No More Learning

Perhaps the dissatisfaction with the senatorial government was not now less than it was then ; but several of the hopes, which had brought to the Gracchi their most faithful adherents, had in the meanwhile been recognized as illusory, and there had sprung up in many minds a mis giving that this Gracchan agitation tended towards an issue whither a very large portion of the discontented were by no means willing to follow it In fact, amidst the chase and turmoil of twenty years there had been rubbed off and worn away very much of the fresh enthusiasm, the steadfast faith, the moral purity of effort, which mark the early stages of revolutions. But, if the democratic party was no longer what it had been under Gaius Gracchus, the leaders of the intervening period were now as far beneath their party as Gaius Gracchus had been exalted above This was im plied in the nature of the case. Until there should emerge
man having the boldness like Gaius Gracchus to grasp at the supremacy of the state, the leaders could only be stop gaps either political novices, who gave furious vent to their youthful love of opposition and then, when duly accredited as fiery declaimers and favourite speakers, effected with more or less dexterity their retreat to the camp of the government party or people who had nothing to lose in respect of property and influence, and usually not even any thing to gain in respect of honour, and who made their business to obstruct and annoy the government from per sonal exasperation or even from the mere pleasure of creating
noise. To the former sort belonged, for instance, Gaius Memmius 394) and the well-known orator Lucius Crassus, who turned the oratorical laurels which they had won in the ranks of the opposition to account the sequel as zealous partisans of the government.
But the most notable leaders of the popular party about
this time were men of the second sort. Such were Gaius Gland* Servilius Glaucia, called by Cicero the Roman Hyperbolus,
vou in
95
in
(p.
aa :
it
;
it.
Saturninns.
a vulgar fellow of the lowest origin and of the most shame less street -eloquence, but effective and even dreaded by reason of his pungent wit ; and his better and abler associate, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, who even according to the accounts of his enemies was a fiery and impressive speaker, and was at least not guided by motives of vulgar selfishness. When he was quaestor, the charge of the importation of corn, which had fallen to him in the usual way, had been withdrawn from him by decree of the senate, not so much perhaps on account of maladministration, as in order to confer this—just at that time popular —office on one of the heads of the government party, Marcus Scaurus, rather than upon an unknown young man belonging to none of the ruling families. This mortification had driven the aspiring and sensitive man into the ranks of the opposition ; and as
466
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book :v
108. tribune of the people in 65 1 he repaid what he had received with interest. One scandalous affair had at that time fol lowed hard upon another. He had spoken in the open market of the briberies practised in Rome by the envoys of king Mithradates —these revelations, compromising in the highest degree the senate, had wellnigh cost the bold tribune his life. He had excited a tumult against the conqueror of Numidia, Quintus Metellus, when he was a candidate for
102. the censorship in 652, and kept him besieged in the Capitol till the equites liberated him not without bloodshed ; the retaliatory measure of the censor Metellus—the expulsion with infamy of Saturninus and of Glaucia from the senate on occasion of the revision of the senatorial roll — had only miscarried through the remissness of the colleague assigned to Metellus. Saturninus mainly had carried that exceptional commission against Caepio and his associates 440) in spite of the most vehement resistance the government party; and in opposition to the same he had carried the
102. keenly-contested re-election of Marius as consul for 65-. Saturninus was decidedly the most energetic enemy of the
by
(p.
chap, VI ATTEMPT OF DKUSUS AT REFORM
467
senate and the most active and eloquent leader of tlie popular party since Gaius Gracchus ; but he was also violent and unscrupulous beyond any of his predecessors, always ready to descend into the street and to refute his antagonist with blows instead of words.
Such were the two leaders of the so-called popular party, who now made common cause with the victorious general.
It was natural that they should do so ; their interests and aims coincided, and even in the earlier candidatures of Marius Saturninus at least had most decidedly and most effectively taken his side. It was agreed between them
that for 654 Marius should become a candidate for a sixth 10ft consulship, Saturninus for a second tribunate, Glaucia for
the praetorship, in order that, possessed of these offices,
they might carry out the intended revolution in the state.
The senate acquiesced in the nomination of the less danger
ous Glaucia, but did what it could to hinder the election
of Marius and Saturninus, or at least to associate with the former a determined antagonist in the person of Quintus Metellus as his colleague in the consulship. All appliances, lawful and unlawful, were put in motion by both parties ;
but the senate was not successful in arresting the dangerous conspiracy in the bud. Marius did not disdain in person
to solicit votes and, it was said, even to purchase them ;
in fact, at the tribunician elections when nine men from
the list of the government party were proclaimed, and the tenth place seemed already secured for a respectable man
of the same complexion Quintus Nunnius, the latter was
set upon and slain by a savage band, which is said to have been mainly composed of discharged soldiers of Marius. Thus the conspirators gained their object, although by the most violent means. Marius was chosen as consul, Glaucia
as praetor, Saturninus as tribune of the people for 654; 100. the second consular place was obtained not by Quintus Metellus, but by an insignificant man, Lucius Valerius
121. The
l^^
Flaccus : the confederates might proceed to put into exe cution the further schemes which they contemplated and to complete the work broken off in 633.
Let us recall the objects which Gaius Gracchus pursued, and the means by which he pursued them. His object was to break down the oligarchy within and without. He aimed, on the one hand, to restore the power of the magistrates, which had become completely dependent on the senate, to its original sovereign rights, and to re-convert the senatorial assembly from a governing into a deliberative board; and, on the other hand, to put an end to the aristocratic division of the state into the three classes of the ruling burgesses, the Italian allies, and the subjects, by the gradual equalization of those distinctions which were
with a government not oligarchical. These ideas the three confederates revived in the colonial laws, which Saturninus as tribune of the people had partly intro- duced already (651), partly now introduced (654). 1 As early as the former year the interrupted distribution of the Carthaginian territory had been resumed primarily for the benefit of the soldiers of Marius—not the burgesses only but, as it would seem, also the Italian allies — and each of these veterans had been promised an allotment of ioo
jugera, or about five times the size of an ordinary Italian farm, in the province of Africa. Now not only was the provincial land already available claimed in its widest extent for the Romano-Italian emigration, but also all the land of the still independent Celtic tribes beyond the Alps,
1 It is not possible to distinguish exactly what belongs to the first and what to the second tribunate of Saturninus ; the more especially, as in both he evidently followed out the same Gracchan tendencies. The African agrarian law is definitely placed by the treatise De Viris III. 73, 1
108. 100.
468
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book iv
incompatible
108. in 651 ; and this date accords with the termination, which had taken place just shortly before, of the Jugurthine war. The second agrarian law 100. belongs beyond doubt to 654. The treason-law and the corn-law hare
108. been only conjecturally placed, the former in 651 (p. 442 note), the latter 100. in 654.
CHaP, vi ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
469
by virtue of the legal fiction that through the conquest of the Cimbri all the territory occupied by these had been acquired dejure by the Romans. Gaius Marius was called to conduct the assignations of land and the farther measures that might appear necessary in this behalf; and the temple- treasures of Tolosa, which had been embezzled but were refunded or had still to be refunded by the guilty aristocrats, were destined for the outfit of the new receivers of land. This law therefore not only revived the plans of con quest beyond the Alps and the projects of Transalpine and transmarine colonization, which Gaius Gracchus and Flaccus had sketched, on the most extensive scale ; but, by admitting the Italians along with the Romans to emigration and yet undoubtedly prescribing the erection of all the new com munities as burgess-colonies, it formed a first step towards satisfying the claims — to which it was so difficult to give effect, and which yet could not be in the long run refused —of the Italians to be placed on an equality with the Romans. First of all, however, if the law passed and Marius was called to the independent carrying out of these immense schemes of conquest and assignation, he would become practically —until those plans should be realized or rather, considering their indefinite and unlimited character, for his lifetime — monarch of Rome; with which view it may be presumed that Marius intended to have his consul ship annually renewed, like the tribunate of Gracchus. But, amidst the agreement of the political positions marked out for the younger Gracchus and for Marius in all other essential particulars, there was yet a very material distinc tion between the land-assigning tribune and the land- assigning consul in the fact, that the former was to occupy a purely civil position, the latter a military position as well ; a distinction, which partly but by no means solely arose out of the personal circumstances under which the two men had risen to the head of the state.
