Chapter M: Livius Drusus, 340 (13)

Gracchus sent to the senate to effect a compromise; but unconditional surrender was demanded. The Aventine being feebly defended, the _clivus Publicius_, by which one ascended from the Circus, was taken by storm; and now Fulvius sent his son, a fine, handsome youth, to the senate, to ask for a truce. He was sent back the first time; and when he came again, Opimius had him arrested, thrown into a dungeon, and afterwards put to death. When the Aventine was taken, Fulvius, who had hidden himself, was found and slain; Gracchus leaped from the temple of Diana down the sharp steep of the Aventine, and sprained his ankle; not being able to find a horse, he, leaning on his friends, could hardly reach the _Pons sublicius_. The two friends, Pomponius and Lætorius, who were knights, and formed an honourable exception to the majority of the higher classes, fought like Horatius Cocles on the bridge, to keep the pursuers at bay, and allowed themselves to be cut down. In the meanwhile, Gracchus fled across the Tiber into a sacred grove (_lucus Furiarum_), which, however, did not shelter him. Opimius had promised for his head its weight in gold. According to the most likely account, a faithful slave did him the friendly service of killing him. An Anagnian, Septimuleius, got the head, and filled it with molten lead. Upwards of three thousand men were denounced as partisans of Gracchus, and nearly all of them were put to death by Opimius; a few only may have made their escape. This war of extermination was waged against all who were in any way distinguished: it was a downright butchery, like that of the year 1799 at Naples. For two years the bloodshed lasted, and these murderers called themselves _boni homines, boni cives_. There were many renegades, and there is no doubt but that C. Carbo was very early one of them. He became consul, and then defended Opimius against the charges brought against him by the tribune Q. Decius. Carbo, after he had saved Opimius, became the darling of the oligarchs; but now there arose against him P. Licinius Crassus, a near kinsman of his, perhaps a brother of the wife of C. Gracchus, and the very one of whom Cicero so often speaks, especially in the masterly dialogue _de Oratore_, and in his “Brutus.” Crassus was a man of uncommon mind and powers; but like all the orators of that age (with the exception of C. Gracchus), wanting in cultivation. He too began on the side of the people, and then he went over to the senate, and became one of the foremost champions of the oligarchy; yet he is a very respectable oligarch, and quite free from the reproach which clings to so many others. He now spoke against Carbo, and attacked him in such a manner, that he took away his own life by means of poison (a solution of vitriol, _atramentum sutorium_).[79] This was a satisfaction to men’s feelings, and it gave a hope of the possibility that things would still change for the better. But for all that, they remained as they were: the knights were intimidated; the courts of justice were no better, nor were any fruits whatever of their independence yet to be seen. The utter worthlessness of those who were in power is strikingly shown in the war of Jugurtha, which Sallust, with his fine tact, has therefore made the subject of his historical work. But we must first speak of the conquests of the empire.

FOREIGN CONQUESTS DOWN TO THE WAR WITH JUGURTHA.

In Spain, few events of any importance happened between the time of Tib. Gracchus and the war with Jugurtha. The Balearic isles were subdued by one of the four sons of Metellus Macedonicus, all of whom were consuls. The Metelli were plebeians, but one of the most powerful families which formed the aristocracy; and they were truly great characters: Metellus Numidicus also, notwithstanding the reproaches which have been brought against him, is one of the most spotless of men. Another son of Metellus conquered the Dalmatians, who from henceforth remained subject to the Romans; so that one might now go by land to Greece round the Adriatic.

Soon after the death of Tib. Gracchus, the Romans made their first expedition into Transalpine Gaul. They were masters of nearly the whole of Spain, and of Italy almost as far as the Alps (Aosta did not yet belong to them); but in Gaul itself, between the Alps and the Pyrenees, they had not yet even tried to gain a firm footing: all that they did, was to secure for the Massilians, their old allies, in the beginning of the seventh century, a strip of country along the coast against the Ligurians. The first occasion for their establishing themselves there, was a war of the Salluvians or Salyans against the Ligurians: the Salluvians, who dwelt from Aix to Marseilles, were conquered by them. This tribe had been supported by the Allobroges, one of the greatest peoples of Gaul, who had their abodes in Dauphiné and Savoy, as far as Lyons; and when these had likewise been defeated, the Romans turned their arms against the Arvernians, a race governed by rich and powerful kings, which as far back as the second Punic War, held the supremacy in Gaul. These last were utterly routed on the banks of the Rhone near Vienne, in the days of C. Gracchus. Bituitus, of whose wealth various accounts have been preserved, was at that time their king: he tried to make his peace with the Romans, and the generals, Q. Fabius Maximus (who was afterwards surnamed Allobrogicus), and Cn. Domitius, sent him to Rome to beg the mercy of the senate. Without having come _in deditionem_, he went thither, trusting to the good faith of those who were in power; but they arrested him, and kept him a prisoner to the day of his death at Alba on the lake Fucinus, where Syphax and Perseus had died. The Roman province now reached as far as Dauphiné. The Allobroges in that country, though they acknowledged the _majestas populi Romani_, did not become subjects; but Provence and Lower Languedoc, were real provinces, although there was not always a prætor there. The time when the Roman provincial institutions were introduced, cannot be exactly made out, owing to the loss of the books of Livy. Aquæ Sextiæ was the first Roman colony beyond the Alps.

