Chapter M: Livius Drusus (3)

With the consulship of Lepidus and Catulus began the History of Sallust, the loss of which, to judge from the fragments, is one of the most painful of all those which we have to mourn over in Roman literature, not only on account of the matter in it, but above all, because of its value as a work of art. The history of the Social War was written by Sisenna, who was in some measure a forerunner of Sallust: he was also an earlier acquaintance of Cicero’s, who does not speak over favourably of the literary merits of his writings. Yet I am inclined to think that here we should not blindly follow the opinion of Cicero: for Sisenna’s manner was one which he did not like; it was the _horridum_ of the ancients, an imitation of Clitarchus.[109] He wrote quite differently from his predecessors, in reading whose fragments we can hardly believe that any one could ever have written in such a way. At that time, the whole style of literature was changed. It was as in Germany about the period of the Seven Years’ War; and just as there were then some stragglers in our republic of letters, thus was it also in Rome. Among these I class Claudius Quadrigrarius, who has still the stiff, uncouth, quaint manner: the want of refinement in the whole of his performances is quite astonishing.

Pacuvius, who was somewhat younger than Ennius, and very much younger than Plautus, ranks very high among the poets; he was exclusively a tragic writer, and undoubtedly a very good one: not a trace, however, is to be met with among the Romans of anything like the Satyric plays. In the beginning of the seventh century, Terence introduced quite a different manner, which, if compared with Ennius and Pacuvius, and Plautus above all, is infinitely more modern: he is already quite free from the πῖνος of antiquity, as there are good grounds for believing that his writings have never been revised.--Somewhat younger was Cæcilius Statius, a Campanian, whose comic skill and playfulness are praised by Cicero, who, however, finds fault with his language: his fragments, especially a larger one in Gellius, give us no great idea of him. A far greater poet was L. Attius (not Accius, nor Actius either), who lived to so great an age so that even Cicero still knew him. His was a truly tragic genius; and he not only composed after the Greek models, especially after Æschylus,--what we have left to us in this style is so beautiful, that it may very well be placed by the side of what the Greek has written,--but he also wrote _prætextatæ_, that is to say, historical pieces in the manner of Shakspeare, which are not tied down to the unities of time or place. He came much nearer to the form of the Greek dramas than his predecessors had done; at least the anapæsts of four feet in his choruses were strictly according to the rules of Greek verse: in his own tragedies also, the _senarii_ and anapæsts seem to have been the prevailing measures, and not the long verses of Ennius and Pacuvius; and though indeed the _senarii_ are not formed quite so accurately as in Greek metres, they are much more so than in Terence. His anapæsts are already metrical, and not merely rhythmical; whereas, on the contrary, the _prætextatæ_ were composed in long rhythmical _octonarii_, part of which were iambic and part trochaic. In him we have a proof how much quicker the ear of the Romans had already become. It was not so with his contemporary Lucilius, from Suessa Aurunca, who indeed made use of a hexameter of dactyls and spondees, but with much greater licence than even Ennius had done, as the hexameters which can only be scanned according to rhythm, are really _sermoni propiora_: of the laws of Greek versification, he either had no knowledge whatever, or he entirely set them at naught. Most of his books were written in hexameters, some of them in trochaics. Wit and raciness his satires must have had in a high degree; we might indeed have been reconciled to his slovenly manner and have enjoyed him, instead of scornfully turning up our noses at him, as Horace did.--About the same time, the lyric poet Lævius may have written, who perhaps reached the highest point of gracefulness and sweetness in the native style.

Prose was still in a quite neglected state; a fragment of C. Lælius,[110] which has lately come to light, shows how uncouth and harsh it then was, even harsher than in the times of Cato: only C. Gracchus wrote prose in measured periods, which nearly approached perfection. The orators of that age either did not write at all, or they wrote in a dreadfully stiff style, much worse than they spoke. The historians before Sisenna had as little claim to the name of writers, as our knightly authors of the sixteenth century, Schärtlin von Burtenbach and others. The Roman historians were yet inferior to them; for the knights were men of action, whilst these were men of the school, and even then not worth much.

The manners and mode of life had but one aim, that of making money: even before the civil wars, people had become exceedingly immoral. The immense riches which had been heaped together by means of plunder and robbery, were squandered in luxury; the old ways having been abandoned in everything, Greek fashions were copied as much as possible. The orator L. Crassus was the first who sent for marble pillars from Greece, though indeed he had only four set up in his house; before that, the houses were built of brick plastered over, or of peperino: the furniture was equally mean. The condition of Italy was wretched beyond description. Samnium was a wilderness, and Strabo says that even as late as in his day, no towns there were able to thrive. And yet the misery had not reached its greatest height, but things were still to become much worse.

Cicero was in his eight and twentieth year when Sylla died; he had already made several speeches, and awakened great attention. Older than he, and not altogether free from envy, but rather inclined to keep down the younger man, was Q. Hortensius. The latter was in no way to be compared with Cicero, and being fully tainted with the villainy of his age, he was ever ready to sell his convictions for money. Among Cicero’s contemporaries, in those awful times, a number of able men of very different kinds sprang up. Such upheavings of party spirit generally have this effect: the _Ligue_ indeed quite blighted the study of antiquity in France; but it sharpened the wit and quickened the minds of the people; the Thirty Years’ War did nothing but destroy, whilst the Seven Years’ War gave a new impulse to Germany, and awakened the Muses. Sallust was a great deal younger than Cicero, being as yet a mere boy; but he was a full-grown man when Cicero was still in the pride of his strength.

COUNTER-REVOLUTION. LEPIDUS. SERTORIUS. POMPEY.