470
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION BOOK VI
While such was the nature of the aim which Marius and his comrades had proposed to themselves, the next question related to the means by which they purposed to break down the resistance — which might be anticipated to be obstinate —of the government party. Gaius Gracchus had fought his battles with the aid of the capitalist class and the proletariate. His successors did not neglect to make advances likewise to these. The equites were not only left in possession of the tribunals, but their power as jurymen was considerably increased, partly by a stricter ordinance regarding the standing commission — especially important to the merchants — as to extortions on the part of the public magistrates in the provinces, which Glaucia carried probably in this year, partly by the special tribunal, appointed
108. doubtless as early as 651 on the proposal of Saturninus, respecting the embezzlements and other official malversations that had occurred during the Cimbrian movement in GauL For the benefit, moreover, of the proletariate of the capital the sum below cost price, which hitherto had to be paid on occasion of the distributions of grain for the modius, was lowered from 6 J asses to a mere nominal charge of \ of an
as. But although they did not despise the alliance with the equites and the proletariate of the capital, the real power by which the confederates enforced their measures lay not in these, but in the discharged soldiers of the Marian army, who for that very reason had been provided for in the colonial laws themselves after so extravagant a fashion. In this also was evinced the predominating military char acter, which forms the chief distinction between this attempt at revolution and that which preceded it,
They went to work accordingly. The corn and colonial laws encountered, as was to be expected, the keenest opposi- tion from the government. They proved in the senate by striking figures, that the former must make the public treasury bankrupt ; Saturninus did not trouble himself about that
violent
j^^" Toting.
CHAP. T! ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
471
They brought tribunician intercession to bear against both laws ; Saturninus ordered the voting to go on. They informed the magistrates presiding at the voting that a peal of thunder had been heard, a portent by which according to ancient belief the gods enjoined the dismissal of the public assembly; Saturninus remarked to the messengers that the senate would do well to keep quiet, otherwise the thunder might very easily be followed by hail. Lastly the urban quaestor, Quintus Caepio, the son, it may be pre sumed, of the general condemned three years before,1 and like his father a vehement antagonist of the popular party, with a band of devoted partisans dispersed the comitia by violence. But the tough soldiers of Marius, who had flocked in crowds to Rome to vote on this occasion, quickly rallied and dispersed the city bands, and on the voting ground thus reconquered the vote on the Appuleian laws was successfully brought to an end. The scandal was grievous ; but when it came to the question whether the senate would comply with the clause of the law that within five days after its passing every senator should on pain of forfeiting his senatorial seat take an oath faithfully to observe
all the senators took the oath with the single exception of Quintus Metellus, who preferred to go into exile. Marius and Saturninus were not displeased to see the best general and the ablest man among the opposing party removed from the state by voluntary banishment.
Their object seemed to be attained but even now to those who saw more clearly the enterprise could not but appear failure. The cause of the failure lay mainly in the awkward alliance between politically incapable general
All indications point to this conclusion. The elder Quintus Caepio was consul in 648, the younger quaestor in 651 or 654, the former conse- quently was born about or before 605, the latter about 624 or 627. The fact that the former died without leaving sons (Strabo, iv. 188) not inconsistent with this view, for the younger Caepio fell in 664, and the elder, who ended his life in exile at Smyrna, may very well have survived
The bSTet xevola-
party,
106. 108.
100. 141
130. . 137. 90.
is
1
it,
a
a
^e
;
473
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book it
and a street-demagogue, capable but recklessly violent, and filled with passion rather than with the aims of a statesman. They had agreed excellently, so long as the question related only to plans. But when the plans came to be executed, it was very soon apparent that the celebrated general was
in politics utterly incapable ; that his ambition was that of the farmer who would cope with and, if possible, surpass the aristocrats in titles, and not that of the statesman who desires to govern because he feels within him the power to do so ; that every enterprise, which was based on his personal standing as a politician, must necessarily even under the most favourable circumstances be ruined himself.
He knew neither the art of gaining his antagonists, nor
Opposition
whole arii- tnat of keeping his own party in subjection. The opposi-
tocracj.
tion against him and his comrades was even of itself sufficiently considerable ; for not only did the government party belong to it in a body, but also a great part of the burgesses, who guarded with jealous eyes their exclusive privileges against the Italians ; and by the course which things took the whole class of the wealthy was also driven over to the government Saturninus and Glaucia were from the first masters and servants of the proletariate and therefore not at all on a good footing with the moneyed aristocracy, which had no objection now and then to keep the senate in check by means of the rabble, but had no liking for street-riots and violent outrages. As early as the first tribunate of Saturninus his armed bands had their skirmishes with the equites ; the vehement
opposition 100. which his election as tribune for 654 encountered shows clearly how small was the party favourable to him. It
should have been the endeavour of Marius to avail himself of the dangerous help of such associates only in moderation, and to convince all and sundry that they were destined not to rule, but to serve him as the ruler. As he did precisely
by
chap, vi ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
473
the contrary, and the matter came to look quite as if the object was to place the government in the hands not of an
and vigorous master, but of the mere canaille, the men of material interests, terrified to death at the prospect of such confusion, again attached themselves closely to the senate in presence of this common danger. While Gaius Gracchus, clearly perceiving that no govern ment could be overthrown by means of the proletariate alone, had especially sought to gain over to his side the propertied classes, those who desired to continue his work began by producing a reconciliation between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie.
But the ruin of the enterprise was brought about, still Variance more rapidly than by this reconciliation of enemies, through w1*. 6611 . the dissension which the more than ambiguous behaviour the dema- of Marius necessarily produced among its promoters. B0^65- While the decisive proposals were brought forward by his
associates and carried after a struggle by his soldiers,
Marius maintained an attitude wholly passive, just as if the
political leader was not bound quite as much as the military,
when the brunt of battle came, to present himself every
where and foremost in person. Nor was this all ; he was
terrified at, and fled from the presence of, the spirits which
he had himself evoked. When his associates resorted to expedients which an honourable man could not approve,
but without which in fact the object of their efforts could
not be attained, he attempted, in the fashion usual with
men whose ideas of political morality are confused, to wash
his hands of participation in those crimes and at the same
time to profit by their results. There is a story that the
general once conducted secret negotiations in two different rooms of his house, with Saturninus and his partisans in the one, and with the deputies of the oligarchy in the other, talking with the former of striking a blow against the senate, and with the latter of interfering against the revolt,
intelligent
Satnminus
X
and that under a pretext which was in keeping with the anxiety of the situation he went to and fro between the two conferences — a story as certainly invented, and as certainly appropriate, as any incident in Aristophanes. The ambiguous attitude of Marius became notorious in the question of the oath. At first he seemed as though he would himself refuse the oath required by the Appuleian laws on account of the informalities that had occurred at their passing, and then swore it with the reservation, " so far as the laws were really valid"; a reservation which annulled the oath itself, and which of course all the senators likewise adopted in swearing, so that by this mode of taking the oath the validity of the laws was not secured, but on the contrary was for the first time really called in question. —
The consequences of this behaviour stupid beyond parallel — on the part of the celebrated general soon developed themselves. Saturninus and Glaucia had not undertaken the revolution and procured for Marius the supremacy of the state, in order that they might be dis owned and sacrificed by him; if Glaucia, the favourite jester of the people, had hitherto lavished on Marius the gayest flowers of his jovial eloquence, the garlands which he now wove for him were by no means redolent of roses and violets. A total rupture took place, by which both parties were lost ; for Marius had not a footing sufficiently firm singly to maintain the colonial law which he had him self called in question and to possess himself of the position which it assigned to him, nor were Saturninus and Glaucia in a condition to continue on their own account the work which Marius had begun.
But the two demagogues were so compromised that they could not recede ; they had no alternative save to resign their offices in the usual way and thereby to deliver themselves with their hands bound to their exasperated
474
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book iv
chap. VI ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
475
opponents, or now to grasp the sceptre for themselves, although they felt that they could not bear its weight They resolved on the latter course ; Saturninus would come forward once more as a candidate for the tribunate
of the people for 655, Glaucia, although praetor and not 99. eligible for the consulship till two years had elapsed, would become a candidate for the latter. In fact the tribunician elections were decided entirely to their mind, and the attempt of Marius to prevent the spurious Tiberius Gracchus from soliciting the tribuneship served only to show the celebrated man what was now the worth of his popularity ; the multitude broke the doors of the prison in which Gracchus was confined, bore him in triumph through
the streets, and elected him by a great majority as their tribune. Saturninus and Glaucia sought to control the more important consular election by the expedient for the removal of inconvenient competitors which had been tried in the previous year ; the counter-candidate of the govern ment party, Gaius Memmius —the same who eleven years before had led the opposition against them 394) — was
assailed band of ruffians and beaten to
death. But the government party had only waited for Saturntea* striking event of this sort in order to employ force. The
senate required the consul Gaius Marius to interfere, and
the latter in reality professed his readiness now to draw for
the conservative party the sword, which he had obtained
from the democracy and had promised to wield on its
behalf. The young men were hastily called out, equipped
with arms from the public buildings, and drawn up in
military array; the senate itself appeared under arms in
the Forum, with its venerable chief Marcus Scaurus at its
head. The opposite party were doubtless superior in
street-riot, but were not prepared for such an attack they
had now to defend themselves as they could. They broke
open the doors of the prisons, and called the slaves to
suddenly
;
aa
by a
(p.
and over, powered.
