No More Learning

you IV
:23
354
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
All the legal conditions were fulfilled for celebrating another of the usual pompous triumphs; the gm: of the Metelli could add to its Macedonian, Numidian, Dalmatian, Balearic titles with equal right the new title of Creticus, and Rome possessed another name of pride. Nevertheless the power of the Romans in the Mediterranean was never lower, that of the corsairs never higher, than in those
Well might the Cilicians and Cretans of the seas, who are said to have numbered at this time 1000 ships, mock the Isauricus and the Creticus, and their empty victories. With what effect the pirates interfered in the Mithradatic war, and how the obstinate resistance of the Pontic maritime towns derived its best resources from the corsair-state, has been already related. But that state transacted business on a hardly less grand scale on its own behoof. Almost under the eyes of the fleet of Lucul
69. lus, the pirate Athenodorus surprised in 685 the island of Delos, destroyed its far-famed shrines and temples, and carried off the whole population into slavery. The island Lipara near Sicily paid to the pirates a fixed tribute annually, to remain exempt from like attacks. Another
12. pirate chief Heracleon destroyed in 682 the squadron equipped in Sicily against him, and ventured with no more than four open boats to sail into the harbour of Syracuse. Two years later his colleague'Pyrganion even landed at the same port, established himself there and sent forth flying parties into the island, till the Roman governor at last compelled him to re-embark. People grew at length quite accustomed to the fact that all the provinces equipped squadrons and raised coastguards, or were at any rate taxed for both; and yet the pirates appeared to plunder the provinces with as much regularity as the Roman
terranean.
years.
But even the sacred soil of Italy was now no longer respected by the shameless transgressors: from Croton they carried off with them the templetreasures
governors.
CHAP. n RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
355
of the Lacinian Hera; they landed in Brundisium, Misenurn, Caieta, in the Etruscan ports, even in Ostia itself; they seized the most eminent Roman oflicers as captives, among others the admiral of the Cilician army and two praetors with their whole retinue, with the dreaded farcer themselves and all the insignia of their dignity; they carried away from a villa at Misenum the very sister of the Roman admiral-in-chief Antonius, who was sent forth to annihilate the pirates ; they destroyed in the port of Ostia the Roman war fleet equipped against them and commanded by a consul. The Latin husbandman, the traveller on the Appian highway, the genteel bathing visitor at the terres trial paradise of Baiae were no longer secure of their pro perty or their life for a single moment; all traflic and all intercourse were suspended; the most dreadful scarcity prevailed in Italy, and especially in the capital, which subsisted on transmarine corn. The contemporary world and history indulge freely in complaints of insupportable distress; in this case the epithet may have been appro
priate.
We have already described how the senate restored by Servile
Sulla carried out its guardianship of the frontier in Mace disturb donia, its discipline over the client kings of Asia Minor,
and lastly its marine police; the results were nowhere satisfactory. Nor did better success attend the government
in another and perhaps even more urgent matter, the supervision of the provincial, and above all of the Italian, proletariate. The gangrene of a slave-proletariate gnawed at the vitals of all the states of antiquity, and the more so, the more vigorously they had risen and prospered ; for the power and riches of the state regularly led, under the existing circumstances, to a disproportionate increase of the body of slaves. Rome naturally suffered more severely from this cause than any other state of antiquity. Even the government of the sixth century had been under the
.
355
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
necessity of sending troops against the gangs of runaway herdsmen and rural slaves. The plantation-system, spreading more and more among the Italian speculators, had infinitely increased the dangerous evil: in the time of the Gracchan and Marian crises and in close connection with them servile revolts had taken place at numerous points of the Roman empire, and in Sicily had even grown into two bloody wars
185-182. (619-622 and 652-654; iii. 309-311, 382-386). But the ten
102-100.
years of the rule of the restoration after Sulla’s death formed the golden age both for the buccaneers at sea and for bands of a similar character on land, above all in the Italian penin sula, which had hitherto been comparatively well regulated. The land could hardly be said any longer to enjoy peace. In the capital and the less populous districts of Italy robberies were of everyday occurrence, murders were frequent. A special decree of the people was issued-— perhaps at this epoch—against kidnapping of foreign slaves and of free men ; a special summary action was ab ut this time introduced against violent deprivation of landed
These crimes could not but appear specially dangerous, because, while they were usually perpetrated by the proletariate, the upper class were to a great extent also concerned in them as moral originators and partakers in the gain. The abduction of men and of estates was very frequently suggested by the overseers of the large estates and carried out by the gangs of slaves, frequently armed, that were collected there: and many a man even of high
property.
did not disdain what one of his oflicious slave-overseers thus acquired for him, as Mephistopheles
for Faust the lime-trees of Philemon. The state of things is shown by the aggravated punish ment for outrages on property committed by armed bands, which was introduced by one of the bette Optimates, Marcus Lucullus, as presiding over the administration of justice in the capital about the year
respectability
acquired
CHAP. u RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
357
676,1 with the express object of inducing the pro 78. prietors of large bands of slaves to exercise a more strict
over them and thereby avoid the penalty of seeing them judicially condemned. Where pillage and
murder were thus carried on by order of the world of quality, it was natural for these masses of slaves and pro letarians to prosecute the same business on their own account; a spark was sufficient to'set fire to so inflammable materials, and to convert the proletariate into an insurrec
superintendence
An occasion was soon found.
The gladiatorial games, which now held the first rank Outbreak
among the popular amusements in Italy, had led to the of the gla diatorial
institution of numerous establishments, more especially in war in and around Capua, designed partly for the custody, partly Italy. for the training of those slaves who were destined to kill or
be killed for the amusement of the sovereign multitude.
