Chapter XIX: Conclusion: Of the Second Punic War (4)

The aristocratic party, perceiving this, resolved to beat him with his own weapons; and they prevailed upon M. Livius Drusus, his colleague in the tribuneship, to outbid him by all sorts of extravagances for the prize of popularity. When Gracchus proposed to distribute land among the poor at a small fixed rental, Drusus moved, by way of amendment, that they should have it for nothing at all; and as to the corn in the public granaries, if Gracchus said the people ought to have it at half price, Drusus would insist upon their right to be paid for the trouble of walking away with it. The people, as a matter of course, followed the man who was most profuse in his promises, rather than him who had been the most liberal in his performances. Caius Gracchus was, in the mean time, induced to go to Africa to mark out the ground for a new city. The reporters of the period--who were, no doubt, in the pay of his opponents--circulated all kinds of ill-natured stories, in which it was alleged that the omens had been unfavourable; that the flags had been blown down, or the pavement blown up; and that the wolves had eaten up every flag-staff--a thing not very easy to swallow. On his return to Rome, from which he had been absent only seventy days, he found Drusus amazingly popular, and every nose turned up at himself, which induced him to recognise a general snub in the faces of many of his old followers. He offered himself a third time for the tribuneship, but he was at the bottom of the poll, and an election row commenced, when an officious lictor lost, first, his fasces; secondly, his securis--which he had done his utmost to secure; and ultimately his life, in the scuffle. Caius Gracchus, who had mainly endeavoured to keep the peace, knew he would be accused of breaking it, and he accordingly ran as fast as he could; but in scaling a wall to get into another street, he unfortunately sprained his ankle. His friends continued to carry him until, moved by a sudden instinct of self-preservation, they dropped an acquaintance it would have been no longer safe to keep up, and poor Caius was left alone with a single manservant. His pursuers being at his heels, the ex-tribune desired the faithful attendant to stab him, and the man was too much in the habit of obeying his master's orders to hesitate. Having respectfully run his employer through, he found himself so terribly out of place in the world, that, apologising for the liberty, he finished himself off with the same dagger.

A reward of its weight in gold had already been offered for the head of Caius Gracchus, when one Septimulcius, having picked it up, carried it home, and plumbed it with lead before he took it to the authorities. Opimius, the Consul, weighed it, and exclaiming, "Bless me! seven pounds and a half!" threw down in exchange for the head, the same quantity of the precious metal. His customer having gone away, Opimius proceeded at his leisure to examine his bargain. "Well!" said he, "I don't know that it's worth its weight in gold, but the offer was my own, and I must make the best of it." On a minuter inspection, he detected the trick that had been played, and though he had looked upon Caius as somewhat leaden-headed, he at once perceived that nature had not been the only plumber employed in this disgraceful transaction.

All the friends of Gracchus were cast into prison and slain; but it was astonishing to observe how contracted his circle became when it was known that ruin awaited every member of it. They who had been his intimates made the sudden discovery that they had never known him at all, and others, who had been too frequently in his company to repudiate the acquaintance, declared that they had been grievously mistaken in his character. Several of his radical associates joined the aristocratic party, and his friend Carbo was so severely bantered on his having gone over to the other side, that after trying both sides, he took refuge in suicide as the only side left for him.

Rome owed much to the Gracchi; but it paid them both off in a most unsatisfactory manner. Tiberius was an orator of such power, that, to prevent his voice from being too loud, he took with him a piper--paying the piper out of his own pocket--to prevent him from pitching it too strong when he was addressing the multitude. Tiberius Gracchus was the first orator who introduced the graces of action into the art of public speaking; and he was in the habit of rolling, as it were, from side to side, which gave him great sway with his audience.

Caius Gracchus was a man of action, rather than of words, and was the first to divide distance into portions of one thousand paces, each of which he called a mile, and which was one of his really useful measures. He was also the inventor of milestones, and of those stations for awkward equestrians, which enabled many to ride the high horse, who would otherwise have been placed on their own humble footing.

The two Gracchi owed, no doubt, to the teaching of their mother, much of their success--if, at least, that can be called success which ended in the violent death of both of them. Cornelia was, however, a little too much addicted to making prodigies of her sons; and it is said of her, that, on one occasion, when receiving a visit from a Campanian lady, who came to display her jewels, the mother of the Gracchi, having privately sent for the children, exclaimed, as they stole gently in with their nurse, "These are my jewels: what do you think of them?" So maudlin was her maternal sensibility, that she never spoke of her sons without tears, which were always responded to by the infants themselves, with sympathetic, but uncomfortable, moisture. Nothing, however, can damp parental love; and, to a fond mother's feelings, childhood has no unpleasant features; though it is different to him who, if approaching them at all, prefers looking at them in a drier aspect.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] Plut., Tib. Gracch.

[66] Plutarch implies that it was so; but Cicero relates anecdotes showing the fact to have been otherwise.

[67] The following question and answer, uttered in a Court of Law on a modern trial, are well known:--

_Counsel._ "What do you mean by respectable?"

_Witness._ "He keeps a gig."

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

THE JUGURTHINE WAR. WAR AGAINST THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONI.

