Chapter I: The Gracchi: the First Mithridatic War: Marius

AND SULLA (146-78 B.C.).

CONDITION OF ROME.--We come now to an era of internal strife. The Romans were to turn their arms against one another: Yet it is remarkable that the march of foreign conquest still went on. It was by conquests abroad that the foremost leaders in the civil wars rose to the position which enabled them to get control in the government at home. The power of the _Senate_ had been more and more exalted. Foreign affairs were mainly at its disposal. The increase in the number of voters in the _comitia_, and their motley character, made it more easy for the aristocracy to manage them. Elections were carried by the influence of largesses and by the exhibition of games. Practically the chief officers were limited to a clique, composed of rich families of both patrician and plebeian origin, which was diminishing in number, while the numbers of the lower class were rapidly growing larger. The gulf between the poor and the rich was constantly widening. The last Italian colony was sent out in 177 B.C., and the lands of Italy were all taken up. Slaves furnished labor at the cost of their bare subsistence. It was hard for a poor man to gain a living. Had the _Licinian Laws_ (p. 137) been carried out, the situation would have been different. The public lands were occupied by the members of some forty or fifty aristocratic families, and by a certain number of wealthy Italians. A great proletariate--a needy and disaffected lower class--was growing up, which boded no good to the state.

TIBERIUS GRACCHUS.--This condition of things moved _Tiberius Gracchus_, the son of _Cornelia_, who was the daughter of the great _Scipio Africanus_, to bring forward his _Agrarian Laws_. The effect of them would have been to limit the amount of the public domain which any one man could hold, and to divide portions of it among poor citizens. In spite of the bitter opposition of the nobility, these laws were passed (133). But _Gracchus_ had been obliged to persuade the people to turn a tribune, who resisted their passage, out of office, which was an unconstitutional act. In order to carry out the laws, he would have to be re-elected tribune. But the _optimates_, led by the consul _Scipio Nasica_, had been still more infuriated by other proposals of _Gracchus_. They raised a mob, and slew him, with three hundred of his followers. This gave the democratic leaders a temporary advantage; but violent measures on their own side turned the current again the other way, and proceedings under the laws were quashed.

CAIUS GRACCHUS.--The laws of _Caius Gracchus_, the brother of Tiberius, were of a more sweeping character. He caused measures to be passed, and colonies to be sent out, by decrees of the people, without any action of the Senate. He renewed the agrarian law. He caused a law to be passed for selling corn for less than the cost, to all citizens who should apply for it. He also caused it to be ordained, that juries should be taken from the knights, the _equites_, instead of the Senate. These were composed of rich men. The tendency of the law would be to make the equestrian order distinct, and thus to divide the aristocracy. The proposal (122), which was not passed, to extend the franchise to the Latins, and perhaps to the Italians, cost him his popularity, although the measure was just. The Senate gave its support to a rival tribune, _M. Livius Drusus_, who outbid _Gracchus_ in the contest for popular favor. In 121 _Gracchus_ was not made tribune. In the disorder that followed, he, with several hundred of his followers, was killed by the _optimates_. Before long most of his enactments were reversed. The law for the cheap sale of corn, the most unwise of his measures, continued.

THE JUGURTHINE WAR.--An interval of tranquility followed. But the corruption of the ruling class was illustrated in connection with the Jugurthine war. _Jugurtha_, the adopted son of the king of _Numidia_, the ally of Rome, wishing the whole kingdom for himself, killed one of the sons of the late king, and made war upon the other, who applied to the Romans for help. The commission sent out by the Senate was bribed by _Jugurtha_. Not until he took the city of _Cirta_, and put to death the remaining brother, with all his army, was he summoned to Rome. There, too, his money availed to secure him impunity, although he caused a Numidian prince to be murdered in Rome itself. When the Romans finally entered on the war with _Jugurtha_, he bribed the generals, so that little was effected. The indignation of the people was raised to such a pitch that they would not leave the direction of the war in the hands of _Quintus Metellus_, whom the Senate had sent out, and who defeated _Jugurtha_ (108), but insisted on giving the chief command to one of his subordinate officers, _Caius Marius_ (107), the son of a peasant, wild and rough in his manners, but of extraordinary talents as a soldier. He brought the war to an end. _Jugurtha_ was delivered up by the prince with whom he had taken refuge to _L. Cornelius Sulla_, one of the generals under _Marius_, and in 105, with his two sons, marched in chains before the triumphal car of _Marius_ through the streets of Rome. _Marius_ was now the leader of the popular party, and the most influential man in Rome.

THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.--The power of _Marius_ was augmented by his victories over the _Cimbri_ and the _Teutones_. These were hordes of barbarians who appeared in the Alpine regions, the _Cimbri_ being either _Celts_, or, like the _Teutones_, _Germans_. The _Cimbri_ crossed the Alps in 113, and defeated a Roman consul. They turned westward towards the Rhine, traversed Gaul in different directions, defeating through a series of years the Roman armies that were sent against them. These defeats the democratic leaders ascribed, not without reason, to the corrupt management of the aristocratic party. In 103 the _Cimbri_ and the _Teutones_ arranged for a combined attack on Italy. _Marius_ was made consul; and in order to meet this threatened invasion, which justly excited the greatest anxiety, he was chosen to this office five times in succession (104-100). Having repulsed the attack of the barbarians on his camp, he defeated them in two great battles, the first at _Aquce Sextice_ (Aix in Provence) in 102, and the second at _Vercellce_, in Upper Italy, in 101. These successes, which really saved Rome, made _Marius_ for the time the idol of the popular party.

THE ARMY.--At about this time a great change took place in the constitution of the army. The occupation of a soldier had become a trade. Besides the levy of citizens, there was established a recruiting system, which drew into the ranks the idle and lazy, and a system of re-inforcements, by which cavalry and light-armed troops were taken from subject and vassal states. Thus there arose a military class, distinct, as it had not been of old, from the civil orders, and ready to act separately when its own interest or the ambition of favorite leaders might prompt.

SATURNINUS.--_Marius_ lacked the judgment and the firmness required by a statesman, especially in troublous times. When _Saturninus_ and _Glaucia_ brought forward a series of measures of a radical character in behalf of the democratic cause, and the consul _Metellus_, who opposed them, was obliged to go into voluntary exile, _Marius_, growing ashamed of the factious and violent proceedings of the popular party, was partially won over to the support of the Senate. When _C. Memmius_, candidate for consul, was killed with bludgeons by the mob of _Saturninus_ and _Glaucia_, and there was fighting in the forum and the streets, he helped to put down these reckless innovators (99). But his want of hearty cooperation with either party made him hated by both. _Metellus_ was recalled from banishment. _Marius_ went to Asia, and visited the court of _Mithridates._

THE MURDER OF DRUSUS.--Nearly ten years of comparative quiet ensued. The long continued complaints of the Italians found at last a voice in the measures of _M. Livius Drusus,_ a tribune, who, in 91, proposed that they should have the right of citizenship. Two other propositions, one referring to the relations of the _Equites_ and the _Senate,_ and the other for a new division of lands, had been accepted by the people, but were by the Senate declared null. Before _Drusus_ could bring forward the law respecting Italian citizenship, he was assassinated. Neither Senate nor people was favorable to this righteous measure.

THE ITALIAN OR SOCIAL WAR (90-88 B.C.).--The murder of _Drusus_ was the signal for an insurrection of the _Italian_ communities. They organized for themselves a federal republic. The peril occasioned by this great revolt reconciled for the moment the contending parties at Rome. In the North, where _Marius_ fought, the Romans were generally successful: in the South, the allies were at first superior; but in 89, in spite of _Sulla's_ bold forays, they were worsted. But it was by policy, more than by arms, that the Romans subdued this dangerous revolt. They promised full citizenship to those who had not taken part in the war, and to those who would at once cease to take part in it (90). Finally, when it was plain that Rome was too strong to be overcome, the conflict was ended by granting to the allies all that they had ever claimed (89). Rome had now made ALL ITALY (south of _Cisalpine Gaul_), except the _Samnites_ and _Lucanians,_ EQUAL WITH HERSELF. But Italy had been ravaged by desolating war: the number of small proprietors was more than ever diminished, and the army and the generals were becoming the predominant force in the affairs of the state.

WAR WITH MITHRIDATES.--_Mithridates,_ king of Pontus, in the north-east of Asia Minor, was as ardent an enemy of the Romans as Hannibal had been. With the help of his son-in-law _Tigranes,_ king of Armenia, he had subdued the neighboring kings in alliance with Rome. The Asiatic states, who were ruled by the Romans, were impatient of the oppression under which they groaned. When checked by the Romans, _Mithridates_ had paused for a while, and then had resumed again his enterprise of conquest. In 88 the Grecian cities of Asia joined him; and, in obedience to his brutal order, all the Italians within their walls, not lelss than eighty thousand in number, but possibly almost double that number, were put to death in one day. The whole dominion of the Romans in the East was in jeopardy.

