Chapter III (2)

It was, therefore, with more than doubtful chances of success that Fulvius Flaccus, who was consul in the following year, attempted to bring the question to an issue by an actual proposal of citizenship for the allies. The details of his scheme of enfranchisement have been very imperfectly preserved.[481] We are unaware whether, like Caius Gracchus some three years later, he proposed to endow the Latins with higher privileges than the other allies: and, although he contemplated the non-acceptance of Roman citizenship by some of the allied communities, since he offered these cities the right of appeal to the people as a substitute for the status which they declined, we do not know whether his bill granted citizenship at once to all accepting states, or merely opened a way for a request for this right to come from individual cities to the Roman people. But it is probable that the bill in some way asserted the willingness of the people to confer the franchise, and that, if any other steps were involved in the method of conferment, they were little more than formal. The fact that the _provocatio_ was contemplated as a substitute for citizenship is at once a proof that the old spirit of state life, which viewed absorption as extermination, was known still to be strong in some of the Italian communes, and that many of the individual Italians were believed to value the citizenship mainly as a means of protecting their persons against Roman officialdom. That the democratic party was strong at the moment when this proposal was given to the world is shown by the fact that Flaccus filled the consulship; that it had little sympathy with his scheme is proved by the isolation of the proposer and by the manner in which the senate was allowed to intervene. The conferment of the franchise had been proved to be essentially a popular prerogative;[482] the consultation of the senate on such a point might be advisable, but was by no means necessary; for, in spite of the ruling theory that the authority of the senate should be respected in all matters of legislation, the complex Roman constitution recognised shades of difference, determined by the quality of the particular proposal, with respect to the observance of this rule. The position of Flaccus was legally stronger than that of Tiberius Gracchus had been. Had he been well supported by men of influence or by the masses, the senate's judgment might have been set at naught. But the people were cold, Carbo had probably turned away, and Caius Gracchus had gone as quaestor to Sardinia. The senate was emboldened to adopt a firm attitude. They invited the consul to take them into his confidence. After much delay he entered the senate house; but a stubborn silence was his only answer to the admonitions and entreaties of the fathers that he would desist from his purpose.[483] Flaccus knew the futility of arguing with people who had adopted a foregone conclusion; he would not even deign to accept a graceful retreat from an impossible position. The matter must be dropped; but to withdraw it at the exhortation of the senate, although complimentary to his peers and perhaps not unpleasing even to the people in their present humour, would prejudice the chances of the future. In view of better days it was wiser to shelve than to discard the measure. His attitude may also have been influenced by pledges made to the allies; to these, helpless as he was, he would yet be personally faithful. His fidelity would have been put to a severe test had he remained in Italy; but the supreme magistrate at Rome had always a refuge from a perplexing situation. The voice of duty called him abroad,[484] and Flaccus set forth to shelter Massilia from the Salluvii and to build up the Roman power in Transalpine Gaul.[485] Perhaps only a few of the leading democrats had knowledge enough to suspect the terrible consequences that might be involved in the failure of the proposal for conferring the franchise. To the senate and the Roman world they must have caused as much astonishment as alarm. It could never have been dreamed that the well-knit confederacy, which had known no spontaneous revolt since the rising of Falerii in the middle of the third century, could again be disturbed by internal war. Now the very centre of this confederacy, that loyal nucleus which had been unshaken by the victories of Hannibal, was to be the scene of an insurrection, the product of hope long deferred, of expectations recently kindled by injudicious promises, of resentment at Pennus's success and Flaccus's failure. Fregellae, the town which assumed the lead in the movement and either through overhaste or faulty information alone took the fatal step,[486] was a Latin colony which had been planted by Rome in the territory of the Volsci in the year 328 B.C.[487] The position of the town had ensured its prosperity even before it fell into the hands of Rome. It lay on the Liris in a rich vine-growing country, and within that circle of Latin and Campanian states, which had now become the industrial centre of Italy. It was itself the centre of the group of Latin colonies that lay as bulwarks of Rome between the Appian and Latin roads, and had in the Hannibalic war been chosen as the mouthpiece of the eighteen faithful cities, when twelve of the Latin states grew weary of their burdens and wavered in their allegiance.