In 638 the Cimbri make their first appearance. After the reduction of Dalmatia, the Romans had attacked Carniola, which is said to have roused the anger of the Scordiscans. It is, however, more likely that the immigration of the Sarmatians from the east stirred up the Scordiscans, who now fell upon Macedon and Greece. This was one of the greatest calamities of the unfortunate sixth and seventh centuries of the city, which were some of the most awful for the world itself; just as the sixteenth and seventeenth of our era in modern history: it destroyed most of the beautiful works of ancient art. In Italy, that havoc went on until the times of Augustus, which were the first beginning of a kind of material prosperity. The consul C. Porcius Cato was routed in Thrace by the Scordiscans, and Macedon, Thessaly, and part of Greece, were overrun by the barbarians.

THE WAR AGAINST JUGURTHA. Q. CÆCILIUS METELLUS NUMIDICUS. C. MARIUS.

Sallust’s description of the war against Jugurtha, is one of the best specimens which we have in either language of the ancient literature, and I would even rate it above that of Catiline’s conspiracy. They are monographies, almost the only ones which the Romans had, except perhaps the history of the war with Hannibal by Cœlius Antipater, of which, however, we know nothing: the memoirs of Fannius were something quite different. Sallust takes indeed the utmost care to avoid anything that has an annalistic look; he leaves out every mention of dates, to give his work the greatest possible finish. It is a book which, the more one reads it, the more worthy of admiration it seems: it is a real study for every one who wants to know what excellent historical writing is. To him I refer you.

When Masinissa died, he had put his kingdom in order, and made Scipio executor of his will. He left his dominions to his three sons, Gulussa, Micipsa, and Mastanabal, whom we are by no means to look upon as having been somewhat like the chieftains of the tribes which now dwell in those countries; for Livy says of Mastanabal, that he had been _litteris Græcis apprime eruditus_. He knew Greek so well, that he wrote it; a fact which shows us how wrongly we deem the Numidians and all such races to have been mere barbarians. Even among the rude Thracians, there can be no doubt that at that time Greek learning was not unknown; we meet with it afterwards even among the Parthians. The civilization of the Greeks had spread very widely, more especially since the fall of the nation. The Numidians, as well as the Libyans, had an alphabet of their own, as one sees from remains which are found in several towns in those parts. Colonel Humbert has discovered over the gate of a city an _inscriptio bilinguis_, Punic and Libyan; in Cyrene, there are inscriptions in three languages, Punic, Greek, and one which is unknown; in the desert of Sahara, among the Tuariks, the travellers Clapperton and Denham have met with an alphabet which is quite distinct from the Arabic. I am convinced that it belongs to the Libyan language, which is spoken in the Canary isles, throughout the whole of the desert and the oases, as far as the Nile and the Barabras in Upper Egypt. Denham[80] is too shallow, to see his way through it; we shall be able to read the Libyan inscriptions when we fully know the alphabet, of which Denham gives one letter. The whole of this matter will one day be cleared up. The Numidian kings likewise had the Carthaginian library given them as a present by the Romans. Gulussa died early, as also did Mastanabal, who left behind him only a son by a concubine, Jugurtha. The Numidian empire, which reached from the borders of Morocco to the Syrtes as far as Leptis and Tripolis, was now in the hands of Micipsa alone. He had two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal. Jugurtha, who had excellent abilities, at first won the heart of the old king; but when the latter discovered in him talents superior to those of his own sons, he became jealous of him, and sent him to Spain, where Scipio was gathering troops together from all parts for the siege of Numantia: there he hoped that he would perish. But Jugurtha was befriended by fortune; and he gained great favour with Scipio, under whose protection he desired to be placed, lest Micipsa should murder him. Many Romans of rank even encouraged him to revolt, and provided him with money, as he had no prospect of coming to the throne lawfully; for after Micipsa’s death, the whole of the kingdom was to be kept together. He now got letters of recommendation to Micipsa, who, taking fright, adopted him, and in his will divided the sovereignty among the three princes, who were to reign together as colleagues. The proud and fierce Hiempsal, who looked upon his cousin as an intruder, would insult him without any provocation: it was then agreed upon to share the inheritance, and in the meanwhile Jugurtha had him murdered. Jugurtha, who was no common man, being shrewd and versatile, but without any notion of truth and honesty, like an Albanian chief, now took up arms and attacked Adherbal also. The latter betook himself to the Romans, and owing to their predilection for him obtained a favourable decision: a commission was sent from Rome to divide the country between himself and Jugurtha. The commissioners, however, were so well plied with gold, that, when the division was made, Jugurtha got the most powerful and warlike part of the country. But he longed for the whole, and thus a war was soon brought on again. Adherbal imploringly besought the help of Rome against this criminal and restless man, and in the senate, at first, his cause was found to be a just one; but the ruling oligarchs, headed by Opimius, and bought over with bribes, declared for Jugurtha, and hindered every decision. In the meantime, Adherbal was beset in Cirta, and driven to the last distress: his representations to the Roman senate were all baffled by the influence of L. Opimius, as the envoys of Jugurtha, who were at Rome with a large sum of money, purchased the votes of every one. But when Cirta had been brought to extremity, some of the friends of Adherbal stole out of the town, and carried to the senate most dismal letters: a new commission was now sent, which was likewise bribed, and returned without having raised the siege. Jugurtha, however, was impelled by Nemesis not to keep his promise to Adherbal, when he yielded himself up and stipulated for his life only; nor to the Roman and Italian _negotiatores_, who alone had upheld that prince, and who now also surrendered. He had them slaughtered to sate his vengeance. This was too bad, and even those who had hitherto spoken most loudly for him, had no longer a word to say. A Roman embassy arrived at Utica, to call Jugurtha to account; but he gave evasive answers and completely took them in.