While Rome had been making the numerous conquests already described, self-conquest--the most important conquest of all--had been altogether lost sight of, and she had failed in obtaining the victory over her own vices. Though she possessed, nominally, a constituted body of rulers, money was actually the governing power; and so debasing is its influence, that it is more fatal to the liberty of a people to be ruled with a rod of gold, than with a rod of iron. No consideration but pecuniary consideration had any weight, corruption presided in the courts of law, the people were bought by the Senate, and the Senate sold the people. In the army there was a system of shameless plunder on the part of the commanders, and the soldiers followed their leaders with avidity.

Numidia had, since the death of Masinissa, been ruled over by his son Micipsa, who, by his will, put his kingdom, as it were, into commission, by giving it to his two sons, Hiempsal and Adherbal, conjointly with a lad whom he had adopted, and whose name was Jugurtha. Jugurtha was a person of excellent manners and genteel address, an excellent horseman, the first to strike the lion[68] in the field, and himself a lion much run after in society.

On the death of Micipsa, when the three rulers came to the throne of Numidia, they found the accommodation rather insufficient, and Jugurtha insolently threw himself down in the middle of it. By this act the two sons of Micipsa were practically set aside, and Jugurtha assumed that in himself alone the monarchy was centered. His next act was to propose the abolition of the acts of the last five years of Micipsa's reign, declaring that they ought all to be dotted out, on the ground of the old man's dotage. Hiempsal, with a touch of sarcasm, assented to the proposal, observing--"We shall then get rid of you, as your adoption was an act performed within the prescribed period." This attempt to be funny was a serious matter to Hiempsal, for Jugurtha caused the would-be wag to be murdered in the palace.

After this instance of sharp practice, on the part of Jugurtha, Adherbal began to tremble in his shoes lest he might be made to walk in his brother's footsteps. This fear was so nearly on the point of being realised, that Adherbal took to flight, and ran all the way to Rome, to ask for aid; upon which a commission of inquiry, consisting of ten members, was despatched to Numidia.

To refer any matter to a commission, has always been considered equivalent to laying it permanently on the shelf; and such might have been the result of the quarrel of the Numidian princes, had it not been for the fact that Jugurtha had settled the dispute in his own way, before the commissioners had even opened their inquiry. By the time they had arrived on the spot to which they had been sent, they found one of the parties dead, and the other in possession of all that he desired. Jugurtha was, of course, the survivor in this affair; and when the ambassadors, on their arrival, expressed their astonishment at their services having been dispensed with, he, by offering them something for their trouble, sent them home fully and shame-fully satisfied.

Every spark of honour was not, however, extinct in Rome; for the tribune, C. Memmius, who had not received, or, indeed, had not been offered, any of Jugurtha's gold, became virtuously indignant at the disgraceful harvest made by the ten commissioners. His agitation was so far successful, that war was declared, and the Consul, L. Calpurnius Bestia, with his legate, M. Æmilius Scaurus, were sent to invade Africa. Bestia immediately made the best bargain he could for himself, by concluding a peace with Jugurtha, on certain terms, for which the Roman Consul's own terms were most exorbitant. He and his legate, Scaurus, accepted a nominal surrender of all Jugurtha's tents, horses, and elephants; but he was allowed to reserve nearly the whole of his canvas booths and his menagerie.

When the tribune Memmius heard of the venality of the ambassadors, and of the money they had corruptly made by their services abroad, he, whose duties kept him at home, became more indignant than ever. He denounced, in abusive language, the abuse of which they had been guilty, and succeeded at last in carrying a motion that Jugurtha should appear to answer for his offences of bribery and corruption before the Senate. The summons was carried to Africa, by the stern and incorruptible Cassius, who refused every offer of cash, and insisted on the personal appearance of Jugurtha at the time and place appointed. The artful Numidian came with a very small retinue and a very long purse; for he knew that in meeting such an antagonist as Rome, he should not have to draw the steel from the scabbard, but the gold from the treasury. He threw purses in all directions; and so extensive was his bribery, that the criminals who had accepted his money were a strong majority over the few who were qualified, by not having participated in the offence, to sit in judgment over it. Memmius, who had seen none of Jugurtha's gold, insisted on his giving up the names of those who had received it; but there was such a vehement and general shout of "No," that any further inquiry as to who were the culprits, would have been quite superfluous.

The only punishment the Senate ventured to inflict upon Jugurtha, was a sentence of banishment; and it was indeed quite natural that the dishonourable members should have been glad to send speedily out of the way the principal witness to their own turpitude. As Jugurtha quitted Rome, he expressed his disgust at her venality, in a sentiment which came with but an ill grace from an accomplice in her infamy. "Oh!" he exclaimed, with an air of affected horror, "Oh! thou venal city; thou wouldst sell thyself to perdition, if thou couldst only find a purchaser!" The exact point at which this claptrap was uttered, who was at hand to hear it, and supposing the reporters to have been present, whether they proceeded to take it down, are points which the historians have not shown any disposition to look into.

After the retirement of the only witness, the inquiry into the bribery cases was prosecuted with considerable vigour. Scaurus, who had been one of the chief delinquents, attempted to expiate his own faults by getting himself appointed a member of the committee, and passing as severe sentences as he could upon his fellow criminals.