476
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book it
liberty and to arms; they proclaimed —so it was said at any rate —Saturninus as king or general ; on the day when the new tribunes of the people had to enter on their office,
100. the ioth of December 654, a battle occurred in the great market-place — the first which, since Rome existed, had ever been fought within the walls of the capital. The issue was not for a moment doubtful. The Populares were beaten and driven up to the Capitol, where the supply of water was cut off from them and they were thus compelled
to surrender. Marius, who held the chief command, would gladly have saved the lives of his former allies who were now his prisoners; Saturninus proclaimed to the multitude that all which he had proposed had been done in concert with the consul : even a worse man than Marius was could not but shudder at the inglorious part which he played on this day. But he had long ceased to be master of affairs. Without orders the youth of rank climbed the roof of the senate-house in the Forum where the prisoners were temporarily confined, stripped off the tiles, and with these stoned their victims. Thus Saturninus perished with most of the more notable prisoners. Glaucia was found in a lurking-place and likewise put to death. Without sentence or trial there died on this day four magistrates of
the Roman people — a praetor, a quaestor, and two tribunes of the people — and a number of other well-known men, some of whom belonged to good families. In spite of the grave faults by which the chiefs had invited on themselves this bloody retribution, we may nevertheless lament them : they fell like advanced posts, which are left unsupported by the main army and are forced to perish without aim in a conflict of despair.
Never had the government party achieved a more com- least part of the success that they had got rid of some
Ascend-
encyoftht plete yicto^ neVer had the opposition suffered a more menu severe defeat, than on this ioth of December. It was the
chap, vi ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
477
troublesome brawlers, whose places might be supplied any
day by associates of a like stamp ; it was of greater moment
that the only man, who was then in a position to become dangerous to the government, had publicly and completely
effected his own annihilation; and most important of all
that the two elements of the opposition, the capitalist order
and the proletariate, emerged from the strife wholly at variance. It is true that this was not the work of the government ; the fabric which had been put together by
the adroit hands of Gaius Gracchus had been broken up,
partly by the force of circumstances, partly and especially
by the coarse and boorish management of his incapable successor ; but in the result it mattered not whether calcu
lation or good fortune helped the government to its victory.
A more pitiful position can hardly be conceived than that Marhu occupied by the hero of Aquae and Vercellae after such a ^,^7^
disaster — all the more pitiful, because people could not but compare it with the lustre which only a few months before surrounded the same man. No one either on the aristo cratic or the democratic side any longer thought of the victorious general on occasion of filling up the magistracies ;
the hero of six consulships could not even venture to be come a candidate in 656 for the censorship. He went 98. away to the east, ostensibly for the purpose of fulfilling a vow there, but in reality that he might not be a witness of
'he triumphant return of his mortal foe Quintus Metelhis; he was allowed to go. He returned and opened his house ; his halls stood empty. He always hoped that conflicts and battles would occur and that the people would once more need his experienced arm ; he thought to provide himself with an opportunity for war in the east, where the Romans might certainly have found sufficient occasion for energetic interference. But this also miscarried, like every other of his wishes ; profound peace continued to prevail. Yet the longing after honours once aroused within him, the oftener
kted.
The equestrian party.
it was disappointed, ate the more deeply into his heart. Superstitious as he was, he cherished in his bosom an old oracular saying which had promised him seven consulships, and in gloomy meditation brooded over the means by which this utterance was to obtain its fulfilment and he his revenge, while he appeared to all, himself alone excepted, insignifi cant and innocuous.
Still more important in its consequences than the setting aside of the dangerous man was the deep exasperation against the Populares, as they were called, which the insur rection of Saturninus left behind in the party of material interests. With the most remorseless severity the eques trian tribunals condemned every one who professed oppo sitional views ; Sextus Titius, for instance, was condemned not so much on account of his agrarian law as because he had in his house a statue of Saturninus ; Gaius Appuleius Decianus was condemned, because he had as tribune of the people characterized the proceedings against Saturninus as illegal. Even for earlier injuries inflicted by the Popu lares on the aristocracy satisfaction was now demanded, not without prospect of success, before the equestrian tribunals. Because Gaius Norbanus had eight years pre viously in concert with Saturninus driven the consular
478
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book nr
96. Quintus Caepio into exile (p. 440) he was now (659) on the ground of his own law accused of high treason, and the jury men hesitated long — not whether the accused was guilty or innocent, but whether his ally Saturninus or his enemy Caepio was to be regarded as the most deserving of their hate— till at last they decided for acquittal. Even if people were not more favourably disposed towards the government in itself than before, yet, after having found themselves, although but for a moment, on the verge of a real mob-rule, all men who had anything to lose viewed the existing government in a different light ; it was notoriously wretched and pernicious for the state, but the anxious dread
cha*. VI ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
479
of the still more wretched and still more pernicious govern ment of the proletariate had conferred on it a relative value.
The current now set so much in that direction that the multitude tore in pieces a tribune of the people who had ventured to postpone the return of Quintus Metellus, and
the democrats began to seek their safety in league with murderers and poisoners —ridding themselves, for example,
of the hated Metellus by poison—or even in league with
the public enemy, several of them already taking refuge at
the court of king Mithradates who was secretly preparing
for war against Rome. External relations also assumed an aspect favourable for the government The Roman arms were employed but little in the period from the Cimbrian
to the Social war, but everywhere with honour. The only serious conflict was in Spain, where, during the recent years so trying for Rome (649 seg. ), the Lusitanians and 105. Celtiberians had risen with unwonted vehemence against
the Romans. In the years 656-661 the consul Titus 98-981 Didius in the northern and the consul Publius Crassus in
the southern province not only re-established with valour
and good fortune the ascendency of the Roman arms, but
also razed the refractory towns and, where it seemed neces sary, transplanted the population of the strong mountain- towns to the plains. We shall show in the sequel that about the same time the Roman government again directed its attention to the east which had been for a generation neglected, and displayed greater energy than had for long been heard of in Cyrene, Syria, and Asia Minor. Never since the commencement of the revolution had the govern ment of the restoration been so firmly established, or so popular. Consular laws were substituted for tribunician ; restrictions on liberty replaced measures of progress. The cancelling of the laws ot Saturninus was a matter of course ; the transmarine colonies of Marius disappeared down to a single petty settlement on the barbarous island of Corsica.
-
Collision
thiTsenate and equites
admini- stration
proTinces
Everything depended on recovering the nomination of ^e jurymen- The administration of the provinces —the chief foundation of the senatorial government —had be- come dependent on the jury courts, more particularly on the commission regarding exactions, to such a degree that tne governor of a province seemed to administer it no lcnger for the senate, but for the order of capitalists and
4&>
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book it
When the tribune of the people Sextus Titius —a caricatured Alcibiades, who was greater in dancing and ball-playing than in politics, and whose most prominent talent consisted in breaking the images of the gods in the streets at night—
89. re-introduced and carried the Appuleian agrarian law in 655, the senate was able to annul the new law on a religious pretext without any one even attempting to defend it ; the author of it was punished, as we have already mentioned,
•8. by the equites in their tribunals. Next year (656) a law brought in by the two consuls made the usual four-and- twenty days' interval between the introduction and the passing of a project of law obligatory, and forbade the com bination of several enactments different in their nature in
one proposal ; by which means the unreasonable extension of the initiative in legislation was at least somewhat restricted, and the government was prevented from being openly taken by surprise with new laws. It became daily more evident that the Gracchan constitution, which had survived the fall of its author, was now, since the multitude and the moneyed aristocracy no longer went together, tottering to its founda tions. As that constitution had been based on division in the ranks of the aristocracy, so it seemed that dissensions in the ranks of the opposition could not but bring about its fall. Now, if ever, the time had come for completing the
121. unfinished work of restoration of 633, for making the Gracchan constitution share the fate of the tyrant, and for replacing the governing oligarchy in the sole possession of political power.