These were naturally in great part brave men captured in
war, who had not forgotten that they had once faced the
Romans in the field. A number of these desperadoes
broke out of one of the Capuan gladiatorial schools (681), 78.
and sought refuge on Mount Vesuvius. At their head
were two Celts, who were designated by their slave-names
Crixus and Oenomaus, and the Thracian Spartacus. The Spartacus. latter, perhaps a scion of the noble family of the Spartocids
which attained even to royal honours in its Thracian home and in Panticapaeum, had served among the Thracian auxiliaries in the Roman army, had deserted and gone as a brigand to the mountains, and had been there recaptured and destined for the gladiatorial games.
The inroads of this little band, numbering at first only The
seventy-four persons, but rapidly swelling by concourse from insurrec tion takel
the surrounding country, soon became so troublesome to shape. the inhabitants of the rich region of Campania, that these,
I These enactments gave rise to the conception of robbery as a separate crime, while the older law comprehended robbery under theft.
tionary army.
358
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
after having vainly attempted themselves to repel them, sought help against them from Rome. A division of
3000 men hurriedly collected appeared under the leadership of Clodius Glaber, and occupied the approaches to Vesuvius with the view of starving out the slaves. But the brigands in spite of their small number and their defective armament had the boldness to scramble down steep declivities and to fall upon the Roman posts; and when the wretched militia saw the little band of desperadoes unexpectedly assail them, they took to their heels and fled on all sides. This first success procured for the robbers arms and increased acces sions to their ranks. Although even now a great portion of them carried nothing but pointed clubs, the new and stronger division of the militia—two legions under the praetor Publius Varinius—which advanced from Rome into Campania, found them encamped almost like a regular army in the plain. Varinius had a diflicult position. His militia, compelled to bivouac opposite the enemy, were severely weakened by the damp autumn weather and the diseases which it engendered; and, worse than the epidemics, cowardice and insubordination thinned the ranks. At the very outset one of his divisions broke up entirely, so that the fugitives did not fall back on the main corps, but went straight home. Thereupon, when the order was given to advance against the enemy’s entrenchments and attack them, the greater portion of the troops refused to comply with it. Nevertheless Varinius set out with those who kept their ground against the robber-band ; but it was no longer to be found where he sought it. It had broken up in the deepest silence and had turned to the south towards Picentia (Vicenza near Amalfi), where Varinius overtook it indeed, but could not prevent it from retiring over the Silarus into the interior of Lucania, the chosen land of shepherds and robbers. Varinius followed thither, and there at length the despised enemy arrayed themselves for
CHAY’. ii RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
359
battle. All the circumstances under which the combat took place were to the disadvantage of the Romans: the soldiers,
as they had demanded battle a little before, fought ill; Varinius was completely vanquished; his horse and the insignia of his ofi’i'cial dignity fell with the Roman camp itself into the enemy’s hand. The south-Italian slaves, especially the brave half-savage herdsmen, flocked in crowds to the banner of the deliverers who had so unexpectedly appeared; according to the most moderate estimates the number of armed insurgents rose to 40,000 men. Campania, just evacuated, was speedily reoccupied, and the Roman corps which was left behind there under Gaius Thoranius, the quaestor of Varinius, was broken and
In the whole south and south-west of Italy the open country was in the hands of the victorious bandit chiefs; even considerable towns, such as Consentia in the Bruttian country, Thurii and Metapontum in Lucania, Nola and Nuceria in Campania, were stormed by them, and suffered all the atrocities which victorious barbarians could inflict on defenceless civilized men, and unshackled slaves on their former masters. That a conflict like this should be altogether abnormal and more a massacre than a war, was unhappily a matter of course : the masters duly crucified every captured slave; the slaves naturally killed their
vehemently
destroyed.
also, or with still more sarcastic retaliation even compelled their Roman captives to slaughter each other in gladiatorial sport; as was subsequently done with three hundred of them at the obsequies of a robber-captain who had fallen in combat
In Rome people were with reason apprehensive as to
the destructive conflagration which was daily spreading.
It was resolved next year (682) to send both consuls 72.
against the formidable leaders of the gang. The praetor Great
prisoners
Quintus Arrius, a lieutenant of the consul Lucius Gellius, actually succeeded in seizing and destroying at Mount
victories of Spartacus.
Internal dissension among thc insurgent
the
What might have come of had the national kings from the mountains of Auvergne or of the Balkan, and not runaway gladiatorial slaves, been at the head of the victorious bands, impossible to say; as was, the movement remained notwithstanding its brilliant victories a rising of robbers, and succumbed less to the superior force of its opponents than to internal discord and the want of definite plan. The unity in confronting the common foe, which was so remarkably conspicuous in the earlier servile wars of Sicily, was wanting in this Italian war-—a difference
36o
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
Garganus in Apulia the Celtic band, which under Crinus had separated from the mass of the robber-army and was levying contributions at its own hand. But Spartacus achieved all the more brilliant victories in the Apennines and in northern Italy, where first the consul Gnaeus Lentulus who had thought to surround and capture the robbers, then his colleague Gellius and the so recently victorious praetor Arrius, and lastly at Mutina the governor
78 of Cisalpine Gaul Gaius Cassius (consul 681) and praetor Gnaeus Manlius, one after another succumbed to his blows. The scarcely-armed gangs of slaves were the tenor of the legions ; the series of defeats recalled the first years of the Hannibalic war.
due to the fact that, while the Sicilian slaves found quasi-national point of union in the common Syrohellenism, the Italian slaves were separated into the two bodies of Helleno-Barbarians and Celto-Germans. The
probably
between the Celtic Crixus and the Thracian Spartacus—Oencmaus had fallen in one of the earliest conflicts—and other similar quarrels crippled them in turning to accormt the successes achieved, and procured for the Romans several important victories. But the want of a definite plan and aim produced far more injurious effects on the enterprise than the insubordination of the Celto-Germans. Spartacus doubtless—to judge by the
rupture
a
it is
it
it,
CHAP. I! RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
36!