War with Jugurtha was again declared; for it was one of the most prolific sources of a profitable job to those in power. The Consul, Spurius Posthumius Albinus, was despatched with an army to Africa; but he soon came home, like his predecessors, with a large fortune, which seemed to be the kind of fortune of war that attended all who went to fight against Numidia. He left the army under the guidance of his brother Aulus, who, with his officers, were easily bribed into accepting any terms, provided they were of a pecuniary nature, that Jugurtha proposed to them. The Senate, however, refused to ratify the dishonourable peace concluded by Aulus; and thus, by the somewhat dishonest process of repudiating the acts of an authorised agent, Rome was again free to make a further property of the Numidian sovereign. At last, however, the affair was placed in honourable hands, by the appointment of Metellus (Q. C.) to the command of the army. His probity placed him far above any bribe that Jugurtha could offer; and though it is a maxim with many, that every man has his price, it may be said of Metellus that his moral standard was too high for any pecuniary standard to be applied to it.

With the generosity of true genius, Metellus selected as his legate a man capable of sharing with himself any of the honours that might be gained in the wars about to be undertaken. This man was Caius Marius, who had been, in early life, a labourer; but, while working with the spade, he felt sure that something would eventually turn up in his favour. He had served as a common soldier, but proved himself no common man; and he rose, step by step, to a highly respectable position. Vanity, however, was one of his weak points, and he fell into the hands of an old Syrian fortune-teller, who resorted to all sorts of tricks to persuade him that he was destined for the highest honours. He mentioned his aspirations to Metellus, and hinted at the possibility of his obtaining the Consulship; but his superior officer burst into a loud laugh, which, instead of putting Marius out of conceit, put him further into it. He proceeded to Rome, and, by a series of popular speeches, in which he promised everything to the people, he, of course, gained their suffrages. Having obtained the Consulship, he was despatched to finish the war against Jugurtha; but Metellus, having first pretended that there was nothing more to be done, for that he had settled the whole business himself, resigned his post to Marius.

Peace had indeed been already concluded with Jugurtha; but Rome, with its habitual want of faith, re-opened the war, which terminated at last in Jugurtha's being taken prisoner. He was drawn behind the chariot of Marius--a situation little less exalted than being tied to a cart's tail, and in that position received the pelting of a pitiless storm of mud from the congenial hands of a cowardly populace. Being thrown into a damp dungeon, he--as we are told by the grave historians--still preserved his wit; for he exclaimed, as he entered his prison, "By Hercules, what a cold bath!"--a touch of humour which seems to us remarkable for neither breadth, point, nor neatness. When, however, we consider the moisture of the circumstances under which he was placed, we cannot be surprised that he should have failed in an attempt at dry humour.

The war with Jugurtha was no sooner at an end, than Rome found herself threatened by the swords of half-a-dozen different foes; and, in default of being able to cut herself into six, for the purpose of dividing her strength, she seemed in danger of such a cutting-up at the hands of her enemies. It would be a tedious task to unravel the excessive tangle into which the threads of history are thrown by the windings of those numerous lines of barbarians who kept themselves suspended over Rome at about this period. The Cimbri, a Celtic race, entered into an alliance with the Teutoni--a German band--and threw themselves upon Gaul; which was unable to throw them off again. They encountered the Consul, M. Junius Silanus, to whom they applied for a country to be assigned to them; but, as this modest request could not be attended to, they set upon Silanus, and gave him a sound beating. At length the Consul, Q. Servilius Cœpio, offered to meet the difficulty, and approached the Rhone, but the Cimbri cut to pieces 80,000 soldiers and 40,000 camp followers; at least, if we are to believe the authorities, who are always ready to mince men, though never mincing matters. Cœpio--according to the same authentic accounts--was glad to make his escape across the Rhone with a handful of men, and the term, "handful" is in this instance not misapplied; for as the number is said to have been exactly ten, he might have easily told them off on his fingers. As if to show that they had not been actuated by mercenary motives, the Cimbri threw into the river the whole of their booty; and, not satisfied with spoiling the foe, they proceeded to spoil the property taken in battle.

It says little to the credit of Rome that her dangers seemed to damp the ambition of her citizens, and no one evinced an anxiety for the perilous honours of the Consulship. Those among the aristocracy who claimed a sort of prescriptive right to the government in times when there was everything to be got, now that there was a prospect of everything being lost, shrunk from the responsibility of a high position. The plebeian, Marius, was declared to be the only man for the situation; and, instead of being obliged to solicit the Consulship, it was thrust upon him even before he had returned from Africa.

His first care was to get together an army capable of bearing the fatigues of a military life, in preference to those who were only fit to support its gaudy trappings. He enlisted large numbers of working men, and tested their strength by putting into their hands a spade before he entrusted them with a sword, subjecting them to all sorts of privations, and putting them even upon reduced rations--an experiment that was by no means rational. Many of the soldiers, who, under a generous diet, would have become strong healthy men, dwindled to mere skeletons, and many of the recruits were reduced so low that their strength was past recruiting. Those who were able to stand against the fatigue, were hardy enough to stand against anything; and, in order to give them the benefit of a lengthy training, he refused to accept battle until a convenient opportunity. He allowed the Teutoni to pass his camp, and, as they did so, they inquired tauntingly if there were any messages or parcels for Rome, as they--the Teutoni--were on their journey thither. Marius pursued them to Aquæ Sextiæ--now Aix--and purposely pitched his camp in such a place, that water could not be obtained without a fight for it. Every soldier who went down to the river was obliged to draw his sword as he drew the water he required, and, while he fought with one hand, defended himself as well as he could with a bucket in the other. The Teutoni were completely defeated, and rushed, for safety, to their wagons; but all who remained in the rear, together with many who had got into the van, were cut to pieces.