chap, vi ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
481
merchants. Ready as the moneyed aristocracy always was to meet the views of the government when measures against the democrats were in question, it sternly resented every attempt to restrict it in this its well-acquired right
of unlimited sway in the provinces. Several such attempts were now made ; the governing aristocracy began again
to come to itself, and its very best men reckoned them selves bound, at least for their own part, to oppose the dreadful maladministration in the provinces. The most resolute in this respect was Quintus Mucius Scaevola, like
his father Publius pontifex maximus and in 659 consul, 95. the foremost jurist and one of the most excellent men
of his time. As praetorian governor (about 656) of Asia, 98. the richest and worst-abused of all the provinces, he—
in concert with his older friend, distinguished as an officer, iurist, and historian, the consular Publius Rutilius Rufus—
set a severe and deterring example. Without making any distinction between Italians and provincials, noble and ignoble, he took up every complaint, and not only com pelled the Roman merchants and state-lessees to give full pecuniary compensation for proven injuries, but, when some of their most important and most unscrupulous agents were found guilty of crimes deserving death, deaf to all offers of bribery he ordered them to be duly cruci
fied. The senate approved his conduct, and even made
it an instruction afterwards to the governors of Asia that they should take as their model the principles of Scaevola's administration ; but the equites, although they did not venture to meddle with that highly aristocratic and in fluential statesman himself, brought to trial his associates
and ultimately (about 662) even the most considerable 98. of them, his legate Publius Rufus, who was defended only by his merits and recognized integrity, not by family connection. The charge that such a man had allowed
himself to perpetrate exactions in Asia, almost broke down
VOL. Ill
96
■
482
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book iv
under its own absurdity and under the infamy of the accuser, one Apicius ; yet the welcome opportunity of humbling the consular was not allowed to pass, and, when the latter, disdaining false rhetoric, mourning robes, and tears, defended himself briefly, simply, and to the point, and proudly refused the homage which the sovereign capi talists desired, he was actually condemned, and his mode rate property was confiscated to satisfy fictitious claims for compensatioa The condemned resorted to the province which he was alleged to have plundered, and there, welcomed by all the communities with honorary deputations, and praised and beloved during his lifetime, he spent in literary leisure his remaining days. And this disgraceful condemnation, while perhaps the worst, was by no means the only case of the sort. The senatorial
was exasperated, not so much perhaps by such abuse of justice in the case of men of stainless walk but of new nobility, as by the fact that the purest nobility no longer sufficed to cover possible stains on its honour.
was Rufus out of the country, when the most respected of all aristocrats, for twenty years the chief of the senate, Marcus Scaurus at seventy years of age was brought to trial for exactions ; a sacrilege according to aristocratic notions, even if he were guilty. The office of accuser began to be exercised professionally by worth less fellows, and neither irreproachable character, nor rank, nor age longer furnished protection from the most wicked and most dangerous attacks. The commission regarding exactions was converted from a shield of the provincials into their worst scourge ; the most notorious robber
with impunity, if he only indulged his fellow- robbers and did not refuse to allow part of the sums exacted to reach the jury ; but any attempt to respond to the equitable demands of the provincials for right and
sufficed for condemnation. It seemed as if the
party
Scarcely
escaped
justice
sua*, vi ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
483
intention was to bring the Roman government into the same dependence on the controlling court, as that in which the college of judges at Carthage had formerly held the council there. The prescient expression of Gaius Gracchus was finding fearful fulfilment, that with the dagger of his law as to the Jurymen the world of quality would lacerate itself.
An attack on the equestrian courts was inevitable. Lbim Every one in the government party who was still alive
to the fact that governing implies not merely rights but
also duties, every one in fact who still felt any nobler or prouder ambition within him, could not but rise in revolt against this oppressive and disgraceful political control,
which precluded any possibility of upright administration.
The scandalous condemnation of Rutilius Rufus seemed
a summons to begin the attack at once, and Marcus Livius Drusus, who was tribune of the people in 663, regarded •*• that summons as specially addressed to himself. Son
of the man of the same name, who thirty years before
had primarily caused the overthrow of Gaius Gracchus
(p. 364) and had afterwards made himself a name as an officer by the subjugation of the Scordisci 429), Drusus
was, like his father, of strictly conservative views, and had already given practical proof that such were his sentiments
in the insurrection of Saturninus. He belonged to the circle of the highest nobility, and was the possessor of
colossal fortune disposition too he was genuine aristocrat — man emphatically proud, who scorned to bedeck himself with the insignia of his offices, but declared on his death-bed that there would not soon arise citizen like to him man with whom the beautiful saying, that nobility implies obligation, was and continued to be the rule of his life. With all the vehement earnestness of his temperament he had turned away from the frivolity and venality that marked the nobles of the common stamp
;
; a
a
a a
a
; in
(p.
484
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book iv
trustworthy and strict in morals, he was respected rather than properly beloved on the part of the common people, to whom his door and his purse were always open, and notwithstanding his youth, he was through the personal dignity of his character a man of weight in the senate as in the Forum. Nor did he stand alone. Marcus Scauius had the courage on occasion of his defence in the trial for extortion publicly to summon Drusus to undertake a reform of the judicial arrangements ; he and the famous orator, Lucius Crassus, were in the senate the most zealous champions of his proposals, and were perhaps associated with him in originating them. But the mass of the govern ing aristocracy was by no means of the same mind with Drusus, Scaurus, and Crassus. There were not wanting in the senate decided adherents of the capitalist
party, among whom in particular a conspicuous place belonged to the consul of the day, Lucius Marcius Philippus, who maintained the cause of the equestrian order as he had formerly maintained that of the democracy 380) with zeal
and prudence, and to the daring and reckless
Caepio, who was induced to this opposition primarily by his personal hostility to Drusus and Scaurus. More dangerous, however, than these decided opponents was the cowardly and corrupt mass of the aristocracy, who no doubt would have preferred to plunder the provinces alone, but in the end had not much objection to share the spoil with the equites, and, instead of taking in hand the grave and perilous struggle against the haughty capitalists, reckoned
far more equitable and easy to purchase impunity at their hands by fair words and by an occasional prostration or even by a round sum. The result alone could show how far success would attend the attempt to carry along with the movement this body, without which was impossible to attain the desired end.
Drusus drew up proposal to withdraw the functions of
Quintus
a
it
it
(p.
chap, vi ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
48s
jurymen from the burgesses of equestrian rating and to restore them to the senate, which at the same time was to be put in a position to meet its increased obligations by the admission of 300 new members ; a special criminal commission was to be appointed for pronouncing judgment in the case of those jurymen who had been or should be guilty of accepting bribes.
By this means the immediate object was gained; the capitalists were deprived of their political exclusive rights, and were rendered responsible for the perpetration of injustice. But the proposals and designs of Drusus were by no means limited to this ; his projects were not measures adapted merely for the occasion, but a comprehensive and thoroughly -considered plan of reform. He proposed, moreover, to increase the largesses of grain and to cover the increased expense by the permanent issue of a proportional number of copper plated, alongside of the silver, denarii; and then to set apart all the still undistributed arable land of Italy—thus including in particular the Campanian domains — and the best part of Sicily for the settlement of burgess-colonists. Lastly, he entered into the most distinct obligations towards the Italian allies to procure for them the Roman franchise. Thus the very same supports of power and the very same ideas of reform, on which the constitution of Gaius Gracchus had rested, presented themselves now on the side of the aristocracy — a singular, and yet easily intelligible coinci dence. It was only to be expected that, as the tyrannis had rested for its support against the oligarchy, so the latter should rest for its support against the moneyed aristocracy, on the paid and in some degree organized proletariate;
while the government had formerly accepted the feeding of the proletariate at the expense of the state as an inevitable evil, Drusus now thought of employing at least for the moment, against the moneyed aristocracy. was only to be expected that the better part of the aristocracy, just as
Attempt
^"JbBpirt of the
j^^ owy.
it, It
486
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION BOOK IT
it formerly consented to the agrarian law of Tiberius Gracchus, would now readily consent to all those measures of reform, which, without touching the question of a supreme head, only aimed at the cure of the old evils of the state. In the question of emigration and colonization, it is true,
they could not go so far as the democracy, since the power of the oligarchy mainly rested on their free control over the provinces and was endangered by any permanent military command ; the ideas of equalizing Italy and the provinces and of making conquests beyond the Alps were not compatible with conservative principles. But the senate might very well sacrifice the Latin and even the Campanian domains as well as Sicily in order to raise the Italian farmer class, and yet retain the government as before ; to which fell to be added the consideration, that they could not more effectually obviate future agitations than by providing that all the land at all disposable should be brought to distribution by the aristocracy itself, and that according to Drusus' own expression, nothing should be left for future demagogues to distribute but " the street-dirt and the day light" In like manner it was for the government —whether that might be a monarch, or a close number of ruling families —very much a matter of indifference whether the half or the whole of Italy possessed the Roman franchise ; and hence the reforming men on both sides probably could not but coincide in the idea of averting the danger of a recurrence of the insurrection of Fregellae on a larger scale by a judicious and reasonable extension of the franchise, and of seeking allies, moreover, for their plans in the numerous and influential Italians. Sharply as in the ques tion of the headship of the state the views and designs of the two great political parties differed, the best men of both camps had many points of contact in their means of opera tion and in their reforming tendencies; and, as Scipio Aemilianus may be named alike among the adversaries of
chap, ti ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
487
Tiberius Gracchus and among the promoters of his reform ing efforts, so Drusus was the successor and disciple no less than the antagonist of Gaius. The two high-born and high- minded youthful reformers had a greater resemblance than was apparent at the first glance ; and, personally also, the two were not unworthy to meet, as respects the substance of their patriotic endeavours, in purer and higher views above the obscuring mists of prejudiced partisanship.