little which we learn regarding that remarkable man—stood
in this respect above his party. Along with his strategic ability he displayed no ordinary talent for organization, as indeed from the very outset the uprightness, with which he presided over his band and distributed the spoil, had directed the eyes of the multitude to him quite as much at least as his valour. To remedy the severely felt want of cavalry and of arms, he tried with the help of the herds of horses seized in Lower Italy to train and discipline a cavalry, and, so soon as he got the port of Thurii into his hands, to procure from that quarter iron and copper, doubtless through the medium of the pirates. But in the main matters he was unable to induce the wild hordes whom he led to pursue any fixed ulterior aims. Gladly would
he have checked the frantic orgies of cruelty, in which the robbers indulged on the capture of towns, and which formed
the chief reason why no Italian city voluntarily made common cause with the insurgents; but the obedience which the bandit-chief found in the conflict ceased with the victory, and his representations and entreaties were in vain. After the victories obtained in the Apennines in 682 the 72. slave army was free to move in any direction. Spartacus himself is said to have intended to cross the Alps, with a view to open to himself and his followers the means of return to their Celtic or Thracian home: if the statement
is well founded, it shows how little the conqueror overrated his successes and his power. When his men refused so speedily to turn their backs on the riches of Italy, Spartacus took the route for Rome, and is said to have meditated blockading the capital. The troops, however, showed themselves also averse to this desperate but yet methodical enterprise; they compelled their leader, when he was desirous to be a general, to remain a mere captain of banditti and aimlessly to wander about Italy in search of
plunder.
Rome might think herself fortunate that the
362
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION noox v
Conflicts in the Bruttian country.
matter took this turn ; but even as it was, the perplexity was great. There was a want of trained soldiers as of experienced generals; Quintus Metellus and Gnaeus Pompeius were employed in Spain, Marcus Lucullus in Thrace, Lucius Lucullus in Asia Minor; and none but raw militia and, at best, mediocre oflicers were available. The extraordinary supreme command in Italy was given to the praetor Marcus Crassus, who was not a general of much reputation, but had fought with honour under Sulla and had at least character; and an army of eight legions, imposing if not by its quality, at any rate by its numbers, was placed at his disposal. The new commander-in-chief began by treating the first division, which again threw away its arms and fled before the banditti, with all the severity of martial law, and causing every tenth man in it to be executed; whereupon the legions in reality grew somewhat more manly. Spar tacus, vanquished in the next engagement, retreated and
sought to reach Rhegium through Lucania.
Just at that time the pirates commanded not merely
the Sicilian waters, but even the port of Syracuse (p. 354); with the help of their boats Spartacus proposed to throw a corps into Sicily, where the slaves only waited an impulse to break out a third time. The march to Rhegium was accomplished; but the corsairs, perhaps terrified by the
established in Sicily by the praetor Gaius Verres, perhaps also bribed by the Romans, took from Spartacus the stipulated hire without performing the service for which it was given. Crassus meanwhile had followed the robber-army nearly as far as the mouth of the Crathis, and, like Scipio before Numantia, ordered his soldiers,
seeing that they did not fight as they ought, to construct an entrenched wall of the length of thirty-five miles, which shut off the Bruttian peninsula from the rest of Italy,1 inter
' As the line was thirty-five miles long (Sallust. Hist. iv, 19. Dietleh; Plntarcb, Cnm. 10), it probably passed not from Squillaee to Piano, in
coastguards
CHAP- n RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
363
cepted the insurgent army on the return from Rhegium, and
cut off its supplies. But in a dark winter night Spartacus broke through the lines of the enemy, and in the spring of 683 1 was once more in Lucania. The laborious work had 7L thus been in vain. Crassus began to despair of accom plishing his task and demanded that the senate should for
his support recall to Italy the armies stationed in Mace
donia under Marcus Lucullus and in Hither Spain under
Gnaeus Pompeius.
This extreme step however was not needed ;‘ the dis Disruption
union and the arrogance of the robber-bands sufliced again of the rebels and
to frustrate their successes Once more the Celts and their sub Germans broke off from the league of which the Thracian lueafiw was‘ the head and soul, in order that, under leaders of their
own nation Gannicus and Castus, they might separately
fall victims to the sword of the Romans. Once, at the Lucanian lake, the opportune appearance of Spartacus saved them, and thereupon they pitched their camp near to his; nevertheless Crassus succeeded in giving employ ment to Spartacus by means of the cavalry, and meanwhile surrounded the Celtic bands and compelled them to a. separate engagement, in which the whole body—numbering it is said r2,300 combatants-——fell fighting bravely all on the spot and with their wounds in front. Spartacus then attempted to throw himself with his division into the mountains round Petelia (near Strongoli in Calabria), and signally defeated the Roman vanguard, which followed his retreat. But this victory proved more injurious to the
victor than to the vanquished. Intoxicated by success, the robbers refused to retreat farther, and compelled their
more to the north, somewhere near Castrovlllarl and Cassano, over the peninsula which is here in a straight line about twenty-seven miles broad.
1 That Crassus was invested with the supreme command in 682, follows from the setting aside of the consuls (Plutarch, Crasr. 10); that the ‘data of 682-683 was spent by the two armies at the Bruttian wall, follows from the "snowy night" (Hut. 1. A).
72.
The
govern ment of the restoration as a whole.
acknowledged law over its living property that had rebelled.