Marius had no sooner disposed of the Teutoni, than he heard that the Cimbri were pouring themselves all over the plains of Lombardy; and, proceeding to meet them, he threatened to "turn their bones into whitening for the fields," a menace that proves the practice of bone manuring to be an agricultural process of great antiquity. He drew up his army near Verona, at a place called the Campi Raudii, and found the front ranks of the Cimbri linked together by chains,--an arrangement adopted, probably, to prevent their running away, and making them feel bound to stand against the enemy. Marius, with considerable tact, got into such a position that the sun got into their eyes, and the wind blew their noses. Unable to look their danger in the face, they were sent winking and sneezing to destruction.

Marius celebrated the success of the day in a magnificent triumph, and paraded, among his trophies, a Cimbric king of such a gigantic height, that, notwithstanding his humiliating position, everybody looked up to him.

For the sixth time the consulship was bestowed on Marius, though not without a vast amount of bribery on the part of the successful candidate, who, while he corrupted the electors with one hand, raised a temple to Virtue and Honour with the other. He had now become so inflated with vanity, that he came swelling into the Senate in his triumphal robes; but he was so coldly received, that he pretended he had forgotten to change his dress, though his astonishment was as clearly put on as his objectionable attire. He caused to be engraved upon his buckler the image of a Gaul pulling out his tongue; an allegory rather difficult to comprehend, except by adopting the somewhat vulgar reading, that the design was emblematical of the fact that, after the victory of Marius, the Gaul might as well pull out his tongue at once, as there could be no chance of his giving a licking to the Romans.

Marius was so popular, that he was acknowledged as the third founder of Rome; Romulus, Camillus, and himself being figuratively regarded as so many bricks that the city had been built upon.

Success had rendered Marius so arrogant, that he committed many illegal acts, declaring that, amid the clashing of the swords of war, the silent motion of the sword of justice could neither be heard nor attended to. His morbid appetite for mob popularity caused him to enter into a disgraceful alliance with an unprincipled demagogue, named L. Appuleius Saturninus, whose performances equalled his promises; but he always promised one thing, and performed another. He adopted the extremely liberal side in politics, and proposed, among other liberal measures, that every member of the Senate should bind himself by an oath to support some very liberal law for dealing with property, by taking it from those who had it, and giving it to those who were ready to take it. This friend of freedom suggested, further, that every senator attempting to exercise a free will, should pay a heavy penalty. One of the aristocratic party having ventured on proposing an amendment, was driven from the Senate by a shower of missiles. Another having suggested that he heard thunder--a sign at which the Assembly should have broken up--was told that there would probably be some hail, with hail-stones of real stone, if he opposed the project of Saturninus. Marius had the courage to declare that he would never take the degrading oath; Metellus seconded his resolution; and the whole Senate, with one voice--which turned out, ultimately, to be _vox et præterea nihil_--swore that they would never swear to what the people had dared to demand of them. Notwithstanding this spirited proposition, Marius had not sufficient bravery to brave the popular clamour, and his courage had died away before five days had expired. Having called a special meeting of the Senate, he intimated that second thoughts were sometimes best, and that, after his first thought, there had occurred to him a second, which he proposed that they should place upon their minutes. He concluded by intimating that he had been pelted in public for the part he had taken, and, as the people were determined, apparently, on having their fling, there was little use in opposing them. He declared his attachment to his native soil; and, though he had always kept it in his eye, he objected to its being thrown in his face by his own countrymen. He finished by proposing that the oath should be taken, with a mental reservation that it should not be kept--a disgraceful compromise between cowardice and conscience, which the Senate without hesitation assented to. There was, after this, so little disposition to freedom among the members, that Metellus Numidicus was the only one who held out; and he, instead of remaining to battle with the abuse, preferred sneaking away from it into voluntary exile.

Saturninus not only put himself up for the tribuneship a third time, but endeavoured to get the Consulship for one Servilius Glaucia; and these noisy demagogues--by way of guiding the people in their choice--coolly murdered C. Memmius, who had started as an opposition candidate.

Marius now began to perceive that he had connected himself with a disreputable set, and finding his popularity on the wane, he repudiated his new political allies as suddenly as he had joined with them. He drove Saturninus to the Capitol, where, being without provisions, the demagogue found himself at last driven to an unprovisional surrender. Saturninus, Glaucia, and others were put to death by the command of Marius, who thus regained the good opinion of the people, though he had, in fact, simply trampled under foot, when down, those whom he had taken by the hand when they were uppermost. Having so far reinstated himself in the favour of the public, Marius retired into private life; and it was time that he should do so, while he had yet a certain amount of popularity left to fall back upon.