The question at stake was the passing of the laws drawn Discos- up by Drusus. Of these the proposer, just like Gaius ! lon? °" Gracchus, kept in reserve for the moment the hazardous laws, project of conferring the Roman franchise on the Italian
allies, and brought forward at first only the laws as to the jurymen, the assignation of land, and the distribution of
grain. The capitalist party offered the most vehement resistance, and, in consequence of the irresolution of the
greater part of the aristocracy and the vacillation of the comitia, would beyond question have carried the rejection
of the law as to jurymen, if it had been put to the vote by
itself. Drusus accordingly embraced all his proposals in
one law ; and, as thus all the burgesses interested in the distributions of grain and land were compelled to vote also
for the law as to jurymen, he succeeded in carrying the law
with their help and that of the Italians, who stood firmly
by Drusus with the exception of the large landowners, particularly those in Umbria and Etruria, whose domanial possessions were threatened. It was not carried, however,
until Drusus had caused the consul Philippus, who weald
not desist from opposition, to be arrested and carried off to
prison by a bailiff. The people celebrated the tribune as
their benefactor, and received him in the theatre by rising
up and applauding ; but the voting had not so much decided
the struggle as transferred it to another ground, for the opposite party justly characterized the proposal of Drusus as contrary to the law of 656 480) and therefore as null. Ml
(p.
The Livian laWuiied.
91.
accordingly by Drusus, after stormy discussions pronounced against the consul a vote of censure and of want of confidence ; but in secret a great part of the majority began to cherish
apprehension respecting the revolution, with which they seemed to be threatened on the part both of Philippus and of a large portion of the capitalists. Other circumstances added to that apprehension. One of the most active and eminent of those who shared the views of Drusus, the orator Lucius Crassus, died suddenly a few days after that sitting of the senate (Sept. 663). The connections formed by Drusus with the Italians, which he had at first com municated only to a few of his most intimate friends, be came gradually divulged, and the furious cry of high treason which his antagonists raised was echoed by many, perhaps by most, men of the government party. Even the generous warning which he communicated to the consul Philippus, to beware of the murderous emissaries of the Italians at the federal festival on the Alban Mount, served only further to compromise him, for it showed how deeply he was involved
in the conspiracies fermenting among the Italians.
Philippus insisted with daily-increasing vehemence on tne abrogation of the Livian law; the majority grew daily
more lukewarm in its defence. A return to the former state of things soon appeared to the great multitude of the timid and the irresolute in the senate the only way of escape, and a decree cancelling the law on account of formal defects was issued. Drusus, after his fashion sternly acquiescing,
488
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book iv
The chief opponent of the tribune, the consul Philippus, summoned the senate on this ground to cancel the Livian law as informal ; but the majority of the senate, glad to be rid of the equestrian courts, rejected the proposal. The consul thereupon declared in the open market that it was not possible to govern with such a senate, and that he would look out for another state - council : he seemed to meditate a coup d'etat. The senate, convoked
*kaiw ri ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
4S9
contented himself with the remark that it was the senate itself which thus restored the hated equestrian courts, and waived his right to render the cancelling decree invalid by means of his veto. The attack of the senate on the capitalist party was totally repulsed, and willingly or un willingly they submitted once more to the former yoke.
But the great capitalists were not content with having Murder of
conquered. One evening, when Drusus at his entrance hall was just about to take leave of the multitude which as usual escorted him, he suddenly dropped down in front of the image of his father ; an assassin's hand had struck him, and so surely, that a few hours afterwards he expired. The perpetrator had vanished in the evening twilight without any one recognizing him, and no judicial investigation took place; but none such was needed to discover here that dagger with which the aristocracy lacerated itself. The same violent and terrible end, which had swept away the democratic reformers, was destined also for the Gracchus of the aristocracy. It involved a profound and melancholy lesson. Reform was frustrated by the resistance or by the weakness of the aristocracy, even when the attempt at reformation proceeded from their own ranks. Drusus had staked his strength and his life in the attempt to overthrow the dominion of the merchants, to organize emigration, to avert the impending civil war ; he himself saw the merchants ruling more absolutely than ever, found all his ideas of reform frustrated, and died with the consciousness that his
sudden death would be the signal for the most fearful civil war that has ever desolated the fail land of Italy.
"*"
Romans and
CHAPTER VII
THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS, AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
From the time when the defeat of Pyrrhus had put an end to the last war which the Italians had waged for their independence —or, in other words, for nearly two hundred years —the Roman primacy had now subsisted in Italy, without having been once shaken in its foundations even under circumstances of the utmost peril. Vainly had the heroic family of the Barcides, vainly had the successors of Alexander the Great and of the Achaemenids, endeavoured to rouse the Italian nation to contend with the too power ful capital ; it had obsequiously appeared in the fields of battle on the Guadalquivir and on the Mejerdah, at the pass of Tempe and at Mount Sipylus, and with the best blood of its youth had helped its masters to achieve the subjugation of three continents. Its own position mean while had changed, but had deteriorated rather than im
In a material point of view, doubtless, it had in general not much ground to complain. Though the small and intermediate landholders throughout Italy suffered in consequence of the injudicious Roman legislation as to corn, the larger landlords and still more the mercantile and capitalist class were flourishing, for the Italians enjoyed, as respected the turning of the provinces to financial account, substantially the same protection and the same privileges as
490 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
proved.
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
491
Roman burgesses, and thus shared to a great extent in the material advantages of the political ascendency of the Romans. In general, the economic and social condition of Italy was not primarily dependent on political distinc tions; there were allied districts, such as Umbria and Etruria, in which the class of free farmers had mostly dis appeared, while in others, such as the valleys of the Abruzzi, the same class had still maintained a tolerable footing or remained almost unaffected —just as a similar diversity could be pointed out in the different Roman burgess -districts. On the other hand the political inferiority of Italy was daily displayed more harshly and more abruptly. No formal open breach of right indeed occurred, at least in the
The communal freedom, which under the name of sovereignty was accorded by treaty to the Italian communities, was on the whole respected by the
Roman government ; the attack, which the Roman reform party at the commencement of the agrarian agitation made on the Roman domains guaranteed to the communities of better position, had not only been earnestly opposed by the strictly conservative as well as by the middle party in Rome, but had been very soon abandoned by the Roman opposi tion itself.
But the rights, which belonged and could not but belong Disability to Rome as the leading community —the supreme conduct "nd
of war-affairs, and the superintendence of the whole admini- of the stration —were exercised in a way which was almost as bad as ^J6011, if the allies had been directly declared to be subjects devoid
of rights. The numerous modifications of the fearfully severe
martial law of Rome, which were introduced there in the
course of the seventh century, seem to have remained on
the whole limited to the Roman burgess-soldiers: this is
certain as to the most important, the abolition of executions
by martial law 347), and we may easily conceive the impression which was produced when, as happened in the
principal questions.
(p.