Let us look back on the events which fill up the ten years of the Sullan restoration. No one of the movements, external or internal, which occurred during this period neither the insurrection of Lepidus, nor the enterprises of the Spanish emigrants, nor the wars in Thrace and Mace donia and in Asia Minor, nor the risings of the pirates and the slaves——constituted of itself mighty danger necessarily
364
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
general to lead them through Lucania towards Apulia to face the last decisive struggle. Before the battle Spartacus stabbed his horse: as in prosperity and adversity he had faithfully kept by his men, he now by that act showed them that the issue for him and for all was victory or death. In the battle also he fought with the courage of a lion ; two centurions fell by his hand ; wounded and on his knees he still wielded his spear against the advancing foes. Thus the great robber-captain and with him the best of his comrades died the death of free men and of honourable
71. soldiers (683). After the dearly-bought victory the troops who had achieved and those of Pompeius that had meanwhile after conquering the Sertorians arrived from
instituted throughout Apulia and Lucania man hunt, such as there had never been before, to crush out the last sparks of the mighty conflagration. Although in the southern districts, where for instance the little town of
71. Tempsa was seized in 683 gang of robbers, and in Etruria, which was severely affected by Sulla’s evictions, there was by no means as yet real public tranquillity, peace was oflicially considered as re-established in Italy. At least the disgracefully lost eagles were recovered—after the victory over the Celts alone five of them were brought in and along the road from Capua to Rome the six thousand crosses bearing captured slaves testified to the re establishment of order, and t0 the renewed victory of
Spain,
a
by
;
a
a
a
it,
CHAP- ll- RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION 365
affecting the vital sinews of the nation; and yet the state had in all these struggles well-nigh fought for its very existence. The reason was that the tasks were everywhere left unperformed, so long as they might still have been
performed with ease; the neglect of the simplest precau tionary measures produced the most dreadful mischiefs and misfortunes, and transformed dependent classes and im potent kings into antagonists on a footing of equality. The democracy and the servile insurrection were doubtless subdued; but such as the victories were, the victor was
neither inwardly elevated nor outwardly strengthened by them. It was no credit to Rome, that the two most celebrated generals of the government party had during a struggle of eight years marked by more defeats than victories failed to master the insurgent chief Sertorius and his Spanish guerillas, and that it was only the dagger of his friends that decided the Sertorian
war in favour of the legitimate government. As to the slaves, it was far less an honour to have con
them than a disgrace to have confronted them in equal strife for years. Little more than a century had elapsed since the Hannibalic war; it must have brought a blush to the cheek of the honourable Roman, when he reflected on the fearfully rapid decline of the nation since that great age. Then the Italian slaves stood like a wall against the veterans of Hannibal; now the Italian militia
were scattered like chaff before the bludgeons of their runaway serfs. Then every plain captain acted in case of need as general, and fought often without success, but always with honour; now it was diflicult to find among all the oflicers of rank a leader of even ordinary efliciency. Then the government preferred to take the last farmer from the plough rather than forgo the acquisition of Spain and Greece; now they were on the eve of again abandoning both regions long since acquired, merely that they might be
quered
366
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
able to defend themselves against the insurgent slaves at home. Spartacus too as well as Hannibal had traversed Italy with an army from the P0 to the Sicilian straits, beaten both consuls, and threatened Rome with blockade ; the enterprise which had needed the greatest general of antiquity to conduct it against the Rome of former days could be undertaken against the Rome of the present by a daring captain of banditti. Was there any wonder that no fresh life sprang out of such victories over insurgents and robber-chiefs P
The external wars, however, had produced a result still less gratifying. It is true that the Thraco-Macedonian war had yielded a result not directly unfavourable, although far from corresponding to the considerable expenditure of men and money. In the wars in Asia Minor and with the pirates on the other hand, the government had exhibited utter failure. The former ended with the loss of the whole conquests made in eight bloody campaigns, the latter with the total driving of the Romans from “their own sea. " Once Rome, fully conscious of the irresistibleness of her power by land, had transferred her superiority also to the other element ; now the mighty state was powerless at sea and, as it seemed, on the point of also losing its dominion at least over the Asiatic continent. The material benefits which a state exists to confer—security of frontier, undis turbed peaceful intercourse, legal protection, and regulated administration—began all of them to vanish for the whole of the nations united in the Roman state; the gods of blessing seemed all to have mounted up to Olympus and to have left the miserable earth at the mercy of the oflicially called or volunteer plunderers and tormentors. Nor was
this decay of the state felt as a public misfortune merely perhaps by such as had political rights and public spirit; the insurrection of the proletariate, and the brigandage and piracy which remind us of the times of the Neapolitan
CHAP. ll RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION
367
Ferdinands, carried the sense of this decay into the remotest valley and the humblest hut of Italy, and made every one who pursued trade and commerce, or who bought even a bushel of wheat, feel it as a personal calamity.