[488] The importance of the city was manifest and of long-standing, its self-esteem was doubtless great, and it perhaps considered that its signal services had been inadequately recompensed by Rome. But its peculiar grievances are unknown, or the particular reasons which gave Roman citizenship such an excessive value in its eyes. It is possible that its thriving farmer class had been angered by the agrarian commission and by undue demands for military service, and, in spite of the commercial equality with the Romans which they enjoyed in virtue of their Latin rights, they may have compared their position unfavourably with that of communities in the neighbourhood which had received the Roman franchise in full. Towns like Arpinum, Fundi and Formiae had been admitted to the citizen body without forfeiting their self-government. Absorption need not now entail the almost penal consequences of the dissolution of the constitution; while the possession of citizenship ensured the right of appeal and a full participation in the religious festivals and the amenities of the capital. It is also possible that, in the case of a prosperous industrial and agricultural community situated actually within Latium, the desire for actively participating in the decisions of the sovereign people may have played its part. But sentiment probably had in its councils as large a share as reason: and the fact that this sentiment led to premature action, and that the fall of the state was due to treason, may lead as to suppose that the Romans had to deal with a divided people and that one section of the community, perhaps represented by the upper or official class, although it may have sympathised with the general desire for the attainment of the franchise, was by no means prepared to stake the ample fortunes of the town on the doubtful chance of successful rebellion. A prolonged resistance of the citizens within their walls might have given the impulse to a general rising of the Latins. Had Fregellae played the part of a second Numantia, the Social War might have been anticipated by thirty-five years. But the advantage to be gained from time was foiled by treason. A certain Numitorius Pullus betrayed the state to the praetor Lucius Opimius, who had been sent with an army from Rome. Had Fregellae stood alone, it might have been spared; but it was felt that some extreme measure either of concession or of terrorism was necessary to keep discontent from assuming the same fiery form in other communities. In the later war with the allies a greater danger was bought off by concession. But there the disease had run its course; here it was met in its earliest stage, and the familiar devise of excision was felt to be the true remedy. The principle of the "awful warning," which Alexander had applied to Thebes and Rome to Corinth, doomed the greatest of the Latin cities to destruction. Regardless of the past services of Fregellae and of the fact that the passion for the franchise was the most indubitable sign of the loyalty of the town, the government ordered that the walls of the surrendered city should be razed and that the town should become a mere open village undistinguished by any civic privilege.[489] A portion of its territory was during the next year employed for the foundation of the citizen colony of Fabrateria.[490] The new settlement was the typical Roman garrison in a disaffected country. But it proved the weakness of the present regime that such a crude and antiquated method should have to be employed in the heart of Latium. Security, however, was perhaps not the sole object of the foundation. The confiscated land of Fregellae was a boon to a government sadly in need of popularity at home.

An excellent opportunity was now offered for impressing the people with the enormity of the offence that had been committed by some of their leaders, and prosecutions were directed against the men who had been foremost in support of the movement for extending the franchise. It was pretended that they had suggested designs as well as kindled hopes. The fate of the lesser advocates of the Italian cause is unknown; but Caius Gracchus, against whom an indictment was directed, cleared his name of all complicity in the movement.[491] The effect of these measures of suppression was not to improve matters for the future. The allies were burdened with a new and bitter memory; their friends at Rome were furnished with a new cause for resentment. If the Roman people continued selfish and apathetic, a leader might arise who would find the Italians a better support for his position than the Roman mob. If he did not arise or if he failed, the sole but certain arbitrament was that of the sword.

The foreign activity of Rome during this period did not reflect the troubled spirit of the capital. It was of little moment that petty wars were being waged in East and West, and that bulletins sometimes brought news of a general's defeat. Rome was accustomed to these things; and her efforts were still marked by their usual characteristics of steady expansion and decorous success. To predicate failure of her foreign activity for this period is to predicate it for all her history, for never was an empire more slowly won or more painfully preserved. It is true that at the commencement of this epoch an imperialist might have been justified in taking a gloomy view of the situation. In Spain Numantia was inflicting more injury on Roman prestige than on Roman power, while the long and harassing slave-war was devastating Sicily. But these perils were ultimately overcome, and meanwhile circumstances had led to the first extension of provincial rule over the wealthy East.

