquest of Gaul, conducted his army to the banks of the Po, and formed a junction with Catulus.

(M965) The two armies met at Vercillae, not far from the place where Hannibal had fought his first battle on the Italian soil. The day of the battle was fixed beforehand by the barbaric general and Marius, on the 30th of June, B.C. 101. A complete victory was gained by the Romans, and the Cimbri were annihilated. The victory of the rough plebeian farmer was not merely over the barbarians, but over the aristocracy. He became, in consequence, the leading man in Rome. He had fought his way from the ranks to the consulship, and had distinguished himself in all the campaigns in which he fought. In Spain, he had arisen to the grade of an officer. In the Numantine war he attracted, at twenty-three, the notice of Scipio. On his return to Rome, with his honorable scars and military eclat, he married a lady of the great patrician house of the Julii. At forty, he obtained the praetorship; at forty-eight, he was made consul, and terminated the African war, and his victories over the Cimbri and Teutons enabled him to secure his re-election five consecutive years, which was unexampled in the history of the republic. As consul he administered justice impartially, organized the military system, and maintained in the army the strictest discipline. He had but little culture; his voice was harsh, and his look wild. But he was simple, economical, and incorruptible. He stood aloof from society and from political parties, exposed to the sarcasms of the aristocrats into whose ranks he had entered.

(M966) He made great military reforms, changing the burgess levy into a system of enlistments, and allowing every free-born citizen to enlist. He abolished the aristocratic classification, reduced the infantry of the line to a level, and raised the number of the legion from four thousand two hundred to six thousand, to which he gave a new standard—the silver eagle, which proclaims the advent of emperors. The army was changed from a militia to a band of mercenaries.

After effecting these military changes, he sought political supremacy by taking upon himself the constitutional magistracies. In effecting this he was supported by the popular, or democratic party, which now regained its political importance. He, therefore, obtained the consulship for the sixth time, while his friends among the popular party were made tribunes and praetors. He was also supported at the election by his old soldiers who had been discharged.

But the whole aristocracy rallied, and Marius was not sufficiently a politician to cope with experienced demagogues. He made numerous blunders, and lost his political influence. But he accepted his position, and waited for his time. Not in the field of politics was he to arise to power, but in the strife and din of arms. An opportunity was soon afforded in the convulsions which arose from the revolt of the Roman allies in Italy, soon followed by civil wars. It is these wars which next claim our notice.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE REVOLT OF ITALY, AND THE SOCIAL WAR.—MARIUS AND SULLA.

Great discontent had long existed among the Italian subjects of Rome. They were not only oppressed, but they enjoyed no political privileges. They did not belong to the class of burgesses.

With the view of extending the Roman franchise, a movement was made by the tribune, M. Livius Drusus, an aristocrat of great wealth and popular sympathies. He had, also, projected other reforms, which made him obnoxious to all parties; but this was peculiarly offensive to the order to which he belonged, and he lost his life while attempting to effect the same reforms which were fatal to Gracchus.

On his assassination, the allies, who outnumbered the Roman burgesses, and who had vainly been seeking citizenship, found that they must continue without political rights, or fight, and they made accordingly vast preparations for war. Had all the Italian States been united, they would, probably, have obtained their desire without a conflict in the field, but in those parts where the moneyed classes preponderated, the people remained loyal to Rome. But the insurgents embraced most of the people in Central and Southern Italy, who were chiefly farmers.

(M967) The insurrection broke out in Asculum in Picenum, and spread rapidly through Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania. All Southern and Central Italy was soon in arms against Rome. The Etruscans and Umbrians remained in allegiance as they had before taken part with the equestrians, now a most powerful body, against Drusus. Italy was divided into two great military camps. The insurgents sent envoys to Rome, with the proposal to lay down their arms if citizenship were granted them, but this was refused. Both sides now made extensive preparations, and the forces were nearly balanced. One hundred thousand men were in arms, in two divisions, on either side, the Romans commanded by the consul, Publius Rutilius Lupus, and the Italians by Quintus Silo and Gaius Papius Mutilus. Gaius Marius served as a lieutenant-commander. The war was carried on with various successes, for "Greek met Greek." The first campaign proved, on the whole, to the disadvantage of the Romans, who suffered several defeats. In a political point of view, also, the insurgents were the gainers. Great despondency reigned in the capital, for the war had become serious. At length, it was resolved to grant the political franchise to such Italians as had remained faithful, or who had submitted. This concession, great as it was, did not include the actual insurgents, but it operated in strengthening wavering communities on the side of Rome. Etruria and Umbria were tranquilized.

(M968) The second campaign, B.C. 89, was opened in Bicenum. Marius was not in the field. His conduct in the previous campaign was not satisfactory, and the conqueror of the Cimbri, at sixty-six, was thought to be in his dotage. Asculum was besieged and taken by the Romans, who had seventy-five thousand troops under the walls. The Sabellians and Marsians were next subjugated, and all Campania was lost to the insurgents, as far as Nola. The Southern army was under the command of the consul, Lucius Sulla, whose great career had commenced in Africa, under Marius. Sulla advanced into the Samnite country and took its capital, Bovianum. Under his able generalship, the position of affairs greatly changed. At the close of the campaign, most of the insurgent regions were subdued. The Samnites were almost the only people which held out.

(M969) It was fortunate for Rome that the rebellion was so far suppressed when the flames of war were rekindled in the East. A great reaction against the Roman domination had taken place, and the eastern nations seemed determined to rally once more for independent dominion. This was the last great Asiatic rising till the fall of the Roman empire. The potentate under whom the Oriental forces rallied, was Mithridates, king of Pontus.

(M970) The army of Sulla, in Campania, was destined to embark for Asia as soon as the state of things in Southern Italy should allow his departure. So the third campaign of the Social war, as it is called, began favorably for Rome, when events transpired in the capital which gave fresh life to the almost extinguished insurrection. The attack of Drusus on the equestrian courts, and his sudden downfall, had sown the bitterest discord between the aristocracy and the burgess class. The Italian communities, received into Roman citizenship, were fettered by restrictions which had an odious stigma, which led to great irritation, for the aristocracy had conferred the franchise grudgingly. And this franchise was moreover withheld from the insurgent communities which had again submitted. A deep indignation also settled in the breast of Marius, on his return from the first campaign, to find himself neglected and forgotten. To these discontents were added the distress of debtors, who, amid the financial troubles of the war, were unable to pay the interest on their debts, and were yet inexorably pressed by creditors.