If inquiry was made as to the authors of this dreadful and unexampled misery, it was not diflicult to lay the blame of it with good reason on many. The slaveholders whose heart was in their money-bags, the insubordinate soldiers, the generals cowardly, incapable, or foolhardy, the demagogues of the market-place mostly pursuing a mistaken aim, bore their share of the blame; or, to speak more truly, who was there that did not share in it? It was instinct- ively felt that this misery, this disgrace, this disorder were too colossal to be the work of any one man. As the greatness of the Roman commonwealth was the work not of prominent individuals, but rather of a soundly-organized burgess-body, so the decay of this mighty structure was the result not of the destructive genius of individuals, but of a general disorganization. The great majority of the bur gesses were good for nothing, and every rotten stone in the building helped to bring about the ruin of the whole; the whole nation suffered for what was the whole nation’s fault. It was unjust to hold the government, as the ultimate tangible organ of the state, responsible for all its curable and incurable diseases; but it certainly was true that the government contributed after a very grave fashion to the general culpability. In the Asiatic war, for example, where no individual of the ruling lords conspicuously failed, and Lucullus, in a military point of view at least, behaved with ability and even glory, it was all the more clear that the blame of failure lay in the system and in the government as such—primarily, so far as that war was concerned, in the remissness with which Cappadocia and Syria were at first abandoned, and in the awkward position of the able
368
RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION BOOK v
general with reference to a governing college incapable of any energetic resolution. In maritime police likewise the true idea which the senate had taken up as to a general hunting out of the pirates was first spoilt by it in the execution and then totally dropped, in order to revert to the old foolish system of sending legions against the coursers of the sea. The expeditions of Servilius and Marcius to Cilicia, and of Metellus to Crete, were undertaken on this system; and in accordance with it Triarius had the island of Delos surrounded by a wall for protection against the pirates. Such attempts to secure the dominion of the seas remind us of that Persian great-king, who ordered the sea to be scourged with rods to make it subject to him. Doubtless therefore the nation had good reason for laying the blame of its failure primarily on the government of the restoration. A similar misrule had indeed always come along with the re-establishment of the oligarchy, after the fall of the Gracchi as after that of Marius and Saturninus ; yet never before had it shown such violence and at the same time such laxity, never had it previously emerged so corrupt and pernicious. But, when a government cannot govern, it ceases to be legitimate, and whoever has the power has also the right to overthrow It no doubt, unhappily true that an incapable and flagitious government may for long period trample under foot the welfare and honour of the land, before the men are found who are able and willing to wield against that government the formidable weapons of its own forging, and to evoke out of the moral revolt of the good and the distress of the many the revolu tion which in such case legitimate. But the game attempted with the fortunes of nations may be merry one and may be played perhaps for long time without molestation, treacherous game, which in its own time entraps the players and no one then blames the axe,
laid to the root of the tree that bears such fruits. For
is
a ;
if it
it
is
is
a
a
if
is,
a
a
it.
can. u RULE OF THE SULLAN RESTORATION 369
the Roman oligarchy this time had now come. The Pontic-Armenian war and the affair of the pirates became the proximate causes of the overthrow of the Sullan con stitution and of the establishment of a. revolutionary military dictatorship.
‘01- W
124
Continued
THE Sullan constitution still stood unshaken. The assault,
370
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY 3008 v
CHAPTER III
In: I'ALL OI‘ THE OLIGARCHY AND THE RULE OF POMPEIUS
subsistence which Lepidus and Sertorius had ventured to make on of the
Sullan con stltution.
had been repulsed with little loss. The government had neglected, true, to finish the half-completed building in the energetic spirit of its author. characteristic of the government, that neither distributed the lands which Sulla had destined for allotment but had not yet parcelled out, nor directly abandoned the claim to them, but tolerated the former owners in provisional possession with out regulating their title, and indeed even allowed various still undistributed tracts of Sullan domain-land to be arbi trarily taken’ possession of by individuals according to the old system of occupation, which was de jar: and de facto set aside by the Gracchan reforms r09). Whatever in the Sullan enactments was indifferent or inconvenient for the Optimates, was without scruple ignored or can celled; for instance, the sentences under which whole communities were deprived of the right of citizenship, the prohibition against conjoining the new farms, and several of the privileges conferred by Sulla on particular com munities—of course, without giving back to the com munities the sums paid for these exemptions. But though these violations of the ordinances of Sulla the govern
by
it
It is
it is
it,
CHAP- 111 THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
37!
ment itself contributed to shake the foundations of his structure, the Sempronian laws were substantially abolished and remained so.
There was no lack, indeed, of men who had in view Attacks of the re-establishment of the Gracchan constitution, or of ‘he d°' projects to attain piecemeal in the way of constitutional mocracy. reform what Lepidus and Sertorius had attempted by the
path of revolution. The government had already under Corn-laws. the pressure of the agitation of Lepidus immediately after
the death of Sulla consented to a limited revival of the
largesses of grain (676); and it did, moreover, what it 78.
could to satisfy the proletariate of the capital in regard to
this vital question. When, notwithstanding those distribu
tions, the high price of grain occasioned chiefly by piracy
produced so oppressive a dearth in Rome as to lead to a
violent tumult in the streets in 679, extraordinary purchases 75.
of Sicilian grain on account of the government relieved for
the time the most severe distress ; and a corn-law brought
in by the consuls of 681 regulated for the future the 78. purchases of Sicilian grain and furnished the government,
although at the expense of the provincials, with better
means of obviating similar evils. But the less material Attempts points of difference also-—the restoration of the tribunician to restore
the tribun power in its old compass, and the setting aside of the ician
senatorial tribunals—ceased not to form subjects of popular power. agitation; and in their case the government offered more decided resistance. The dispute regarding the tribunician magistracy was opened as early as 678, immediately after 76. the defeat of Lepidus, by the tribune of the people Lucius Sicinius, perhaps a descendant of the man of the same
name who had first filled this office more than four hundred years before; but it failed before the resistance offered to it by the active consul Gaius Curio. In 680 7| Lucius Quinctius resumed the agitation, but was induced
by the authority of the consul Lucius Lucullus to desist
37:
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK v
from his purpose. The matter was taken up in the following year with greater zeal by Gaius Licinius Macer, who—in a way characteristic of the period—carried his literary studies into public life, and, just as he had read in the Annals, counselled the burgesses to refuse the con
scription.
