No More Learning

CHAP. III THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
383
Pompeius and Crassus still lay before the gates of the city. The former had indeed promised to disband his soldiers after his triumph (last day of Dec. , 683) ; but he had at first omitted to do so, in order to let the revolution in the state be completed without hindrance under the pressure which the Spanish army in front of the capital exercised over the city and the senate—a course, which in like manner applied to the army of Crassus. This reason now existed no longer; but still the dissolution of the armies was postponed. In the turn taken by matters it looked as
if one of the two generals allied with the democracy would seize the military dictatorship and place oligarchs and
democrats in the same chains. And this one could
be Pompeius. From the first Crassus had played a sub ordinate part in the coalition; he had been obliged to propose himself, and owed even his election to the consul ship mainly to the proud intercession of Pompeius. Far the stronger, Pompeius was evidently master of the situation ; if he availed himself of seemed as he could not but become what the instinct of the multitude even now designated him—the absolute ruler of the mightiest state in the civilized world. Already the whole mass of the servile crowded around the future monarch.
weaker opponents were seeking their last resource in new coalition; Crassus, full of old and recent jealousy towards the younger rival who so thoroughly outstripped him, made approaches to the senate and attempted by unprecedented largesses to attach to himself the multitude of the capital—as the oligarchy which Crassus himself had helped to break down, and the ever ungrateful multi rude, would have been able to afford any protection what ever against the veterans of the Spanish army. For moment seemed as the armies of Pompeius and
Crassus would come to blows before the gates of the capital.
only
Already his
it
if if
it, it
aa
if
Retirement of Pompeius.
But the democrats averted this catastrophe by their sagacity and their pliancy. For their party too, as well as for the senate and Crassus, it was all-important that Pompeius should not seize the dictatorship; but with a truer discernment of their own weakness and of the char acter of their powerful opponent their leaders tried the method of conciliation. Pompeius lacked no condition for grasping at the crown except the first of all—proper kingly courage. We have already described the man with his effort to be at once loyal republican and master of Rome, with his vacillation and indecision, with his pliancy that concealed itself under the boasting of inde pendent resolution. This was the first great trial to which destiny subjected him; and he failed to stand it. The pretext under which Pompeius refused to dismiss the army was, that he distrusted Crassus and therefore could not take the initiative in disbanding the soldiers. The democrats induced Crassus to make gracious advances in the matter, and to offer the hand of peace to his colleague before the eyes of all; in public and in private they be sought the latter that to the double merit of having van
the enemy and reconciled the parties he would add the third and yet greater service of preserving internal peace to his country, and banishing the fearful spectre of civil war with which they were threatened. Whatever could tell on a vain, unskilful, vacillating man-—all the flattering arts of diplomacy, all the theatrical apparatus of
enthusiasm—was put in motion to obtain the desired result; and—which was the main point—things had by the well-timed compliance of Crassus assumed such a shape, that Pompeius had no alternative but either to come forward openly as tyrant of Rome or to retire. So he at length yielded and consented to disband the troops.
The command in the Mithradatic war, which he doubtless hoped to obtain when he had allowed himself to be chosen
384
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK v
quished
patriotic
can. in THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
385
consul for 684, he could not now desire, since Lucullus 70 seemed to have practically ended that war with the campaign of 683. He deemed it beneath his dignity to 71. accept the consular province assigned to him by the senate
in accordance with the Sempronian law, and Crassus in this followed his example. Accordingly when Pompeius after discharging his soldiers resigned his consulship on the last day of 684, he retired for the time wholly from 70. public affairs, and declared that he wished thenceforth to live a life of quiet leisure as a simple citizen. He had taken up such a position that he was obliged to grasp at
the crown; and, seeing that he was not willing to do so, no part was left to him but the empty one of a candidate for a throne resigning his pretensions to it.
The retirement of the man, to whom as things stood Senate, the first place belonged, from the political stage reproduced Equites, in the first instance nearly the same position of parties, and
Populate! which we found in the Gracchan and Marian epochs.
Sulla had merely strengthened the senatorial government, not created it 5 so, after the bulwarks erected by Sulla had fallen, the government nevertheless remained primarily with the senate, although, no doubt, the constitution with which it governed—in the main the restored Gracchan constitution-——was pervaded by a spirit hostile to the oligarchy. The democracy had effected the re-establish ment of the Gracchan constitution; but without a new Gracchus it was a body without a head, and that neither Pompeius nor Crassus could be permanently such a head, was in itself clear and had been made still clearer by the recent events. So the democratic opposition, for want of a leader who could have directly taken the helm, had to content itself for the time being with hampering and annoying the government at every step. Between the oligarchy, however, and the democracy there rose into new
consideration the capitalist party, which in the recent crisis
'01. 1v
125
386
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK v
had made common cause with the latter, but which the oligarchs now zealously endeavoured to draw over to their
side, so as to acquire in it a counterpoise to the democracy. Thus courted on both sides the moneyed lords did not neglect to turn their advantageous position to profit, and to have the only one of their former privileges which they had not yet regained—the fourteen benches reserved for the equestrian order in the theatre-—-now (687) restored to them by decree of the people. On the whole, without abruptly breaking with the democracy, they again drew closer to the government. The very relations of the senate to Crassus and his clients point in this direction; but a better understanding between the senate and the moneyed
aristocracy seems to have been chiefly brought about by the fact, that in 686 the senate withdrew from Lucius Lucullus the ablest of the senatorial oflicers, at the instance
of the capitalists whom he had sorely annoyed, the ad ministration of the province of Asia so important for their
Purim-“5 (P- 349)
But while the factions of the capital were indulging in
their wonted mutual quarrels, which they were never able to bring to any proper decision, events in the east followed their fatal course, as we have already described; and it was these events that brought the dilatory course of the
politics of the capital to a crisis. The war both by land
and by sea had there taken a most unfavourable turn. 67. In the beginning of 687 the Pontic army of the Romans
was destroyed, and their Armenian army was utterly break ing up on its retreat ; all their conquests were lost, the sea was exclusively in the power of the pirates, and the price of grain in Italy was thereby so raised that they were afraid of an actual famine. No doubt, as we saw, the faults of the generals, especially the utter incapacity of the admiral Marcus Antonius and the temerity of the otherwise able Lucius Lucullus, were in part the occasion of these
. 10
The events in the
east, and their re action on
Rome.
CHAP- rrr THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
387
calamities; no doubt also the democracy had by its revolu tionary agitations materially contributed to the breaking up of the Armenian army. But of course the government was now held cumulatively responsible for all the mischief which itself and others had occasioned, and the indignant hungry multitude desired only an opportunity to settle accounts with the senate.