This embassy was headed by M. Æmilius Scaurus, a man who has a great name in history, but of whom one is at a loss what to think. Horace says,

_Regulum et Scauros_
_Gratus insigni referam Camena,_
_Fabriciumque._

As for Horace, it is remarkable that no one could be more ignorant of the history of his own people than he was; thus, for instance, he confounds the two Scipios, and he had so little read Ennius whom he laughs at, as to believe that he had sung of Scipio, the destroyer of Carthage.[81] When he names Scaurus, he says _Scauri_, not knowing that Scaurus the son was a most worthless fellow, the Verres of Sardinia, whom Cicero defended merely out of regard for his family. It is owing to this un-Roman spirit, that he is utterly unable to appreciate the great minds of the earlier literature; he is a man of elegant, superficial learning, and, even in his knowledge of the Greek writers, not to be compared with Virgil. Hence then so many strange things in his Odes, where he misunderstood the Greek. The stock-in-trade which he had for his odes, was taken from a few Greek lyrics. When he says that Homer was wont to slumber, he merely shows his ignorance; he writes to Lollius that he had again read Homer, which may perhaps have been for the first time since he left school. Still he is a noble genius, much more versatile and prolific than Virgil, who, indeed, was far more industrious and painstaking. Horace was lazy, ever bent on refined enjoyments. The contrast between the two poets is very striking; it would be an excellent subject, if worked out.--What speaks well for Scaurus, is the great respect in which he was held by Cicero, who mentions, as one of the finest remembrances of his earlier days, that as a youth of seventeen he was introduced by his father into the presence of the great statesmen of the age, among whom Scaurus then shone as a venerable old man: the youth met with a distinguished reception from them, as they recognised in him the future great man; and he, on his side, had come to them with that longing which is felt by all generous minds, to attach himself to those who are more matured, and to purify himself after their example. Thus he idealized these men, and the impression which he had received, lasted his whole life through; even, when an old man himself, he looked up to the men of his youth, and in this spirit he also remembers Scaurus. Sallust is reproached with malignity; but surely he is not sinning against truth, when, filled with indignation, he is branding a guilty man for ever. Scaurus, as Sallust describes him, was on the verge of that time of life, when the vigour and energy needed for waging war are already weakened, but are still equal to ruling the state; yet when he actually became old, he got out of the perplexing position in which he had been entangled, and he stood forth as one who had belonged to an age of gigantic minds, and having to keep up a high character, he then seems to have lived outwardly blameless and upright. Thus Cicero knew him. The same person may at different times be quite a different being; he may be an excellent citizen, and then again a bad one: I am not speaking here of real virtue before God, but only of political virtue. This was the case, for instance, in England with Shaftesbury and others in the seventeenth century. I knew one of the most eminent men of our own day, who (with the consent indeed of his government) very indelicately availed himself of an advantage, whereas at other times he showed himself to be a true hero. The leading features in the character of Scaurus, are very great pride, very determined party spirit, and first-rate talent. That his behaviour during the war with Jugurtha is not an invention of Sallust’s, may be seen from the history itself.