493 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
Jugurthine war, Latin officers of repute were beheaded by sentence of the Roman council of war, while the lowest burgess-soldier had in the like case the right of presenting an appeal to the civil tribunals of Rome. The proportions ni which the burgesses and Italian allies were to be drawn for military service had, as was fair, remained undefined by treaty ; but, while in earlier times the two had furnished on an average equal numbers of soldiers 133, 440), now, although the proportions of the population had changed probably in favour of the burgesses rather than to their
disadvantage, the demands on the allies were degrees increased disproportionately (ii. 54; 25), so that on the one hand they had the chief burden of the heavier and more costly service imposed on them, and on the other hand there were two allies now regularly levied for one burgess. In like manner with this military supremacy the civil superintendence, which (including the supreme administra tive jurisdiction which could hardly be separated from
the Roman government had always and rightly reserved to itself over the dependent Italian communities, was extended in such way that the Italians were hardly less than the provincials abandoned without protection to the caprice of any one of the numberless Roman magistrates. In Teanum Sidicinum, one of the most considerable of the allied towns, consul had ordered the chief magistrate of the town to be scourged with rods at the stake in the market-place, because, on the consul's wife expressing desire to bathe in the men's bath, the municipal officers had not driven forth the bathers quickly enough, and the bath appeared to her not to be clean. Similar scenes had taken place in Ferentinum, likewise town holding the best position in law, and even in the old and important Latin colony of Cales. In the Latin colony of Venusia free peasant had been seized young Roman diplomatist not holding office but passing through the town, on account of
by a
a
p.
a
a a it)
a
a
by
(i.
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
493
jest which he had allowed himself to make on the Roman's litter, had been thrown down, and whipped to death with the straps of the litter. These occurrences are incidentally mentioned about the time of the Fregellan insurrection ; it admits of no doubt that similar outrages frequently occurred, and of as little that no real satisfaction for such misdeeds could anywhere be obtained, whereas the right of appeal—not lightly violated with impunity —protected in some measure at least the life and limbs of the Roman burgess. In con sequence of this treatment of the Italians on the part of the
Roman government, the variance, which the wisdom of their ancestors had carefully fostered between the Latin and the other Italian communities, could not fail, if not to disappear, at any rate to undergo abatement (p. 28). The curb- fortresses of Rome and the districts kept to their allegiance by these fortresses lived now under the like oppression ; the Latin could remind the Picentine that they were both in like manner " subject to the fasces"; the overseers and the slaves of former days were now united by a common hatred towards the common despot.
While the present state of the Italian allies was thus transformed from a tolerable relation of dependence into the most oppressive bondage, they were at the same time de prived of every prospect of obtaining better rights. With the subjugation of Italy the Roman burgess-body had closed its ranks ; the bestowal of the franchise on whole com munities was totally given up, its bestowal on individuals was greatly restricted 26). They now advanced step
farther: on occasion of the agitation which contemplated
the extension of the Roman franchise to all Italy in the years 628, 632, the right of migration to Rome was itself 1H attacked, and all the non-burgesses resident in Rome were directly ejected by decree of the people and of the senate
from the capital (pp. 340, 363)— measure as odious on account of its illiberality, as dangerous from the various
W*
a
(p.
a
-
The rupture.
Fregellan war. [12S.
494 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book it
private interests which it injuriously affected. In short, while the Italian allies had formerly stood to the Romans partly in the relation of brothers under tutelage, protected rather than ruled and not destined to perpetual minority, partly in that of slaves tolerably treated and not utterly deprived of the hope of manumission, they were now all of
them subject nearly in equal degree, and with equal hopeless ness, to the rods and axes of their Roman masters, and might at the utmost presume like privileged slaves to transmit the kicks received from their masters onward to the poor pro vincials.
It belongs to the nature of such differences that, re strained by the sense of national unity and by the remem brance of dangers surmounted in common, they make their appearance at first gently and as it were modestly, till the breach gradually widens and the relation between the rulers, whose might is their sole right, and the ruled, whose obedience reaches no farther than their fears, manifests at length undisguisedly the character of force. Down to the revolt and razing of Fregellae in 629, which as it were officially attested the altered character of the Roman rule, the ferment among the Italians did not properly wear a revolutionary character. The longing after equal rights had gradually risen from a silent wish to a loud request, only to be the more decidedly rejected, the more distinctly
Difficulty it was put forward. It was very soon apparent that a
ofa voluntary concession was not to be hoped for, and the general in
surrection.
wish to extort what was refused would not be wanting; but the position of Rome at that time hardly permitted
them to entertain any idea of realizing that wish.
the numerical proportions of the burgesses and non-burgesses in Italy cannot be properly ascertained, it may be regarded as certain that the number of the burgesses was not very much less than that of the Italian allies ; for nearly 400,000
burgesses capable of bearing arms there were at least
Although
chap, vil AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
495
500,000, probably 600,000 allies. 1 So long as with such
the burgesses were united and there was no outward enemy worthy of mention, the Italian allies, split up into an endless number of isolated urban and cantonal communities, and connected with Rome by a thousand re lations public and private, could never attain to common action ; and with moderate prudence the government could not fail to control their troublesome and indignant subjects partly by the compact mass of the burgesses, partly by the very considerable resources which the provinces afforded, partly by setting one community against another.
proportions
Accordingly the Italians kept themselves quiet, till the revolution began to shake Rome ; but, as soon as this had broken out, they too mingled in the movements and agita- Roman tions of the Roman parties, with a view to obtain equality of ^^ rights by means of the one or the other. They had made common cause first with the popular and then with the senatorial party, and gained equally little by either. They
had been driven to the conviction that, while the best men
of both parties acknowledged the justice and equity of their claims, these best men, aristocrats as well as Populares,
had equally little power to procure a hearing for those
1 These figures are taken from the numbers of the census of 639 and 115.
684 ; there were in the former year 394,336 burgesses capable of bearing 70.
arms, in the latter 910,000 (according to Phlegon Fr. la Mull. , which
statement Clinton and his copyists erroneously refer to the census of 668 ; 86. according to Li v. Ep. 98 the number was — by the correct reading —
900,000 persons). The only figures known between these two — those of
the census of 668, which according to Hieronymus gave 463,000 persons 86. —probably turned out so low only because the census took place amidst
the crisis of the revolution. As an increase of the population of Italy is
not conceivable in the period from 639 to 684, and even the Sullan assig- 116. 74 nations of land can at the most have but filled the gaps which the war had
made, the surplus of fully 500,000 men capable of bearing arms may be
referred with certainty to the reception of the allies which had taken place
in the interval. But it is possible, and even probable, that in these fateful
years the total amount of the Italian population may have retrograded
rather than advanced : if we reckon the total deficit at 100,000 men capable
of bearing arms, which seems not excessive, there were at the time of the
Social War in Italy three non-burgesses for two burgesses.
The
^^ ^
The Italians and the oligarchy.
496 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
claims with the mass of their party. They had also ob served that the most gifted, most energetic, and most cele brated statesmen of Rome had found themselves, at the very moment when they came forward as advocates of the Italians, deserted by their own adherents and had been accordingly overthrown. In all the vicissitudes of the thirty years of revolution and restoration governments enough had been installed and deposed, but, however the programme might vary, a short-sighted and narrow-minded spirit sat always at the helm.
Above all, the recent occurrences had clearly shown how vain was the expectation of the Italians that their claims would be attended to by Rome. So long as the demands of the Italians were mixed up with those of the revolutionary party and had in the hands of the latter been thwarted by the folly of the masses, they might still resign themselves to the belief that the oligarchy had been hostile merely to the proposers, not to the proposal itself, and that there was still a possibility that the more intelligent senate would accept a measure which was" compatible with
the nature of the oligarchy and salutary for the state. But the recent years, in which the senate once more ruled almost absolutely, had shed only too disagreeable a light on the designs of the Roman oligarchy also. Instead of
•5. the expected modifications, there was issued in 659 a con sular law which most strictly prohibited the non-burgesses from laying claim to the franchise and threatened trans gressors with trial and punishment —a law which threw back a large number of most respectable persons who were deeply interested in the question of equalization from the ranks of Romans into those of Italians, and which in point of indisputable legality and of political folly stands com pletely on a parallel with that famous act which laid the
foundation for the separation of North America from the mother-country; in fact it became, just like that act, the
The Licinio- Mucian law.
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION 497
proximate cause of the civil war. It was only so much the worse, that the authors of this law by no means be longed to the obstinate and incorrigible Optimates; they were no other than the sagacious and universally honoured Quintus Scaevola, destined, like George Grenville, by nature to be a jurist and by fate to be a statesman —who by his equally honourable and pernicious rectitude inflamed more than any one else first the war between senate and equites, and then that between Romans and Italians — and the orator Lucius Crassus, the friend and ally of Drusus and altogether one of the most moderate and judicious of the Optimates.