The kingdom of Pergamon had long been the mainstay of Rome's influence in the Orient. Her contact with the other protected princedoms was distant and fitful; but as long as her mandates could be issued through this faithful vassal, and he could rely on her whole-hearted support in making or meeting aggressions, the balance of power in the East was tolerably secure. It had been necessary to make Eumenes the Second see that he was wholly in the power of Rome, her vassal and not her ally. He had been rewarded and strengthened, not for his own deserts, but that he might be fitted to become the policeman of Western Asia, and it had been successfully shown that the hand which gave could also take away. The lesson was learnt by the Pergamene power, and fortunately the dynasty was too short-lived for a king to arise who should forget the crushing display of Roman power which had followed the Third Macedonian War, or for the realisation of that greater danger of a protectorate--a struggle for the throne which should lead one of the pretenders to appeal to a national sentiment and embark on a national war. Eumenes at his death had left a direct successor in the person of his son Attalus, who had been born to him by his wife Stratonice, the daughter of Ariarathes King of Cappadocia.[492] But Attalus was a mere boy at the time of his father's death, and the choice of a guardian was of vital importance for the fortunes of the monarchy. Every consideration pointed to the uncle of the heir, and in the strong hands of Attalus the Second the regency became practically a monarchy.[493] The new ruler was a man of more than middle age, of sober judgment, and deeply versed in all the mysteries of kingcraft; for a mutual trust, rare amongst royal brethren in the East, had led Eumenes to treat him more as a colleague than as a lieutenant. He had none of the insane ambition which sees in the diadem the good to which all other blessings may be fitly sacrificed, and had resisted the invitation of a Roman coterie that he should thrust his suspected brother from the throne and reign himself as the acknowledged favourite of Rome. In the case of Attalus familiarity with the suzerain power had not bred contempt. He had served with Manlius in Galatia[494] and with Paulus in Macedonia,[495] and had been sent at least five times as envoy to the capital itself.[496] The change from a private station to a throne did not alter his conviction that the best interests of his country would be served by a steady adherence to the power, whose marvellous development to be the mainspring of Eastern politics was a miracle which he had witnessed with his own eyes. He had grasped the essentials of the Roman character sufficiently to see that this was not one of the temporary waves of conquest that had so often swept over the unchangeable East and spent their strength in the very violence of their flow, nor did he commit the error of mistaking self-restraint for weakness. Monarchs like himself were the necessary substitute for the dominion which the conquering State had been strong enough to spurn; and he threw himself zealously into the task of forwarding the designs of Rome in the dynastic struggles of the neighbouring nations. He helped to restore Ariarathes the Fifth to his kingdom of Cappadocia,[497] and appealed to Rome against the aggressions of Prusias the Second of Bithynia. He was saved by the decisive intervention of the senate, but not until he had been twice driven within the walls of his capital by his victorious enemy.[498] His own peace and the interests of Rome were now secured by his support of Nicomedes, the son of Prusias, who had won the favour of the Romans and was placed on the throne of his father. He had even interfered in the succession to the kingdom of the Seleucidae, when the Romans thought fit to support the pretensions of Alexander Balas to the throne of Syria.[499] Lastly he had sent assistance to the Roman armies in the conflict which ended in the final reduction of Greece.[500] There was no question of his abandoning his regency during his life-time. Rome could not have found a better instrument, and it was perhaps in obedience to the wishes of the senate, and certainly in accordance with their will, that he held the supreme power until his reign of twenty-one years was closed by his death.[501] Possibly the qualities of the rightful heir may not have inspired confidence, for a strong as well as a faithful friend was needed on the throne of Pergamon. The new ruler, Attalus the Third, threatened only the danger that springs from weakness; but, had not his rule been ended by an early death, it is possible that Roman intervention might have been called in to save the monarchy from the despair of his subjects, to hand it over to some more worthy vassal, or, in default of a suitable ruler, to reduce it to the form of a province. The restraint under which Attalus had lived during his uncle's guardianship, had given him the sense of impotence that issues in bitterness of temper and reckless suspicion. The suspicion became a mania when the death of his mother and his consort created a void in his life which he persisted in believing to be due to the criminal agency of man. Relatives and friends were now the immediate victims of his disordered mind,[502] and the carnival of slaughter was followed by an apathetic indifference to the things of the outer world. Dooming himself to a sordid seclusion, the king solaced his gloomy leisure with pursuits that had perhaps become habitual during his early detachment from affairs. He passed his time in ornamental gardening, modelling in wax, casting in bronze and working in metal.[503] His last great object in life was to raise a stately tomb to his mother Stratonice. It was while he was engaged in this pious task that exposure to the sun engendered an illness which caused his death. When the last of the legitimate Attalids had gone to his grave, it was found that the vacant kingdom had been disposed of by will, and that the Roman people was the nominated heir.[504] The genuineness of this document was subsequently disputed by the enemies of Rome, and it was pronounced to be a forgery perpetrated by Roman diplomats.[505] History furnishes evidence of the reality of the testament, but none of the influences under which it was made.