It was a decisive crisis. The oligarchy, though degraded Reappear and disarmed, was not yet overthrown, for the management ance of of public affairs was still in the hands of the senate ; but it Pompeius. would fall, if its opponents should appropriate to themselves
that management, and more especially the superintendence
of military affairs; and now this was possible. If proposals
for another and better management of the war by land and
sea were now submitted to the comitia, the senate was obviously—looking to the temper of the burgesses-—not in
a position to prevent their passing; and an interference of
the burgesses in these supreme questions of administration
was practically the deposition of the senate and the transference of the conduct of the state to the leaders of opposition. Once more the concatenation of events
brought the decision into the hands of Pompeius. For
more than two years the famous general had lived as a
private citizen in the capital. His voice was seldom heard
in the senate-house or in the Forum ; in the former he was unwelcome and without decisive influence, in the latter he
was afraid of the stormy proceedings of the parties. But
when he did show himself, it was with the full retinue of
his clients high and low, and the very solemnity of his
reserve imposed on the multitude. If he, who was still surrounded with the full lustre of his
successes, should now offer to go to the east, he would
beyond doubt be readily invested by the burgesses with all
the plenitude of military and political power which he
might himself ask. For the oligarchy, which saw in the
extraordinary
overthrow
senatorial rule, and new power of Pom peius.
of law were introduced, one of which, besides
the discharge—long since demanded by the democracy
of the soldiers of the Asiatic army who had served their term, decreed the recall of its commander-in-chief Lucius Lucullus and the supplying of his place by one of the
consuls of the current year, Gaius Piso or Manius Glabrio ; while the second revived and extended the plan proposed seven years before by the senate itself for clearing the seas from the pirates. A single general to be named by the senate from the consulars was to be appointed, to hold by sea exclusive command over the whole Mediterranean from the Pillars of Hercules to the coasts of Pontus and Syria, and to exercise by land, concurrently with the respective Roman governors, supreme command over the whole coasts for fifty miles inland. The oflice was secured to him for three years. He was surrounded by a staff, such as Rome had never seen, of five-and-twenty lieutenants of senatorial rank, all invested with praetorian insignia and praetorian powers, and of two under-treasurers with
388
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK v
political-military dictatorship their certain ruin, and in 71- Pompeius himself since the coalition of 683 their most hated foe, this was an overwhelming blow; but the
democratic party also could have little comfort in the prospect. However desirable the putting an end to the government of the senate could not but be in itself, it was, if it took place in this way, far less a victory for their party than a personal victory for their over-powerful ally. In the latter there might easily arise a far more dangerous opponent to the democratic party than the senate had been. The danger fortunately avoided a few years before by the disbanding of the Spanish army and the retirement of Pompeius would recur in increased measure, if Pompeius should now be placed at the head of the armies of the east.
On this occasion, however, Pompeius acted or at least of the [67. allowed others to act in his behalf. In 687 two projects
decreeing
CHAP- m THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
389
quaestorian prerogatives, all of them selected by the ex— elusive will of the general commanding-in-chief. He was allowed to raise as many as 120,000 infantry, 5000 cavalry, 50o ships of war, and for this purpose to dispose absolutely of the means of the provinces and client-states; moreover, the existing vessels of war and a considerable number of troops were at once handed over to him. The treasures of the state in the capital and in the provinces as well as those of the dependent communities were to be placed absolutely at his command, and in spite of the severe financial distress a sum of £1,400,000 (144,000,000 sesterces) was at once to be paid to him from the state-chest.
It is clear that by these projects of law, especially by Efl'octol
that which related to the expedition against the pirates, the
theprojoetl
of law. of the senate was set aside. Doubtless the
government
ordinary supreme magistrates nominated by the burgesses were of themselves the proper generals of the common wealth, and the extraordinary magistrates needed, at least according to strict law, confirmation by the burgesses in order to act as generals; but in the appointment to par ticular commands no influence constitutionally belonged to the community, and it was only on the proposition of the senate, or at any rate on that of a magistrate entitled in himself to hold the ofi’ice of general, that the comitia had hitherto now and again interfered in this matter and conferred such special functions. In this field, ever since there had existed a Roman free state, the practically decisive voice pertained to the senate, and this its prerogative had in the course of time obtained full recognition. No doubt the democracy had already assailed it ; but even in the most doubtful of the cases which had hitherto occurred
--the transference of the African command to Gaius Marius
in 647 404)—it was only a magistrate constitution-107. ally entitled to hold the oflice of general that was entrustedl
by the resolution of the burgesses with a definite expedition.
390
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY nooxv
But now the burgesses were to invest any private man at their pleasure not merely with the extraordinary authority of the supreme magistracy, but also with a sphere of oflice definitely settled by them. That the senate had to choose this man from the ranks of the consulars, was a mitigation only in form ; for the selection was left to it simply because there was really no choice, and in presence of the vehemently excited multitude the senate could entrust the chief command of the seas and coasts to no other save Pompeius alone. But more dangerous still than this negation in principle of the senatorial control was its practical abolition by the institution of an ofiice of almost unlimited military and financial powers. While the oflice of general was formerly restricted to a term of one year, to a definite province, and to military and financial resources strictly measured out, the new extraordinary oflice had from the outset a duration of three years secured to it which of course did not exclude a farther prolongation; had the greater portion of all the provinces, and even Italy itself which was formerly free from military jurisdiction, subordinated to it; had the soldiers, ships, treasures of the state placed almost without restriction at its disposal. Even the primitive fundamental principle in the state-law of the Roman republic, which we have just mentioned— that the highest military and civil authority could not be conferred without the co-operation of the burgesses-— was infringed in favour of the new commander-in-chief. Inasmuch as the law conferred beforehand on the twenty five adjutants whom he was to nominate praetorian rank and praetorian prerogatives,1 the highest oflice of republican
l The extraordinary magisterial power (pro conrule, pro praetorev pro yuan-lore) might according to Roman state-law originate in three ways. Either it arose out of the principle which held good for the non-urban magistracy, that the ofiice continued up to the appointed legal term, but the ofliciai authority up to the arrival of the successor, which was the oldest, simplest, and most frequent case. Or it arose in the way of the
CHAP. in THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
39!
Rome became subordinate to a newly created office, for which it was left to the future to find the fitting name, but which in reality even now involved in it the monarchy. It was a total revolution in the existing order of things, for which the foundation was laid in this project of law.
These measures of a man who had just given so Pompelul striking proofs of his vacillation and weakness surprise us 31:3,: by their decisive energy. Nevertheless the fact thatlaws. Pompeius acted on this occasion more resolutely than
during his consulate is very capable of explanation. The
point at issue was not that he should come forward at
once as monarch, but only that he should prepare the way
for the monarchy by a military exceptional measure, which, revolutionary as it was in its nature, could still be accom
plished under the forms of the existing constitution, and
which in the first instance carried Pompeius so far on the
appropriate organs—especially the comitia, and in later times also perhaps the senate-—nominating a chief magistrate not contemplated in the con stitution, who was otherwise on a parity with the ordinary magistrate, but in token of the extraordinary nature of his ofliee designated himself merely
" instead of a praetor " or " of a consul. " T0 this class belong also the magistrates nominated in the ordinary way as quaestors, and then extra- ordinarily furnished with praetorian or even consular official authority (quaertorer pro praetor: or pro cnnrule); in which quality, for example, Publius Lentulus Marcellinus went in 679 to Cy'rene (Sallust, Hirt. ii. 39 75. Dietsch), Gnaeus Piso in 689 to Hither Spain (Sallust, Cal. 19), and Cato 65. in 696 to Cyprus (Vell. 45). Or, lastly, the extraordinary magisterial 58. authority was based on the right of delegation vested in the supreme magistrate. If he left the bounds of his province or otherwise was hindered from administering his office, he was entitled to nominate one of those about him as his substitute, who was then called legalur pro praetm (Sallust, lug. 36, 37, 38), or, the choice fell on the quaestor, quaerlar
pro praetor: (Sallust, lug. 103). In like manner he was entitled, he
had no quaestor, to cause the quaestorial duties to be discharged by one
of his train, who was then called lzgutur pro quaertore, a name which to
be met with, perhaps for the first time, on the Macedonian tetradrachms
of Sura, lieutenant of the governor of Macedonia, 665—667. But was 89 31, contrary to the nature of delegation and therefore according to the older state-law inadmissible, that the supreme magistrate should, without
having met with any hindrance in the discharge of his functions, immediately upon his entering on office invest one or more of his subor dinates with supreme official authority and so far the legati pro praetors of the proconsul Pompeius were an innovation, and already similar in kind to those who played so great part in the times of the Empire.