In the commission at Utica, Scaurus was blameless; just as in former times. After Adherbal’s downfall, the consul L. Calpurnius Bestia wished to enrich himself by an African war, or at all events to be able to sell a peace; he therefore joined with some lovers of justice in moving that Jugurtha should be brought to punishment, and he also managed to be sent out to Africa with that commission. The war began in good earnest; but negotiations were soon set on foot, Jugurtha having convinced Bestia and Scaurus that this was more for their advantage. He remained indeed in possession of his kingdom; but to save appearances, he surrendered himself _in fidem populi Romani_; so that the senate only had to ratify the peace, the _fœdus_ being changed into a _clientela_. He delivered up the deserters, thirty elephants, and much cattle; and he bound himself to pay several instalments of money. Yet the whole thing was but a vile farce. Instead of the deserters being sent to Rome, where they were to be put to death, they were allowed to run away; and the elephants were returned to Jugurtha for money. This treaty, however, raised such an outcry at Rome, that a bold tribune of the name of C. Memmius got the people to have the matter inquired into; and L. Cassius, who at that time was honoured as the justest of men, was commissioned personally to investigate the case in Africa itself. Cassius, beyond all doubt, was a man of very high rank,--a patrician,[82] but not identified with any party: being himself pure in a corrupt time, he condemned without any respect of persons. Cassius’ word of honour was of such weight, that Jugurtha on the strength of it deemed himself quite safe in going to Rome, and publicly making his appearance there. Here we find Jugurtha--and this is a marked feature in the whole of his deportment--wavering between his own boldness and the feeling that he was not able to withstand the power of Rome. He was on the point of giving up his accomplices; but a tribune of the people had been bribed to forbid his speaking, just as he was getting up in the assembly of the people. Thus the authority of the tribunes had become powerful for evil, but powerless for good. During his stay in Rome, Jugurtha caused another descendant of Masinissa, Massiva, a young Numidian, who likewise happened to be there at the very time, and to whom the consul Sp. Albinus had held out a hope of the succession, to be murdered: after this he fled from the city, leaving his sureties behind. The consul Albinus and the senate now declared the negotiations for peace to have been null and void; yet the guilty still remained unpunished. The war was renewed in Africa, but in a lukewarm manner. The consul Sp. Albinus, who had the chief command, wished for war; but his arrangements were bad. As he had to return to Rome for the consular elections, he intrusted the command to his brother Aulus, who behaved in such a bungling way that he was surrounded by the enemy. Jugurtha now plied the army with his money, and not only mere foreigners, but even Roman tribunes were bribed; so that when the time came for attacking Albinus, he was utterly overpowered, and his camp was taken. He was forced to make a disgraceful treaty, which, however, was disowned at Rome.

Things could now no longer be hushed up. Metellus got the command with ample forces to carry on the war. Three _quæsitores_ were now to be appointed, and thus Scaurus was in danger of being involved in the enquiry: but, according to Sallust’s account, he played his cards so well, that, instead of being impeached, he himself became one of the _quæsitores_, and proceeded against the accused only so far as seemed consistent with his own safety. A great number were condemned, and the slow vengeance for the murder of C. Gracchus now reached L. Opimius. It is inconceivable how Cicero is mistaken with regard to the latter: no man’s judgment indeed ought to be implicitly followed. Those who fell at that time, were certainly all of them guilty. Unfortunately, we have no exact knowledge of these _quæstiones_; but thus much is certain, that the _optimates_, who wanted to pass themselves off as being the best, received by the exposure of the infamy of some among them, a blow from which they never recovered. The _equites_, as judges, now took a decided part against the senators: it would have been most interesting for us, if we could have had further details about it. Here begins the split which afterwards led to the civil war between the factions of Marius and Sylla. Calpurnius Bestia was likewise condemned; of the fate of others we know very little.

Metellus was the son of Macedonicus, and has the surname of Numidicus. He is one of those characters which people are very apt to see in a wrong light:--a noble-hearted man, he cannot be called without qualification; he was, though a plebeian, fully imbued with the prejudices and jealousies of the nobility. From a child, he had come to the conviction that the government ought to be honestly carried on: he was the patron of men of low degree who were making their way upwards; for he loved merit, so long as it kept within bounds, and did not aspire to the very highest place. This accounts for his behaviour to Marius, to whom at first he showed kindness; for as soon as Marius stood for the consulship, he was so blinded by his rage that he became his enemy. To this very day, one meets among the high English nobility with men like Metellus, who look upon the privileges of their order as the first inviolable rights, and whenever offences committed by any of their own body come to light, will step in with their protection to prevent an exposure. Thus the remarkable character of Metellus becomes quite clear: he was estimable for the integrity of his motives, but utterly incapable of being just. He spurned all the offers of Jugurtha against whom he used his own Punic arts, so that that prince was obliged to disarm entirely as the price of hopes which were never fulfilled; and when Jugurtha wished actually to buy himself off from the ruin which he clearly saw before his eyes, Metellus put forth conditions which would have rendered him quite defenceless. At last, Metellus demanded, that he should appear in person; this Jugurtha refused to do, and the war broke out afresh. Metellus carried it on for two years; and though he was sometimes worsted, he deserves very great praise for the manner in which he overcame the difficulties which he had to encounter: several of his undertakings are some of the most brilliant in history. Jugurtha, on the whole, avoided pitched battles; he risked an engagement only once, and then he was beaten. We now again see that mixture of cowardice and boldness which there was in him, and his inability to meet his fate. He wanted to surrender to Metellus, and had already given up all his arms, all his elephants, and two hundred thousand pounds of silver; but when he was to yield up his own person, he withdrew into the wilds of mount Atlas, having now stripped himself of all his resources. Thus the war was protracted in spite of the efforts of Metellus, and the opinion gained ground in Rome, that he had purposely allowed it to drag on: yet there was no reason for doubting his disinterestedness and incorruptibility. He was a great general and statesman, and his personal character stood high; but his pretensions were unbearable. They may indeed have been the ruin of the country: that fearful irritability which we afterwards find in Marius, would never have been roused, had not the _optimates_ done everything in their power to crush him.