Complaints also, only too well founded, prevailed re
specting the bad administration of justice by the senatorial tribunals. jurymen. The condemnation of a man of any influence
could hardly be obtained. Not only did colleague feel reasonable compassion for colleague, those who had been or were likely to be accused for the poor sinner under accusation at the moment; the sale also of the votes of jurymen was hardly any longer exceptional. Several senators had been judicially convicted of this crime :‘’men pointed with the finger at others equally guilty; the most respected Optimates, such as Quintus Catulus, granted in an open sitting of the senate that the complaints were quite well founded; individual specially striking cases
7‘. compelled the senate on several occasions, ag. in 680, to deliberate on measures to check the venality of juries, but only of course till the first outcry had subsided and the matter could be allowed to slip out of sight. The con sequences of this wretched administration of justice ap peared especially in a system of plundering and torturing the provincials, compared with which even previous out
seemed tolerable and moderate. Stealing and robbing had been in some measure legitimized by custom ; the commission on extortions might be regarded as an institution for taxing the senators returning from the provinces for the benefit of their colleagues that remained at home. But when an esteemed Siceliot, because he had not been ready to help the governor in a crime, was by the latter condemned to death in his absence and unheard ; when even Roman burgesses, if they were not equites or
Attacks on the senatorial
rages
can. in THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
373
senators, were in the provinces no longer safe from the rods and axes of the Roman magistrate, and the oldest acquisition of the Roman democracy—security of life and person—began to be trodden under foot by the ruling oligarchy ; then even the public in the Forum at Rome had an ear for the complaints regarding its magistrates in the provinces, and regarding the unjust judges who morally shared the responsibility of such misdeeds. The opposition of course did not omit to assail its opponents in—what was almost the only ground left to it—the tribunals. The young Gaius Caesar, who also, so far as
his age allowed, took zealous part in the agitation for the re—establishment of the tribunician power, brought to trialv
in 677 one of the most respected partisans of Sulla the 77.
consular Gnaeus Dolabella, and in the following year another Sullan officer Gaius Antonius; and Marcus Cicero
in 684 called to account Gaius Verres, one of the most 7G wretched of the creatures of Sulla, and one of the worst scourges of the provincials. Again and again were the pic tures of that dark period of the proscriptions, the fearful sufferings of the provincials, the disgraceful state of Roman criminal justice, unfolded before the assembled multitude with all the pomp of Italian rhetoric, and with all the bitterness of Italian sarcasm, and the mighty dead as well as his living instruments were unrelentingly exposed
to their wrath and scorn. The re-establishment of the full tribunician power, with the continuance of which the freedom, might, and prosperity of the republic seemed bound up as by a charm of primeval sacredness, the rein troduction of the “ stern ” equestrian tribunals, the renewal of the censorship, which Sulla had set aside, for the purify ing of the supreme governing board from its corrupt and
elements, were daily demanded with a loud voice by the orators of the popular party.
pernicious
But with all this no progress was made. There was
374
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY noon v
scandal and outcry enough, but no real result was attained
Want of
results
from the
docratic beyond its deserts. The material power still lay, so long agitation.
by this exposure of the government according to and
as there was no military interference, in the hands of the burgesses of the capital; and the “people” that thronged the streets of Rome and made magistrates and laws in the Forum, was in fact nowise better than the governing senate. The government no doubt had to come to terms with the multitude, where its own immediate interest was at stake ; this was the reason for the renewal of the Sempronian com law. But it was not to be imagined that this populace would have displayed earnestness on behalf of an idea or even of a judicious reform. What Demosthenes said of his Athenians was justly applied to the Romans of this period—the people were very zealous for action, so long as they stood round the platform and listened to proposals of reforms; but when they went home, no one thought further of what he had heard in the market-place. However those democratic agitators might stir the fire, it was to no purpose, for the inflammable material was wanting. The
knew this, and allowed no sort of concession to be wrung from it on important questions of principle;
72. at the utmost it consented (about 682) to grant amnesty to a portion of those who had become exiles with Lepidus. Any concessions that did take place, came not so much from the pressure of the democracy as from the attempts at mediation of the moderate aristocracy. But of the two laws which the single still surviving leader of this section
75. Gaius Cotta carried in his consulate of 679, that which concerned the tribunals was again set aside in the very next year; and the second, which abolished the Sullan enactment that those who had held the tribunate should be disqualified for undertaking other magistracies, but allowed the other limitations to continue, merely—like every half-measure-—excited the displeasure of both parties.
government
‘CRAP. In THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
375
The party of conservatives friendly to reform which lost its most notable head by the early death of Cotta occurring soon after (about 681) dwindled away more and more— 18. crushed between the extremes, which were becoming daily more marked. But of these the party of the government, wretched and remiss as it was, necessarily retained the advantage in presence of the equally wretched and equally remiss opposition.
But this state of matters so favourable to the govern- Quarrel ment was altered, when the differences became more dis- zigzag,“ tinctly developed which subsisted between it and those of mental-id its partisans, whose hopes aspired to higher objects than the
seat of honour in the senate and the aristocratic villa. In Pompeiu the first rank of these stood Gnaeus Pompeius. He was doubt
less a Sullan ; but we have already shown (p. 274) how little
he was at home among his own party, how his lineage, his
past history, his hopes separated him withal from the nobility
as whose protector and champion he was officially regarded.