Law Reform, and the extension of the franchise, had now become the two great questions of the day; for the tribunals were courts of in-justice, and the Italians thought that as much weight ought to be allowed to the Italic as to the Roman character. It was the policy of the Senate to purchase popularity at almost any price, and the members were ready to outbid each other by the most extravagant offers, for the object of their ignoble competition. Among the boldest of the bidders was M. Livius Drusus, the son of old Drusus--the colleague of Gracchus--who seems to have inherited his father's propensity for sacrificing all his principle, in order to convert it into political capital. Young Drusus is said to have been a remarkable man, because, when Quæstor in Asia, he dispensed with the insignia of office, preferring to depend upon his own personal bearing, and, perhaps, wishing to save the cost of those externals which, sometimes, take from the public functionary quite as much in the way of emolument, as they bring him in the way of dignity. He had been elected to the Tribuneship, and in that capacity he did everything he could to catch the breath of popular applause, which often sullies the brightness of the object that seeks to reflect the evanescent vapour.

One of the principal propositions of M. Livius Drusus was, that the judges should be liable to be brought to trial themselves, for their mode of conducting the trials of others. This attempt to undermine the independence of the judicial order, was shown to be so fatal to the administration of justice, that the people, who, after all, require only to be convinced of what is right in order to take the right direction, repudiated the proposal which Drusus had intended to be the means of misleading them, and obtaining for himself--under false pretences--a little additional popularity. It was pointed out to them, that a judge who felt every trial at which he was presiding to be his own, and who would be always divided between the calm demands of justice on one hand, and the unreasoning voice of public clamour on the other, would feel himself exposed to a pressure that would prevent him from maintaining an upright position. Notwithstanding his failure in this instance, M. Livius Drusus made himself the champion of the movement, and opened his house every evening, to give political advice gratis to all who were desirous of consulting him. He was engaged in this manner during one of his evenings at home, when he was suddenly stabbed by a shoe-maker's knife; and though the assassin was never discovered, the blow was supposed to have been connived at by some persons who had persuaded the cobbler to risk his awl in the dangerous effort. As a Roman could never die without a claptrap in his mouth, Drusus was of course prepared with a neat speech on the melancholy occasion. Having ejaculated, "Oh! thou ungrateful Republic, thou hast never lost a more devoted son!" he arranged his toga in becoming folds, and bowing to circumstances-- bowing, perhaps, to the audience as well--he gracefully expired.

The Italians, being deprived of the support of Drusus, were more than ever oppressed, and the multitude, whom it is customary to regard as synonymous with the liberal party, became vehement in denouncing the idea of allowing an equality of rights to all classes of Roman subjects. The Italians, therefore, came to the resolution, that if Rome was not to exist for them, it should not exist at all; but that they would either bring the city to the ground, or raise themselves from the dust to which injustice had lowered them. Several of the Italian nations formed themselves into a league, but never did a league go to such lengths as the one in question; for some of its members murdered the prætor, Servilius Cœpio, and his legate, who attended a meeting in the hope of conciliation at the Theatre of Asculum.

The next step of the Italians was to start a republic of their own, under the name of Italica; and by way of giving it an imposing appearance, it was to have a senate five hundred strong--though in a deliberative assembly numbers are not so much an element of strength as of weakness. It was to have two annual consuls, and no less than twelve prætors; it being perhaps the policy of the framers of the constitution to have plenty of patronage to tempt adherents to the new government. The two consuls first appointed were Silo Popædius, a Marsian, and C. Papius Mutilus, a Samnite, who took the field with great vigour, but took little else in the first instance; for Silo fell in the fight, though Mutilus, whose army was terribly mutilated, obtained some success in Campania.

Though the Italians had commenced their operations as fast friends, they loosened considerably in their friendship as the war advanced, and made separate treaties of peace, by which Rome was enabled to deal with them piecemeal, instead of being compelled to stand against their united efforts. The Samnites evinced their old obstinacy, and waited, as usual, to be cut to pieces, before they abandoned the hope of holding together. When the sword had been busy among them for three years, there remained still a mass of sufficient importance to induce the Romans to offer the franchise to all who would lay down their arms; and of this proposal the Samnites at last reluctantly availed themselves.

Rome having acquired a large accession of new citizens, was puzzled to determine what to do with them. Had they been distributed amongst the thirty-five country tribes, the old members would have been swamped by the new, and the latter were, therefore, formed into--some say six, some say eight, and some say fifteen separate bodies. Such is the disagreement of the learned doctors on this head, that we cannot put confidence in one without discrediting two; and we consequently take the more impartial course of believing none of them. So great is the discrepancy of the authorities on nearly every point, that, for the sake of history, we can only hope they do not go for their facts to the same sources which have supplied their figures. It is true that they usually profess to deal with round numbers alone; and perhaps if every number employed were literally round, it would represent the sum of what is known with certainty on the subjects that are spoken of.

The fact, however, is indisputable, that, in the times to which our history relates, the weaker states were the prey of the stronger,--might overcame right; and the only mode by which a small society could save itself from destruction by one power, was by the sale of its independence to another. Those places which were incompetent to practise the noble art of self-defence, could only obtain protection against violence on the right hand, by submitting to robbery on the left; and the Romans, who were usually appealed to for aid, always plentifully helped themselves at the cost of those by whom their help was required.