Sylla was still living when M. Æmilius Lepidus, as the head of the democracy, rose against Q. Lutatius Catulus, the head of the aristocracy. This movement was one of those convulsions which will always follow such great events, owing to the infatuation of those who do not understand the things which have happened. Lepidus was working _acta Sullæ rescindere_; this counter-revolution aimed at nothing less than drawing the legions out of the military colonies, dismissing the senators of Sylla, and putting into their places the children of the proscribed. (Of those who had been outlawed, hardly one had escaped.) Lepidus’ whole undertaking was an impracticable one; nor did either his abilities or his moral worth fit him for such a task. He had himself taken a part in the struggles of Sylla’s times; and, as we may gather from the fragments of Sallust’s History, he had purchased confiscated estates for a mere trifle, and thus enriched himself. In the French revolution, many people were forced to buy such estates, so as to bind them to the interests of the revolution; just in the same way, Sylla had gained over thousands who would otherwise have been hostile to him, by letting them have estates of the proscribed at a bargain. Lepidus, however, may have been a worthless man, in which case the split would be a matter of course: he set himself up as the avenger of the old Romans who had been ruined. Any party which rules by bloodshed, must necessarily split: many who had shared in the intoxication of the moment, were afterwards ashamed of it, and now banded themselves together in the cause of humanity. Catulus, the colleague of Lepidus, was an honest man, and devoted heart and soul to Sylla. He undoubtedly had approved of his atrocities in some measure; but he himself was a man of honour to whom no foul deed could be imputed; he had kept himself pure from the purchase of ill-gotten property. As he was a person of great experience, he was looked upon as a judicious adviser, and enjoyed on the whole a great deal of consideration; whilst Lepidus, on the contrary, was not respected at all.

Elements of agitation were not wanting. The old inhabitants of the military colonies were driven from their abodes, with the exception of those who, like Ofellus in Horace, kept their estates as tenants of the new _colonus_ (of these there were probably a great number). Thousands from the Etruscan and Umbrian municipal towns roamed about as beggars, ready to fight at any time for whatever cause might engage them: many soldiers of Sylla, who had already run through the land which they had gotten, were likewise to be had. The senate, seeing in the enterprise of Lepidus the beginning of fresh misery, made Catulus and Lepidus swear not to take up arms against each other. This answered so long as they were in Rome. In those days,--owing perhaps to a regulation of Sylla’s,--it was the custom for the consuls not to leave Rome during their year of office, and it was only after its expiration that they went to their provinces. As soon then as his consulship was over, Lepidus betook himself into Gaul, and the war broke out; he himself in Etruria, and in Cisalpine Gaul M. Brutus, a kinsman of the last Brutus, had gathered together a great number of desperadoes. An attempt of his on Rome was foiled, Catulus having been wise enough to get reinforcements; and thus the whole undertaking burst like a bubble. After a slight engagement, Lepidus himself gave up all hope, and fled to Sardinia where he died. His soldiers at first roved about for some time in Gaul, under his lieutenant M. Perperna; afterwards, they went to Sertorius in Spain. M. Brutus was defeated by Pompey, and put to death.

Infinitely more important was the war of Sertorius, of which we should have been glad to have read a circumstantial account in Sallust. What was the number of books in his _Historiæ_, we can no longer tell exactly: we have many quotations from the first five; but these could by no means have been all. From the fragments of the speeches, we may presume, that they went down from the war of Lepidus, to which without doubt the history of Sisenna reached, to the end of the war of Pompey in Asia. In this work, Sallust may in some degree have adopted the form of annals, which otherwise he could not bear. It was the last of his works, the Catiline having been the first.

Sertorius was a Sabine of by no means high birth, of Nursia, a _præfectura_ where Vespasian also was born, and which even long afterwards was proverbial for its old-fashioned sternness (_durities Nursina_). It is a kind of Alpine valley in the midst of the Apennines (_val di Norcia_), and it only lost its freedom owing to the French revolution, before which time it was a small democratic republic, which even had the right of judging cases of life and death without any further appeal to Rome. On the whole, the different parts of the States of the Church were quite on a different footing; thus also Tivoli had such a free municipal constitution.[111] There is no book which can give us any insight into this state of things in Italy; it is quite unknown. The papal legate, or delegate, arbitrarily interfered, just like the proconsuls of old, though he had no formal powers of government. Some states were under the sternest baronial despotism; others had wretched communal constitutions; others again were real republics. In the march of Ancona, the towns had a diet with great privileges, a system, under which the country was very well off; but there were other places indeed in which the magistrates did just what they liked, there being no check upon them. In the States of the Church alone, there were probably a hundred petty commonwealths whose only point of union was the Pope. All this was done away with by the Revolution, and remained so, the system of præfects being introduced instead.

To this very day, the people of the Val di Norcia are looked upon as rough mountaineers, and indeed also as what the Italians call _facinorosi_. When they come to other parts of the country, they are very apt, from their wild habits, to become malefactors and banditti; but in their own home they behave very quietly, as an old Roman Abbé has assured me. In Cicero’s day, they bore the character of having kept up the old Sabellian manners in their purest state, like the Marsians, Hernicans, and Vestinians.[112]