a
;
it
is
if
ii. if
392
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK V
way towards the old object of his wishes, the command against Mithradates and Tigranes. Important reasons of expediency also might be urged for the emancipation of the military power from the senate. Pompeius could not have forgotten that a plan designed on exactly similar principles for the suppression of piracy had a few years before failed through the mismanagement of the senate, and that the issue of the Spanish war had been placed in extreme jeopardy by the neglect of the armies on the part of the senate and its injudicious conduct of the finances; could not fail to see what were the feelings with which the great majority of the aristocracy regarded him as a renegade Sullan, and what fate was in store for him, if he allowed himself to be sent as general of the government with the usual powers to the east. It was natural therefore that he should indicate a position independent of the senate
as the first condition of his undertaking the command, and
that the burgesses should readily agree to It
over in high degree probable that Pompeius was on this
occasion urged to more rapid action by those
him, who were, may be presumed, not little indignant at his retirement two years before. The projects of law regarding the recall of Lucullus and the expedition against the pirates were introduced by the tribune of the people Aulus Gabinius, man ruined in finances and morals, but
dexterous negotiator, bold orator, and brave soldier. Little as the assurances of Pompeius, that he had no wish at all for the chief command in the war with the pirates and only longed for domestic repose, were meant in earnest, there was probably this much of truth in them, that the bold and active client, who was in confidential intercourse with Pompeius and his more immediate circle and who. completely saw through the situation and the men, took the decision to considerable extent out. of. the. hands at his shortsighted. and. resourceless patron. v
more
around
he
a ait a
a.
a
a
it.
a
is
CHM’. 111 THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
393
The democracy, discontented as its leaders might be in secret, could not well come publicly forward against the project of law. It would, to all appearance, have been in no case able to hinder the carrying of the law; but it would by opposition have openly broken with Pompeius and thereby compelled him either to make approaches to the oligarchy or regardlessly to pursue his personal policy in the face of both parties. No course was left to the democrats but still even now to adhere to their alliance with Pompeius, hollow as it was, and to embrace the present opportunity of at least definitely overthrowing the senate
and passing over from opposition into government, leaving the ulterior issue to the future and to the well-known weakness of Pompeius’ character. Accordingly their leaders —the praetor Lucius Quinctius, the same who seven years before had exerted himself for the restoration of the tribunician power 371), and the former quaestor Gaius Caesar-—supported the Gabinian proposals.
The privileged classes were furious-—not merely the nobility, but also the mercantile aristocracy, which felt its exclusive rights endangered by so thorough state-revolu tion and once more recognized its true patron in the senate. When the tribune Gabinius after the introduction of his proposals appeared in the senate-house, the fathers of the city were almost on the point of strangling him with their own hands, without considering in their zeal how extremely disadvantageous for them this method of arguing must have ultimately proved. The tribune escaped to the Forum and summoned the multitude to storm the senate-house, when just at the ‘right time the sitting terminated. The consul Piso, the champion of the oligarchy, who accidentally fell into the hands of the multitude, would have certainly become victim to popular fury, had not Gabinius come up and, in order that his certain success might not be endangered by unseasonable acts of violence, liberated the
The parties in relation to the Gabinian laws.
a
a
(p.
The vote.
Thereupon the day of voting arrived The multitude stood densely packed in the Forum; all the buildings, whence the rostra could be seen, were covered up to the roofs with men. All the colleagues of Gabinius had promised their veto to the senate; but in presence of the surging masses all were silent except the single Lucius Trebellius, who had sworn to himself and the senate rather to die than yield. When the latter exercised his veto, Gabinius immediately interrupted the voting on his projects of law and proposed to the assembled people to deal with his refractory colleague, as Octavius had formerly been dealt with on the proposition of Tiberius Gracchus (iii. 32 3), namely, to depose him immediately from office. The vote was taken and the reading out of the voting tablets began ; when the first seventeen tribes, which came to be read out, had declared for the proposal and the next aflirmative vote
would give to it the majority, Trebellius, forgetting his oath,
394
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY noorr v
consul. Meanwhile the exasperation of the multitude remained undiminished and constantly found fresh nourish ment in the high prices of grain and the numerous rumours more or less absurd which were in circulation-such as that Lucius Lucullus had invested the money entrusted to him for carrying on the war at interest in Rome, or had
attempted with its aid to make the praetor Quinctius with draw from the cause of the people ; that the senate intended to prepare for the “second Romulus,” as they called
Pompeius, character.
the fate of the first,I and other reports of a like '
withdrew his veto. In vain the tribune Otho then endeavoured to procure that at least the
collegiate principle might be preserved, and two generals elected instead of one; in vain the aged Quintus Catulus, the most respected man in the senate, exerted his last
1 According to the legend king Romulus was torn in pieces by the senators.
pusillanimously
CHAT‘. in AND THE RULE OF POMPEIUS
395
energies to secure that the lieutenant-generals should not be nominated by the commander-in-chief, but chosen by the people. Otho could not even procure a hearing amidst the noise of the multitude; the well-calculated complaisance of Gabinius procured a hearing for Catulus, and in respectful silence the multitude listened to the old man’s words; but they were none the less thrown away. The proposals were not merely converted into law with all the clauses unaltered, but the supplementary requests in detail made by Pompeius were instantaneously and
completely agreed to.
With high-strung hopes men saw the two generals
Pompeius and Glabrio depart for their places of destination. The price of grain had fallen immediately after'the passing of the Gabinian laws to the ordinary rates—an evidence of the hopes attached to the grand expedition and its glorious leader. These hopes were, as we shall have afterwards to relate, not merely fulfilled, but surpassed: in three months the clearing of the seas was completed. Since the Hanni balic war the Roman government had displayed no such energy in external action; as compared with the lax and
incapable administration of the oligarchy, the democratic military opposition had most brilliantly made good its title to grasp and wield the reins of the state. The equally unpatriotic and unskilful attempts of the consul Piso to put paltry obstacles in the way of the arrangements of Pompeius for the suppression of piracy in Narbonese Gaul only increased the exasperation of the burgesses against the oligarchy and their enthusiasm for Pompeius; it was nothing but the personal intervention of the latter, that prevented the assembly of the people from summarily removing the consul from his office.
Meanwhile the confusion on the Asiatic continent had become still worse. Glabrio, who was to take up in the stead of Lucullus the chief command against Mithradates
Successes of Pom peius in the east.
The Manilial
396
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY 5001: v
and Tigranes, had remained stationary in the west of Asia Minor and, while instigating the soldiers by various
Lucullus, had not entered on the supreme command, so that Lucullus was forced to retain Against Mithradates, of course, nothing was done the Pontic cavalry plundered fearlessly and with impunity in Bithynia and Cappadocia. Pompeius had been led by the
piratical war to proceed with his army to Asia Minor; nothing seemed more natural than to invest him with the supreme command in the Pontic-Armenian war, to which he himself had long aspired. But the democratic party did not, as may be readily conceived, share the wishes of its general, and carefully avoided taking the initiative in the matter. very probable that had induced Gabinius not to entrust both the war with Mithradates and that with the pirates from the outset to Pompeius, but to entrust the former to Glabrio upon no account could now desire to increase and perpetuate the exceptional position of the already too-powerful general. Pompeius himself retained according to his custom passive attitude and perhaps he would in reality have returned home after fulfilling the commission which he had received, but for the occurrence of an incident unexpected all parties.
One Gaius Manilius, an utterly worthless and insignifi cant man, had when tribune of the people by his unskilful projects of legislation lost favour both with the aristocracy and with the democracy. In the hope of sheltering himself under the wing of the powerful general, he should procure for the latter what every one knew that he eagerly desired but had not the boldness to ask, Manilius proposed to the burgesses to recall the governors Glabrio from Bithynia and Pontus and Marcius Rex from Cilicia, and to entrust their offices as well as the conduct of the war in the east, apparently without any fixed limit as to time and at any rate with the freest authority to conclude peace and
proclamations against
if
by
it
a
; it
;
It is
it.