[506] It is quite possible that the last eccentric king was jealous enough to will that he should have no successor on the throne, and cynical enough to see that it made little difference whether the actual power of Rome was direct or indirect. It is equally possible that the idea was suggested by the Romanising party in his court; although, when we remember the extreme unwillingness that Rome had ever shown to accept a position of permanent responsibility in the East, we can hardly imagine the plan to have received the direct sanction of the senate. It is conceivable, however, that many leading members of the government were growing doubtful of the success of merely diplomatic interference with the troubled politics of the East; that they desired a nearer point of vantage from which to watch the movements of its turbulent rulers; and that, if consulted on the chances of success which attended the new departure, they may have given a favourable reply. It was impossible by the nature of the case to question the validity of the act. The legatees were far too powerful to make it possible for their living chattels to raise an effective protest except by actual rebellion. But, from a legal point of view, a principality like Pergamon that had grown out of the successful seizure of a royal estate by its steward some hundred and fifty years before this time, might easily be regarded as the property of its kings;[507] and certainly if any heirs outside the royal family were to be admitted to the bequest, these would naturally be sought in the power, which had increased its dominions, strengthened its position and made it one of the great powers of the world. Neglected by Rome the principality would have become the prey of neighbouring powers; whilst the institution of a new prince, chosen from some royal house, would, have excited the jealousy and stimulated the rapacity of the others. The acceptance of the bequest was inevitable, although by this acceptance Rome was departing from the beaten track of a carefully chosen policy. It is hinted that Attalus in his bequest, or the Romans in their acceptance, stipulated for the freedom of the dominion.[508] This freedom may be merely a euphemism for provincial rule when contrasted with absolute despotism; but we may read a truer meaning into the term. Rome had often guaranteed the liberty of Asiatic cities which she had wrested from their overlord, she had once divided Macedonia into independent Republics, she still maintained Achaea in a condition which allowed a great deal of self-government to many of its towns, and the system of Roman protectorate melted by insensible degrees into that of provincial government. It is possible that her treatment of the bequeathed communities might have been marked by greater liberality than was actually shown, had not the dominion been immediately convulsed by a war of independence.

A pretender had appeared from the house of the Attalids. He could show no legitimate scutcheon; but this was a small matter. If there was a chance of a national outbreak, it could best be fomented by a son of Eumenes. Aristonicus was believed to have been born of an Ephesian concubine of the king.[509] We know nothing of his personality, but the history of his two years' conflict with the Roman power proves him to have been no figure-head, but a man of ability, energy and resource. A strictly national cause was impossible in the kingdom of Pergamon; for there was little community of sentiment between the Greek coast line and the barbaric interior. But the commercial prosperity of the one, and the agricultural horrors of the other, might justify an appeal to interest based on different grounds. At first Aristonicus tried the sea. Without venturing at once into any of the great emporia, he raised his standard at Leucae, a small but strongly defended seaport lying almost midway between Phocaea and Smyrna, and placed on a promontory just south of the point where the Hermus issues into its gulf. Some of the leading towns seem to have answered to his call.[510] But the Ephesians, not content with mere repudiation, manned a fleet, sailed against him, and inflicted a severe defeat on his naval force off Cyme.[511] Evidently the commercial spirit had no liking for his schemes; it saw in the Roman protectorate the promise of a wider commerce and a broader civic freedom. Aristonicus moved into the interior, at first perhaps as a refugee, but soon as a liberator. There were men here desperate enough to answer to any call, and miserable enough to face any danger. Sicily had shown that a slave-leader might become a king; Asia was now to prove that a king might come to his own by heading an army of the outcasts.[512] The call to freedom met with an eager response, and the Pergamene prince was soon marching to the coast at the head of "the citizens of the City of the Sun," the ideal polity which these remnants of nationalities, without countries and without homes, seem to have made their own.[513] His success was instantaneous. First the inland towns of Northern Lydia, Thyatira, and Apollonis, fell into his hands.[514] Organised resistance was for the moment impossible. There were no Roman troops in Asia, and the protected kings, to whom Rome had sent an urgent summons, could not have mustered their forces with sufficient speed to prevent Aristonicus sweeping towards the south. Here he threatened the coast line of Ionia and Caria; Colophon and Myndus fell into his power: he must even have been able to muster something of a fleet; for the island of Samos was soon joined to his possessions.[515] It is probable that the co-operation of the slave populations in these various cities added greatly to his success. His conquests may have been somewhat sporadic, and there is no reason to suppose that he commanded all the country included in the wide range of his captured cities and extending from Thyatira to the coast and from the Gulf of Hermus to that of Iassus. The forces which he could dispose of seem to have been sufficiently engaged in holding their southern conquests; there is no trace of his controlling the country north of Phocaea or of his even attempting an attack on Pergamon the capital of his kingdom. His army, however, must have been increasing in dimensions as well as in experience. Thracian mercenaries were added to his servile bands,[516] and the movement had assumed dimensions which convinced the Romans that this was not a tumult but a war. Their earlier efforts were apparently based on the belief that local forces would be sufficient to stem the rising. Even after the revolt of Aristonicus was known, they persisted in the idea that the commission, which would doubtless in any case have been sent out to inspect the new dependency, was an adequate means of meeting the emergency. This commission of five,[517] which included Scipio Nasica, journeyed to Asia only to find that they were attending on a civil war, not on a judicial dispute, and that the country which was to be organised required to be conquered. The client kings of Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia and Pontus, all eager for praise or for reward, had rallied loyally to the cause of Rome;[518] but the auxiliary forces that they brought were quite unable to pacify a country now in the throes of a servile war, and they lacked a commander-in-chief who would direct a series of ordered operations. Orders were given for the raising of a regular army, and in accordance with the traditions of the State this force would be commanded by a consul.