Amidst the vehement ferment, which this law and the The numerous processes arising out of it called forth throughout ^JaM Italy, the star of hope once more appeared to arise for the Drum* Italians in the person of Marcus Drusus. That which had
been deemed almost impossible —that a conservative should
take up the reforming ideas of the Gracchi, and should become the champion of equal rights for the Italians—had nevertheless occurred ; a man of the high aristocracy had resolved to emancipate the Italians from the Sicilian Straits
to the Alps and the government at one and the same time,
and to apply all his earnest zeal, all his trusty devotedness
to these generous plans of reform. Whether he actually,
as was reported, placed himself at the head of a secret
league, whose threads ramified through Italy and whose members bound themselves by an oath1 to stand by each
" 1 The form of oath is preserved (in Diodor. Vat. p. 116) ; it runs thus : I swear by the Capitoline Jupiter and by the Roman Vesta and by the hereditary Mars and by the generative Sun and by the nourishing Earth and by the divine founders and enlargers (the Penates) of the City of Rome,
that he shall be my friend and he shall be my foe who is friend or foe to Drusus ; also that I will spare neither mine own life nor the life of my children or of my parents, except in so far as it is for the good of Drusus and those who share this oath. But if I should become a burgess by the law of Drusus, I will esteem Rome as my home and Drusus as the greatest of my benefactors. I shall tender this oath to as many of my fellow- citizens as I can ; and if I swear truly, may it fare with me well ; if I swear falsely, may it fare with me ill. " But we shall do well to employ this account with caution ; it is derived either from the speeches delivered
VOL. Ill
97
Prepara tions for general revolt against Rome.
91
498 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
other for Drusus and for the common cause, cannot be ascertained ; but, even if he did not lend himself to acts so dangerous and in fact unwarrantable for a Roman magi strate, yet it is certain that he did not keep to mere general promises, and that dangerous connections were formed in his name, although perhaps without his consent and against his will. With joy the Italians heard that Drusus had carried his first proposals with the consent of the great majority of the senate ; with still greater joy all the com
munities of Italy celebrated not long afterwards the recovery of the tribune, who had been suddenly attacked by severe illness. But as the further designs of Drusus became un veiled, a change took place ; he could not venture to bring in his chief law ; he had to postpone, he had to delay, he had soon to retire. It was reported that the majority of the senate were vacillating and threatened to fall away from their leader; in rapid succession the tidings ran through the communities of Italy, that the law which had
was annulled, that the capitalists ruled more ab solutely than ever, that the tribune had been struck by the hand of an assassin, that he was dead (autumn of 663).
The last hope that the Italians might obtain admission to Roman citizenship by agreement was buried with Marcus Drusus. A measure, which that conservative and energetic man had not been able under the most favourable circum stances to induce his own party to adopt, was not to be gained at all by amicable means. The Italians had no course left save to submit patiently or to repeat once more, and if possible with their united strength, the attempt which had been crushed in the bud five-and-thirty years
against Drusus by Philippus (which seems to be indicated by the absurd tiCe "oath of Philippus" prefixed by the extractor of the formula) or at best from the documents of criminal procedure subsequently drawn up respecting this conspiracy in Rome ; and even on the latter hypothesis it remains questionable, whether this form of oath was elicited from the accused or imputed to them in the inquiry.
passed
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
499
before by the destruction of Fregellae —so as by force of arms either to destroy Rome and succeed to her heritage, or at least to compel her to grant equality of rights. The latter resolution was no doubt a resolution of despair ; as matters stood, the revolt of the isolated urban communities against the Roman government might well appear still more hopeless than the revolt of the American colonies against the British empire ; to all appearance the Roman govern ment might with moderate attention and energy of action prepare for this second insurrection the fate of its prede cessor. But was it less a resolution of despair, to sit still and allow things to take their course? When they recol lected how the Romans had been in the habit of behaving in Italy without provocation, what could they expect now that the most considerable men in every Italian town had or were alleged to have had — the consequences on either supposition being pretty much the same—an understanding
with Drusus, which was immediately directed against the party now victorious and might well be characterized as treason? All those who had taken part in this secret league, all in fact who might be merely suspected of participation, had no choice left save to begin the war or to bend their neck beneath the axe of the executioner.
Moreover, the present moment presented comparatively favourable prospects for a general insurrection throughout Italy. We are not exactly informed how far the Romans had carried out the dissolution of the larger Italian con federacies (ii. 53); but it is not improbable that the Marsians, the Paelignians, and perhaps even the Samnites and Lucanians still were associated in their old communal leagues, though these had lost their political significance and were in some cases probably reduced to mere fellow ship of festivals and sacrifices. The insurrection, if it should now begin, would still find a rallying point in these unions ; but who could say how soon the Romans would
Outbreak of the insur
5oo THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book IV
for that very reason proceed to abolish these also ? The secret league, moreover, which was alleged to be headed by Drusus, had lost in him its actual or expected chief) but it continued to exist and afforded an important nucleus for the political organization of the insurrection; while its military organization might be based on the fact that each allied town possessed its own armament and experienced soldiers. In Rome on the other hand no serious prepara tions had been made. It was reported, indeed, that restless movements were occurring in Italy, and that the communities of the allies maintained a remarkable inter course with each other; but instead of calling the citizens in all haste to arms, the governing corporation contented itself with exhorting the magistrates in the customary fashion to watchfulness and with sending out spies to learn farther particulars. The capital was so totally undefended, that a resolute Marsian officer Quintus Pompaedius Silo, one of the most intimate friends of Drusus, is said to have formed the design of stealing into the city at the head of a band of trusty associates carrying swords under their clothes, and of seizing it by a coup de main. Preparations were accordingly made for a revolt ; treaties were concluded, and arming went on silently but actively, till at last, as usual, the insurrection broke out through an accident some what earlier than the leading men had intended.
The Roman praetor with proconsular powers, Gaius Servilius, informed by his spies that the town of Asculum
rection in (Ascoli) in the Abruzzi was sending hostages to the neigh AscuJum. bouring communities, proceeded thither with his legate Fonteius and a small escort, and addressed to the multitude, which was just then assembled in the theatre for the celebration of the great games, a vehement and
menacing harangue. The sight of the axes known only too well, the proclamation of threats that were only too seriously meant, threw the spark into the fuel of bitter
CHAP, vh AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
501
hatred that had been accumulating for centuries; the
Roman magistrates were torn to pieces by the multitude
in the theatre itself, and immediately, as if it were their
intention by a fearful outrage to break down every bridge
of reconciliation, the gates were closed by command of the magistracy, all the Romans residing in Asculum were put
to death, and their property was plundered. The revolt
ran through the peninsula like the flame through the
steppe. The brave and numerous people of the Marsians Marsians took the lead, in connection with the small but hardy sabdliani. confederacies in the Abruzzi — the Paeligni, Marrucini,
Frentani, and Vestini. The brave and sagacious Quintus
Silo, already mentioned, was here the soul of the move
ment. The Marsians were the first formally to declare
against the Romans, whence the war retained afterwards
the name of the Marsian war. The example thus given Central was followed by the Samnite communities, and generally Siv— by the mass of the communities from the Liris and the Italy. Abruzzi down to Calabria and Apulia ; so that all Central
and Southern Italy was soon in arms against Rome.
The Etruscans and Umbrians on the other hand held Italian*
by Rome, as they had already taken part with the equites against Drusus 487). significant fact, that in these regions the landed and moneyed aristocracy had from ancient times preponderated and the middle class had totally disappeared, whereas among and near the Abruzzi the farmer-class had preserved its purity and vigour better than anywhere else in Italy: was from the farmers accordingly and the middle class in general that the revolt substantially proceeded, whereas the municipal aristocracy still went hand in hand with the government of the capital. This also readily explains the fact, that there were the insurgent districts isolated communities, and in the in surgent communities minorities, adhering to the Roman alliance the Vestinian town Pinna, for instance, sustained
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;
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It
Impression
J^lz? don in Rom*'
5« THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
a severe siege for Rome, and a corps of loyalists that was formed in the Hirpinian country under Minatius Magius of
Aeclanum supported the Roman operations in Campania. Lastly, there adhered to Rome the allied communities of best legal position —in Campania Nola and Nuceria and the Greek maritime towns Neapolis and Rhegium, and in like manner at least most of the Latin colonies, such as Alba and Aesernia — just as in the Hannibalic war the Latin and Greek towns on the whole had taken part with, and the Sabellian towns against, Rome. The forefathers of the city had based their dominion over Italy on an aristocratic classification, and with skilful adjustment of the degrees of dependence had kept in subjection the less
communities by means of those with better rights, and the burgesses within each community by means of the municipal aristocracy. It was only now, under the incomparably wretched government of the oligarchy, that the solidity and strength with which the statesmen of the fourth and fifth centuries had joined together the stones of their structure were thoroughly put to the test ; the building, though shaken in various ways, still held out against this storm. When we say, however, that the towns of better position did not at the first shock abandon Rome, we by no means affirm that they would now, as in the Hannibalic
war, hold out for a length of time and after severe defeats, without wavering in their allegiance to Rome; that fiery trial had not yet been endured.