Sertorius had risen by his valour alone. In the times of Cinna, he had delivered Rome from the freedmen of Marius; when Sylla came to Italy, he was a _legatus_ of the consuls. And now, when in the following year Carbo had managed affairs in Etruria in a hopelessly wretched way, he succeeded in getting a commission out in Spain to maintain that province for his party. Had he chanced to be at the head of Marius’ faction, (which was not the case, as he was above all intrigues,) he would have baffled the plans of Sylla. In Spain, not merely from policy, but because he was a man of noble mind, it was his aim to win over the Spaniards; wherever he could remedy their grievances, he did it, not treating them as despised provincials, but trying as much as possible to amalgamate them with the Romans: he thought of holding out in Spain, even when Italy was entirely lost. He had an army in the eastern Pyrenees, on the road which leads from the country between Perpignan and Collioure, with which he made head against the enemy under Livius[113] Salinator: but his men, after having already beaten off Annius whom Sylla had sent against them, were seduced to go over to the other side; on which he was forced to flee with a few followers who were true to him. This piece of treachery was part of Sylla’s astonishing luck. Sertorius at first roved over the sea, where the Romans had little power, and the pirates had greatly spread; then he tried for some time to maintain himself in Ivica. From thence he fled to the Lusitanians, who were the sworn foes of the Romans, and who trusted in his honour and uprightness; but as he could not stand his ground against overwhelming numbers, he embarked for Mauritania: there he declared for one of the two pretenders to the crown, and took Tangier, and got a great deal of booty. He was even thinking of withdrawing from public life altogether, and going to the Canary islands, so as to be out of the reach of Roman rule, and to live there in freedom; when there now came again to him an invitation from the Lusitanians, and with it the hope of being able to achieve something. The Roman commanders had, as usual, given vent to their rage in Spain, and had made the pursuit of Sertorius a pretext for plundering; Sylla moreover was dead, and in so distant a province, the belief that the fabric which he had built would fall to pieces, was quite natural. Romans and Spaniards declared for Sertorius; particularly the half-citizens (_hybridæ_), who, being the children of Roman soldiers by Spanish women, had no franchise, but yet considered themselves as Roman citizens, and had Roman names, and also spake both Roman and Spanish: they were the corner-stone of his power, the link which connected him with the Spaniards. Proscribed Romans who had hidden themselves hitherto, now came forward to join him; the Spaniards likewise, especially the Celtiberians, were filled with enthusiasm for him and took up arms.

As soon as he could look upon himself as having the chief command in Spain, he proceeded, according to a well-arranged plan, to change the Spaniards into Romans, so that they were to take their tone from Roman civilisation and Roman life; but he did not wish to sacrifice any of that loftiness which the Spanish character had of its own. He gathered from among the proscribed, and the other Romans who were scattered in the provinces, from among the _hybridæ_, and partly also, no doubt, from among the noble Spaniards, a senate of three hundred members, which is spoken of in history (_Sall._ Fragm.)[114] as _Senatus Hispanicus_; thus making a Rome out of Rome. Then he established at Osca, a town in the north of Spain (the Huesca of the present day), an academy, into which he got together the sons of the most distinguished men, and had them instructed in the Roman language and grammar, according to the ancient meaning of that word. They were also, like the young Romans of rank, adorned with the _bulla_ and dressed in the _prætexta_; it is evident that he secured to them the Roman franchise. These boys were at the same time to be to him the hostages for the fidelity of the parents, a thing which was very necessary, owing to the capricious disposition of the Spaniards. There was moreover formed around him a body-guard of men who, according to a custom which was peculiar to the Spaniards, took a vow not to survive him, and therefore in fighting for him, fought also for their own lives: this he readily agreed to, and it was a very numerous band. He also worked on their imagination, addressing himself to their own fancies. We need not assume with Plutarch, that it was trickery and cunning: it is very possible that, living among them, he shared their prejudices, when he treated a white hind as a fairy who disclosed to him the future. I believe that he was open to such impressions, like his master and instructor Marius.

The war lasted eight years from his first appearance in Spain to his death; but in fact there were not more than six years from the time when, after the downfall of his party, he placed himself at the head of the Spaniards. The Romans sent Q. Metellus--called _Pius_ on account of his filial love to his father Q. Metellus Numidicus--against him into Bætica. Metellus was at first successful; but Sertorius soon gained more and more the advantage over him, so that the Romans gave the command to Cn. Pompey.

Cn. Pompey, at that time, was still of the equestrian order, that is to say, he had not yet held any office which entitled him to be chosen into the senate; he was about thirty years old. It is very difficult to speak at all decidedly of Pompey, as he is not one of those characters, like Marius, Sylla, Sertorius, or Cæsar, the outlines of which are distinct and marked; it is even hard to say whether he was a great general or not. He was one of those whose high position depends on their having been, if not altogether, at least to a certain degree favoured by fortune; he had not sufficient strength and greatness of soul to display the same bearing throughout a whole life, even in misfortune itself. There can be no mistake as to his having greatly distinguished himself under Sylla in the Social War, as the latter, who certainly was a competent judge on this point, particularly esteemed him. In the war of Sertorius, Pompey undoubtedly showed himself very different from Metellus, although Sertorius was superior to him in generalship; the war against the pirates was uncommonly well planned and speedily executed; the war with Mithridates was not a difficult one to carry on, still he was quick and resolute, and turned every circumstance to good account. Yet from the time of his triumph over Mithridates to the civil war against Cæsar, he appears to have been any thing but great, either as a citizen or a statesman. In the madness of his folly he wants to crush Cæsar, yet he is intimidated by the factions; just in the same way, he quailed before the faction of Clodius, and he was mean towards Cæsar, to whose superiority he was wilfully blind: he behaved like a trimmer and a thorough coward in the affair of Cicero’s impeachment, and he never could be trusted as a friend. In his youth, during the war of Sylla, he showed himself cruel; and Cicero entertains no doubt but that in his old age, he would, if victorious, have renewed the proscriptions of Sylla. Nor is he much to be praised for any other great qualities: in eloquence and education he was nothing remarkable, he was even below mediocrity.

His head on his statues and busts, which we have no reason not to believe true likenesses, has something vulgar and coarse about it; in that of Cæsar’s, we see the full expression of his vast and quick intellect. Pompey from weakness was at different times a different man, and had very much fallen off in his later years, though he was not more than fifty-six when he died: in his youth he was a much abler man.