The heads of the State for this year were Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Publius Licinius Crassus. Each was covetous of the attractive command; for the Asiatic campaigns of the past had been easy, and there was no reason to suppose that a pretender who headed a multitude of slaves would be more difficult to vanquish than a king like Antiochus who had had at his call all the forces of Asia. The chances of a triumph were becoming scarcer; here was one that was almost within the commander's grasp. But there were even greater prizes in store. The happy conqueror would be the first to touch the treasure of the Attalids, and secure for the State a prize which had already been the source of political strife; he would reap for himself and his army a royal harvest from the booty taken in the field or from the sack of towns, and he would almost indubitably remain in the conquered country to organise, perhaps to govern for years, the wealthiest domain that had fallen to the lot of Rome, and to treat like a king with the monarchs of the protected states around. These attractions were sufficient to overcome the religious scruples of both the candidates; for it chanced that both Crassus and Flaccus were hampered by religious law from assuming a command abroad. The one was chief pontiff and the other the Flamen of Mars; and, if the objections were felt or pressed, the obvious candidate for the Asiatic campaign was Scipio Aemilianus, the only tried general of the time. But Scipio's chances were small. The nature of the struggle did not seem to demand extraordinary genius, and Scipio, although necessary in an emergency, could not be allowed to snatch the legitimate prizes of the holders of office.[519] So the contest lay between the pontiff and the priest. The controversy was unequal, for, while the pontiff was the disciplinary head of the state religion, the Flamen was in matters of ritual and in the rules appertaining to the observance of religious law subject to his jurisdiction. Crassus restrained the ardour of his colleague by announcing that he would impose a fine if the Flamen neglected his religious duties by quitting the shores of Italy. The pecuniary penalty was only intended as a means of stating a test case to be submitted, as similar cases had been twice before,[520] to the decision of the people. Flaccus entered an appeal against the fine, and the judgment of the Comitia was invited. The verdict of the people was that the fine should be remitted, but that the Flamen should obey the pontiff.[521] As Crassus had no superior in the religious world, it was difficult, if not impossible, for the objections against his own tenure of the foreign command to be pressed.[522] The people, perhaps grateful for the Gracchan sympathies of Crassus, felt no scruple about dismissing their pontiff to a foreign land, and readily voted him the conduct of the war.

The story of the campaign which followed is confined to a few personal anecdotes connected with the remarkable man who led the Roman armies. The learning of Crassus was attested by the fact that, when he held a court in Asia, he could not only deliver his judgments in Greek, but adapt his discourse to the dialect of the different litigants.[523] His discipline was severe but indiscriminating; it displayed the rigour of the erudite martinet, not the insight of the born commander. Once he needed a piece of timber for a battering ram, and wrote to the architect of a friendly town to send the larger of two pieces which he had seen there. The trained eye of the expert immediately saw that the smaller was the better suited to the purpose; and this was accordingly sent. The intelligence of the architect was his ruin. The unhappy man was stripped and scourged, on the ground that the exercise of judgment by a subordinate was utterly subversive of a commander's authority.[524] Another account represents such generalship as he possessed as having been diverted from its true aim by the ardour with which, in spite of his enormous wealth, he followed up the traces of the spoils of war.[525] But his death, which took place at the beginning of the second year of his command,[526] was not unworthy of one who had held the consulship. He was conducting operations in the territory between Elaea and Smyrna, probably in preparation for the siege of Leucae,[527] still a stronghold of the pretender. Here he was suddenly surprised by the enemy. His hastily formed ranks were shattered, and the Romans were soon in full retreat for some friendly city of the north. But their lines were broken by uneven ground and by the violence of the pursuit. The general was detached from the main body of his army and overtaken by a troop of Thracian horse. His captors were probably ignorant of the value of their prize; and, even had they known that they held in their hands the leader of the Roman host, the device of Crassus might still have saved him from the triumph of a rebel prince and shameful exposure to the insults of a servile crowd. He thrust his riding whip into the eye of one of his captors. Frenzied with pain, the man buried his dagger in the captive's side.[528]

The death of Crassus created hardly a pause in the conduct of the campaign; for Marcus Perperna, the consul for the year, was soon in the field and organising vigorous measures against Aristonicus. The details of the campaign have not been preserved, but we are told that the first serious encounter resulted in a decisive victory for the Roman arms.[529] The pretender fled, and was finally hunted down to the southern part of his dominions. His last stand was made at Stratonicea in Caria. The town was blockaded and reduced by famine, and Aristonicus surrendered unconditionally to the Roman power.[530] Perperna reserved the captive for his triumph, he visited Pergamon and placed on shipboard the treasures of Attalus for transport to Rome;[531] by these decisive acts he was proving that the war was over, for yet a third eager consul was straining every nerve to get his share of glory and of gain. Manius Aquillius was hastening to Asia to assume a command which might still be interpreted as a reality;[532] the longer he allowed his predecessor to remain, the more unsubstantial would his own share in the enterprise become. A triumph would be the prize of the man who had finished the war, and perhaps even Aristonicus's capture need not be interpreted as its close. A scene of angry recrimination might have been the result of an encounter between the rival commanders; but this was avoided by Perperna's sudden death at Pergamon.[533] It is possible that Aristonicus was saved the shame of a Roman triumph, although one tradition affirms that he was reserved for the pageant which three years later commemorated Aquillius's success in Asia.[534] But he did not escape the doom which the State pronounced on rebel princes, and was strangled in the Tullianum by the orders of the senate.[535]