On the subject of Marius’ birth, even the ancients were not agreed. Some of them make him out to have been of a very low origin; others (Velleius Paterculus) place him somewhat higher: certain it is that his ancestors were clients of a municipal family in Arpinum, from which, however, it does not follow that they were serfs. The name is Oscan, and it is likely that his family had come from Campania to Arpinum, where it had entered into the clientship of the Herennii. At all events, he was poor, and had served as a private soldier, and before that, even as a day labourer. His extraordinary qualities must have displayed themselves very soon: at an early age, he was known at Rome as an able centurion; and when he applied for the military tribuneship, he was elected with great applause. Otherwise, it was very seldom indeed--particularly in those later times--that any one who had been in the ranks, was ever raised to the higher military commands. Marius rose without the help of any connexions or relations; yet he must have made some money, or he could not have stood for the ædileship, on which occasion he failed. Notwithstanding this repulse, he got the prætorship, which office he discharged very creditably; and though the oligarchs even then gave him trouble by charging him with _ambitus_, he kept his ground against them. In was in those days already most common for candidates to spend money; and yet every one would try and fix this charge upon his opponents, that he might drive them out of the field. He was now with the army of Metellus as a _legatus_: for the higher employments were by no means permanent. For a _homo novus_ to become a prætor, was at that time not at all a thing unheard of; but that he should have risen to the consular dignity, was, according to Sallust’s description, all but an impossibility. Of the six prætors moreover, four, as a matter of course, could not become consuls: the children of a prætor, however, were not _homines novi_.

Marius distinguished himself in Numidia. He was then indeed an elderly man already, even as I am now (1829), somewhat past fifty. He was moreover superstitious. We here meet for the first time with a superstition which is to be traced to the East; for he had with him a Syrian (or perhaps a Jewish) fortune teller of the name of Martha, by whose prophecies he allowed himself to be guided. As he was offering a sacrifice, he beheld an _omen_ by which every thing that was highest in the state was promised him; and this gave him courage to stand for the consulship. Metellus advised him not to do it, tried to keep him back, and thwarted him in an underhand way; nay, when Marius declared that he would positively become a candidate, he forgot himself so far as to tell him, that he need not forsooth be in such a hurry; and that indeed it would be still time enough for him to be thrown out, when his own son should stand. That son was then twenty years old, and by the _leges annales_ no one could be a consul until he was about forty years of age. Marius never forgot this: he felt bitterly offended, and caused the people to be canvassed by his friends in Rome, on which Metellus seemingly yielded, in the hope that he would be too late: for he gave him leave of absence but twelve days before the elections. But Marius by dint of wonderful exertions reached the coast; and the wind being fair, he arrived in Rome, even making his appearance before the day of the election, and was almost unanimously chosen consul.

Whilst C. Gracchus is unjustly called a demagogue, this name may well be given to Marius, who was one in every sense of the word; for he would fawn upon the lowest rabble as others would upon powerful individuals, and delight in appearing to the common people as if he were one of them. He was not suited to those times: for he had a sensitive pride which was continually wounded, and thus he fell into those unhappy ways which have disgraced him. Moreover, it was then looked upon as indispensable for a man of rank to be well versed in the manners, and literature, and language of the Greeks; just as those of the French were deemed essential in Germany, even to the days of my youth. Old Cato learned Greek only late; yet he learned it, and was well read in the literature of his own country. Unlike him, Marius did not cling to the old traditions which began already to vanish away, and he disdained modern refinement, because he knew nothing of it: he spoke Greek, it is true, which at that time was quite necessary in society, but he despised it. His honesty was without a stain: for though his great wealth must have been acquired in war, he was held to be a _vir sanctus_, since he had not robbed the commonwealth as the greater part of his contemporaries had done. From this we may judge of the state of morals then. Fabricius, Curius, and others, who centuries before had likewise been called _sancti_, were also poor. Marius was a first-rate general, the consciousness of which carried him high: he was great in drawing up an army, especially in the day of battle, unrivalled in his mode of conducting a campaign, and just as skilful in encampment. But he had few friends: the leading features of his character were bitterness and hatred, and he was cruel and unamiable. Fate had raised him up to save Rome, the degeneracy of which is to be charged upon those who crushed and irritated so extraordinary, so distinguished a man. Metellus was an ordinary general: had he ever had to face Marius in the field, he would at once have been beaten. Marius, on the contrary, was no common commander; besides the greatest foresight in making his preparations, he was gifted with unbounded energy to execute, and with a quickness of eye which could see everything at a glance. It was his hatred against the so-called _optimates_, which, perhaps without his being aware of it, led him into his many unrighteous acts against them.