In several campaigns, (in two of them especially,) Sertorius succeeded so well, that Metellus had to retreat to Andalusia, and Pompey across the Pyrenees, whilst he himself was able to return quietly into winter-quarters. Had the Spaniards only stood by each other, he would certainly have beaten both of these enemies; but he had just as much to struggle against the traitors among the Spaniards as against the Romans themselves. In two battles, on the Guadalquivir and on the Sucro, he withstood the united forces of the two Roman generals, and in both, one wing of each army was victorious; but as the Spaniards did not remain true to him, he got at last into very serious difficulties, notwithstanding all the readiness of his inventive mind. Many towns fell away from him; but in other quarters he met with all that faithful attachment is able to do: when Calagurris held out against a very sharp siege, he did his utmost to relieve it, in which he was also at length successful. Yet the cowardice and faithlessness of several towns goaded him into an action which is a stain upon his life: he even sold their hostages for slaves. It is true that other generals have often behaved in the same way; but yet he ought not to have done it, as it was at variance with his noble-heartedness, and his power was altogether a moral one: the consequence of it was, that the attachment of the other towns began likewise to waver.

With Sertorius was M. Perperna, a Roman of very high rank, probably a son of the consular M. Peperna: to judge from his name, he was most likely of Etruscan extraction, _-na_ being an Etruscan termination which corresponds to the Roman _-ius_.[115] He had gathered together the remnants of the soldiers of Lepidus, and had wished at first to carry on the war by himself; but he was forced by his own troops to lead them over from Sardinia into Spain, and to acknowledge Sertorius as commander-in-chief. This man conspired with some other Romans against Sertorius, who before that had already had several persons executed for plots of this kind; owing to this circumstance, Perperna found many who were ready to join him. Sertorius was murdered at a feast. At his funeral, an incredible number of Spaniards, faithful to their vow, fell by each other’s hands. Perperna was from necessity acknowledged as general; but in the first engagement with Pompey, he was utterly routed, taken prisoner, and put to death.[116]

SERVILE WAR. SPARTACUS. M. LICINIUS CRASSUS.

Pompey was now made consul: he was the favourite of the people, as it was expected that he would restore the tribuneship. In no other way can I account for this enthusiasm. It might indeed much rather have been felt for Cæsar, whose nature was such that no worthy hearted man could come near him without loving him, even as Cicero in truth was always fond of him: it is a very noble want of the people, that it longs so often to find an object for its enthusiasm. Pompey had not yet been invested with any curule dignity; notwithstanding which, he was consul with Crassus, a man with whom he was at that time on such ill terms, that the Romans trembled lest the two foes should take up arms against each other. But at the urgent entreaties of the senate they made up their quarrel, and both of them behaved like honourable men; for during nineteen years afterwards they never were really enemies again, and they sometimes even appeared to be very good friends.

Crassus had gained his importance as the conqueror of Spartacus. About three[117] years after Sylla’s death, Spartacus, a Thracian, had with forty, others say with seventy-four gladiators, broken out of a barrack of gladiators at Capua. There is a house at Pompeii which is very like a barrack, with rooms in which arms were found, and which has therefore been called the soldiers’ quarters. The very fact that there should have been a garrison at Pompeii, seemed to me quite incredible; but on closer examination, I recognised the arms as being of the same description as those described by Livy as having been in use among the Samnites, which were afterwards adopted by the Campanians, and then by the gladiators; there is therefore no doubt but that it was a _ludus gladiatorius_, which we must thus suppose to have been a building of this kind, in which the gladiators were shut up at night. The number of the gladiators had gone on increasing; as the rage for them among the Romans had daily become greater, and such games were the surest means by which the men of rank could make themselves popular.

Spartacus, after having broken out, escaped with his followers to mount Vesuvius: he must have been a very great man, and would undoubtedly have proved himself to be one in any other position. The volcano had at that time quite burnt out: there was on it an old tumbled-down crater very difficult of access, in which they hid themselves, and whither immense crowds of slaves, of which there were then great numbers in Italy, ran to join them. Spartacus at first formed a band of robbers; and when troops were sent to surround and take him, he gave them the slip, and defeated the Romans with much loss on their side. By this means, the slaves began to be provided with good arms; hitherto they had made their own weapons themselves, as well as they could. Spartacus now proclaimed the freedom of the slaves. Lower Italy was in those days either altogether lying waste, or it was overrun by slaves, all of whom forthwith hastened to him: the freemen had so much dwindled since the devastations of Sylla, that there was no one at hand to check the insurrection. It is strange that among the slaves Germans also are positively mentioned: of these there cannot now have been many from the Teutones; they must have come thither from the Gauls by _commercium_. The leaders ruled with dictatorial power; Spartacus was a Thracian, Crixus and Oenomaus were Gauls. The war lasted until the third year. Two consular, and three prætorian armies were utterly routed; a great number of towns like Nola, Grumentum, Thurii, very likely also Compsa in the country of the Hirpinians, were taken and sacked with the atrocious cruelty which might have been looked for in a horde of bandits; we know but the smallest part of these horrors. Crassus defeated them in the third year. They had large forges for making arms, and did not shrink from the mighty thought of conquering the greater part of Italy, not to speak of destroying Rome itself. Rome would have been obliged to concentrate her power from all quarters, had not quarrels arisen among the rebels themselves, owing to which they split into three different bodies, each of which was hostile to the others; thus Crassus was enabled to defeat them one by one. Near Petilia in Lucania, he gained the last decisive victory; and he followed it up with the same cruelty which the German princes displayed after the Peasants’ War in the sixteenth century. Every where prisoners were seen speared, hung up mangled on the highways, and tortured to death. The devastations of southern Italy have indeed never been so completely repaired, as to restore it to the same condition as that to which it had reached before the Marsian war; yet I fully believe, that even its present wretched state is better, and that its inhabitants are more numerous, than in the most prosperous times under the emperors. The free population was quite rooted out, the towns were laid waste, and the few places which are mentioned of Lucania in the itineraries, were hardly anything else but posting stages; the whole country moreover was turned into large estates which were used for the breeding of cattle, especially of horses. The number of monuments which one finds of the towns of that period, is incredibly small.