By the foreign policy of Rome, ambassadors were always planted in all places of importance, to interfere in the quarrels between nations and their kings; and the ambassadors took care, by fomenting quarrels, that there should be no lack of material for their diplomacy. The cost of intervention fell heavily on those upon whom it was bestowed, but it eventually helped to ruin Rome itself; for neglect of one's own affairs is the inevitable consequence of interfering with the affairs of one's neighbours. The professed object of this meddling on the part of the great republic, was to give to other states the benefit of freedom. There is, however, no slavery more abject than that which induces a nation to accept a foreign, instead of a domestic, tyranny. Those who are willing to import their independence from abroad, will never find it flourish at home; and there is not a more melancholy object--as recent events have proved--than a transplanted tree of liberty.

FOOTNOTES:

[68] Sallust, Jugurthine War, c. vi.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

MITHRIDATES, SULLA, MARIUS, CINNA, ET CÆTERA.

Following the order of dates, we come to Mithridates, the son of old Mithridates the Fifth, surnamed Eupator, who had been a fast ally of Rome; but his son, who was much faster in another sense, soon came to hostilities.

The birth of young Mithridates had been, according to Justin,[69] signalised by the appearance of a wondrous comet, which was, probably, an idle tale; but those whose eyes are always strained towards a rising sun, are liable to be dazzled by all sorts of illusory visions.

If the comet was to have brought prosperity to Mithridates, the consignment must have been dropped on the way, inasmuch as none of it reached the young prince, whose early years were passed in hot water; for he was in one continual perspiration, caused by the constant discovery that his life was in danger. His grandmother, Laodice, had killed five of her children, when young Mithridates, fearing that infanticide might run in the family, resorted to matricide, as an alternative for checking the fearful disease, and, according to Appian,[70] murdered his mother. It is said that his guardians did their utmost to get rid of him, by encouraging him in all sorts of dangerous games;--that they gave him weapons for playthings, and that one of his toys was a real sword, with which the child might have accidentally cut the slender thread of his own existence.

They mounted him, also, upon the highest horses that could be found, which was the height of cruelty; but though the animals often kicked and hurled the youngster from his seat, fortune always decided the throw in his favour. He soon acquired such skill, that he was deep enough to meet the most fearful amount of plunging; and when placed upon a determined jibber, he could always back out of his danger. Though the horses given him to ride were quite unbroken, his neck remained entire; and he at length became such an excellent horseman, that he could travel on horseback--according to Polybius--125 miles a day, a length to which we are not prepared to go with the ancient historian. Young Mithridates, going at full gallop, for several successive hours, presents a spirited picture to the mind's eye, but duty compels us to pull him up at the turnpike of truth; for we can allow no evasion of the important trust of history.

Among his other accomplishments, it is said that he could hurl the javelin to such a distance, that the enthusiasm of the spectators would be roused to the utmost pitch; but we are obliged to add, that his power in throwing the spear was not equal to that of the chroniclers in throwing the hatchet.

His guardians having failed to kill him by physical force, attempted to do so by the force of physic, and were continually giving him poisonous drugs, which, though exceedingly unpleasant, he was not nice enough to reject, for he had the bad taste to swallow them. They put him through a course of hen-bane, but he was now no chicken, and had learnt to neutralise the effects of the bane by a powerful antidote. So admirably did the latter answer its object, that he could swallow arsenic by the drachm without a scruple, and his inside was rendered thoroughly poison-proof, though there is an utter absence of historical proof to support the statement.

In order to harden himself externally, as well as internally, we are informed that he would lie at night in the open air; but we do not believe he was any more hardened by lying than those who make the statement. He would trust to the chase for a dinner, and he was often very hard run for a meal, which he sometimes sought by a contest with a wild beast: and the question then was, whether the latter was to be cooked, or Mithridates himself done for.

The excitement of an encounter with some ferocious animal furnished the continual source of a _sauce piquante_ to what he took to eat, which formed food for his courage as well as for his appetite. He was well versed in physics, which he was continually imbibing at the hands of his enemies, and, in accordance with the saying _fas est ab hoste doceri_, he turned the dosing to good account by studying the power of antidotes. He became a master of languages, and taught himself; so that he was, in fact, his own master and his own pupil. His object appears to have been to save the trouble and expense of diplomatic agents, by qualifying himself to talk with all foreign ambassadors, and to prevent the chance of matters being misinterpreted through the mouth of an interpreter.

Those historians who have built up a considerable fabric on inconsiderable grounds, do not hesitate to add to their fabrications another story, by describing Mithridates as a giant in growth, and as a lad so tall that he might have overlooked an ordinary ladder.

Such had been the education and pursuits of the young man whom we find occupying the throne of Pontus, and interfering in the affairs of Cappadocia, to which he undertook to supply a king, from his own family, whenever a vacancy happened. Rome, also, began to take an interest in Cappadocia, and the only party without a voice in the affair, consisted of the Cappadocians. They were assailed with the offer of freedom and a republic at the point of the sword, on one side,--while, on the other, they were asked to pin their faith to a monarchy which would otherwise be pinned to them by the blades of a foreign army. The Cappadocians had a wholesome horror of republican freedom, especially when imported from abroad; and Rome, therefore, sent them a king, who was accepted until his throne was overthrown by Mithridates--the Cappadocians having to pay a heavy fine on each change of government.