The tribunes of the people at Rome now moved that the province of Numidia should, out of turn, be the first assigned; and as this was unanimously agreed to by the people, Marius got the chief command. Metellus again showed his littleness of mind. Not being able to brook the sight of his successor, he stole away, leaving the army to his legate Rutilius, an excellent man, who afterwards became a victim to party spirit, as he went over to the other side: for, as hitherto the oligarchical faction had shown itself malignant, so did the democrats in their turn, now that they had got the upperhand. Marius ended the war with Jugurtha in less than two years, having displayed the greatest ability and boldness. Sallust particularly mentions, how in the siege of Capsa, he put to flight the enemy’s cavalry, &c. The Romans did not advance much beyond Cirta; Jugurtha went to Bocchus, king of the Mauritanians, a connexion of his by marriage. This prince at first had taken up arms on his side; but he soon listened to the proposal of the Romans, to make his peace with them by betraying his ally. This was done after a great deal of negotiation, Bocchus having wavered for a long time, and even thought of arresting Sylla, by whom this business was transacted: at length he gave up Jugurtha, who was now led by Marius in his triumph. Part of Numidia was united with the province of Africa; most of it, however, was left as an independent kingdom, the kings of which in all likelihood--in what way, we do not know--belonged to Masinissa’s house. Juba, in the time of Cæsar’s wars, was descended from the nameless king who then succeeded. Bocchus was acknowledged as an independent sovereign.

WAR WITH THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.

The war in Africa had come to an end, and it was high time that it should; for the republic had quite a different employment for Marius, in comparison with which the war against Jugurtha was mere child’s play. The Cimbri and Teutones were expected on the frontiers of Italy, and they had already routed the armies of Manlius and Cæpio. Contrary to all existing rules, Marius at the unanimous call of the nation was made consul; for the laws both forbade the choice of a man who was absent from the city, and required that ten years should elapse between two consulships of the same person. Marius had his triumph the new year’s day on which he entered upon his second consulate.

The Cimbri[83] were not, properly speaking, Gaels; but they were akin to the Cymri, the inhabitants of the greater part of the western coast of England, of Wales, and of Cumberland (which has its name from them, and where even so late as a hundred years ago, traces of the Cymric tongue were met with): the _Basbretons_ also belonged to the same race. Whether any Cymri dwelt in Ulster, is problematical: the Picts were likewise of the Cymric stock; and so were the Belgians: for though these were not unmingled with Gaels, the Cymri must have been predominant among them. On their great migration, they went in the fourth or fifth century to the borders of the Ukraine, and ruled as Celto-Scythians as far as the banks of the Dnieper, or even beyond: there they were called Galatians. Owing to circumstances of which we have no exact knowledge, very likely in consequence of the advance of the Sarmatians or Sclavonians, they were driven out of their settlements,--and they fell back upon their countrymen in Moldavia, Wallachia, Hungary, and the neighbouring countries: they first of all expelled the Bastarnians; then the Scordiscans and Tauriscans; and in 639, before the outbreak of the war with Jugurtha, they threw themselves upon the country of the Noricans in Carniola and Carinthia. Here, on the frontier of Italy, were the abodes of the Carnians and other Gallic tribes, which, though not subject to the Romans, were of course in a state of dependence, as is always the case with small nations when they are neighbours of great ones. The Cimbri made their appearance on the banks of the middle Danube and in Bohemia, and attacked the Boians; but they were repelled. It must have been while they were on the middle Danube, that they fell upon every people which they met with, and leagued themselves with the Teutones. These, as even their name seems to show, were of German stock, quite as certainly as the Cimbri were of Gallic race in the widest sense of the word (thus many Gallic words are found in the Cymric language, and there is a general affinity between them, although Gauls and Cymri did not understand each other). The Teutones may, like the Cimbri, have been chased out of the East by the advance of the Sarmatians: if what we are told from the travels of Pytheas be true, and he fell in with the Teutones on the eastern coast of Prussia, it is likely that they were pushed on from northern Poland by the Sarmatians. In Gaul they clearly appear as the allies of the Cimbrians, and the names of the leaders betoken a Gallic and a German people. When now they rushed forth from Noricum, either together or in separate hosts, the Romans came to the help of the Carnians, and the consul Cn. Papirius Carbo, in all likelihood a son of him who had been driven by Crassus to commit suicide, was defeated and killed near Noreia by the Cimbrians, and his whole army perished with him. But the barbarians did not follow up their victory, nor did they penetrate into Italy; but, what is very strange, they overran the bleak provinces of Austria and Bavaria north of the Alps, which were then inhabited by Celts, and thus went on to Gaul. At the general break up which ensued, they were also joined by the Tigurini, who were Gauls from Helvetia, and by the Ambrones: whence these last came, is more than we can say; most likely, they were Ligurians from the Alps. All of these moved into Gaul, bringing with them a countless number of waggons with women, children, and booty; and now the four peoples, sometimes in one huge host, at other times apart, burst upon the civilized world. It is difficult to say where they defeated either Silanus or Scaurus; for our accounts are scanty beyond belief, as Livy fails us here, and the seventeen books of Dio Cassius which we have not, were also no longer to be found by Zonaras. It might be inferred from one statement, that the Romans advanced as far as the neighbourhood of Rochelle, between Poitou and the Garonne. They had to suffer another defeat under the consul L. Cassius Longinus, near the lake of Geneva, and they purchased their retreat with the loss of half their baggage. Although they wished to protect the Transalpine Gauls, all their efforts were unsuccessful. The devastation of Gaul by these wars was one of the most dreadful calamities ever known: the whole of the country bounded by the Rhone, even from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, was ravaged, which may account for its weakened state in the days of Cæsar; the towns were taken and laid waste, and the inhabitants cruelly treated. Of all the Gallic tribes, the Belgians alone could stand their ground. The worst defeat which the Romans sustained, was on the banks of the Rhone, the year after the consulship of Marius, under the consul Cn. Mallius and the proconsul Cæpio. That eighty thousand Romans and Italians were killed, does not look at all historical;--if that number be correct, many Gallic auxiliaries must have been with them;--but the statement, according to Orosius, seems to rest merely on the authority of Valerius Antias. At all events, both of the Roman armies were completely routed. But most providentially for Rome, when Gaul had everywhere been ransacked, the Cimbri and Teutones, either deterred by the Alps, or perhaps because they also feared the Romans more than they did any other people, turned towards Spain, which country they overran, as the Romans were utterly unable to protect it. Even those places which surrendered to them were horribly treated; and this led the Celtiberians to stand sieges in which they were at last driven to feed on dead bodies, rather than fall into the hands of barbarians. This resolute spirit made the invaders give up all thoughts of conquering Spain, and they retreated back again into Gaul.