SECOND AND THIRD WAR AGAINST MITHRIDATES.

At the same time, Rome was carrying on a war in Asia, against Mithridates. It was also in fact the third against him, and it had sprung out of the one with Sertorius: others, however, call it the second.

After Sylla had left Asia, Mithridates fulfilled most of the conditions of the peace; he gave Bithynia to Nicomedes, and Paphlagonia to the prince set up by the Romans; he also had delivered up ships, money and prisoners; in Cappadocia alone, the surrender had not been complete. Yet he had likewise yielded up the greater part of that country to Ariobarzanes, the prince protected by Romans, and he had kept but a small part of it; nor can we blame his motives for doing so. Having faithfully performed every stipulation with the exception of this single point, he now demanded that the Romans should exchange the treaty in form, and that the peace should be ratified in a regular written document by the senate and people, as Sylla had promised him; for as yet he had but Sylla’s word. That he had not put forth these claims at once, was very naturally owing to Sylla’s wishing first to regain Italy himself. Afterwards, the blame lay not so much with Sylla, who was not false in such matters, as with the senate, which flatly refused to grant such a document.

L. Murena now proceeded to Cappadocia, and thence he made an inroad into Mithridates’ territory, and plundered the rich temple of Anaitis in Comana. Although Mithridates did everything in his power to avoid a collision, Murena carried things so far that a war broke out, in which he was worsted. After this, Mithridates still continued to declare with perfect truth, that he was only acting in self-defence; and he begged the Romans to ratify the treaty. Sertorius being still in arms, the Romans held their peace and took his excuses; but the treaties seem never to have been exchanged.

They left him in possession of that part of Cappadocia, and he affianced to Ariobarzanes one of his daughters who at that time was still a child. This is to be considered as the second Mithridatic War.

The last great war against Mithridates, a war which lasted even to the twelfth year, was brought about by Sertorius, who sent two proscribed persons (L. Marius, probably a Campanian new-citizen, and L. Fannius) to Mithridates, and made an alliance with him. It was stipulated that the latter should aid Sertorius with his naval forces, and place at his disposition the Cilician pirates, who were under his influence; Sertorius, on the other hand, was in the event of success to give up the whole of Asia to Mithridates.

END OF VOL. II.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Monte Pellegrino.--Germ. Edit.

[2] This number is stated in the Lex. Rhetoricum (Bekker Anecd. I. p. 298). Herodotus (VII. 184.) mentions eighty as the number of the crews of the penteconters. The number given in the text, rests only on one Manuscript of the lectures, but on a very trustworthy one.--Germ. Ed.

[3] One hundred quinqueremes, and twenty quadriremes. R. H. III, note 1053.--Germ. Edit.

[4] The elephants might perhaps have been introduced but a short time before from India, where they were in use from time immemorial: the Carthaginians had not yet employed them against Dionysius and Agathocles.

[5] The _legiones urbanæ_ likewise were only phalangites.

[6] This remark that the story of the horrid death of Regulus originated with the poem of Nævius, was not repeated by Niebuhr in the year 1829, which may perhaps justify the surmise, that he had afterwards abandoned this conjecture; yet it is not to be forgotten, that at that period he treated this point on the whole much more concisely.--Germ. Ed.

[7] Thus the Romans always learned from their enemies; they are also said to have told the Carthaginians in the beginning of the struggle, not to compel them to a war by sea, as they had always learned from their enemies, and then surpassed them.

[8] In some MSS. _grandson_, which is in contradiction to the Fasti, but seems more appropriate, as 58 years intervene between the consulship of the two.

[9] By this is to be understood that, previous to the fourth decade, the office itself is not yet mentioned at all in our Livy, but from thence, and in the fifth, more frequently. See Sigonius ad Liv. XXXIII. 21, 9.--Germ. Edit.

[10] In Suidas there is a touching story. When Antigonus Gonatas took Athens, which made a stout resistance, and was only compelled by famine to surrender, the old poet Philemon was still living in the Piræeus, whither he had removed, though not perhaps till after the downfall of the city. He was hoary with age, but still a hale old man, and his poetical powers had not yet left him. His last comedy was finished, all but one scene. He lay half dreaming on his couch, when he saw nine maidens in the room before him, who were just going away. Being asked who they were, and why they were leaving, they answered that he might well know them. They were the Muses: turning round towards him, they left him. Then he got up, finished his comedy, and died. Greek literature received its death-blow at the time of the loss of the Piræeus: the spirit may indeed be said to have fled from Greece.

[11] According to Justin, XLIII, extr., Trogus Pompeius was a Vocontian, from south-eastern Gaul. Conf. Niebuhr’s Lectures on Ancient History, p. 9.--Germ. Edit.

[12] Montepulciano. (Lectures of 1826)--Germ. Edit.

[13] XXI, 38. R. H. II, 589.--Germ. Edit.

[14] Mistake, instead of, “in Lacinium.” Polyb. III, 33, 18; 56, 4.--Germ. Edit.

[15] _Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Geschichte._

[16] When Bohemond, to check the Turks in the crusades, had corpses roasted, and shown to the ambassadors, this was a necessity. (See Wilken, History of the Crusades I, 87.)--Germ. Edit.