(M971) It was then, in this state of fermentation and demoralization, that the tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus proposed that every senator who owed more than two thousand denarii (L82) should forfeit his seat in the Senate; that burgesses condemned by non-free jury courts should have liberty to return home; and that the new burgesses should be distributed among all the tribes, in which the freed men should also have the privilege of voting. These proposals, although made by a patrician, met with the greatest opposition from the Senate, but were passed amid riots and tumults. Sulla was on the best terms with the Senate, and Sulpicius feared that he might return from his camp at Nola, and take vengeance for these popular measures. The tribune, therefore, conceived the plan of taking the command from Sulla, who was then consul, and transfer it upon Marius, who was also to conduct the war against Mithridates, in Asia.

(M972) Sulla disobeyed the mandate, and marched to Rome with his army—little more than a body of mercenaries devoted to him. In his eyes, the sovereign Roman citizens were a rabble, and Rome itself a city without a garrison. Sulla had an army of thirty-five thousand men, and before the Romans could organize resistance he appeared at the gate, and crossed the sacred boundary which the law had forbidden war to enter. In a few hours Sulla was the absolute master of Rome. Marius and Sulpicius fled. It was the conservative party which exchanged the bludgeon for the sword. Sulla at once made null the Sulpician laws, punished their author and his adherents, as Sulpicius had feared. The gray-haired conqueror of the Cimbri fled, and found his way to the coast and embarked on a trading-vessel, but the timid mariners put him ashore, and Marius stole along the beach with his pursuers in the rear. He was found in a marsh concealed in reeds and mud, seized and imprisoned by the people of Minturnae, and a Cimbrian slave was sent to put him to death, The ax, however, fell from his hands when the old hero demanded in a stern voice if he dared to kill Gaius Marius. The magistrates of the town, ashamed, then loosed his fetters, gave him a vessel, and sent him to AEnaria (Ischia). There, in those waters, the proscribed met, and escaped to Numidia, and Sulla was spared the odium of putting to death his old commander, who had delivered Rome from the Cimbrians.

(M973) Sulla, master of Rome, did not destroy her liberties. He suggested a new series of legislative enactments in the interests of the aristocracy. He created three hundred new senators, and brought back the old Servian rule of voting in the Comitia Centuriata. The poorer classes were thus virtually again disfranchised. He also abolished the power of the tribune to propose laws to the people, and the initiatory of legislation was submitted to the Senate. The absurd custom by which a consul, praetor, or tribune, could propose to the burgesses any measure he pleased, and carry it without debate, was in itself enough to overturn any constitution.

Having settled these difficulties, and made way with his enemies, Sulla, still consul, embarked with his legion for the East, where the presence of a Roman army was imperatively needed. But before he left, he extorted a solemn oath from Cinna, consul elect, that he would attempt no alteration in the recent changes which had been made. Cinna took the oath, but Sulla had scarcely left before he created new disturbances.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE MITHRIDATIC AND CIVIL WARS.—MARIUS AND SULLA.

There reigned at this time in Pontus, the northeastern State of Asia Minor, bordered on the south by Cappadocia, on the east by Armenia, and the north by the Euxine, a powerful prince, Mithridates VI., surnamed Eupator, who traced an unbroken lineage to Darius, the son of the Hystaspes, and also to the Seleucidae. He was a great eastern hero, whose deeds excited the admiration of his age. He could, on foot, overtake the swiftest deer; he accomplished journeys on horseback of one hundred and twenty miles a day; he drove sixteen horses in hand at the chariot races; he never missed his aim in hunting; he drank his boon companions under the table; he had as many mistresses as Solomon; he was fond of music and poetry; he collected precious works of art; he had philosophers and poets in his train; he was the greatest jester and wit of his court. His activity was boundless; he learned the antidotes for all poisons; he administered justice in twenty-two languages; and yet he was coarse, tyrannical, cruel, superstitious, and unscrupulous. Such was this extraordinary man who led the great reaction of the Asiatics against the Occidentals.

(M974) The resources of this Oriental king were immense, since he bore rule over the shores of the Euxine to the interior of Asia Minor. His field for recruits to his armies stretched from the mouth of the Danube to the Caspian Sea. Thracians, Scythians, Colchians, Iberians, crowded under his banners. When he marched into Cappadocia, he had six hundred scythed chariots, ten thousand horse, and eighty thousand foot. A series of aggressions and conquests made this monarch the greatest and most formidable Eastern foe the Romans ever encountered. The Romans, engrossed with the war with the Cimbri and the insurrection of their Italian subjects, allowed his empire to be silently aggrandized.

(M975) The Roman Senate, at last, disturbed and jealous, sent Lucius Sulla to Cappadocia with a handful of troops to defend its interests. On his return, Mithridates continued his aggressions, and formed an alliance with his father-in-law, Tigranes, king of Armenia, but avoided a direct encounter with the great Occidental power which had conquered the world. Things continued for awhile between war and peace, but, at last, it was evident that only war could prevent the aggrandizement of Mithridates, and it was resolved upon by the Romans.

(M976) The king of Pontus made immense preparations to resist his powerful enemies. He strengthened his alliance with Tigranes. He made overtures to the Greek cities. He attempted to excite a revolt in Thrace, in Numidia, and in Syria. He encouraged pirates on the Mediterranean. He organized a foreign corps after the Roman fashion, and took the field with two hundred and fifty thousand infantry and forty thousand cavalry—the largest army seen since the Persian wars. He then occupied Asia Minor, and the Roman generals retreated as he advanced. He made Ephesus his head-quarters, and issued orders to all the governors dependent upon him to massacre, on the same day, all Italians, free or enslaved—men, women, and children, found in their cities. One hundred and fifty thousand were thus barbarously slaughtered in one day. The States of Cappadocia, Sinope, Phrygia, and Bithynia were organized as Pontic satrapies. The confiscation of the property of the murdered Italians replenished his treasury, as well as the contributions of Asia Minor. He not only occupied the Asiatic provinces of the Romans, but meditated the invasion of Europe. Thrace and Macedonia were occupied by his armies, and his fleet appeared in the AEgean Sea. Delos, the emporium of Roman commerce, was taken, and twenty thousand Italians massacred. Most of the small free States of Greece entered into alliance with him—the Achaeans, Laconians, and Boeotians. So commanding was his position, that an embassy of Italian insurgents invited him to land in Italy.

The position of the Roman government was critical. Asia Minor, Hellas, and Macedonia were in the hands of Mithridates, while his fleet sailed without a rival. The Italian insurrection was not subdued, and political parties divided the capital.

(M977) At this crisis Sulla landed on the coast of Epirus, but with an army of only thirty thousand men, and without a single vessel of war. He landed with an empty military chest. But he was a second Alexander—the greatest general that Rome had yet produced. He soon made himself master of Greece, with the exception of the fortresses of Athens and the Piraeus, into which the generals of Mithridates had thrown themselves. He intrenched himself at Eleusis and Megara, from which he commanded Greece and the Peloponnesus, and commenced the siege of Athena. This was attended with great difficulties, and the city only fell, after a protracted defense, when provisions were exhausted. The conqueror, after allowing his soldiers to pillage the city, gave back her liberties, in honor of her illustrious dead.