The first blood was thus shed, and Italy was divided into two great military camps. It is true, as we have seen, that the insurrection was still very far from being a general rising of the Italian allies ; but it had already acquired an extent exceeding perhaps the hopes of the leaders them selves, and the insurgents might without arrogance think of offering to the Roman government a fair accommodation. They sent envoys to Rome, and bound themselves to lay
privileged
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
503
down their arms in return for admission to citizenship ; it
was in vain. The public spirit, which had been so long
wanting in Rome, seemed suddenly to have returned, when
the question was one of obstructing with stubborn narrow- mindedness a demand of the subjects just in itself and now supported by a considerable force. The immediate effect Commit. of the Italian insurrection was, just as was the case after b°X
the defeats which the policy of the government had treason, suffered in Africa and Gaul (pp. 396, 439), the commence
ment of a warfare of prosecutions, by means of which the aristocracy of judges took vengeance on those men of the government whom they, rightly or wrongly, looked upon as
the primary cause of this mischief. On the proposal of the tribune Quintus Varius, in spite of the resistance of the Optimates and in spite of tribunician interference, a special commission of high treason — formed, of course, from the equestrian order which contended for the proposal with open violence—was appointed for the investigation of the conspiracy instigated by Drusus and widely ramified in Italy as well as in Rome, out of which the insurrection had originated, and which now, when the half of Italy was under arms, appeared to the whole of the indignant and alarmed burgesses as undoubted treason. The sentences of this commission largely thinned the ranks of the senatorial party favourable to mediation : among other men of note Drusus' intimate friend, the young and talented Gaius Cotta, was sent into banishment, and with difficulty the grey-haired Marcus Scaurus escaped the same fate. Suspicion went so far against the senators favourable to the reforms of Drusus, that soon afterwards the consul Lupus reported from the camp to the senate regarding the communications that were constantly maintained between the Optimates in his camp and the enemy ; a suspicion which, it is true, was soon shown to be unfounded by the arrest of Marsian spies. So far king Mithradates might
Rejection
J^U? "*'
"^^^ for an
Energetic
504 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
not without reason assert, that the mutual enmities of the factions were more destructive to the Roman state than the Social War itself.
In the first instance, however, the outbreak of the insur rection, and the terrorism which the commission of high treason exercised, produced at least a semblance of unity and vigour. Party feuds were silent; able officers of all shades — democrats like Gaius Marius, aristocrats like Lucius Sulla, friends of Drusus like Publius Sulpicius Rufus —placed themselves at the disposal of the government The largesses of corn were, apparently about this time, materially abridged by decree of the people with a view to husband the financial resources of the state for the war ; which was the more necessary, as, owing to the threatening attitude of king Mithradates, the province of Asia might at any moment fall into the hand of the enemy and thus one of the chief sources of the Roman revenue be dried up. The courts, with the exception of the commission of high treason, in accordance with a decree of the senate tempo rarily suspended their action ; all business stood still, and nothing was attended to but the levying of soldiers and the manufacture of arms.
While the leading state thus collected its energies in the prospect of the severe war impending, the insurgents had to solve the more difficult task of acquiring political organization during the struggle. In the territory of the Paeligni situated in the centre of the Marsian, Samnite, Marrucinian, and Vestinian cantons and consequently in the heart of the insurgent districts, in the beautiful plain on the river Pescara, the town of Corfinium was selected as the Opposition-Rome or city of Italia, whose citizenship was conferred on the burgesses of all the insurgent com munities ; there a Forum and a senate-house were staked off on a suitable scale. A senate of five hundred members was charged with the settlement of the constitution and
Political organiza tion of the insurrec tion.
Opposi tion-Rome,
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
505
the superintendence of the war. In accordance with its directions the burgesses selected from the men of senatorial rank two consuls and twelve praetors, who, just like the two consuls and six praetors of Rome, were invested with the supreme authority in war and peace. The Latin language, which was even then the prevailing language among the Marsians and Picentes, continued in official use, but the Samnite language which predominated in Southern Italy was placed side by side with it on a footing of equality ; and the two were made use of alternately on the silver pieces which the new Italian state began to coin in its own name after Roman models and after the Roman standard, thus appropriating likewise the monopoly of coinage which Rome had exercised for two centuries. It is evident from these arrangements—and was, indeed a matter of course— that the Italians now no longer thought of wresting equality of rights from the Romans, but purposed to annihilate or subdue them and to form a new state. But it is also obvious that their constitution was nothing but a pure copy of that of Rome or, in other words, was the ancient polity handed down by tradition among the Italian nations from time immemorial :—the organization of a city instead of the constitution of a state, with primary assemblies as unwieldy and useless as the Roman comitia, with a govern ing corporation which contained within it the same elements of oligarchy as the Roman senate, with an executive admini stered in like manner by a plurality of coordinate supreme
This imitation descended to the minutest details ; for instance, the title of consul or praetor held by
the magistrate in chief command was after a exchanged by the general of the Italians also for the title of Imperator. Nothing in fact was changed but the name ; on the coins of the insurgents the same image of the gods appears, the inscription only being changed from Roma to Italia. This Rome of the insurgents was distinguished —
magistrates.
victory
So6 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book r»
not to its advantage — from the original Rome merely by the circumstance, that, while the latter had at any rate an urban development, and its unnatural position intermediate between a city and a state had formed itself at least in a natural way, the new Italia was nothing at all but a place of congress for the insurgents, and it was by a pure fiction of law that the inhabitants of the peninsula were stamped as burgesses of this new capital. But it is significant that in this case, where the sudden amalgamation of a number of isolated cantons into a new political unity might have so naturally suggested the idea of a representative constitution in the modern sense, no trace of any such idea occurs ; in fact the very opposite course was followed,1 and the com munal organization was simply reproduced in a far more absurd manner than before. Nowhere perhaps is it so clearly apparent as in this instance, that in the view of antiquity a free constitution was inseparable from the appearance of the sovereign people in person in the primary assemblies, or from a city ; and that the great fundamental idea of the modern republican-constitutional state, viz. the expression of the sovereignty of the people by a representa tive assembly — an idea without which a free state would be a chaos—is wholly modern. Even the Italian although in its somewhat representative senates and in the diminished importance of the comitia it approximated to a free state, never was able in the case either of Rome or of Italia to cross the boundary-line.
1 Even from our scanty information, the best part of which is given by Diodorns, p. 538 and Strabo, v. 4, 2, this is very distinctly apparent ; for example, the latter expressly says that the burgess-body chose the magi strates. That the senate of Italia was meant to be formed in another manner and to have different powers from that of Rome, has been asserted, but has not been proved. Of course in its first composition care would be taken to have a representation in some degree uniform of the insurgent cities ; but that the senators were to be regularly deputed by the communi ties, Is nowhere stated. As little does the commission given to the senate to draw up a constitution exclude its promulgation by the magistrates and ratification by the assembly of the people.
polity,
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
507
Thus began, a few months after the death of Drusus, in Warlike the winter of 663—4, the struggle—as one of the coins of J^JjJjJ'*"
the insurgents represents it — of the Sabellian ox against the Roman she-wolf. Both sides made zealous preparations: in Italia great stores of arms, provisions, and money were accumulated ; in Rome the requisite supplies were drawn from the provinces and particularly from Sicily, and the long-neglected walls were put in a state of defence against any contingency. The forces were in some measure equally balanced. The Romans filled up the blanks in their Italian contingents partly by increased levies from the burgesses and from the inhabitants —already almost wholly Romanized —of the Celtic districts on the south of the Alps, of whom 10,000 served in the Campanian army alone,1 partly by the contingents of the Numidians and other transmarine nations ; and with the aid of the free cities in Greece and Asia Minor they collected a war fleet. 2 On both sides, without reckoning garrisons, as many as
100,000 soldiers were brought into the field,8 and in the ability of their men, in military tactics and armament, the Italians were nowise inferior to the Romans.
91-90.
The conduct of the war was very difficult both for the Subdivi- insurgents and for the Romans, because the territory in j^^f^ revolt was very extensive and a great number of fortresses either adhering to Rome were scattered up and down in it : so
that on the one hand the insurgents found themselves com
pelled to combine a siege-warfare, which broke up their
1 The bullets found at Asculum show that the Gauls were very numerous also in the army of Strabo.