[17] Zonaras IX, 2. (from Dio Cassius). Appian. Pun. 63.--Germ. Edit.

[18] Cicero (de Oratore II, 18), in the anecdote of the rhetorician who expatiated before Hannibal on the excellencies of a general, says that Hannibal did not speak Greek well (_non optime Græce_).

[19] J. A. de Luc, Histoire du passage des Alpes par Annibal. Genève, 1818.

[20] See Leon. Aretino’s description of the roads and inhabitants of Tyrol in the fifteenth century, in his journey to Constance, which quite reminds one of the times of the Romans.

[21] So in the MSS. Probably Niebuhr made a slip of the tongue. According to Polybius, Lilybæum is the place.--Germ. Edit.

[22] In the year 1828, this assertion is expressed quite positively, “Sempronius came from Africa to Genoa,” in which of course the soldiers taking their oath that they would be at Rimini by an appointed time, is left out.--Germ. Edit.

[23] There seems to be a mistake here; but the MSS. agree in giving “Apennines.” What is to be placed instead, seems to me difficult to say for certain; perhaps “Ariminum.”--Germ. Edit.

[24] This name also seems incorrect; yet all the MSS. have either this, or another of a similar sound.

[25] The following account is borrowed from the lectures of 1826-7, which I think I ought not to suppress. “Whether Hannibal now marched along the Arno into the upper valley of that river, or whether he turned towards the district of Siena, is not to be decided. I believe that he did the latter, although Livy talks of a devastation of the upper valley of the Arno (very likely a figment of Cœlius Antipater); but in that case, Flaminius could not have executed his hapless march. Hannibal’s object must have been, not the laying waste of some Etrurian districts, but to gain the road to Rome; and that he also did. I believe therefore that on getting out of the swamps, he threw himself into the mountains of Chiusi. Flaminius heard of this movement, and tried by forced marches to reach the road to Rome. If my opinion be correct, even the description of Polybius is wrong; for according to his account, as well as that of Livy, Hannibal had passed by Cortona, and thrown himself between the mountains and the lake Trasimenus, and Flaminius had followed him: here Hannibal stopped, occupied the hills, and placed an ambush for Flaminius. In my opinion, both the generals went round the lake, but from different sides; otherwise it would be impossible that Flaminius had allowed himself to be surprised. If Hannibal had marched by that road, he would have passed within only a few leagues of Arezzo, and then Flaminius must have long known of his march; if, on the contrary, he went through the district of Siena by San Gemignano and Colle, all may be accounted for. We understand then, that Flaminius, who started in pursuit, was not able to catch him; that Hannibal came to the south side of the Trasimenus, whilst Flaminius imagined that he was already much further advanced on the road to Rome, and that he only intended to cut him off. Then it could happen that Hannibal took up his position on the south side of the lake, and placed his light troops around on the hills, between which and the lake the road lay. This could be done unknown to Flaminius, only when he was not aware, that Hannibal had taken this road.” Whilst elsewhere there is reason to presume, that wherever the later lectures differ from the earlier ones, Niebuhr had changed his views, and therefore, generally speaking, his last opinions only are given, the present case seems to have been different; and on this ground, the detailed discussion on the march of Hannibal has been inserted in this note.--Germ. Edit.

[26] V, 17. from Q. Claudius (_Quadrigarius_, _Annalium_ l. V.) and Macrob. Saturn. I, 16.--Germ. Edit.

[27] In the same manner there exist three different accounts of the death of Marcellus.

[28] According to Appian, they were 48,000 foot, 8,000 horse, and 15 elephants.

[29] Liv. XXXVIII, 56. Valer. Max. IV, I. 6. According to both passages, he was, however, to be appointed consul and _dictator_ for life.--Germ. Edit.

[30] Here follows in the lectures of 1829 a very brief review of the state of things in Italy after the war of Hannibal, which, however, to avoid repetitions, I have made into one with the more explicit account, which follows after the war of Antiochus.--Germ. Edit.

[31] The second war of Philip against the Romans is generally reckoned as the first Macedonian War; we more correctly so call the one which coincides with the war with Hannibal.

[32] See above, p. 48.

[33] When we read that Hannibal had changed the _ordo judicum_, this means without a doubt not the Suffetes, whom the Greeks always call βασιλεῖς, but the hundred or hundred and four of Aristotle, a power which was quite distinct from that of the constituted authorities of state, and was very like the state-inquisition at Venice.

[34] Diod. XVI. 91. Just. IX. 5.--Germ. Edit.

[35] A dollar (Prussian) = 3 shillings.--TRANS.

[36] St. Jerome, as he says, heard the same language in Phrygia which he had heard in Treves. This does not, however, refer to the Galatians; but St. Jerome probably had seen Germans, who at different times, especially Gothic ones under Theodosius, had settled in Phrygia. For it is to be considered as an undoubted fact, that Treves was German, and the Gallic language could have scarcely maintained itself in Asia to such a late period as his.

[37] II, 9.

[38] Ulixes was Siculian: in a temple in the island of Sicily, there was found some connexion with him. (Plut. Marc. c. 20.--Germ. Ed.)

[39] Circe was quite correctly placed in Circeii, which is the most ancient form of the fable.

[40] If this be meant for _S. C. de Bacchanalibus_, the quotation is a mistake, as that decree is not later than Plautus: probably instead of “_senatus consultum_” it ought to be said inscription, or a similar word, as undoubtedly the inscription of the _columna rostrata_ is meant.--Germ. Edit.

[41] See on the other hand vol. i., p. 17.--Germ. Edit.

[42] Niebuhr uses the English word.--Transl.