(M978) But a year was wasted, and without ships it was impossible for Sulla to secure his communications. He sent one of his best officers, Lucullus, to Alexandria, to raise a fleet, but the Egyptian court evaded the request. To add to his embarrassments, the Roman general was without money, although he had rifled the treasures which still remained in the Grecian temples. Moreover, what was still more serious, a revolution at Rome overturned his work, and he had been deposed, and his Asiatic command given to M. Valerius Flaccus.

Sulla was unexpectedly relieved by the resolution of Mithridates to carry on the offensive in Greece. Taxiles, one of the lieutenants of the Pontic king, was sent to combat Sulla with an army of one hundred thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry.

(M979) Then was fought the battle of Chaeronea, B.C. 86, against the advice of Archelaus, in which the Romans were the victors. But Sulla could not reap the fruits of victory without a fleet, since the sea was covered with Pontic ships. In the following year a second army was sent into Greece by Mithridates, and the Romans and Asiatics met once more in the plain of the Cephissus, near Orchomenus. The Romans were the victors, who speedily cleared the European continent of its eastern invaders. At the end of the third year of the war, Sulla took up his winter quarters in Thessaly, and commenced to build ships.

(M980) Meanwhile a reaction against Mithridates took place in Asia Minor. His rule was found to be more oppressive than that of the Romans. The great mercantile cities of Smyrna, Colophon, Ephesus, and Sardis were in revolt, and closed their gates against his governors. The Hellenic cities of Asia Minor had hoped to gain civil independence and a remission of taxes, and were disappointed. And those cities which were supposed to be secretly in favor of the Romans were heavily fined. The Chians were compelled to pay two thousand talents. Great cruelties were also added to fines and confiscations. Lucullus, unable to obtain the help of an Alexandrian fleet, was more fortunate in the Syrian ports, and soon was able to commence offensive operations. Flaccus, too, had arrived with a Roman army, but this incapable general was put to death by a mob-orator, Fimbria, more able than he, who defeated a Pontic army at Miletopolis. The situation of Mithridates then became perilous. Europe was lost; Asia Minor was in rebellion; and Roman armies were pressing upon him.

(M981) He therefore negotiated for peace. Sulla required the restoration of all the conquests he had made: Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Bithynia, the Hellenic cities, the islands of the sea, and a contribution of three thousand talents. These conditions were not accepted, and Sulla proceeded to Asia, upon which Mithridates reluctantly acceded to his terms.

(M982) Sulla then turned against Fimbria, who commanded the Roman army sent to supplant him, which, as was to be expected, deserted to his standard. Fimbria fled to Pergamus, and fell on his own sword. Sulla intrusted the two legions which had been sent from Rome under Flaccus to the command of his best officer, Murena, and turned his attention to arrange the affairs of Asia. He levied contributions to the amount of twenty thousand talents, reduced Mithridates to the rank of a client king, richly compensated his soldiers, and embarked for Italy, leaving Lucullus behind to collect the contributions.

(M983) Thus was the Mithridatic war ended by the genius of a Roman general, who had no equal in Roman history, with the exception of Pompey and Julius Caesar. He had distinguished himself in Africa, in Spain, in Italy, and in Greece. He had defeated the barbarians of the West, the old Italian foes of Rome, and the armies of the most powerful Oriental monarch since the fall of Persia. He had triumphed over Roman factions, and supplanted the great Marius himself. He was now to contend with one more able foe, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who represented the revolutionary forces which had rallied under the Gracchi and Marius—the democratic elements of Roman society.

When Sulla embarked for the Mithridatic war, Cinna, supported by a majority of the College of Tribunes, concerted a reaction against the rule which Sulla had re-established—the rule of the aristocracy. But Cinna, a mere tool of the revolutionary party,—a man without ability,—was driven out of the city by the aristocratic party, and outlawed, and L. Cornelia Mesula was made consul in his stead. The outlaws fled to the camp before Nola. The Campanian army, democratic and revolutionary, recognized Cinna as the leader of the republic. Gaius Marius, then an exile in Numidia, brought six thousand men, whom he had rallied to his standard, to the disposal of the consul, and was placed by Cinna in supreme command at Etruria. A storm gathered around the capitol. Cinna was overshadowed by the greatness of that plebeian general who had defeated the Cimbrians, and who was bent upon revenge for the mortification and insults he had received from the Roman aristocracy. Famine and desertion soon made the city indefensible, and Rome capitulated to an army of her own citizens.

(M984) Marius, now master of Rome, entered the city, and a reign of terror commenced. The gates were closed, and the slaughter of the aristocratic party commenced. The consul Octavius was the first victim, and with him the most illustrious of his party. The executioners of Marius fulfilled his orders, and his revenge was complete. He entered upon a new consulate, execrated by all the leading citizens. But in the midst of his victories he was seized with a burning fever, and died in agonies, at the age of seventy, in the full possession of honor and power. Cinna succeeded him in the consulship and Rome was under the government of a detested tyrant. For four years his reign was absolute, and was a reign of terror, during which the senators were struck down, as the French nobles were in the time of Robespierre. Cinna, like Robespierre, reigned with the mightiest plenitude of power, united with incapacity.

In this state of anarchy Sulla's wife and children escaped with difficulty, and Sulla himself was deprived of his command against Mithridates. But Cinna, B.C. 84, was killed in a mutiny, and the command of the revolutionists devolved on Carbo. The situation of Sulla was critical, even at the head of his veteran forces. In the spring of the year following the death of Cinna, he landed in Brundusium, where he was re-enforced by partisans and deserters. The Senate made advances to Sulla, and many patricians joined his ranks, including Cneius Pompeius, then twenty-three years of age.

(M985) Civil war was now inaugurated between Sulla and the revolutionary party, at the head of which were now the consul Carbo and the younger Marius. Carbo was charged with Upper Italy, while Marius guarded Rome at the fortress of Praeneste. At Sacriportus Sulla defeated Marius, and entered Rome. But the insurgent Italians united with the revolutionary forces of Rome, and seventy thousand Samnites and Lucanians approached the capital. At the Colline gate a battle was fought, in which Sulla was victorious. This ended the Social war, and the subjugation of the revolutionists soon followed.

(M986) Sulla was now made dictator, and the ten years of revolution and insurrection were at an end in both West and East. The first use which Sulla made of his absolute power was to outlaw all his enemies. Lists of the proscribed were posted at Rome and in the Italian cities. It was a fearful visitation. A second reign of terror took place, more fearful and systematic than that of Marius. Four thousand seven hundred persons were slaughtered, among whom were forty senators, and one thousand six hundred equites.

(M987) The next year Sulla celebrated his magnificent triumph over Mithridates, and was saluted by the name of Felix. The despotism at which the Gracchi were accused of aiming was introduced by a military conqueror, aided by the aristocracy.