Aquillius found in his province sufficient material for the prolongation of the war. Although the fall of Aristonicus had doubtless brought with it the dissolution of the regular armies of the rebels, yet isolated cities, probably terrorised by revolted slaves who could expect no mercy from the conqueror, still offered a desperate resistance. In his eagerness to end the struggle the Roman commander is said to have shed the last vestiges of international morality, and the reduction of towns by the poisoning of the streams which provided them with water,[536] while it inflicted an indelible stain on Roman honour, was perhaps defended as an inevitable accompaniment of an irregular servile war. The work of organisation had been begun even before that of pacification had been completed. The State had taken Perperna's success seriously enough to send with Aquillius ten commissioners for the regulation of the affairs of the new province,[537] and they seem to have entered on their task from the date of their arrival.[538] There was no reason for delay, since the kingdom of Pergamon had technically become a province with the death of Attalus the Third.[539] The Ephesians indeed even antedated this event, and adopted an era which commenced with the September of the year 134,[540] the reason for this anticipation being the usual Asiatic custom of beginning the civil year with the autumnal equinox. The real point of departure of this new era of Ephesus was either the death of Attalus or the victory of the city over the fleet of Aristonicus. But, though the work of organisation could be entered on at once, its completion was a long and laborious task, and Aquillius himself seems to have spent three years in Asia.[541] The limits of the province, which, like that of Africa, received the name of the continent to which it belonged, required to be defined with reference to future possibilities and the rights of neighbouring kingdoms; the taxation of the country had to be adjusted; and the privileges of the different cities proportioned to their capacity or merits. The law of Aquillius remained in essence the charter of the province of Asia down to imperial times, although subsequent modifications were introduced by Sulla and Pompeius. The new inheritance of the Romans comprised almost all the portion of Asia Minor lying north of the Taurus and west of Bithynia, Galatia and Cappadocia. Even Caria, which had been declared free after the war with Perseus, seems to have again fallen under the sway of the Attalid kings. The monarchy also included the Thracian Chersonese and most of the Aegean islands.[542] But the whole of this territory was not included in the new province of Asia. The Chersonese was annexed to the province of Macedonia,[543] a small district of Caria known as the Peraea and situated opposite the island of Rhodes, became or remained the property of the latter state; in the same neighbourhood the port and town of Telmissus, which had been given to Eumenes after the defeat of Antiochus, were restored to the Lycian confederation.[544] With characteristic caution Rome did not care to retain direct dominion over the eastern portions of her new possessions, some of which, such as Isauria, Pisidia and perhaps the eastern portion of Cilicia, may have rendered a very nominal obedience to the throne of the Attalids. She kept the rich, civilised and easily governed Hellenic lands for her own, but the barbarian interior, as too great and distant a burden for the home government, was destined to enrich her loyal client states. Aquillius and his commissioners must have received definite instructions not to claim for Rome any territory lying east of Mysia, Lydia and Caria; but they seem to have had no instructions as to how the discarded territories were to be disposed of. The consequence was that the kings of the East were soon begging for territory from a Roman commander and his assistants. Lycaonia was the reward of proved service; it was given to the sons of Ariarathes the Fifth, King of Cappadocia, who had fallen in the war.[545] Cilicia is also said to have accompanied this gift, but this no man's land must have been regarded both by donor and recipient as but a nominal boon. For Phrygia proper, or the Greater Phrygia as this country south of Bithynia and west of Galatia was called,[546] there were two claimants.[547] The kings of Pontus and Bithynia competed for the prize, and each supported his petition by a reference to the history of the past. Nicomedes of Bithynia could urge that his grandsire Prusias had maintained an attitude of friendly neutrality during Rome's struggle with Antiochus. The Pontic king, Mithradates Euergetes, advanced a more specious pretext of hereditary right. Phrygia, he alleged, had been his mother's dowry, and had been given her by her brother, Seleucus Callinicus, King of Syria.