;
CHAP. "I AND THE RULE OF POMPEIUS
397
alliance, to the proconsul of the seas and coasts in addition
to his previous oflice (beg. of 688). This occurrence very 66. clearly showed how disorganized was the machinery of the Roman constitution, when the power of legislation was placed as respected the initiative in the hands of any demagogue however insignificant, and as respected the final determination in the hands of the incapable multitude, while it at the same time was extended to the most important questions of administration. The Manilian proposal was acceptable to none of the political parties;
yet it scarcely anywhere encountered serious resistance. The democratic leaders, for the same reasons which had forced them to acquiesce in the Gabinian law, could not venture earnestly to oppose the Manilian; they kept their displeasure and their fears to themselves and spoke in public for the general of the democracy. The moderate Optimates declared themselves for the Manilian proposal, because after the Gabinian law resistance in any case was vain, and far-seeing men already perceived that the true policy for the senate was to make approaches as far as possible to Pompeius and to draw him over to their side
on occasion of the breach which might be foreseen between him and the democrats. Lastly the trimmers blessed the day when they too seemed to have an opinion and could come forward decidedly without losing favour with either
of the parties-—it is significant that Marcus Cicero first appeared as an orator on the political platform in defence
of the Manilian proposal. The strict Optimates alone, with Quintus Catulus at their head, showed at least their colours and spoke against the proposition. Of course it
was converted into law by a majority bordering on unanimity. Pompeius thus obtained, in addition to his earlier extensive powers, the administration of the most important provinces of Asia Minor—so that there scarcely remained a spot of land within the wide Roman bounds
.
The de: revolution
that had not to obey him—and the conduct of a war as to which, like the expedition of Alexander, men could tell where and when it began, but not where and when it might end. Never since Rome stood had such power been united in the hands of a single man.
The Gabinio-Manilian proposals terminated the struggle between the senate and the popular party, which the Sempronian laws had begun sixty-seven years before. As the Sempronian laws first constituted the revolutionary party into a political opposition, the Gabinio-Manilian first converted it from an opposition into the government; and as it had been a great moment when the first breach in the existing constitution was made by disregarding the veto of Octavius, it was a moment no less full of significance when the last bulwark of the senatorial rule fell with the
withdrawal of Trebellius. This was felt on both sides and even the indolent souls of the senators were con vulsively roused by this death-struggle ; but yet the war as to the constitution terminated in a very different and far more pitiful fashion than it had begun. A youth in every sense noble had commenced the revolution; it was concluded by pert intriguers and demagogues of the lowest type. On the other hand, while the Optimates had begun the struggle with a measured resistance and with a defence which earnestly held out even at the forlorn posts, they ended with taking the initiative in club-law, with grandiloquent weakness, and with pitiful perjury. What had once appeared a daring dream, was now attained ; the senate had ceased to govern. But when the few old men who had seen the first storms of revolution and heard the words of the Gracchi, compared that time with the present they found that everything had in the interval changed
398
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK v
and citizens, state-law and military discipline, life and manners; and well might those painfully smile, who compared the ideals of the Gracchan period with their
countrymen
can. nr AND THE RULE OF POMPEIUS 39g
realization. Such reflections however belonged to the past. For the present and perhaps also for the future the fall of the aristocracy was an accomplished fact. The oligarchs resembled an army utterly broken up, whose scattered bands might serve to reinforce another body of troops, but could no longer themselves keep the field or risk a combat on their own account. But as the old struggle came to an end, a new one was simultaneously beginning—the struggle between the two powers hitherto leagued for the overthrow
of the aristocratic constitution, the civil-democratic opposi tion and the military power daily aspiring to greater ascendency. The exceptional position of Pompeius even under the Gabinian, and much more under the Manilian, law was incompatible with a republican organization. He had been, as even then his opponents urged with good reason, appointed by the Gabinian law not as admiral, but as regent of the empire; not unjustly was he designated by a Greek familiar with eastern afl'airs “king of kings. " If he should hereafter, on returning from the east once more
victorious and with increased glory, with well-filled chests, and with troops ready for battle and devoted to his cause, stretch forth his hand to seize the crown-—who would then arrest his arm? Was the consular Quintus Catulus, forsooth, to summon forth the senators against the first general of his time and his experienced legions? or was the designated aedile Gaius Caesar to call forth the civic multitude, whose eyes he had just feasted on his three hundred and twenty pairs of gladiators with their silver equipments? Soon, exclaimed Catulus, it would be necessary once more to flee to the rocks of the Capitol, in order to save liberty. It was not the fault of the prophet, that the storm came'not, as he expected, from the east, but that on the contrary fate, fulfilling his words more literally than he himself anticipated, brought on destroying tempest a few years later from Gaul.
the
Pompeius suppresses
piracy.
CHAPTER IV
rourarus am) 'rrra EAST
WE have already seen how wretched was the state of the
40o POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
affairs of Rome by land and sea in the east, when at the 57, commencement of 687 Pompeius, with an almost unlimited
of power, undertook the conduct of the war against the pirates. He began by dividing the immense field committed to him into thirteen districts and assigning each of these districts to one of his lieutenants, for the purpose of equipping ships and men there, of searching the coasts, and of capturing piratical vessels or chasing them into the meshes of a colleague. He himself went with the best part of the ships of war that were available—among which on this occasion also those of Rhodes were dis
plenitude
in the year to sea, and swept in the first place the Sicilian, African, and Sardinian waters, with a view especially to reestablish the supply of grain from
these provinces to Italy. His lieutenants meanwhile addressed themselves to the clearing of the Spanish and Gallic coasts. It was on this occasion that the consul Gaius Piso attempted from Rome to prevent the levies which Marcus Pomponius, the legate of Pompeius, instituted by virtue of the Gabinian law in the province of Narbo—an imprudent proceeding, to check which, and at the same time to keep the just indignation of the multitude against the consul within legal bounds, Pompeius tempor
tinguished-—early
CIXAP- XV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
40]
arily reappeared in Rome 385). When at the end of forty days the navigation had been everywhere set free in the western basin of the Mediterranean, Pompeius pro ceeded with sixty of his best vessels to the eastern seas, and first of all to the original and main seat of piracy, the Lycian and Cilician waters. On the news of the approach of the Roman fleet the piratical barks everywhere dis appeared from the open sea; and not only so, but even the strong Lycian fortresses of Anticragus and Cragus
surrendered without offering serious resistance. The well calculated moderation of Pompeius helped even more than fear to open the gates of these scarcely accessible marine strongholds. His predecessors had ordered every captured freebooter to be nailed to the cross without hesitation he gave quarter to all, and treated in particular the common rowers found in the captured piratical vessels with unusual indulgence. The bold Cilician sea-kings alone ventured on an attempt to maintain at least their own waters by arms against the Romans; after having placed their children and wives and their rich treasures for security in the mountain-fortresses of the Taurus, they awaited the Roman fleet at the western frontier of Cilicia, in the offing of Coracesium. But here the ships of Pompeius, well manned and well provided with all implements of war, achieved complete victory.
Without farther hindrance he landed and began to storm and break up the mountain castles of the corsairs, while he continued to offer to themselves freedom and life as the price of submission. Soon the great multitude desisted from the continuance of
hopeless war in their strongholds and mountains, and consented to surrender. Forty-nine days after Pompeius had appeared in the eastern seas, Cilicia was subdued and the war at an end.
The rapid suppression of piracy was great relief, but not grand achievement; with the resources of the Roman
v01. iv 12o
a
a
a
a
;
(p.