(M988) Sulla then devoted himself to the reorganization of the State. He conferred citizenship upon all the Italians but freedmen, and bestowed the sequestered estates of those who had taken side against him or his soldiers. The office of judices was restored to the Senate, and the equites were deprived of their separate seats at festivals. The Senate was restored to its ancient dignity and power, and three hundred new members appointed. The number of praetors was increased to eight. The government still rested on the basis of popular election, but was made more aristocratic than before. The Comitia Centuriata was left in possession of the nominal power of legislation, but it could only be exercised upon the initiation of a decree of the Senate. The Comitia Tributa was stripped of the powers by which it had so long controlled the Senate and the State. Tribunes of the people were selected from the Senate. The College of Pontiffs was no longer filled by popular election, but by the choice of their own members. A new criminal code was made, and the several courts were presided over by the praetors. Such, in substance, were the Cornelian laws to restore the old powers of the aristocracy.

(M989) Having effected this labor, Sulla, in the plenitude of power, retired into private life. He retired, not like Charles V., wearied of the toils of war, and disgusted with the vanity of glory and fame, nor like Washington, from lofty patriotic motives, but to bury himself in epicurean pleasures. In the luxury of his Cumaenon villa he divided his time between hunting and fishing, and the enjoyments of literature, until, worn out with sensuality, he died in his sixtieth year, B.C. 78. A grand procession of the Senate he had saved, the equites, the magistrates, the vestal virgins, and his disbanded soldiers, bore his body to the funeral pyre, and his ashes were deposited beside the tombs of the kings. A splendid monument was raised to his memory, on which was inscribed his own epitaph, that no friend ever did him a kindness, and no enemy a wrong, without receiving a full requital.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

ROME FROM THE DEATH OF SULLA TO THE GREAT CIVIL WARS OF CAESAR AND POMPEY.—CICERO, POMPEY, AND CAESAR.

On the death of Sulla, the Roman government was once more in the hands of the aristocracy, and for several years the consuls were elected from the great ruling families. But, in spite of all the conquests of Sulla and all his laws, the State was tumbling into anarchy, and was convulsed with fresh wars.

(M990) Sulla was alive when M. Lepidus came forward as the leader of the democratic party against C. Lutatius Catulus—a man without character or ability, who had deserted from the optimates to the popular party, to escape prosecution for the plunder of Sicily. The fortune he acquired in his government of that province enabled Lepidus to secure his election as consul, B.C. 78, and he even attempted to deprive Sulla of his funeral honors. A conspiracy was organized in Etruria, where the Sullan confiscation had been most severe. Lepidus came forward as an avenger of the old Romans whose fortunes had been ruined. The Senate, fearing convulsions, made Lepidus and Catulus, the consuls, swear not to take up arms against each other; but at the expiration of the consulship of Lepidus, went, as was usual, to the province assigned to him. This was Gaul, and here the war first broke out. An attempt on Rome was frustrated by Catulus, who defeated Lepidus, and the latter soon died in Sardinia, whither he had retired.

(M991) Sertorius was then in command of the army in Spain,—a man who had risen from an obscure position, but who possessed the hardy virtues of the old Sabine farmers. He served under Marius in Gaul, and was praetor when Sulla returned to Italy. When the cause of Marius was lost in Africa, he organized a resistance to Sulla in Spain. His army was re-enforced by Marian refugees, and he was aided by the Iberian tribes, among whom he was a favorite. For eight years this celebrated hero baffled the armies which Rome, under the lead of the aristocracy, sent against him, for he undertook to restore the cause of the democracy.

(M992) Against Sertorius was sent the man who, next to Caesar, was destined to play the most important part in the history of those times—Cn. Pompeius, born the same year as Cicero, B.C. 106, who had enlisted in the cause of Sulla, and early distinguished himself against the generals of Marius. He gained great successes in Sicily and Africa, and was, on his return to Rome, saluted by the dictator Sulla himself with the name of Magnus, which title he ever afterward bore. He was then a simple equestrian, and had not risen to the rank of quaestor, or praetor, or consul. Yet he had, at the early age of twenty-four, without enjoying any curule office, the honor of a triumph, even against the opposition of Sulla.

(M993) Pompey was sent to Spain with the title of proconsul, and with an army of thirty thousand men. He crossed the Alps between the sources of the Rhone and Po, and advanced to the southern coast of Spain. Here he was met by Sertorius, and at first was worsted. I need not detail the varied events of this war in Spain. The Spaniards at length grew weary of a contest which was not to their benefit, but which was carried on in behalf of rival factions at the capital. Dissensions broke out among the officers of Sertorius, and he was killed at a banquet by Perpenna, his lieutenant. On the death of the only man capable of resisting the aristocracy of Rome, and whose virtues were worthy of the ancient heroes, the progress of Pompey was easy. Perpenna was taken prisoner and his army was dispersed, and Spain was reduced to obedience.

(M994) In the mean time, while Pompey was fighting Sertorius in Spain, a servile war broke out in Italy, produced in part by the immense demand of slaves for the gladiatorial shows. One of these slaves, Spartacus, once a Thracian captain of banditti, escaped with seventy comrades to the crater of Vesuvius, and organized an insurrection, and he was soon at the head of one hundred thousand of those wretched captives whose condition was unendurable. Italy was ravaged from the Alps to the Straits of Messina. No Roman general, then in Italy, was equal to the task of subduing them. But, in the second year of the war, Crassus, who was a great proprietor of slaves, and who had ably served under Sulla, undertook the task of subduing the insurrectionary slaves. With six legions he drove them to the extremity of the Bruttian peninsula, and shut them up in Rhegium by strong lines of circumvallation. Spartacus was killed, after having broken through the lines, and most of his followers were destroyed; but six thousand escaped into Cisalpine Gaul, as the northern part of Italy was then called, and met Pompey on his victorious return from Spain, by whom they were utterly annihilated. Pompey claimed the merit of ending the servile war, and sought the honor of the consulship, although ineligible. Crassus, also ineligible, also demanded the consulship, and both these lieutenants of Sulla obtained their ends. But both, in order to obtain the consulship, made great promises. Pompey, in particular, promised to restore the tribunitian power. Pompey now broke with the aristocracy, whose champion he had been, and even carried another law by which the judices were taken from the equites as well as the Senate. Thus was the constitution of Sulla subverted within ten years. In this movement Pompey was supported by Julius Caesar, who was a young man of thirty years of age.