MARIUS AND SULLA.--_Sulla_ was elected consul in 88, and was on the point of departing for Asia. He was a soldier of marked talents, a representative of the _aristocratic_ party, and was more cool and consistent in his public conduct than _Marius_. _Marius_ desired the command against _Mithridates_ for himself. _P. Sulpicius_, one of his adherents, brought forward a revolutionary law for incorporating the Italians and freedmen among the thirty-five tribes. The populace, under the guidance of the leaders of the Marian faction, voted to take away the command from _Sulla_, and to give it to _Marius_. _Sulla_ refused to submit, and marched his army to Rome. It was impossible to resist him. _Sulpicius_ was killed in his flight. _Marius_ escaped from Italy, and, intending to go to Africa, was landed at _Minturnae_. To escape pursuit, he had to stand up to the chin in a marsh. He was put in prison, and a Gaulish slave was sent to kill him. But when he saw the flashing eyes of the old general, and heard him cry, "Fellow, darest thou kill _Caius Marius_?" he dropped his sword, and ran. _Marius_ crossed to Africa. Messengers who were sent to warn him to go away, found him sitting among the ruins of Carthage.

THE MARIANS IN ROME.--_Sulla_ restored the authority of the Senate. During _Sulla's_ absence, _Cinna_, the consul of the popular party, sought to revive the laws of _Sulpicius_ by violent means (87). Driven out of the city, he came back with an army which he had gathered in _Campania_, and with old Marius, who had returned from Africa. He now took vengeance on the leaders of the _Optimates_. For five days the gates were closed, and every noble who was specially obnoxious, and had not escaped, was killed by _Marius_, who marched through the streets at the head of a body of soldiers. In 86 _Marius_ and _Cinna_ were made consuls. _Sulla_ was declared to be deposed. _Marius_, who was now more than seventy years old, died (86). The fever of revenge, and the apprehension of what might follow on _Sulla's_ return, drove sleep from his eyelids. A brave soldier, he was incompetent to play the part of a statesman. He went to his grave with the curse of all parties resting upon him.

RETURN OF SULLA.--_Sulla_ refused to do any thing against his adversaries at home, or for the help of the fugitive nobles who appealed to him, until the cause of the country was secure abroad. He captured _Athens_ in 86, defeated _Archelaus_, the general of _Mithridates_, in a great battle at _Chaeronea_; and, by this and subsequent victories, he forced _Mithridates_ to conclude peace, who agreed to evacuate the Roman province of Asia, to restore all his conquests, surrender eighty ships of war, and pay three thousand talents (84). _Sulla's_ hands were now free. In 83 he landed at _Brundisium_. He was joined by _Cneius Pompeius_, then twenty-three years old, with a troop of volunteers. _Sulla_ did not wish to fight the Italians. He issued a proclamation, therefore, giving them the assurance that their rights would not be impaired. This pledge had the desired effect. The army of the _Consuls_ largely outnumbered his own. _Sulla_ lingered in South Italy to make good his position there. The _Samnites_ joined the _Marians_, and moved upon Rome with the intent to destroy it. They were defeated before they could enter the city. The _Marians_ in Spain were defeated afterwards, as were the same party in _Sicily_ and _Africa_ by _Pompeius_.

CRUELTY OF SULLA.--The cruelty of Sulla, after his victory, was more direful than Rome had ever witnessed. It appeared to spring from no heat of passion, but was cold and shameless. After a few days, there was a massacre of four thousand prisoners in the _Circus_. Their shrieks and groans were heard in the neighboring Temple of _Bellona_, where Sulla was in consultation with the Senate. Many thousands--not far from three thousand in Rome alone--were proscribed and murdered, and the property of all on these lists of the condemned was confiscated.

THE LAWS OF SULLA.--In his character as _Dictator_, _Sulla_ remade the constitution, striking out the popular elements to a great extent, and concentrating authority in the _Senate_. The _Tribunes_ were stripped of most of their power. The _Senate_ alone could propose laws. In the Senate, the places in the juries were given back (p. 154). Besides these and other like changes, the right of suffrage was bestowed on ten thousand emancipated slaves; while _Italians_ and others, who had been on the Marian side, were deprived of it. In the year 80 B.C., _Sulla_ caused himself to be elected _Consul_. The next year he retired from office to his country estate, and gave himself up to amusements and sensual pleasure. A part of his time--for he was not without a taste for literature--he devoted to the writing of his memoirs, which, however, have not come down to us. He died in 78.