Dissen sions be tween Pom peius and
A disagreeable interlude in the island of Crete, however, disturbed in some measure this pleasing success of the Roman arms. There Quintus Metellus was stationed in
4o:
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
state, which had been called forth in lavish measure, the corsairs could as little cope as the combined gangs of thieves in a great city can cope with a well-organized police. It was a naive proceeding to celebrate such a razzia as a victory. But when compared with the pro longed continuance and the vast and daily increasing extent of the evil, it was natural that the surprisingly rapid subjugation of the dreaded pirates should make a most powerful impression on the public; and the more so, that this was the first trial of rule centralized in a single hand, and the parties were eagerly waiting to see whether that hand would understand the art of ruling better than the collegiate body had done. Nearly 400 ships and boats, including 90 war vessels properly so called, were either taken by Pompeius or surrendered to him; in all about
1300 vpiratical vessels are said to have been destroyed; besides which the richly-filled arsenals and magazines of the buccaneers were burnt. Of the pirates about 10,000 perished; upwards of 20,000 fell alive into the hands of the victor; while Publius Clodius the admiral of the Roman army stationed in Cilicia, and a multitude of other mdividuals carried off by the pirates, some of them long believed at home to be dead, obtained once more their
61. freedom through Pompeius. In the summer of 687, three months after the beginning of the campaign, commerce resumed its wonted course and instead of the former famine abundance prevailed in Italy.
Metellus as the second year of his command, and was employed in
finishing the subjugation—already substantially efl'ected— of the island 3 5 when Pompeius appeared in the eastern waters. A collision was natural, for according to the Gabinian law the command of Pompeius extended con
to Crete.
3),
CHAP- XV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
4o;
currently with that of Metellus over the whole island, which stretched to a great length but was nowhere more than ninety miles broad ;1 but Pompeius was considerate enough not to assign it to any of his lieutenants. The still resisting Cretan communities, however, who had seen their subdued countrymen taken to task by Metellus with the most cruel severity and had learned on the other hand the gentle terms which Pompeius was in the habit of im posing on the townships which surrendered to him in the south of Asia Minor, preferred to give in their joint surrender to Pompeius. He accepted it in Pamphylia, where he was just at the moment, from their envoys, and sent along with them his legate Lucius Octavius to announce to Metellus the conclusion of the conventions and to take over the towns. This proceeding was, no doubt, not like that of a colleague; but formal right was wholly on the side of Pompeius, and Metellus was most evidently in the wrong when, utterly ignoring the conven tion of the cities with Pompeius, he continued to treat them as hostile. In vain Octavius protested; in vain, as he had himself come without troops, he summoned from Achaia Lucius Sisenna, the lieutenant of Pompeius stationed there; Metellus, not troubling himself about either Octavius or Sisenna, besieged Eleutherna and took Lappa by storm, where Octavius in person was taken
and ignominiously dismissed, while the Cretans who were taken with him were consigned to the execu tioner. Accordingly formal conflicts took place between the troops of Sisenna, at whose head Octavius placed himself after that leader’s death, and those of Metellus; even when the former had been commanded to return to Achaia, Octavius continued the war in concert with the Cretan Aristion, and Hierapytna, where both made a
l [Literally " twenty German mil" ; but the breadth of the island does not seem in reality half so much. —TR. ]
prisoner
Pompeius takes the supreme command against Mithra dateo.
404
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK V
stand, was only subdued by Metellus after the most obstinate resistance.
In reality the zealous Optimate Metellus had thus begun formal civil war at his own hand against the general issimo of the democracy. It shows the indescribable
in the Roman state, that these incidents led to nothing farther than a bitter correspondence between the two generals, who a couple of years afterwards were
sitting once more peacefully and even “amicably ” side by side in the senate.
Pompeius during these events remained in Cilicia; preparing for the next year, as it seemed, a campaign against the Cretans or rather against Metellus, in reality waiting for the signal which should call him to interfere in the utterly confused affairs of the mainland of Asia Minor. The portion of the Lucullan army that was still left after the losses which it had suffered and the departure of the Fimbrian legions remained inactive on the upper Halys in the country of the Trocmi bordering on the Pontic territory. Lucullus still held provisionally the chief command, as his nominated successor Glabrio continued to linger in the west of Asia Minor. The three legions commanded by Quintus Marcius Rex lay equally inactive in Cilicia. The Pontic territory was again wholly in the power of king Mithradates, who made the individuals and communities that had joined the Romans, such as the town of Eupatoria,
pay for their revolt with cruel severity. The kings of the east did not proceed to any serious offensive movement against the Romans, either because it formed no part of their plan, or—as was asserted—because the landing of Pompeius in Cilicia induced Mithradates and Tigranes to desist from advancing farther. The Manilian law realized the secretly-cherished hopes of Pompeius more rapidly than he probably himself anticipated; Glabrio and Rex
were recalled and the governorships of Pontus-Bithynia
disorganization
CHM’. IV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
405
and Cilicia with the troops stationed there, as well as the management of the Pontic-Armenian war along with authority to make war, peace, and alliance with the dynasts of the east at his own discretion, were transferred to Pompeius. Amidst the prospect of honours and spoils so ample Pompeius was glad to forgo the chastising of an ill-humoured Optimate who enviously guarded his scanty laurels 5 he abandoned the expedition against Crete and the farther pursuit of the corsairs, and destined his fleet
also to support the attack which he projected on the kings
of Pontus and Armenia. Yet amidst this land-war he by
no means wholly lost sight of piracy, which was perpetually raising its head afresh. Before he left Asia (691) he 88.
caused the necessary ships to be fitted out there against the corsairs ; on his proposal in the following year a similar measure was resolved on for Italy, and the sum needed for the purpose was granted by the senate. continued to protect the coasts with guards of cavalry and small squadrons, and though, as the expeditions to be mentioned afterwards against Cyprus in 696 and
Egypt 58. in 699 show, piracy was not thoroughly mastered, it yet 55.
after the expedition of Pompeius amidst all the vicissitudes and political crises of Rome could never again so raise its head and so totally dislodge the Romans from the sea, as it had done under the government of the mouldering oligarchy.
The few months which still remained
mencement of the campaign in Asia Minor, were employed parationl by the new commander-in-chief with of Pom
strenuous activity in peius diplomatic and military preparations. Envoys were sent
to Mithradates, rather to reconnoitre than
serious mediation. There was a hope at the Pontic court Alllancl that Phraates king of the Parthians would be induced by with the the recent considerable successes which the allies had Parthian. achieved over Rome to enter into
They
before the com War pro
to attempt a
the Pontic-Armenian
406
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
Variance between Mithra dates and Tigranes.
alliance. To counteract this, Roman envoys proceeded to the court of Ctesiphon; and the internal troubles, which distracted the Armenian ruling house, came to their aid. A son of the‘great-king Tigranes, bearing the same name, had rebelled against his father, either because he was unwilling to wait for the death of the old man, or because his father’s suspicion, which had already cost several of his brothers their lives, led him to discern his only chance of safety in open insurrection. vanquished by his father, he had taken refuge with a number of Armenians of rank at the court of the Arsacid, and in trigued against his father there. It was partly due to his exertions, that Phraates preferred to take the reward which was offered to him by both sides for his accession—the
secured possession of Mesopotamia—from the hand of the Romans, renewed with Pompeius the agreement concluded with Lucullus respecting the boundary of the Euphrates (p. 343), and even consented to operate in concert with the Romans against Armenia. But the younger Tigranes occasioned still greater mischief than that which arose out of his promoting the alliance between the Romans and the Parthians, for his insurrection produced a variance between the kings Tigranes and Mithradates themselves. The great-king cherished in secret the suspicion that Mithradates might have had a hand in the insurrection of his grandson -—Cleopatra the mother of the younger Tigranes was the daughter of Mithradates—and, though no open rupture took place, the good understanding between the two monarchs was disturbed at the very moment when it was most urgently needed.