(M995) On the expiration of his consulship, Pompey remained inactive, refusing a province, until the troubles with the Mediterranean pirates again called him into active military service. These pirates swarmed on every coast, plundering cities, and cutting off communication between Rome and the provinces. They especially attacked the corn vessels, so that the price of provisions rose inordinately. The people, in distress, turned their eyes to Pompey; but he was not willing to accept any ordinary command, and through his intrigues, his tool, the tribune Gabinius, proposed that the people should elect a man for this service of consular rank, who should have absolute power for three years over the whole of the Mediterranean, and to a distance of fifty miles inward from the coast, and who should command a fleet of two hundred ships. He did not name Pompey, but everybody knew who was meant. The people, furious at the price of corn, and full of admiration for the victories of Pompey, were ready to appoint him; the Senate, alarmed and jealous, was equally determined to prevent his appointment. Tumults and riots were the consequence. Pompey affected to desire some other person for the command but himself; but the law passed, in spite of the opposition of the Senate, and Pompey was commissioned to prepare five hundred ships, enlist one hundred and twenty thousand sailors and soldiers, and also to take from the public treasury whatever sum he needed.

In the following spring his preparations were made, and in forty days he cleared the western half of the Mediterranean from the pirates, and drove them to the Cilician coast. Here he gained a great victory over their united fleets, and took twenty thousand prisoners, whom he settled at various points on the coasts, and returned home in forty-nine days after he had sailed from Brundusium. In less than three months he had ended the war.

(M996) This great success led to his command against Mithridates, who had again rallied his forces for one more decisive and desperate struggle with the Romans. Asia rallied against Europe, as Europe rallied against Asia in the crusades. Mithridates, after his defeat by Sulla, had retired to Armenia to the court of his son-in-law, Tigranes, whose power was greater than that of any other Oriental potentate. Tigranes was not at first inclined to break with Rome, but (B.C. 70) he consented to the war, which continued for seven years without decisive results. The Romans were commanded by Lucullus, the old lieutenant of Sulla, and although his labors were not appreciated at Rome, he broke really the power of Mithridates. But, through the intrigues of Pompey and his friends, he was recalled, and Pompey was commissioned, with the extraordinary power of unlimited control of the Eastern army and fleet, and the rights of proconsul over the whole of Asia. He already had the dominion of the Mediterranean. The Senate opposed this dangerous precedent, but it was carried by the people, who could not heap too many honors on their favorite. Cicero, then forty years of age, with Caesar, supported the measure, which was opposed by Hortensius and Catulus.

(M997) Lucullus retired to his luxurious villa to squander the riches he had accumulated in Asia, and to study the academic philosophy, while Pompey pursued his conquests in the East over foes already broken and humiliated. He showed considerable ability, and drove Mithridates from post to post in the heart of his dominion. The Eastern monarch made overtures of peace, which were rejected. Nothing but unconditional surrender would be accepted. His army was finally cut to pieces, and the old man escaped only with a few horsemen. Rejected by Tigranes, he made his way to the Cimmerian Bosphorus, which was his last retreat. Pompey then turned his attention to Armenia, and Tigranes threw himself upon his mercy, at the cost of all his territories but Armenia Proper. Pompey then resumed the pursuit of Mithridates, fighting his way though the mountains of Iberia and Albania, but he did not pursue his foe over the Caucasus. Mithridates, secure in the Crimea, then planned a daring attempt on Rome herself, which was to march round the Euxine and up the Danube, collecting in his train the Sarmatians, Gaetae, and other barbarians, cross the Alps, and descend upon Italy. His kingdom of Pontus was already lost, and had been made a Roman province. His followers, however, became disaffected, his son Pharnaces rebelled, and he had no other remedy than suicide to escape capture. He died B.C. 63, after a reign of fifty-three years, in the sixty-ninth year of his age—the greatest Eastern prince since Cyrus. Racine has painted him in one of his dramas as one of the most heroic men of the world. But it was his misfortune to contend with Rome in the plenitude of her power.

(M998) Pompey, before the death of Mithridates, went to Syria to regulate its affairs, it being ceded to Rome by Tigranes. After the defeat of Tigranes by Lucullus, that kingdom, however, had been recovered by Antiochus XIII., the last of the Seleucidae, who held a doubtful sovereignty. He was, however, reduced by a legate of Pompey, and Syria became a Roman province. The next year, Pompey advanced south, and established the Roman supremacy in Phoenicia and Palestine, the latter country being the seat of civil war between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. It was then that Jerusalem was taken by the Roman general, after a siege of three months, and the conqueror entered the most sacred precincts of the temple, to the horror of the priesthood. He established Hyrcanus as high priest, as has been already related, and then retired to Pontus, settled its affairs, and departed with his army for Italy, having won a succession of victories never equaled in the East, except by Alexander. And never did victories receive such great eclat, which, however, were easily won, as those of Alexander had been. No Asiatic foe was a match for either Greeks or Romans in the field. The real difficulties were in marches, in penetrating mountain passes, in crossing arid plains.

(M999) But before the conqueror of Asia received the reward of his great services to the State—the most splendid triumph which had as yet been seen on the Via Sacra—Rome was brought to the verge of ruin by the conspiracy of Catiline. The departure of Pompey to punish the pirates of the Mediterranean and conquer Mithridates, left the field clear to the two greatest men of their age, Cicero and Caesar. It was while Cicero was consul that the conspiracy was detected.

(M1000) Marcus Tullius Cicero, the most accomplished man, on the whole, in Roman annals, and as immortal as Caesar himself, was born B.C. 106, near Arpinum, of an equestrian, but not senatorial family. He received a good education, received the manly gown at sixteen, and entered the forum to hear the debates, but pursued his studies with great assiduity. He was intrusted by his wealthy father to the care of the augur, Q. Mucius Scaevola, an old lawyer deeply read in the constitution of his country and the principles of jurisprudence. At eighteen he served his first and only campaign under the father of the great Pompey, in the social war. He was twenty-four before he made a figure in the eye of the public, keeping aloof from the fierce struggles of Marius and Sulla, identifying himself with neither party, and devoted only to the cultivation of his mind, studying philosophy and rhetoric as well as law, traveling over Sicily and Greece, and preparing himself for a forensic orator. At twenty-five he appeared in the forum as a public pleader, and boldly defended the oppressed and injured, and even braved the anger of Sulla, then all-powerful as dictator. At twenty-seven he again repaired to Athens for greater culture, and extensively traveled in Asia Minor, holding converse with the most eminent scholars and philosophers in the Grecian cities. At twenty-nine he returned to Rome, improved in health as well as in those arts which contributed to his unrivaled fame as an orator—a rival with Hortensius and Cotta, the leaders of the Roman bar. At thirty he was elected quaestor, not, as was usually the case, by family interest, but from his great reputation as a lawyer. The duties of his office called him to Sicily, under the praetor of Lilybaeum, which he admirably discharged, showing not only executive ability, but rare virtue and impartiality. The vanity which dimmed the lustre of his glorious name, and which he never exorcised, received a severe wound on his return to Italy. He imagined he was the observed of all observers, but soon discovered that his gay and fashionable friends were ignorant, not only of what he had done in Sicily but of his administration at all.