[548] We do not know what considerations influenced the judgment of Aquillius in preferring the claim of Mithradates. He may have considered that the Pontic kingdom, as the more distant, was the less dangerous, and he may have sought to attract the loyalty of its monarch by benefits such as had already been heaped on Nicomedes of Bithynia. His political enemies and all who in subsequent times resisted the claim of the Pontic kings, alleged that he had put Phrygia up to auction and that Mithradates had paid the higher price; this transaction doubtless figured in the charges of corruption, on which he was accused and acquitted: and, doubtful as the verdict which absolved him seemed to his contemporaries and successors, we have no proof that the desire for gain was the sole or even the main cause of his decision. Had he considered that the investiture of Nicomedes would have been more acceptable to the home government, the King of Bithynia would probably have been willing to pay an adequate sum for his advocacy. He may have been guilty of a wilful blunder in alienating Phrygia at all. The senate soon discovered his and its own mistake. The disputed territory was soon seen to be worthy of Roman occupation. Strategically it was of the utmost importance for the security of the Asiatic coast, as commanding the heads of the river valleys which stretched westward to the Aegean, while its thickly strewn townships, which opened up possibilities of inland trade, placed it on a different plane to the desolate Lycaonia and Cilicia. It is possible that the capitalist class, on whose support the senate was now relying for the maintenance of the political equilibrium in the capital, may have joined in the protest against Aquillius's mistaken generosity. But, though the government rapidly decided to rescind the decision of its commissioners, it had not the strength to settle the matter once for all by taking Phrygia for itself. A decree of the people was still technically superior to a resolution of the senate; it was always possible for dissentients to urge that the people must be consulted on these great questions of international interest; and Phrygia became, like Pergamon a short time before, the sport of party politics. The rival kings transferred their claims, and possibly their pecuniary offers, from the province to the capital, and the network of intrigue which soon shrouded the question was brutally exhibited by Caius Gracchus when, in his first or second tribunate, he urged the people to reject an Aufeian law, which bore on the dispute. "You will find, citizens," he urged, "that each one of us has his price. Even I am not disinterested, although it happens that the particular object which I have in view is not money, but good repute and honour. But the advocates on both sides of this question are looking to something else. Those who urge you to reject this bill are expecting hard cash from Nicomedes; those who urge its acceptance are looking for the price which Mithradates will pay for what he calls his own; this will be their reward. And, as for the members of the government who maintain a studious reserve on this question, they are the keenest bargainers of all; their silence simply means that they are being paid by every one and cheating every one." This cynical description of the political situation was pointed by a quotation of the retort of Demades to the successful tragedian "Are you so proud of having got a talent for speaking? why, I got ten talents from the king for holding my peace".[549] This sketch was probably more witty than true; condemnation, when it becomes universal, ceases to be convincing, and cynicism, when it exceeds a certain degree, is merely the revelation of a diseased or affected mental attitude. Gracchus was too good a pleader to be a fair observer. But the suspicion revealed by the diatribe may have been based on fact; the envoys of the kings may have brought something weightier than words or documents, only to find that the balance of their gilded arguments was so perfect that the original objection to Phrygia being given to any Eastern potentate was the only issue which could still be supported with conviction. Yet the government still declined to annex. Its hesitancy was probably due to its unwillingness to see a new Eastern province handed over to the equestrian tax-farmers, to whom Caius Gracchus had just given the province of Asia. The fall of Gracchus made an independent judgment by the people impossible, and, even had it been practicable for the Comitia to decide, their judgment must have been so perplexed by rival interests and arguments that they would probably have acquiesced in the equivocal decision of the senate. This decision was that Phrygia should be free.[550] It was to be open to the Roman capitalist as a trader, but not as a collector; it was not to be the scene of official corruption or regal aggrandisement. It was to be an aggregate of protected states possessing no central government of its own. Yet some central control was essential; and this was perhaps secured by attaching Phrygia to the province of Asia in the same loose condition of dependence in which Achaea had been attached to Macedonia. In one other particular the settlement of Aquillius was not final. We shall find that motives of maritime security soon forced Rome to create a province of Cilicia, and it seems that for this purpose a portion of the gift which had been just made to the kings of Cappadocia was subsequently resumed by Rome. The old Pergamene possessions in Western Cilicia were probably joined to some towns of Pamphylia to form the kernel of the new province. When Rome had divested herself of the superfluous accessories of her bequest, a noble residue still remained. Mysia, Lydia and Caria with their magnificent coast cities, rich in art, and inexhaustible in wealth, formed, with most of the islands off the coast,[551] that "corrupting" province which became the Favourite resort of the refined and the desperate resource of the needy. Its treasures were to add a new word to the Roman vocabulary of wealth;[552] its luxury was to give a new stimulus to the art of living and to add a new craving or two to the insatiable appetite for enjoyment; while the servility of its population was to create a new type of Roman ruler in the man who for one glorious year wielded the power of a Pergamene despot, without the restraint of kingly traditions or the continence induced by an assured tenure of rule.