At the same time Pompeius prosecuted his warlike
with energy. The Asiatic allied and client communities were warned to furnish the stipulated con tingents. Public notices summoned the discharged veterans of the legions of Fimbria to return to the standards as
preparations
can. iv POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
407
volunteers, and by great promises and the name of Pompeius a considerable portion of them were induced in reality to obey the call. The whole force united under the orders of Pompeius may have amounted, exclusive of the auxiliaries, to between 40,000 and 50,000 men. 1
In the spring of 688 Pompeius proceeded to Galatia, 66.
to take the chief command of the troops of Lucullus and Pompeius
to advance with them into the Pontic territory, whither the Cilician legions were directed to follow. AtDanala, a place belonging to the Trocmi, the two generals met; but the reconciliation, which mutual friends had hoped to effect, was not accomplished. The preliminary courtesies soon passed into bitter discussions, and these into violent alterca tion: they parted in worse mood than they had met. As Lucullus continued to make honorary gifts and to distribute lands just as if he were still in office, Pompeius declared all the acts performed by his predecessor subsequent to his own arrival null and void. Formally he was in the right; customary tact in the treatment of a meritorious and more than sufficiently mortified opponent was not to be looked for from him.
Lucullus.
So soon as the season allowed, the Roman troops Invasion of crossed the frontier of Pontus. There they were opposed Pontus.
by king Mithradates with 30,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry.
Left in the lurch by his allies and attacked by Rome with
reinforced power and energy, he made an attempt to procure
peace; but he would hear nothing of the unconditional submission which Pompeius demanded-——what worse could
the most unsuccessful campaign bring to him? That
he might not expose his army, mostly archers and horsemen,
to the formidable shock of the Roman infantry of the line,
1 Pompeius distributed among his soldiers and ofl-icers as presents 384,000,000 sesterces (=16. 0o0 talents, App. Mithr. 116); as the oflicers received 100,000,000 (Plin. H. N. :rirxviiv 2, 16) and each of the common soldiers 6000 sesterces (Plin. , App. ), the army still numbered It its triumph about 40,000 men.
Retreat of Mithra dates.
408
PQMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
he slowly retired before the enemy, and compelled the Romans to follow him in his various cross-marches ; making a stand at the same time, wherever there was opportunity, with his superior cavalry against that of the enemy, and occasioning no small hardship to the Romans by impeding their supplies. At length Pompeius in his impatience desisted from following the Pontic army, and, letting the king alone, proceeded to subdue the land; he marched to the upper Euphrates, crossed and entered the eastern provinces of the Pontic empire. But Mithradates followed along the left bank of the Euphrates, and when he had arrived in the Anaitic or Acilisenian province, he intercepted the route of the Romans at the castle of Dasteira, which was strong and well provided with water, and from which with his light troops he commanded the plain. Pompeius, still wanting the Cilician legions and not strong enough to maintain himself in this position without them, had to retire over the Euphrates and to seek protection from the cavalry and archers of the king in the wooded ground of Pontic Armenia extensively intersected by rocky ravines and deep
was not till the troops from Cilicia arrived and rendered possible to resume the offensive with superior ity of force, that Pompeius again advanced, invested the camp of the king with chain of posts of almost eighteen miles in length, and kept him formally blockaded there, while the Roman detachments scoured the country far and wide. The distress in the Pontic camp was great; the draught animals even had to be killed; at length after remaining for forty-five days the king caused his sick and wounded, whom he could not save and was unwilling to leave in the hands of the enemy, to be put to death
his own troops, and departed during the night with the utmost secrecy towards the east. Cautiously Pompeius followed through the unknown land: the march was now approaching the boundary which separated the dominions
valleys.
by
a
it It
a
it,
CHAP- rv POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
409
of Mithradates and Tigranes. When the Roman general perceived that Mithradates intended not to bring the contest to a decision within his own territory, but to draw the enemy away after him into the far distant regions of the east, he determined not to permit this.
The two armies lay close to each other. During the Battle at rest at noon the Roman army set out without the enemy Nioopoll observing the movement, made a circuit, and occupied the
heights, which lay in front and commanded a defile to be
passed by the enemy, on the southern bank of the river
Lycus (Jeschil-Irmak) not far from the modern Enderes,
at the point where Nicopolis was afterwards built. The following morning the Pontic troops broke up in their
usual manner, and, supposing that the enemy was as
hitherto behind them, after accomplishing the day’s march
they pitched their camp in the very valley whose encircling
heights the Romans had occupied. Suddenly in the
silence of the night there sounded all around them the
dreaded battle-cry of the legions, and missiles from all sides
poured on the Asiatic host, in which soldiers and camp
followers, chariots, horses, and camels jostled each other;
and amidst the dense throng, notwithstanding the darkness,
not a missile failed to take effect. When the Romans had expended their darts, they charged down from the heights
on the masses which had now become visible by the light
of the newly-risen moon, and which were abandoned
them almost defenceless ; those that did not fall by the steel
of the enemy were trodden down in the fearful pressure under the hoofs and wheels. It was the last battle-field on which the gray-haired king fought with the Romans. With three attendants—two of his horsemen, and a con cubine who was accustomed to follow him in male attire and to fight bravely by his side—he made his escape thence to the fortress of Sinoria, whither a portion of his trusty followers found their way to him. He divided
to
41o
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
among them his treasures preserved there, 6000 talents of gold (£1,400,000); furnished them and himself with poison; and hastened with the band that was left to him
W up the Euphrates to unite with his ally, the great-king of Armenia.
This hope likewise was vain; the alliance, on the faith of which Mithradates took the route for Armenia, already
breaks
with mm
radatu. by that time existed no longer. During the conflicts
between Mithradates and Pompeius just narrated, the king of the Parthians, yielding to the urgency of the Romans and above all of the exiled Armenian prince, had invaded the kingdom of Tigranes by force of arms, and had com pelled him to withdraw into the inaccessible mountains. The invading army began even the siege of the capital Artaxata; but, on its becoming protracted, king Phraates took his departure with the greater portion of his troops; whereupon Tigranes overpowered the Parthian corps left behind and the Armenian emigrants led by his son, and re-established his dominion throughout the kingdom Naturally, however, the king was under such circumstances little inclined to fight with the freshlyovictorious Romans, and least of all to sacrifice himself for Mithradates ; whom he trusted less than ever, since information had reached him that his rebellious son intended to betake himself to his grandfather. So he entered into negotiations with the
Romans for a separate peace ; but he did not wait for the conclusion of the treaty to break off the alliance which linked him to Mithradates. The latter, when he had arrived at the frontier of Armenia, was doomed to learn that the great-king Tigranes had set a price of I00 talents (,6 2 4,000) on his head, had arrested his envoys, and had delivered them to the Romans. King Mithradates saw his kingdom in the hands of the enemy, and his allies on the point of coming to an agreement with them; it was not possible to continue the war; he might deem himself
CHAP. IV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
4! !
fortunate, if he succeeded in effecting his escape along the eastern and northern shores of the Black Sea, in perhaps dislodging his son Machares—who had revolted and entered into connection with the Romans 334)—once more from the Bosporan kingdom, and in finding on the Maeotis fresh soil for fresh projects. So he turned northward. When the king in his flight had crossed the Phasis, the ancient boundary of Asia Minor, Pompeius for the time discontinued his pursuit; but instead of returning to the region of the sources of the Euphrates, he turned aside into the region of the Araxes to settle matters with Tigranes.