[43] Jul. Victor, p. 224. Or., and in the same place. Ang. Maius.--Germ. Ed.

[44] Fabr. Bibl. Gr. IV. 461.--Germ. Edit.

[45] Polyb. X. 9, 3.

[46] Gall. 12. A. U. C. 631. Appian.--Germ. Ed.

[47] P. Cornelius Cethegus and M. Bæbius Tamphilus, in the year of the city 571.--Germ. Ed.

[48] De Colon. ed. Goës, p. 106.--Germ. Ed.

[49] Plut. Æmil. Paull. 19.

[50] Schneider in his Latin grammar has a whole chapter on the name of _Perseus_. But all the Greek names ending in εύς had in the old Latin the termination _-es_, and were in the genitive case declined after the second declension. _Piraeeus_ makes in the genitive _Piraei_, (_Piraeei_ being a barbarism which is not to be met with in any MS.). _Perseus_ differs from the rest, in afterwards getting into the third declension. Its accusative is _Persen_: _Persum_ does not occur, but certainly _Piraeum_ does.

[51] This original opinion on the work of Polybius, which Niebuhr repeated several times (see R. H. III. p. 49.) is probably to be understood thus, that he makes the first edition reach to the conclusion of the thirtieth book, (one MS. states in this passage, books I. to XXVIII., in which very likely the first two books are not included,) and considers the rest as added in the second edition.--Germ. Edit.

[52] This remark dates from 1826, and was therefore anterior to the emancipation of the Roman Catholics.--Germ. Ed.

[53] Liv. Epit. 48.

[54] Liv. Epit. 55.

[55] Schol. Bob. in Orat. pro Sulla. (Orelli vol. V. P. 2. p. 361.) In Liv. XL, 19, the reading is very doubtful, see the commentators, whence the supposition, that the law dates from Sulla. Others refer this _Lex Cornelia_ to the consul Cn. Cornelius Dolabella (595), quoting Liv. Epit. 47.--Germ. Edit.

[56] In several very good MSS., there is here the following reading, “but probably later than is generally assumed; it must have been shortly before the last war with Rome.” The editor quotes this, since there are no arguments given, for deciding the question; yet the reading inserted in the text, seems to be more correct, as the general belief places the war of Masinissa very close indeed to the outbreak of the third Punic war.--Germ. Edit.

[57] In the received editions of the Capitoline Fasti, the name _Æmilianus_ at the year 618 (19) seems genuine, we also meet with _Æmiliano Scipioni_, Cic. Phil. XIII. 4, 9.--Germ. Ed.

[58] There have been published of him, “J. E. Humbert, Notice sur quatre cippes sepulcraux, et deux fragmens decouverts en 1817 sur le sol de l’ancienne Carthage, à la Haye 1821.” The papers of Borgia, which seem to be at Naples, are made use of in H. F. J. Estrup _Lineæ topographicæ Carthaginis Tyriæ Hafn._ 1821. 8.--Germ. Ed.

[59] _Literally_, “villages as large as Sinzig.”

[60] Thonium in Locris 1829, probably a _lapsus linguæ_.--Germ. Ed.

[61] If in the Epitome of Livy the time of his war is stated as being fourteen years, one is to add the former war, in which he already distinguished himself in a separate command among the Lusitanians.

[62] See above, p. 60.

[63] Zumpt’s annals are very recommendable in their way.

[64] I know of no passage where this is stated. May this not perhaps have been a mistake for Blæsus, who has written Rhintonian pieces?--Germ. Edit.

[65] See vol. I., p. 251.

[66] Ibid. p. 398.

[67] These words are in the original.

[68] In Liv. XXXI, 4. Lucania is not mentioned.--Germ. Edit. II.

[69] I have supplied this name merely from conjecture: the MSS. have _Solino_, a place which I do not find.--Germ. Ed.

[70] This English word is in the original.

[71] A mistake, very likely from misreading the academical shorthand of the MSS. It should be, _the queen_, the quotation being from the mock tragedy “Esther” in the _Jahrmarkt Zu Plundersweilern_.--TRANSL.

[72] Olive plantations especially are only productive after a long time, so that an ejectment renders entirely fruitless a very great amount of labour bestowed upon them.

[73] For Niebuhr reads Liv. Epit. LVIII, _ne quis ex publica agro plus quam M jugera possideret_. R. H. vol. II., p. 150.--Germ. Edit.

[74] See vol. I., p. 401.

[75] This is one of the instances, when Niebuhr was cut short by the close of the hour in the middle of an idea, the thread of which he did not carefully take up at the beginning of the next lecture.--Germ. Edit.

[76] In Plutarch, _Vit. C. Gracch._, on the contrary, it is stated, ἐνέστησαν _οἱ πολλοὶ_ καὶ κατέλυσαν τὴν κρίσιν ὑπὲρ τοῦ Γαΐου φοβηθέντες, μὴ περιπετὴς τῇ αἰτίᾳ τοῦ φόνου ζητουμένου γένηται, which, when applying to C. Gracchus, is hardly substantiated.--Germ. Ed.

[77] It is now printed in _Auctores classici e Vaticanis Codd. editi, cur. Ang. Majo_, _Vol._ II. _Rom._ 1828. (_Schol. Bobiensia in Cic. Milon. c. 7. in Orelli V._ 2. p. 283.)

[78] This is perhaps to be modified thus, that this formula here occurs for the first time since the abolition of the dictatorship (in the middle of the sixth century): it is, on the whole, very old, and we meet with it for the first time in the year 290. Liv. III, 4.--Germ. Edit.

[79] _Cantharidas sumpsisse dicitur._ _Cic. Fam._ IX. 21: it was another Cn. Papirius Carbo, who put an end to himself by means of _atramentum sutorium_. _Cic. ibid._--Germ. Edit.