The devastation of Gaul took place at the time when Metellus was conducting the war against Jugurtha; the expedition into Spain happened during Marius’ second and third consulships. For the reverses which had befallen the Roman arms, had now caused Marius to be made consul for the third time; even his enemies wished him to be chosen, as they saw that no one else could save the state. Every army but that of Numidia had been annihilated; and to train the new soldiers, was the great task which Marius alone was able to achieve, he being himself as thoroughly practised a soldier as he desired every one to be. Marius is beyond all doubt the author of the great change in the Roman tactics, as may be known from Cæsar: this supposition is already to be found in those who have written before us, Colonel Guichard in particular. And moreover this change could only have been the work of a man who always adapted his system to the wants of his age. Down to Marius’ days, even during the Numidian wars, we read of _principes_, _triarii_, and _hastati_; of Marius’ time itself we have indeed no history of any note, written in Latin, though we have an exact knowledge of Cæsar’s legion, in which there are neither _hastati_, nor _principes_, nor _triarii_, but only _pilani_; the lance is done away with, and the _pilum_ and sword alone are used; the men are no more drawn up in maniples, the legion being now formed in a line which was ten deep, with a proportionate reserve; and when there are several lines of battle, these do not affect the disposition, as they likewise were not placed in maniples, _en échelons_, but in parallels, one behind the other. The legion is divided into sixty centuries (not as in the earliest times, into five cohorts, each having thirty centuries of thirty men); and its strength besides is raised from 4,500 to 6,000 men. The light troops are detached, the legion being no longer a brigade, but a very strong regiment, all of the same arm; and the cavalry is not a part of the legion. Another, and very essential difference, is, that Marius--and he was very much blamed for it--in levying the troops did not now follow the old system by which all who had less than 12,500 _asses_, and more than 4,500, were set aside for the reserve; nor yet the later plan by which every one who had even 1,000 sesterces (400 _denarii_), was enlisted in the line, and those who were below that standard could only serve in the fleet; but he took every able-bodied man, although he might not be above beggary. This was indeed very bad according to the notions of the old times, when there were good reasons for employing in the defence of the country none but those who might be deemed to have an interest in upholding the constitution. But in those days, there were no standing armies; whereas, when once these began to be kept, it was less hard for a man who had nothing to remain for years in the provinces, than it was for an only son who possessed property: thus what had formerly been quite right, had ceased to be so, now that circumstances were changed. On the whole, though I am by no means blind to the grievous faults of Marius,--nay, if you will, to his vices,--it certainly shows a want of sense, to speak of him as if it had been better for the republic that he had never been born. That he was worthy of his high renown, is undeniable; and though his cruelties are not to be excused, he was indeed a great man, and one ought to try to understand and account for his failings. Two such different men, as Cicero and Cæsar, had a great fondness for Marius: Cæsar, when a boy, loved with all his soul the husband of his aunt Julia; and Cicero, even in spite of his party, felt proud of being, as an Arpinate, the countryman of Marius.