Mithra
3:53am Phasil
Almost without meeting resistance he arrived in the
region of Artaxata (not far from Erivan) and pitched his
camp thirteen miles from the city. There he was met
the son of the great-king, who hoped after the fall of his
father to receive the Armenian ‘diadem from the hand of
the Romans, and therefore had endeavoured in every way
to prevent the conclusion of the treaty between his father
and the Romans. The great-king was only the more Peace with resolved to purchase peace at any price. On horseback T'gmm' and without his purple robe, but adorned with the royal
diadem and the royal turban, he appeared at the gate of
the Roman camp and desired to be conducted to the
presence of the Roman. general. After having given up at
the bidding of the lictors, as the regulations of the Roman
camp required, his horse and his sword, he threw himself
in barbarian fashion at the feet of the proconsul and in
token of unconditional surrender placed the diadem and
tiara in his hands. Pompeius, highly delighted at
which cost nothing, raised up the humbled king of kings,
invested him again with the insignia of his dignity, and
dictated the peace. Besides payment of £1,400,000
(6000 talents) to the war-chest and a present to the soldiers,
out of which each of them received 50 denarz'i (,6 2s),
the king ceded all the conquests which he had made, not
victory
Pompeius “Airman
2 :
a
a
by a
(p.
The tribes of the Cau cams.
lberianl.
But the new field, on which the Romans here set foot, raised up for them new conflicts. The brave peoples of the middle and eastern Caucasus saw with indignation the remote Occidentals encamping on their territory. There —-in the fertile and well-watered tableland of the modern Georgia—dwelt the Iberians, a brave, well-organized, agricultural nation, whose clan-cantons under their patriarchs cultivated the soil according to the system of common possession, without any separate ownership of the individual cultivators. Army and people were one; the people were headed partly by the ruler-clans-—out of which the eldest always presided over the whole Iberian nation as king, and the next eldest as judge and leader of the army—partly by special families of priests, on whom chiefly devolved the duty of preserving a knowledge of the treaties concluded with other peoples and of watching over their observance. The mass of the non-freemen were regarded as serfs of the king. Their eastern neighbours, the Albanians or Alans,
Albanians.
4r:
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
merely his Phoenician, Syrian, Cilician, and Cappadocian possessions, but also Sophene and Corduene on the right bank of the Euphrates ; he was again restricted to Armenia proper, and his position of great-king was, of course, at an end. In a single campaign Pompeius had totally subdued the two mighty kings of Pontus and Armenia. At the
60. beginning of 688 there was not a Roman soldier beyond the frontier of the old Roman possessions; at its close king Mithradates was wandering as an exile and without an army in the ravines of the Caucasus, and king Tigranes sat on the Armenian throne no longer as king of kings, but as a vassal of Rome. The whole domain of Asia Minor to the west of the Euphrates unconditionally obeyed the Romans; the victorious army took up its winter-quarters to the east of that stream on Armenian soil, in the country from the upper Euphrates to the river Kur, from which the Italians then for the first time watered their horses.
CRAP. IV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
us
who were settled on the lower Kur as far as the Caspian Sea, were in a far lower stage of culture. Chiefiy a pastoral people they tended, on foot or on horseback, their numerous herds in the luxuriant meadows of the modern Shirvan ; their few tilled fields were still cultivated with the old wooden plough without iron share. Coined money was unknown, and they did not count beyond a hundred. Each of their tribes, twenty-six in all, had its own chief and spoke its distinct dialect. Far superior in number to the Iberians, the Albanians could not at all cope with them
in bravery. The mode of fighting was on the whole the same with both nations; they fought chiefly with arrows and light javelins, which they frequently after the Indian fashion discharged from their lurking-places in the woods behind the trunks of trees, or hurled down from the tops of trees on the foe; the Albanians had also numerous horsemen partly mailed after the Medo-Armenian manner with heavy cuirasses and greaves. Both nations lived on their lands and pastures in a complete independence preserved from time immemorial. Nature itself, as it were, seems to have raised the Caucasus between Europe and Asia as a rampart against the tide of national movements; there the arms of Cyrus and of Alexander had formerly found their limit; now the brave garrison of this partition wall set themselves to defend it also against the Romans.
Alarmed by the information that the Roman commander in-chief intended next spring to cross the mountains and to pursue the Pontic king beyond the Caucasus—for Mithra
dates, they heard, was passing the winter in Dioscurias (Iskuria between Suchum Kale and Anaklia) on the Black Sea-—the Albanians under their prince Oroizes first crossed
the Kur in the middle of the winter of 688-689 and threw 06-61. themselves on the army, which was divided for the sake oi
its supplies into three larger corps under Quintus Metellus Celer, Lucius Flaccus, and Pompeius in person. But Celer,
Iberians conquered.
on whom the chief attack fell, made a brave stand, and Pompeius, after having delivered himself from the division sent to attack him, pursued the barbarians beaten at all points as far as the Kur. Artoces the king of the Iberians
414
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
and promised peace and friendship; but informed that he was secretly arming so as to fall upon the Romans on their march in the passes of the
Caucasus, advanced in the spring of 689, before resuming the pursuit of Mithradates, to the two fortresses just two miles distant from each other, Harmozica (Horum Ziche or Armazi) and Seusamora (Tsumar) which a little above the modern Tiflis command the two valleys of the river Kur and its tributary the Aragua, and with these the only passes leading from Armenia to Iberia. Artoces, surprised by the enemy before he was aware of hastily burnt the bridge over the Kur and retreated negotiating into the interior. Pompeius occupied the fortresses and followed the Iberians to the other bank of the Kur which he hoped to induce them to immediate submission. But Artoces retired farther and farther into the interior, and, when at length he halted on the river Pelorus, he did so not to surrender but to fight. The Iberian archers however withstood not for moment the onset of the Roman legions, and, when Artoces saw the Pelorus also crossed by the Romans, he submitted at length to the conditions which the victor pro posed, and sent his children as hostages.
kept quiet Pompeius,
Pompeius
Pompeius
now, agreeably to the plan which he had
proceeds to formerly projected, marched through the Sarapana pass from
Colchis.
the region of the Kur to that of the Phasis and thence down that river to the Black Sea, where on the Colchian coast the fleet under Servilius already awaited him. But was for an uncertain idea, and an aim almost unsubstantial, that the army and fleet were thus brought to the richly fabled shores of Colchis. The laborious march just completed
through unknown and mostly hostile nations was nothing
it
a
; by
it,
CRAP. IV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
41s
when compared with what still awaited them , and if they should really succeed in conducting the force from the mouth of the Phasis to the Crimea, through warlike and poor barbarian tribes, on inhospitable and unknown waters, along a coast where at certain places the mountains sink pendicularly into the sea and it would have been absolutely necessary to embark in the ships—if such a march should be successfully accomplished, which was perhaps more difficult than the campaigns of Alexander and Hannibal what was gained by it even at the best, corresponding at all to its toils and dangers? The war doubtless was not ended,
so long as the old king was still among the living; but who could guarantee that they would really succeed in catching the royal game for the sake of which this unparalleled chase was to be instituted? Was it not better, even at the risk of Mithradates once more throwing the torch of war into Asia Minor, to desist from a pursuit which promised so little gain and so many dangers? Doubtless numerous
voices in the army, and still more numerous voices in the capital, urged the general to continue the pursuit incessantly and at any price ; but they were the voices partly of foolhardy Hotspurs, partly of those perfidious friends, who would gladly at any price have kept the too-powerful Im perator aloof from the capital and entangled him amidst interminable undertakings in the east.
Pompeius was too experienced and too discreet an oflicer to stake his fame and his army in obstinate adherence to so injudicious an expedition ; an insurrection of the Albanians in rear of the
army furnished the pretext for abandoning the further pursuit of the king and arranging its return. The fleet received instructions to cruise in the Black Sea, to protect the northern coast of Asia Minor against any hostile invasion, and strictly to blockade the Cimmerian Bosporus under the threat of death to any trader who should break the blockade. Pompeius conducted the land troops not without
per
great
Fresh con. diets with the Alban
hardships through the Colchian and Armenian territory to the lower course of the Kur and onward, crossing the stream, into the Albanian plain.