The breach already apparent had been widened irreparably
during the Spanish campaigns of the general (677-683). 77-71. With reluctance and semi-compulsion the government had
associated him as colleague with their true representative
Metellus ; and in turn he accused the senate, probably not without ground, of having by its careless or malicious neglect of the Spanish armies brought about their defeats and placed the fortunes of the expedition in jeopardy. Now he returned as victor over his open and his secret foes, at the head of an army inured to war and wholly devoted to him, desiring assignments of land for his soldiers, a triumph and the consulship for himself. The latter demands came into collision with the law. Pompeius, although several times invested in an extraordinary way with
Quintus
oflicial authority, had not yet administered any ordinary magistracy, not even the quaestorship, and was still not a member of the senate; and none but one who
supreme
376
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY . noox v
had passed through the round of lesser ordinary magistracies could become consul, none but one who had been invested with the ordinary supreme power could triumph. The senate was legally entitled, if he became a candidate for the consulship, to bid him begin with the quaestorship; if he requested a triumph, to remind him of the great Scipio, who under like circumstances had renounced his triumph over conquered Spain. Nor was Pompeius less dependent constitutionally on the good will of the senate as re spected the lands promised to his soldiers. But, although the senate—as with its feebleness even in animosity was very conceivable—should yield those points and concede to the victorious general, in return for his executioner’s service against the democratic chiefs, the triumph, the consulate, and the assignations of land, an honourable annihilation in senatorial indolence among the long series of peaceful senatorial Imperators was the most favourable lot which the oligarchy was able to hold in readiness for the general of thirty-six. That which his heart really longed for~—the command in the Mithradatic wa. r—he could never expect to obtain from the voluntary bestowal of the senate: in their own well-understood interest the oligarchy could not permit him to add to his African and European trophies those of a third continent; the laurels which were to be plucked copiously and easily in the east were reserved at all events for the pure aristocracy. But if the celebrated
general did not find his account in the ruling oligarchy, there remained—for neither was the time ripe, nor was the temperament of Pompeius at all fitted, for a purely personal outspoken dynastic policy—no alternative save to make common cause with the democratic party. No interest of his own bound him to the Sullan constitution; he could pursue his personal objects quite as well, if not better, with one more democratic. On the other hand he found all that he needed in the democratic party. Its active and adroit
crurr. I" THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
377
leaders were ready and able to relieve the resourceless and somewhat wooden hero of the trouble of political leadership, and yet much too insignificant to be able or even wishful to dispute with the celebrated general the first place and especially the supreme military control. Even Gaius Caesar, by far the most important of them, was simply a young man whose daring exploits and fashionable debts far more than his fiery democratic eloquence had gained him a name, and who could not but feel himself greatly honoured when the world-renowned Imperator allowed him to be his political adjutant. That popularity, to which men like Pompeius, with pretensions greater than their abilities, usually attach more value than they are willing to confess to themselves, could not but fall in the highest measure to the lot of the young general whose accession gave victory to the almost forlorn cause of the democracy. The reward of victory claimed by him for himself and his soldiers would then follow of itself. In general it seemed, if the oligarchy were overthrown, that amidst the total want of other con siderable chiefs of the opposition it would depend solely on Pompeius himself to determine his future position. And of th's much there could hardly be a doubt, that the accession of the general of the army, which had just returned victorious from Spain and still stood compact and unbroken in Italy, to the party of opposition must have as its consequence the fall of the existing order of things. Government and opposition were equally powerless; so soon as the latter no longer fought merely with the weapons of declamation, but had the sword of a victorious general ready to back its demands, the government would be in any case overcome, perhaps even without a struggle.
Pompeius and the democrats thus found themselves common
urged into coalition. Personal dislikings were probably
not wanting on either side: it was not possible that the chiefs and victorious general could love. the street oratorshnor could 2“ ‘mm’
, s
71.
these hail with pleasure as their chief the executioner of Carbo and Brutus; but political necessity outweighed at least for the moment all moral scruples.
The democrats and Pompeius, however, were not the sole parties to the league. Marcus Crassus was in a similar situation with Pompeius. Although a Sullan like the latter, his politics were quite as in the case of Pompeius pre eminently of a personal kind, and by no means those of the ruling oligarchy; and he too was now in Italy at the head of a large and victorious army, with which he had just suppressed the rising of the slaves. He had to choose whether he would ally himself with the oligarchy against the coalition, or enter that coalition : he chose the latter, which was doubtless the safer course. With his colossal wealth and his influence on the clubs of the capital he was in any case a valuable ally ; but under the prevailing circumstances
it was an incalculable gain, when the only army, with which the senate could have met the troops of Pompeius, joined the attacking force. The democrats moreover, who were probably somewhat uneasy at their alliance with that too powerful general, were not displeased to see a counterpoise and perhaps a future rival associated with him in the person of Marcus Crassus.
Thus in the summer of 68 3 the first coalition took place between the democracy on the one hand, and the two Sullan generals Gnaeus Pompeius and Marcus Crassus on the other. The generals adopted the party-programme of the democracy; and they were promised immediately in return the consulship for the coming year, while Pompeius was to have also a triumph and the desired allotments of land for his soldiers, and Crassus as the conqueror of
Spartacus at least the honour of a solemn entrance into
the capital.
To the two Italian armies, the great capitalists, and the
378
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK v
democracy,
which thus came forward in league for the
can. in THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
379
overthrow of the Sullan constitution, the senate had nothing to oppose save perhaps the second Spanish army under Quintus Metellus Pius. But Sulla had truly predicted that what he did would not be done a second time; Metellus, by no means inclined to involve himself in a civil war, had discharged his soldiers immediately after crossing the Alps. So nothing was left for the oligarchy but to submit to what was inevitable. The senate granted the
dispensations for the consulship and triumph; Pompeius and
requisite
Crassus were, without opposition, elected consuls for 684, 70. while their armies, on pretext of awaiting their triumph, encamped before the city. Pompeius thereupon, even before entering on office, gave his public and formal adherence to the democratic programme in an assembly of the people held by the tribune Marcus Lollius Palicanus. The change of the constitution was thus in principle
decided.