[80] I cannot answer for the correctness of the name; it occurs, indistinctly written, only in one of my MSS. of 1826-7.--Germ. Edit.

[81] See Bentl. ad Hor. Carm. IV, 8, 17; who, however, strikes out that line, from metrical reasons also. Others conjecture that there is a hiatus in that passage.--Germ. Edit.

[82] In vol. I, p. 258, and R. H. II, 195, the Cassii are considered as plebeians: our passage dates from 1826-7; the former one from 1828-9.--Germ. Edit.

[83] Conf. vol. I, p. 367.

[84] Bonn is here spoken of.--TRANSL.

[85] Cicero does not seem to say this quite so explicitly in Brutus 62, 224. Longe autem post natos homines improbissimus C. Servilius Glaucia, sed peracutus et callidus imprimisque ridiculus--homo simillimus Atheniensis Hyperboli, cujus improbitatem veteres Atticorum comœdiæ notaverunt. Conf. de Orat. II, 61, 249; 65, 263.--Germ. Edit.

[86] Cic. ad Att. III. 23. pro Cæcina 33. Walter’s History of the Roman law (_Geschichte des Römischen Rechts_), 2d edit., vol. II., p. 12, notes 45 & 46.--Germ. Ed.

[87] Valer. Maxim. III, 4, 5. Whether M. Peperna, who was consul in the year 622 is the same person as the consul of the year 660, who was censor in 666, is no more to be made out; yet it is possible, as according to Plin. _H. N._ vii, 49, he reached the age of eighty-nine years. But in that case the censorship would be later than the _lex Licinia et Mucia_, and the proposition would be untenable. If they be two different persons, the words “and the censorship” in the text are to be cast out. But the matter is not quite certain, as in Valerius Maximus it is said, _lege Papia_, which altogether clashes with the account as given above.--Germ. Edit.

[88] Vol. I., p. 167.

[89] De Orat. I, 7, 24.

[90] Diod. Exc. Vatic., p. 128., Dind.--Germ. Ed.

[91] In the year 1827, Niebuhr had remarked, “Now we shall probably know soon some further details about it, thanks to the fragments of Diodorus discovered by Maï, if they be really new ones.”--Germ. Ed.

[92] See above, p. 130.

[93] The prænomen is not to be made out with certainty. See _Orellii Onomast. Tull._ _s. v._ p. 256.--Germ. Edit.

[94] In Terence, in the Eunuchus and the Adelphi, the name indeed occurs, but not in the character which it had afterwards.--Germ. Edit.

[95] Mistake instead of Diodorus Siculus (Fragm. l. xxxvii).--Germ. Ed.

[96] Vol. I, p. 450.

[97] Appian 1, 49. In the year 1827, Niebuhr made the emendation δεκατρεῖς, explaining the number VIII from XIII.--Germ. Edit.

[98] Dio Cass. fragm. I. 27. CLXVI. App. I. 68.--Germ. Ed.

[99] This passage, which is of the year 1827, and is given with the same conciseness in all the MSS. which are at my disposition, is only to be interpreted by conjecture. Probably it is _Epist. Cœl. ad Cic._ (Fam. viii.) 14, 3. _In hac discordia video Cn. Pompeium senatum, quique res judicant, secum habiturum: ad Cæsarem omnes_, QUI CUM TIMORE AUT MALA SPE VIVANT, _accessuros: exercitum conferendum non esse omnino_.--Germ. Ed.

[100] Appian I. 84.--Germ. Edit.

[101] Two thousand six hundred according to App. I, 103, in which number, however, all the knights who perished in this war are included.--Germ. Ed.

[102] Cic. Cat. III. 6. § 14. On the other hand, Frontin. de colon. p. 112. Goes. Colonia Florentina deducta a III viris assignata lege Julia.--Germ. Ed.

[103] H. N. XIV. 8. 2?--Germ. Ed.

[104] This is evidently a slip of the memory, the passage of Asconius (in Pisonianam, p. 3, Orellii) running thus, _Magno opere me hæsitare confiteor, quid sit quare Cicero Placentiam municipium esse dicit. Video enim in annalibus eorum qui Punicum bellum scripserunt tradi, Placentiam deductam pridie Kal. Jun., primo anno eius belli, P. Cornelio Scipione, patre Africani prioris, Ti. Sempronio Longo Coss._ &c.--Germ. Ed.

[105] Conf. vol. I, p. 523.

[106] The _Pontifex Maximus_ was included among these.

[107] Dr. Schmitz has already remarked in vol. I, p. 416, of his version (published under the title of History of Rome from the first Punic War to the death of Constantine, by B. G. Niebuhr, in a series of lectures Lond. 1844), that this number does not rest upon any direct authority. Cic. _ad Att._ I, 14, 5, states the number of voters in the senate in a certain affair to have been about 415, fifteen having voted on one side, and on the other, _facile_ 400; from which we may safely conclude that the sum total must have been larger. In the I. Maccab. 8, 15, at the end, therefore, of the sixth century, the number is mentioned to have been 320; yet when we consider the other statements which are made in that passage, we must not lay too much stress upon it.--Germ. Edit.

[108] In 1827 Niebuhr expressed himself on this point in the following manner:--

“That the result of his legislation could not have satisfied him, was in the very nature of things, and therefore he who had shed so much blood to get the government into his own hands, resigned the dictatorship two years after he had been appointed to it, as he saw the uselessness of his institutions, which he had established at the cost of so many atrocities. This is the most natural way of accounting for his resignation, which has been so much talked of: it was a mistake of very judicious people, to hunt out reasons for it which were too far-fetched.”--Germ. Edit.