(M1001) For the next four years he was absorbed in private studies, and in the courts of law, at the end of which he became aedile, the year that Verres was impeached for misgovernment in Sicily. This was the most celebrated State trial for impeachment on record, with the exception, perhaps, of that of Warren Hastings. But Cicero, who was the public accuser and prosecutor, was more fortunate than Burke. He collected such an overwhelming mass of evidence against this corrupt governor, that he went into exile without making a defense, although defended by Hortensius, consul elect. The speech which the orator was to have made at the trial was subsequently published by Cicero, and is one of the most eloquent tirades against public corruption ever composed or uttered.

(M1002) Nothing of especial interest marked the career of this great man for three more years, until B.C. 67 he was elected first praetor, or supreme judge, an office for which he was supremely qualified. But it was not merely civic cases which he decided. He appeared as a political speaker, and delivered from the rostrum his celebrated speech on the Manilian laws, maintaining the cause of Pompey when he departed from the policy of the aristocracy. He had now gained by pure merit, in a corrupt age, without family influence, the highest offices of the State, even as Burke became the leader of the House of Commons without aristocratic connections, and now naturally aspired to the consulship,—the great prize which every ambitious man sought, but which, in the aristocratic age of Roman history, was rarely conferred except on members of the ruling houses, or very eminent success in war. By the friendship of Pompey, and also from the general admiration which his splendid talents and attainments commanded, this great prize was also secured. He had six illustrious competitors, among whom were Antonius and Catiline, who were assisted by Crassus and Caesar. As consul, all the energies of his mind and character were absorbed in baffling the treason of this eminent patrician demagogue. L. Sergius Catiline was one of those wicked, unscrupulous, intriguing, popular, abandoned and intellectual scoundrels that a corrupt age and patrician misrule brought to the surface of society, aided by the degenerate nobles to whose class he belonged. In the bitterness of his political disappointments, headed off by Cicero at every turn, he meditated the complete overthrow of the Roman constitution, and his own elevation as chief of the State, and absolutely inaugurated rebellion. Cicero, who was in danger of assassination, boldly laid the conspiracy before the Senate, and secured the arrest of many of his chief confederates. Catiline fled and assembled his followers, which numbered twelve thousand desperate men, and fought with the courage of despair, but was defeated and slain.

Had it not been for the vigilance, energy, and patriotism of Cicero, it is possible this atrocious conspiracy would have succeeded. The state of society was completely demoralized; the disbanded soldiers of the Eastern wars had spent their money and wanted spoils; the Senate was timid and inefficient, and an unscrupulous and able leader, at the head of discontented factions, on the assassination of the consuls and the virtuous men who remained in power, might have bid defiance to any force which could then, in the absence of Pompey in the East, have been marshaled against him.

(M1003) But the State was saved, and saved by a patriotic statesman who had arisen by force of genius and character to the supreme power. The gratitude of the people was unbounded. Men of all ranks hailed him as the savior of his country; thanksgivings to the gods were voted in his name, and all Italy joined in enthusiastic praises.

(M1004) But he had now reached the culminating height of his political greatness, and his subsequent career was one of sorrow and disappointment. Intoxicated by his elevation,—for it was unprecedented at Rome, in his day, for a man to rise so high by mere force of eloquence and learning, without fortune, or family, or military exploits,—he became conceited and vain. In the civil troubles which succeeded the return of Pompey, he was banished from the country he had saved, and there is nothing more pitiful than his lamentations and miseries while in exile. His fall was natural. He had opposed the demoralising current which swept every thing before it. When his office of consul was ended, he was exposed to the hatred of the senators whom he had humiliated, of the equites whose unreasonable demands he had opposed, of the people whom he disdained to flatter, and of the triumvirs whose usurpation he detested. No one was powerful enough to screen him from these combined hostilities, except the very men who aimed at the subversion of Roman liberties, and who wished him out of the way; his friend Pompey showed a mean, pusillanimous, and calculating selfishness, and neither Crassus nor Caesar liked him. But in his latter days, part of which were passed in exile, and all without political consideration, he found time to compose those eloquent treatises on almost every subject, for which his memory will be held in reverence. Unlike Bacon, he committed no crime against the laws; yet, like him, fell from his high estate in the convulsions of a revolutionary age, and as Bacon soothed his declining years with the charms of literature and philosophy, so did Cicero display in his writings the result of long years of study, and unfold for remotest generations the treasures of Greek and Roman wisdom, ornamented, too, by that exquisite style, which, of itself, would have given him immortality as one of the great artists of the world. He lived to see the utter wreck of Roman liberties, and was ultimately executed by order of Antonius, in revenge for those bitter philippics which the orator had launched against him before the descending sun of his political glory had finally disappeared in the gloom and darkness of revolutionary miseries.

(M1005) But we resume the thread of political history in those tangled times. Cicero was at the highest of his fame and power when Pompey returned from his Asiatic conquests, the great hero of his age, on whom all eyes were fixed, and to whom all bent the knee of homage and admiration. His triumph, at the age of forty-five, was the grandest ever seen. It lasted two days. Three hundred and twenty-four captive princes walked before his triumphal car, followed by spoils and emblems of a war which saw the reduction of one thousand fortresses. The enormous sum of twenty thousand talents was added to the public treasury.

(M1006) Pompey was, however, greater in war than in peace. Had he known how to make use of his prestige and his advantages, he might have henceforth reigned without a rival. He was not sufficiently noble and generous to live without making grave mistakes and alienating some of his greatest friends, nor was he sufficiently bad and unscrupulous to abuse his military supremacy. He pursued a middle course, envious of all talent, absorbed in his own greatness, vain, pompous, and vacillating. His quarrels with Crassus and Lucullus severed him from the aristocratic party, whose leader he properly was. His haughtiness and coldness alienated the affections of the people, through whom he could only advance to supreme dominion. He had neither the arts of a demagogue, nor the magnanimity of a conqueror.

(M1007) It was at this crisis that Caesar returned from Spain as the conqueror of the Lusitanians. Caius Julius Caesar belonged to the ancient patrician family of the Julii, and was born B.C. 100, and was six years younger than Pompey and Cicero. But he was closely connected with the popular party by the marriage of his aunt Julia with the great Marius, and his marriage with Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, one of the chief opponents of Sulla. He early served in the army of the East, but devoted his earliest years to the art of oratory. His affable manners and unbounded liberality made him popular with the people. He obtained the quaestorship at thirty-two, the year he lost his wife, and went as quaestor to Antistius Vetus, into the province of Further Spain. On his return, the following year, he married Pompeia, the granddaughter of Sulla, of the Cornelia gens, and formed a union with Pompey. By his family connections he obtained the curule aedileship at the age of thirty-five, and surpassed his predecessors in the extravagance of his shows and entertainments, the money for which he borrowed. At thirty-seven he was elected Pontifex Maximus, so great was his popularity, and the following year he obtained the praetorship, B.C. 62, and on the expiration of his office he obtained the province of Further Spain. His debts were so enormous that he applied for aid to Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and readily obtained the loan he sought. In Spain, with an army at his command, he gained brilliant victories over the Lusitanians, and returned to Rome enriched, and sought the consulship. To obtain this, he relinquished the customary triumph, and, with the aid of Pompey, secured his election, and entered into that close alliance with Pompey and Crassus which historians call the first triumvirate. It was merely a private agreement between the three most powerful men of Rome to support each other, and not a distinct magistracy.