They now went to work in all earnest to set aside the Re-estab
Sullan institutions. First of all the tribunician magistracy ‘311g: regained its earlier authority. Pompeius himself as consul tribimidln introduced the law which gave back to the tribunes of the Pmm' people their time-honoured prerogatives, and in particular
the initiative of legislation—a singular gift indeed from the hand of a man who had done more than any one living to wrest from the community its ancient privileges.
With respect to the position of jurymen, the regulation New
of Sulla, that the roll of the senators was to serve as the 3:33;” list of jurymen, was no doubt abolished; but this by no jurymen. means led to a simple restoration of the Graechan equestrian
courts. In future—so it was enacted by the new Aurelian
law-—the colleges of jurymen were to consist one~third of
senators and two-thirds of men of equestrian census, and of the latter the half must have filled the office of district presidents, or so-called trifium'aeran'i. This last innovation was a farther concession made to the democrats, inasmuch
Restora
as according to it at least a third part of the criminal jury men were indirectly derived from the elections of the tribes. The reason, again, why the senate was not totally excluded from the courts is probably to be sought partly in the relations of Crassus to the senate, partly in the accession of the senatorial middle party to the coalition ; with which is doubtless connected the circumstance that this law was brought in by the praetor Lucius Cotta, the brother of their lately deceased leader.
Not less important was the abolition of the arrangements
380
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK v
tion of the as to taxation established for Asia by Sulla r r which Asiatic
M116 presumably likewise fell to this year. The governor of fanning. Asia at that time, Lucius Lucullus, was directed to re
Renewal of the censorship.
establish the system of farming the revenue introduced by Gaius Gracchus and thus this important source of money and power was restored to the great capitalists.
Lastly, the censorship was revived. The elections for
which the new consuls fixed shortly after entering on their oflice, fell, evident mockery of the senate, on the
72. two consuls of 682, Gnaeus Lentulus Clodianus Lucius Gellius, who had been removed the senate from their commands on account of their wretched management of the war against Spartacus 359). may readily be conceived that these men put in motion all the means which their important and grave oflice placed at their command, for the purpose of doing homage to the new
71. 70.
and
holders of power and of annoying the senate. At least an eighth part of the senate, sixty-four senators, number hitherto unparalleled, were deleted from the roll, including Gaius Antonius, formerly impeached without success Gaius Caesar 37 and Publius Lentulus Sura, the consul of 68 and presumably also not few of the most obnoxious creatures of Sulla.
Thus in 684 they had reverted in the main to the arrangements that subsisted before the Sullan restoration.
3,
a
(p.
(p. 3),
;
by
a
It
by
in
it,
1),
CHAP- in THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY
38!
Again the multitude of the capital was fed from the state- Then" chest, in other words by the provinces 288) ; again the :5)? “ tribunician authority gave to every demagogue a legal
license to overturn the arrangements of the state; again
the moneyed nobility, as farmers of the revenue and possessed of the judicial control over the governors, raised their heads alongside of the government as powerfully as ever; again the senate trembled before the verdict of jury men of the equestrian order and before the censorial censure. The system of Sulla, which had based the monopoly of power by the nobility on the political annihila tion of the mercantile aristocracy and of demagogism, was thus completely overthrown. Leaving out of view some subordinate enactments, the abolition of which was not overtaken till afterwards, such as the restoration of the right of self-completion to the priestly colleges us), nothing of the general ordinances of Sulla survived except, on the one hand, the concessions which he himself found necessary to make to the opposition, such as the recognition of the Roman franchise of all the Italians, and, on the other hand, enactments without any marked partisan tendency, and with which therefore even judicious democrats found no fault—such as, among others, the restriction of the freedmen, the regulation of the functional spheres of the magistrates, and the material alterations in criminal law.
The coalition was more agreed regarding these questions of principle than with respect to the personal questions which such political revolution raised. As might be expected, the democrats were not content with the general recognition of their programme; but they too now demanded restoration in their sense-—revival of the commemoration of their dead, punishment of the murderers, recall of the proscribed from exile, removal of the political
disqualification that lay on their children, restoration of
a
a
it
(p.
382
THE FALL OF THE OLIGARCHY BOOK v
the estates confiscated by Sulla, indemnification at the expense of the heirs and assistants of the dictator. These were certainly the logical consequences which ensued from a pure victory of the democracy; but the victory of the
71. coalition of 683 was very far from being such. The democracy gave to it their name and their programme, but it was the oflicers who had joined the movement, and above all Pompeius, that gave to it power and completion ; and these could never yield their consent to a reaction which would not only have shaken the existing state of things to its foundations, but would have ultimately turned against themselves—men still had a lively recollection who the men were whose blood Pompeius had shed, and how Crassus had laid the foundation of his enormous fortune. It was natural therefore, but at the same time significant of the weakness of the democracy, that the coalition of 683 took not the slightest step towards procuring for the democrats revenge or even rehabilitation. The supple mentary collection of all the purchase money still outstand ing for confiscated estates bought by auction, or even remitted to the purchasers by Sulla—for which the censor Lentulus provided in a special law—can hardly be regarded as an exception ; for though not a few Sullans were thereby severely affected in their personal interests, yet the measure itself was essentially a confirmation of the confiscations
Impending military dictator ship of Pompeius.
undertaken by Sulla.
The work of Sulla was thus destroyed; but what the
future order of things was to be, was a question raised rather than decided by that destruction. The coalition, kept together solely by the common object of setting aside the work of restoration, dissolved of itself, if not formally, at any rate in reality, when that object was attained ; while the question, to what quarter the preponderance of power was in the first instance to fall, seemed approaching an equally speedy and violent solution. The armies of
71.
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.