The king, who was thoroughly put out by Mithridates, applied to Rome, which raised an army in three divisions; but the Romans were so hated in Asia Minor, that they encountered every opposition from the inhabitants. Appius and Aquilinus, who were leaders of two of the divisions, soon fell into the hands of Mithridates, and it is said that he punished their avarice by pouring melted gold down their throats; but this is more than any one could swallow.

The Roman Senate, irritated by defeat, called upon L. Cornelius Sulla--or Sylla, as, by an alteration of the first syllable, he is sometimes called--to take the command of the army. The family boasted of its antiquity, though one family must be quite as old as another, if everybody's pedigree could be traced; and the real wonder would be to find a man whose ancestors had a beginning, instead of the ordinary case of one with an apparently endless line of progenitors. The family of Cornelius Sulla claimed connection with that of Cornelius Rufinus, who, in the year of Rome 540, instituted the Ludi Apollinares, in honour of Apollo, and in conformity with the directions of the Sibylline books, from which he had taken the name of Sibylla. This had, according to the interpretation put upon it by family pride, been corrupted into Sulla; and such is the empty boast of ancestry, that even corruption is eagerly acknowledged as a proof of ancient lineage. The father of L. Cornelius Sulla had left little--not even an unsullied name--to his son, but had been equally wasteful of fortune and character. The boy was clever and quick, but his speediness speedily degenerated into fastness. Having neither morality nor means, he took a cheap apartment, where he entertained a low set, and there was nothing to be envied either in his room or his company.

In early life he had distinguished himself as a soldier in the Jugurthine War; and he subsequently obtained the office of Prætor, in which he won the affections of the people, by introducing into the entertainments of the amphitheatre the extraordinary attraction of 100 real lions.

These noble animals had been the gift of a Mauritanian king, and as Sulla might have wished the present absent, if he had been saddled with the cost of the keep of no less than one hundred monarchs of the forest, the donor forwarded a band of Moors, who were to serve as food for the lions, by being turned into the arena with them when occasion required.

Sulla had excited the jealousy of Marius during the Jugurthine War, and the latter, though now a man of seventy, still cherished his old animosity with all the obstinacy of a most inveterate veteran. He was still ambitious of the laurel, though he should have been thinking only of the cypress; and with one foot in the grave, he was anxious to march with the other at the head of an army. Limping into the Campus Martius, where the soldiers were being drilled, he placed himself by the side of the youngest, and hobbled through the exercise with an air of ill-assumed juvenility. His feeble evolutions excited a mixed feeling of ridicule and disgust among the lookers-on, instead of obtaining for him the command to which he aspired. Having been disappointed of producing the effect he had anticipated, he had recourse to his friend, the tribune P. Sulpicius, who exercised a sort of reign of terror by means of 3000 gladiators, whom he always had about him. This formidable band of armed ruffians went by the name of the Anti-Senate of Sulpicius, who employed them to carry any measure he proposed, by showing the point of the sword to those who did not see the point of his argument. In order to gain time, the Senate appointed a series of holidays, or Feriæ, during which all business was suspended for the celebration of public sports, which often enabled the authorities to play a game of their own, by delaying any measure that was opposed to their interests. After a brief interval, the Senate appointed Sulla to the chief command, whereupon the Anti-Senate appointed Marius; and the former had no sooner heard the news, than he marched upon Rome with the whole of his army. The utmost consternation ensued; for no army having been expected at Rome, there had been no preparations for defence; and though the gates were closed, they were almost as crazy and unhinged as the terrified inhabitants.

A feeble attempt was made to bolt the doors against Sulla and his soldiers, but it was impossible to bar their entrance. As they marched through the streets, they were assailed from the houses with showers of brick, which, though very destructive, could not have been so damaging as the modern mortar. Some of the inhabitants were armed with slings, and now and then an arrow was discharged from a bow window. Orders were immediately given to set fire to the quarters whence the annoyance proceeded, and the directions were acted upon with that indiscriminate ferocity which is too often displayed by an incensed soldiery against an unarmed populace. The anger excited by the few was vented on the unoffending many, and the troops performed, with savage alacrity, the most humiliating service on which they could have been employed--the butchery of their defenceless fellow-citizens.