(M1008) As consul, Caesar threw his influence against the aristocracy, to whose ranks he belonged, both by birth and office, and caused an agrarian law to be passed, against the fiercest opposition of the Senate, by which the rich Campanian lands were divided for the benefit of the poorest citizens—a good measure, perhaps, but which brought him forward as the champion of the people. He next gained over the equites, by relieving them, by a law which he caused to be passed, of one-third of the sum they had agreed to pay for the farming of the taxes of Asia. He secured the favor of Pompey by causing all his acts in the East to be confirmed. At the expiration of his consulship he obtained the province of Gaul, as the fullest field for the development of his military talents, and the surest way to climb to subsequent greatness. At this period Cicero went into exile without waiting for his trial—that miserable period made memorable for aristocratic broils and intrigues, and when Clodius, a reckless young noble, entered into the house of the Pontifex Maximus, disguised as a woman, in pursuit of a vile intrigue with Caesar's wife.

(M1009) The succeeding nine years of Caesar's life were occupied by the subjugation of Gaul. In the first campaign he subdued the Helvetii, and conquered Ariovistus, a powerful German chieftain. In the second campaign he opposed a confederation of Belgic tribes—the most warlike of all the Gauls, who had collected a force of three hundred thousand men, and signally defeated them, for which victories the Senate decreed a public thanksgiving of fifteen days. That given in Pompey's honor, after the Mithridatic war, had lasted but ten. At this time he made a renewed compact with Pompey and Crassus, by which Pompey was to have the two Spains for his province, Crassus that of Syria, and he himself should have a prolonged government in Gaul for five years more. The combined influence of these men was enough to secure the elections, and the year following Crassus and Pompey were made consuls. Caesar had to resist powerful confederations of the Gauls, and in order to strike terror among them, in the fourth year of the war, invaded Britain. But I can not describe the various campaigns of Caesar in Gaul and Britain without going into details hard to be understood—his brilliant victories over enemies of vastly greater numbers, his marchings and countermarchings, his difficulties and dangers, his inventive genius, his strategic talents, his boundless resources, his command over his soldiers and their idolatry, until, after nine years, Gaul was subdued and added to the Roman provinces. During his long absence from Rome his interests were guarded by the tribune Curio, and Marcus Antonius, the future triumvir. During this time Crassus had ingloriously conducted a distant war in Parthia, in quest of fame and riches, and was killed by an unknown hand after a disgraceful defeat. This avaricious patrician must not be confounded with the celebrated orator, of a preceding age, who was so celebrated for his elegance and luxury.

Affairs at Rome had also taken a turn which indicated a rupture with Caesar and Pompey, now left, by the death of Crassus, at the head of the State. The brilliant victories of the former in Gaul were in everybody's mouth, and the fame of the latter was being eclipsed. A serious rivalry between these great generals began to show itself. The disturbances which also broke out on the death of Clodius led to the appointment of Pompey as sole consul, and all his acts as consul tended to consolidate his power. His government in Spain was prolonged for five years more; he entered into closer connections with the aristocracy, and prepared for a rupture with his great rival, which had now become inevitable, as both grasped supreme power. That struggle is now to be presented in the following chapter.



CHAPTER XL.

THE CIVIL WARS BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY.

(M1010) The condition of Rome when Caesar returned, crowned with glory, from his Gallic campaign, in which he had displayed the most consummate ability, was miserable enough. The constitution had been assailed by all the leading chieftains, and even Cicero could only give vent to his despair and indignation in impotent lamentations. The cause of liberty was already lost. Caesar had obtained the province of Gaul for ten years, against all former precedent, and Pompey had obtained the extension of his imperium for five additional years. Both these generals thus had armies and an independent command for a period which might be called indefinite—that is, as long as they could maintain their authority in a period of anarchy. Rome was disgraced by tumults and assassinations; worthless people secured the highest offices, and were the tools of the two great generals, who divided between them the empire of the world. All family ties between these two generals were destroyed by the death of Julia. The feud between Clodius and Milo, the one a candidate for the praetorship, and the other for the consulship, was most disgraceful, in the course of which Clodius was slain. Each wanted an office as the means of defraying enormous debts. Pompey, called upon by the Senate to relieve the State from anarchy, was made sole consul—another unprecedented thing. The trial of Milo showed that Pompey was the absolute master at Rome, and it was his study to maintain his position against Caesar.

(M1011) It was plain that the world could not have two absolute masters, for both Pompey and Caesar aspired to universal sovereignty. One must succumb to the other—be either anvil or hammer. Neither would have been safe without their unities and their armed followers. And if both were destroyed, the State would still be convulsed with factions. All true constitutional liberty was at an end, for both generals and demagogues could get such laws passed as they pleased, with sufficient money to bribe those who controlled the elections. It was a time of universal corruption and venality. Money was the mainspring of society. Public virtue had passed away,—all elevated sentiment,—all patriotism,—all self-sacrifice. The people cared but little who ruled, if they were supplied with corn and wine at nominal prices. Patrician nobles had become demagogues, and demagogues had power in proportion to their ability or inclination to please the people. Cicero despaired of the State, and devoted himself to literature. There yet remained the aristocratic party, which had wealth and prestige and power, and the popular party, which aimed to take these privileges away, but which was ruled by demagogues more unprincipled than the old nobility. Pompey represented the one, and Caesar the other, though both were nobles.

Both these generals had rendered great services. Pompey had subdued the East, and Caesar the West. Pompey had more prestige, Caesar more genius. Pompey was a greater tactician, Caesar a greater strategist. Pompey was proud, pompous, jealous, patronizing, self-sufficient, disdainful. Caesar was politic, intriguing, patient, lavish, unenvious, easily approached, forgiving, with great urbanity and most genial manners. Both were ambitious, unscrupulous, and selfish. Cicero distrusted both, flattered each by turns, but inclined to the side of Pompey as more conservative, and less dangerous. The Senate took the side of Pompey, the people that of Caesar. Both Caesar and Pompey had enjoyed power so long, that neither would have been contented with private life.