Marius now employed his second and third consulships in forming a new army. Happily for Rome, the Cimbri were all this while in Spain. Eleven years had now passed since their first appearance; so that we see how quickly the tide of emigration which no bounds could hitherto stay, set in towards the west: had they succeeded in Spain, it is very possible that they would have gone to Africa. Marius had to find soldiers as he best could: what was left of the old army, was shattered and demoralized, all but the troops which had returned from Numidia; he was therefore obliged to train his raw levies for the field, by mingling them with the few veterans who had won many a battle: in his fourth consulship, his army was formed. In the third already, he had been in the south of France near the Rhone, probably on the frontiers of Provence and Dauphiné, between Arles and Avignon; and that part of the country, which was as near the enemy as could be, he had chosen as his exercising ground, that he might force his men to keep with all their might on the alert: those who were not able to stand the work, sank under it; the rest were so much the better soldiers. As the Rhone, like all the rivers of the Mediterranean, has its mouth choked up with silt, he dug in all haste a canal to open a free communication with the sea. During his fourth consulship he advanced towards the spot where the Isere and the Rhone meet, expecting that the Cimbri and Teutones would return from Spain: it was thought that they would cross the Alps, and follow the same road which Hannibal had once chosen. All feelings of hatred in the Gauls, had of course died away. If it be true that Marius was obliged to use intrigues to get this consulship, it is a very bad case, and a proof of the blind infatuation of the oligarchy.

The barbarians had no wish to attack Marius, and so they separated: the Cimbri went round the northern range of the Alps, that they might invade Italy from the other side, where it was more easily entered; the Teutones remained in Gaul. For what reason Marius should have now retreated from Valence to Aquæ Sextiæ, our scanty sources do not tell us: probably it was for the purpose of getting provisions. The Cimbrians passed with jeers by the camp of Marius, and went round Switzerland: for between the Pennine and the Tridentine Alps, there was not yet at that time any practicable road for such hosts of men with their waggons and baggage: the only way was that across the little St. Bernard, which they could not take on account of the Romans; single troops may have gone by the St. Gotthard and the Splügen. The Romans had opposed to them, near Trent in Italian Tyrol, another army under the command of the consul Q. Lutatius Catulus, a man who was the very opposite of Marius, as he was one of those persons of high rank in that day who had had a Greek education: according to Cicero, he was even a fair author, and he left behind him memoirs in Greek, as was then much the fashion among people of refinement at Rome, Latin prose not being yet cultivated by great writers; just as Frederic the Great wrote his memoirs in French. Incalculable is the loss to us of the books of Livy which treat of this period, as we do not know any thing more about it than we do of earlier centuries; in fact, we know less of the gigantic struggles against the Cimbri and Teutones, than we do of the national emigrations and the wars against the barbarians in the beginning of the fifth century. Here we find Orosius on the whole an unadulterated source, and now and then we have to make shift with Florus; all the epitomizers, however, as Orosius, Eutropius, Florus, are full of discrepancies when compared together, though they every one of them drew from Livy. Quite independent of these is the account of Plutarch, which is the most detailed narrative we have of the Cimbric war.

When the Cimbri were gone away, the Teutones and Ambrones followed in the track of Marius: whither the Tigurini went, we cannot tell. To judge from an expression of the epitomizers, the barbarians--a fact which Plutarch does not mention--must have taken the camp of Marius; but this could not have been the one near the ground where the battle was fought, as from the march towards it, and the whole of Marius’ disposition, we may see that he had been stopped when retreating. He had therefore to encamp in a spot where there was no water, and the soldiers were obliged to go out armed and fetch it from a distant well; so that they asked to be led out to fight. Marius wished first to entrench himself, as his foes were quite close, and everything was against him; yet he could not carry out his intention, the distress being so great that the camp-followers in despair went to some water which was in the neighbourhood of the enemy. Here the Ambrones attacked them, on which the soldiers came to their help: the Ligurians first set out, and then cohort after cohort hastened up, without any orders from Marius. Thus an engagement was brought on, in which, strange to say, the Teutones took no share whatever: perhaps they had not yet come up. Even in this conflict, a brilliant victory was gained, most of the Ambrones being destroyed; notwithstanding which, the Romans, who were without entrenchments, now passed an anxious night in which they were busily throwing up works. The next battle was not fought on the following day, as had been expected, but on the day after; most likely because the Teutones and the rest of the Ambrones had only just now arrived. Marius laid all his plans with the talent of a true general, and he sent M. Claudius Marcellus--a man whose family was always distinguished, he being undoubtedly a grandson of that worthy Marcellus so well known in the Iberian war, who had five times been consul--with a division of allies, as it would seem, to attack the enemy’s rear. Yet even before this, the fury of the Teutones had spent itself in vain against the steadfastness and dogged resolution of the Romans, and the more so as it was summer: for the men of the South, owing to their more muscular frame, are able to stand both heat and frost better than others: the Italians in Napoleon’s Russian campaign, suffered much less than the northern nations did. And therefore, as one might easily believe, the natives of Rome bore the glowing heat of the sun much better than the Teutones. The Romans, who were posted on a hill, awaited the onset of the barbarians; these were beaten back, and when they were endeavouring to rally in the plain, Marcellus fell upon them from behind. Part of them tried to make their escape, and were overpowered and slain by the Gallic tribes. The prince of the Teutones was taken prisoner by the Sequani, and the remnant of his army retreated within their rampart of waggons; but the Romans now broke in, and nearly the whole of the nation was destroyed, some very few only being made slaves.