The leaders, or, rather, the mis-leaders of the people in this miserable conspiracy, were the first to seek their own safety in flight, and the tribune P. Sulpicius, who had set the example of employing brute force, evinced the most cowardly haste in running away from it, when he seemed likely to become one of its victims. Marius made for the marshes near Minturnæ, where he stuck in the mud, and covered his reputation with a number of stains that are quite indelible. On being discovered in his ignoble retreat, by those who had pursued him through thick and thin, he was dragged to the town and lodged in the nearest station. A price had been put upon his head, but the article does not seem to have been worth much, for he had shown very little sense in the part he had been playing. His gray hairs, or, perhaps, rather, his total baldness, still commanded so much of sympathy, that nobody evinced a disposition to become his executioner, until a Cimbric soldier undertook the discreditable office. He approached the veteran with a drawn sword, but Marius had got into a dark corner, and succeeded in frightening the man-at-arms by putting on a voice of the most dismal character. The soldier fancying himself in the presence of a ghost, failed in plucking up a sufficient spirit; and when a moan was heard--inquiring, "Who dares kill Caius Marius?" the would-be assassin, having flung down his sword, ran away, exclaiming--"Not I, for one, at any rate!" The soldier, of course, exaggerated the cause of his fears, and declared that the eyes of Marius had appeared to him like two candles burning in their sockets. The inhabitants of Minturnæ became as nervous as the panic-stricken soldier, and put Marius on board a ship, which, after being tossed about for several days, came to an anchor, or ran aground, high and dry, on the fine old crusted port of Carthage. Here he rambled about the ruins, and rested his aching head upon its broken temples. The Roman Governor, Sextilius, not knowing what to do with such an embarrassing visitor, sent a messenger to request him to "move on;" but the exile, with a dignified air, claimed his right to repose upon the dry rubbish. "Tell thy master," he observed to the officer on duty, who had respectfully told him he must "come out of that," in compliance with the orders of the authorities,--"Tell thy master that thou hast seen Marius, sitting on the ruins of Carthage." The intelligence was not new, but it seems to have been rather startling, for it had the effect of causing Marius to be allowed to remain; and we will, therefore, leave him there, while we proceed with the march of our history.

Sulla having reduced the city to the most complete subjection, made a merit of not pursuing his vengeance farther against the defenceless inhabitants; and so great was his confidence in the efficacy of his work, that he acquiesced in the appointment of L. Cornelius Cinna, a partisan of Marius, to the consulship. Sulla proceeded to Greece, where he blockaded Athens, whose inhabitants he plundered, as a practical acknowledgment of their worth; and he spared their lives, to show how he valued their ancestors. He manifested his respect for their arts by robbing their city of its chief ornaments; and he paid their learning the compliment of stealing their principal libraries.

In the meantime Cinna had entered on the duties of the consulship at Rome, but there the truth of the maxim, that two heads are better than one, was rendered extremely doubtful by the constant dissensions between himself and his colleague. The latter was Cn. Octavius, who opposed whatever the former recommended; and while one tried to carry his measures by brute force, the other endeavoured to defeat them by armed violence. Cinna appealed to the mob, and Octavius trusted to the army, both forces being the principal movers under a republican rule or misrule, and both being equally repugnant to the spirit of constitutional government. The arms of such a republic might have for its supporters the bludgeon and the sword, with the figure of Liberty battered and bleeding, slashed and sabred, gagged and fettered, in the middle. Octavius and the sword had, on this occasion, got the upper hand; and Cinna, the clubbist, was glad to break his bludgeon or cut his stick, in flying from the city.

The Senate decreed that he had forfeited the consulship, and Cinna, having been well received in the Italian towns, decreed that the Senate had forfeited their authority. The Government was thus reduced to two negatives, which could not make an affirmative; and in the midst of a theoretical perfection of republican forms, there existed only the substance of practical anarchy. The inhabitants of the Capitol, with the sword at their throats, elected a Consul, who was, of course, declared by the executive to be their free choice; while the people in the provinces protested, as loudly as they dared, against the violence that had been done to all the principles of law and liberty. Cinna, who had possessed himself of large sums of public money, employed bribes and promises to get himself acknowledged as the lawful Consul, for it is customary with despotism, acting under the name of freedom, to rob the people with one hand, in order to corrupt them with the other.

The veteran Marius, who, after making his bed on the ruins of Carthage, was not too anxious to lie there, had been wanted to join the party of Cinna, and the great captain of the age was received with enthusiasm, in consideration of the great age of the captain. Papirius Carbo and Q. Sertorius also gave in their adhesion; but Cn. Pompeius, who was stationed with an army at Umbria, waited to see which side would pay him best, and of those who would bid the highest, he was prepared to do the bidding. Marius, in the meanwhile, landed in Tuscany with a few friends; but to excite commiseration, he dressed himself in rags, which was, indeed, putting on the garb of poverty. He spoke so repeatedly of his reverses, and touched so frequently on his old clothes, that the subject was completely threadbare. Rags are seldom attractive, but in this instance, they were successful in obtaining for the wearer a large crowd of followers.

Cn. Pompeius had at length consented to espouse the cause of the Senate, but the alliance was one of interest on his side, for he would not espouse anything without a very large pecuniary settlement having been made in his favour. He met the army of Cinna under the walls of Rome, but both forces were enfeebled by sickness. Each party proceeded to do its best, but the soldiers on both sides were so wretchedly ill, that none of them could, for one moment, stand at ease; and all were much fitter to be in bed than in battle. A storm did sad havoc among the defenders of Rome, and a flash of lightning falling naturally upon the conductor of the army, caused the death of Cn. Pompeius. The gates of the city were thrown open, Cinna was restored to the Consulship, and though there had been an understanding that no blood should be shed, Marius set a band of slaves and mercenaries upon the defenceless people.