(M1012) In the year B.C. 49, Caesar's proconsular imperium was to terminate one year after the close of the Gallic war. He wished to be re-elected consul, and also secure his triumph. But he could not, according to law, have the triumph without disbanding the army, and without an army he would not be safe at Rome, with so many enemies. Neither could he be elected consul, according to the forms, while he enjoyed his imperium, for it had long been the custom that no one could sue for the consulship at the head of an army. He, therefore, could neither be consul nor enjoy a triumph, legitimately, without disbanding his army. Moreover, the party of Pompey, being then in the ascendant at Rome, demanded that Caesar should lay down his imperium. The tribunes, in the interests of Caesar, opposed the decree of the Senate; the reigning consuls threatened the tribunes, and they fled to Caesar's camp in Cisalpine Gaul. It should, however, be mentioned, that when the consul Marcellus, an enemy of Caesar, proposed in the Senate that he should lay down his command, Curio, the tribune, whose debts Caesar had paid, moved that Pompey should do the same; which he refused to do, since the election of Caesar to the consulship would place the whole power of the republic in his hands. Caesar made a last effort to avoid the inevitable war, by proposing to the Senate to lay down his command, if Pompey would also; but Pompey prevaricated, and the compromise came to nothing. Both generals distrusted each other, and both were disloyal to the State. The Senate then appointed a successor to Caesar in Gaul, ordered a general levy of troops throughout Italy, and voted money and men to Pompey. Caesar had already crossed the Rubicon, which was high treason, before his last proposal to compromise, and he was on his way to Rome. No one resisted him, for the people had but little interest in the success of either party. Pompey, exaggerating his popularity, thought he had only to stamp the ground, and an army would appear, and when he discovered that his rival was advancing on the Flaminican way, fled hastily from Rome with most of the senators, and went to Brundusium. Caesar did not at once seize the capital, but followed Pompey, and so vigorously attacked him, that he quit the town and crossed over to Illyricum. Caesar had no troops to pursue him, and therefore retraced his steps, and entered Rome, after an absence of ten years, at the head of a victorious army, undisputed master of Italy.

(M1013) But Pompey still controlled his proconsular province of Spain, where seven legions were under his lieutenants, and Africa also was occupied by his party. Caesar, after arranging the affairs of Italy, marched through Gaul into Spain to fight the generals of Pompey. That campaign was ended in forty days, and he became master of Spain. While in Spain he was elected to his second consulship, and also made dictator. He returned to Rome as rapidly as he had marched into Spain, and enacted some wholesome laws, among others that by which the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul, the northern part of Italy, obtained citizenship. After settling the general affairs of Italy, he laid down the dictatorship, and went, to Brundusium, and collected his forces from various parts for a decisive conflict with Pompey, who had remained, meanwhile, in Macedonia, organizing his army. He collected nine legions, with auxiliary forces, while his fleet commanded the sea. He also secured vast magazines of corn in Thessaly, Asia, Egypt, Crete, and Cyrene.

(M1014) Caesar was able to cross the sea with scarcely more than fifteen thousand men, on account of the insufficiency of his fleet, and he was thrown upon a hostile shore, cut off from supplies, and in presence of a vastly superior force. But his troops were veterans, and his cause was strengthened by the capture of Apollonia. He then advanced north to seize Dyrhachiuim, where Pompey's stores were deposited, but Pompey reached the town before him, and both armies encamped on the banks of the river Apsus, the one on the left and the other on the right bank. There Caesar was joined by the remainder of his troops, brought over with great difficulty from Brundusium by Marcus Antonius, his most able lieutenant and devoted friend. Pompey was also re-enforced by two legions from Syria, led by his father-in-law, Scipio. Both parties abstained from attacking each other while these re-enforcements were being brought forward, and Caesar even made a last effort at compromise, while the troops on each side exchanged mutual courtesies.

(M1015) Pompey avoided a pitched battle, and intrenched himself on a hill near Dyrhachium. Caesar surrounded him with lines of circumvallation. Pompey broke through them, and compelled Caesar to retire, with considerable loss. He retreated to Thessaly, followed by Pompey, who, had he known how to pursue his advantage, might, after this last success—the last he ever had—have defeated Caesar. He had wisely avoided a pitched battle until his troops should become inured to service, or until he should wear out his adversary; but now, puffed up with victory and self-confidence, and unduly influenced by his officers, he concluded to risk a battle. Caesar was encamped on the plain of Pharsalia, and Pompey on a hill about four miles distant. The steep bank of the river Enipeus covered the right of Pompey's line and the left of Caesar's. The infantry of the former numbered forty-five thousand; that of the latter, twenty-two thousand, but they were veterans. Pompey was also superior in cavalry, having seven thousand, while Caesar had only one thousand. With these, which formed the strength of Pompey's force, he proposed to outflank the right of Caesar, extended on the plain. To guard against this movement, Caesar withdrew six cohorts from his third line, and formed them into a fourth in the rear of his cavalry on the right. The battle commenced by a furious assault on the lines of Pompey by Caesar's veterans, who were received with courage. Meanwhile Pompey's cavalry swept away that of Caesar, and was advancing to attack the rear, when they received, unexpectedly, the charge of the cohorts which Caesar had posted there, The cavalry broke, and fled to the mountains. The six cohorts then turned upon the slingers and archers, who had covered the attack of the cavalry, defeated them, and fell upon the rear of Pompey's left. Caesar then brought up his third line, and decided the battle. Pompey had fled when he saw the defeat of his cavalry. His camp was taken and sacked, and his troops, so confident of victory, were scattered, surrounded, and taken prisoners. Caesar, with his usual clemency, spared their lives, nor had he any object to destroy them. Among those who surrendered after this decisive battle was Junius Brutus, who was not only pardoned, but admitted to the closest friendship.

(M1016) Pompey, on his defeat, fled to Larissa, embarked with his generals, and sailed to Mitylene. As he had still the province of Africa and a large fleet, it was his policy to go there; but he had a silly notion that his true field of glory was the East, and he saw no place of refuge but Egypt. That kingdom was then governed by the children of Ptolemy Auletes, Cleopatra and Ptolemy, neither of whom were adults, and who, moreover, were quarreling with each other for the undivided sovereignty of Egypt. At this juncture, Pompey appeared on the coast, on which Ptolemy was encamped. He sent a messenger to the king, with the request that he might be sheltered in Alexandria. To grant it would compromise Ptolemy with Caesar; to refuse it would send Pompey to the camp of Cleopatra in Syria. He was invited to a conference, and his minister Achillus was sent out in a boat to bring him on shore. Pompey, infatuated, imprudently trusted himself in the boat, in which he recognized an old comrade, Septimius, who, however, did not return his salutation. On landing, he was stabbed by Septimius, who had persuaded Ptolemy to take his life, in order to propitiate Caesar and gain the Egyptian crown. Thus ingloriously fell the conqueror of Asia, and the second man in the empire, by treachery.