The western world witnessed the beginning of an equally remarkable change. On both sides of Italy accident was laying the foundation for a steady advance to the North, and forcing the Romans into contact with peoples, whose subjection would never have been sought except from purely defensive motives. The Iapudes and Histri at the head of the Adriatic were the objects of a campaign of the consul Tuditanus,[553] while four years later Fulvius Flaccus commenced operations amongst the Gauls and Ligurians beyond the Alps,[554] which were to find their completion seventy-five years later in the conquests of Caesar. But neither of these enterprises can be intelligently considered in isolation; their significance lies in the necessity of their renewal, and even the proximate results to which they led would carry us far beyond the limits of the period which we are considering. The events completely enclosed within these limits are of subordinate importance. They are a war in Sardinia and the conquest of the Balearic isles. The former engaged the attention of Lucius Aurelius Orestes as consul in 126 and as proconsul in the following year.[555] It is perhaps only the facts that a consul was deemed necessary for the administration of the island, and that he attained a triumph for his deeds,[556] that justify us in calling this Sardinian enterprise a war. It was a punitive expedition undertaken against some restless tribes, but it was rendered arduous by the unhealthiness of the climate and the difficulty of procuring adequate supplies for the suffering Roman troops.[557] The annexation of the Balearic islands with their thirty thousand inhabitants[558] may have been regarded as a geographical necessity, and certainly resulted in a military advantage. Although the Carthaginians had had frequent intercourse with these islands and a Port of the smaller of the two still bears a Punic name,[559] they had done little to civilise the native inhabitants. Perhaps the value attached to the military gifts of the islanders contributed to preserve them in a state of nature; for culture might have diminished that marvellous skill with the sling,[560] which was once at the service of the Carthaginian, and afterwards of the Roman, armies. But, in spite of their prowess, the Baliares were not a fierce people. They would allow no gold or silver to enter their country,[561] probably in order that no temptation might be offered to pirates or rapacious traders.[562] Their civilisation represented the matriarchal stage; their marriage customs expressed the survival of polyandric union; they were tenacious of the lives of their women, and even invested the money which they gained on military service in the purchase of female captives.[563] They made excellent mercenaries, but shunned either war or commerce with the neighbouring peoples, and the only excuse for Roman aggression was that a small proportion of the peaceful inhabitants had lent themselves to piratical pursuits.[564] The expedition was led by the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus and resulted in a facile conquest. The ships of the invaders were protected by hides stretched above the decks to guard against the cloud of well-directed missiles;[565] but, once a landing had been effected, the natives, clad only in skins, with small shields and light javelins as their sole defensive weapons, could offer no effective resistance at close quarters and were easily put to rout. For the security of the new possessions Metellus adopted the device, still rare in the case of transmarine dependencies, of planting colonies on the conquered land. Palma and Pollentia were founded, as townships of Roman citizens, on the larger island; the new settlers being drawn from Romans who were induced to leave their homes in the south of Spain.[566] This unusual effort in the direction of Romanisation was rendered necessary by the wholly barbarous character of the country; and the introduction into the Balearic isles of the Latin language and culture was a better justification than the easy victory for Metellus's triumph and his assumption of the surname of "Baliaricus".[567] The islands flourished under Roman rule. They produced wine and wheat in abundance and were famed for the excellence of their mules. But their chief value to Rome must have lain in their excellent harbours, and in the welcome addition to the light-armed forces of the empire which was found in their warlike inhabitants.