For several days the Roman army had to march in the glowing heat through this almost waterless flat country, with out encountering the enemy; it was only on the left bank of the Abas (probably the river elsewhere named Alazonius, now Alasan) that the force of the Albanians under the leadership of Coses, brother of the king Oroizes, was drawn up against the Romans; they are said to have amounted, including the contingent which had arrived from the inhabitants of the Transcaucasian steppes, to 60,000 infantry and r2,0o0 cavalry. Yet they would hardly have risked the battle, unless they had supposed that they had merely to fight with the Roman cavalry; but the cavalry had only been placed in front, and, on its retiring, the masses of Roman infantry showed themselves from their concealment behind. After a short conflict the army of the barbarians was driven into the woods, which Pompeius gave orders to invest and set on fire. The Albanians thereupon consented to make peace; and, following the example of the more powerful peoples, all the tribes settled between the Kur and the Caspian concluded a treaty with the Roman general. The Albanians, Iberians, and generally the peoples settled to the south along, and at the foot of, the Caucasus, thus entered at least for the moment into a relation of depend ence on Rome. When, on the other hand, the peoples between the Phasis and the Maeotis—Colchians, Soani, Heniochi, Zygi, Achaeans, even the remote Bastarnae were inscribed in the long list of the nations subdued by Pompeius, the notion of subjugation was evidently employed in a manner very far from exact. The Caucasus once more verified its significance in the history of the world; the Roman conquest, like the Persian and the Hellenic, found its limit there.
4l6
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
cHAP. IV POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
417
Accordingly king Mithradates was left to himself and to Mithra
destiny. As formerly his ancestor, the founder of the Pontic dates goes to Pantica
state, had first entered his future kingdom as a fugitive paeum. from the executioners of Antigonus and attended only by
six horsemen, so had the grandson now been compelled
once more to cross the bounds of his kingdom and to turn
his back on his own and his fathers’ conquests. But for no one had the dice of fate turned up the highest gains and
the‘ greatest losses more frequently and more capriciously than for the old sultan of Sinope ; and the fortunes of men change rapidly and incalculably in the east. Well might Mithradates now in the evening of his life accept each new vicissitude with the thought that it too was only in its turn paving the way for a fresh revolution, and that the only thing constant was the perpetual change of fortune. Inas much as the Roman rule was intolerable for the Orientals at the very core of their nature, and Mithradates himself
was in good and in evil a true prince of the east, amidst the laxity of the rule exercised by the Roman senate over the provinces, and amidst the dissensions of the political parties
in Rome fermenting and ripening into civil war, Mithradates might, if he was fortunate enough to bide his time, doubt
less re-establish his dominion yet a third time. For this very reason—because he hoped and planned while still there was life in him—he remained dangerous to the Romans so long as he lived, as an aged refugee no less than when he had marched forth with his hundred thousands to wrest Hellas and Macedonia from the Romans. The rest
less old man made his way in the year 689 from Dioscurias 66. amidst unspeakable hardships partly by land partly by sea
to the kingdom of Panticapaeum, where by his reputation and his numerous retainers he drove his renegade son Machares from the throne and compelled him to put him self to death. From this point he attempted once more to negotiate with the Romans; he besought that his paternal
v01. xv
127
His last
WP"! tions against Rome.
kingdom might be restored to him, and declared himself ready to recognize the supremacy of Rome and to pay tribute as a vassal. But Pompeius refused to grant the king a position in which he would have begun the old game afresh, and insisted on his personal submission.
Mithradates, however, had no thought of delivering himself into the hands of the enemy, but was projecting new and still more extravagant plans. Straining all the resources with which the treasures that he had saved and the remnant of his states supplied him, he equipped a new army of 36,000 men consisting partly of slaves which he armed and exercised after the Roman fashion, and a war fleet; according to rumour he designed to march west ward through Thrace, Macedonia, and Pannonia, to carry along with him the Scythians in the Sarmatian steppes and the Celts on the Danube as allies, and with this avalanche of peoples to throw himself on Italy. This has been deemed a grand idea, and the plan of war of the Pontic king has been compared with the military march of Hannibal; but the same project, which in a gifted man is a stroke of genius, becomes folly in one who is wrong-headed. This intended invasion of Italy
by the Orientals was simply ridiculous, and nothing but a product of the impotent imagination of despair. Through the prudent coolness of their leader the Romans were pre vented from Quixotically pursuing their Quixotic antagonist and warding off in the distant Crimea an attack, which, if it were not nipped of itself in the bud, would still have been
soon enough met at the foot of the Alps.
In fact, while Pompeius, without troubling himself
Revolt against Mithra dates.
further as to the threats of the impotent giant, was em ployed in organizing the territory which he had gained, the destinies of the aged king drew on to their fulfilment without Roman aid in the remote north.
418
POMPEIUS AND THE EAST BOOK v
His extravagant preparations had produced the most violent excitement
ps4
CHAP. iv POMPEIUS AND THE EAST
419
among the Bosporans, whose houses were torn down, and whose oxen were taken from the plough and put to death, in order to procure beams and sinews for constructing engines of war. ' The soldiers too were disinclined to enter on the hopeless Italian expedition. Mithradates had constantly been surrounded by suspicion and treason ; he had not the gift of calling forth affection and fidelity among those around him. As in earlier years he had compelled his distinguished general Archelaus to seek pro tection in the Roman camp; as during the campaigns of Lucullus his most trusted oflicers Diocles, Phoenix, and even the most notable of the Roman emigrants had passed over to the enemy; so now, when his star grew pale and the old, infirm, embittered sultan was accessible to no one else save his eunuchs, desertion followed still more rapidly on desertion. Castor, the commandant of the fortress Phanagoria (on the Asiatic coast opposite Kertch), first raised the standard of revolt; he proclaimed the free
dom of the town and delivered the sons of Mithradates that were in the fortress into the hands of the Romans. While the insurrection spread among the Bosporan towns, and Chersonesus (not far from Sebastopol), Theudosia (Kaffa), and others joined the Phanagorites, the king allowed his suspicion and his cruelty to have free course. On the information of despicable eunuchs his most con fidential adherents were nailed to the cross; the king’s own sons were the least sure of their lives. The son who was his father’s favourite and was probably destined by him as his successor, Pharnaces, took his resolution and
headed the insurgents. The servants whom Mithradates sent to arrest him, and the troops despatched against him, passed over to his side; the corps of Italian deserters, perhaps the most efficient among the divisions of Mithra dates’ army, and for that very reason the least inclined to share in the romantic—and for the deserters peculiarly
Death of Mithra dates.
hazardous-expedition against Italy, declared itself 01 marr: for the prince ; the other divisions of the army and the fleet followed the example thus set.
After the country and the army had abandoned the king, the capital Panticapaeum at length opened its gates to the insurgents and delivered over to them the old king enclosed in his palace. From the high wall of his castle the latter
besought his son at least to grant him life and not imbrue his hands in his father’s blood; but the request came ill from the lips of a man whose own hands were stained with the blood of his mother and with the recently-shed blood of his innocent son Xiphares ; and in heartless severity and inhumanity Pharnaces even outstripped his father. Seeing therefore he had now to die, the sultan resolved at least to die as he had lived; his wives, his concubines and his daughters, including the youthful brides of the kings of Egypt and Cyprus, had all to suffer the bitterness of death
and drain the poisoned cup, before he too took and then, when the draught did not take efi'ect quickly enough, pre sented his neck for the fatal stroke to Celtic mercenary Betuitus.