Chapter XIII: Section VIII: Decay of the Roman Republic

1. But while Rome was thus steadily advancing to universal dominion, great and unfortunate changes were taking place in its internal constitution. The spoils of Carthage and the east, rich in accumulations of the industry, commerce and art of two thousand years, flowed into Rome and was gathered into the hands of those in power; the equilibrium between the plebeans and the patricians was lost; the selling of captives taken in war filled Italy with slaves; and the inequality of conditions produced the most disastrous consequences.

133—The eldest son of a noble house, the Gracchi, undertook
to stem the torrent that was sweeping away the ancient
barriers of the constitution, and to raise the people from
the misery into which the increase of patrician wealth and
power and the innumerable multitudes of slaves had plunged
them. In the year in which Numantia fell and Spain was
thoroughly subdued, Tiberius Gracchus was slain in a tumult,
produced by the patricians, who determined that his project
should not succeed. He had attempted to revive the old
agrarian law, by which the landed possessions of the republic
were shared among the people as well as the patricians, which
would have rescued the plebeans from poverty and oppression;
but the patricians were too powerful and too violent. He was
removed by assassination.

2. 121—Twelve years later his brother, Caius Gracchus,
attempted the same thing and was likewise slain. This point
was vital to the internal liberties of Rome. The failure of
the Gracchi announced the overthrow of the constitution;
and, after seventy years of civil anarchy and the murderous
conflict of rival factions, the empire was found the only
refuge against the ruin of the state. Vigorous Rome, who
could govern all the world but herself, must have a master,
and became the prey of the strongest. It is a melancholy
history, a sad conclusion for a people whose strength and
grandeur of character had made them masters of the world, but
a perfectly legitimate result of the immoral principle that
lay at the foundation of the state. That principle legalized
the doctrine of force, or robbery on the grandest scale. They
carried it out with great consistency and skill, with all
the ability of a race eminently sagacious and steady in the
pursuit of an end. The conservative force that dwelt in their
organization, so instinctively and exceptionally wise, and
the power of religious faith, strong in a hardy and simple
people, however weakened by pagan ignorance and superstition,
long maintained the integrity of their institutions—but
Greek culture, too imperfect not to culminate in skepticism,
came in to confuse their moral sense at the same time that
boundless wealth flowed into their hands to corrupt their
manners, that slavery assumed gigantic proportions to
demoralize labor, and the conquest of the world relieved them
from the severe discipline that might not, otherwise, have
left them the leisure to become deeply vicious.

The sternness of even Roman character was unequal to the
heavy strain and virtue gave way. The native vigor of the
race made them as excessive in unrestrained passion as wise
in council and invincible in war. The cruelty and rapacity
that were common in the civil wars of the Republic, and
under many of the early emperors, educated giants in crime,
and only the Roman spirit in the army, and the vigorous
organization everywhere maintained through the institutions
established in the subject world by Roman law, could have
held its vast dominions together. Rome had vitality and sense
to govern others, even in the midst of civil war.

3. From the death of the Gracchi to the consulship
107—Of Marius, Rome was in a tumult of corrupt intrigue,
which rendered easy the usurpation and inhuman cruelty of
Jugurtha, king of Numidia. Marius, a plebian of the lowest
rank, became consul. He was unequaled at once as a general
and a tyrant. He conquered
106—Jugurtha, who was brought to Rome and starved in prison.
In the same year Cicero, the great Roman orator, was born.

A vast horde of Cimbri and Teutons from northern
105—Europe, invaded Gaul and defeated several Roman consuls.

100—Marius led an army against these barbarians and defeated
them, more than 100,000 being slain or made prisoners. He was
equally successful in a second engagement. During the war
200,000 barbarians were slain and 90,000 taken prisoners. A
revolt of the slaves was put down about the same time with
circumstances of extreme cruelty. More than a million of
these unfortunates were slain or thrown to wild beasts for
the amusement of the Roman populace.

4. 100—In this year Julius Cæsar, one of the greatest men of
any time, and virtual founder of the Roman Empire, was born.
His supreme ability put an end to civil dissention and saved
society from total ruin.

90—The Italian allies revolted against Rome. They claimed the
privileges of Roman citizenship, which the Senate refused.
A war of three years followed and half a million of men
perished, when, having conquered them, the Senate granted
their first request.

88—Mithridates, king of Pontus, talented and ambitious,
sought to drive the Romans out of Asia and Greece, and
warred with them for twenty-five years. Sylla procured the
banishment of his rival, Marius, and conducted the war
against Mithridates.

86—Marius regained power in the absence of Sylla and
slaughtered his enemies, the patricians, without mercy, but
soon after died.

83—Sylla, after obliging Mithridates to sue for peace,
hastened to Rome, conquered his enemies, and slew more than
6,000 Roman citizens in revenge.

81—Sylla caused himself to be made perpetual dictator
77—But after three years resigned and soon after died
from the effects of his vices. Civil war was continued for
a time in Spain and Italy, but finally put down by Pompey,
70—the greatest general of the patrician party.

The war of the gladiators—men trained to fight in the
theatres for the amusement of the populace—broke out under
an able leader, Spartacus, who, collecting an army of
120,000 gladiators, endangered Rome itself, but
70—he was conquered by Crassus. Spartacus was defeated and
killed. It was the inhuman oppression of the patricians that
produced all these dreadful conflicts.

65—Pompey and Crassus, by paying court to the people,
were made consuls. Pompey proceeded to Asia and made war
on Mithridates, who was again formidable,
63—whom he defeated and slew in battle. He subdued nearly all
western Asia, visiting Jerusalem, and treating the Jews with
kindness. He also cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, who
had always infested it.

62—A dangerous conspiracy of Cataline, a patrician of the
most corrupt morals, at the head of the depraved young
nobility of the time, would have been successful but for the
ability and eloquence of Cicero, who was consul. Cataline and
his fellow conspirators were taken and slain.

59—Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus formed the first “Triumvirate,”
and divided the rule of the world between them. Cæsar was
the head of the popular party. He
57—took Gaul as his government. Here he spent eight years
in his “Gallic wars,” showing unparalleled talents as a
general, training his army to become invincible in battle,
and completely subduing the fierce Gauls. He
55—entered Britain and laid the foundation of civilization
there, thus carrying the march of empire to its farthest
bounds in Europe.

5. 49—He was ordered to return and lay down his authority by
the Roman Senate, headed by Pompey, who was now his enemy.
They were the rival champions of the two parties in the
state, the people and the patricians, whose quarrels had so
long filled Rome with tumult and slaughter. The tribunes
in Cæsar’s interest interposed a veto, which the Roman
Constitution authorized them to do. The Senate voted to
suspend the Constitution, which really terminated the Roman
Republic, Jan. 7, B. C. 49. Cæsar at once crossed the river
Rubicon, the boundary of his government, and marched his army
on Rome. Pompey and the aristocratic party fled in haste,
leaving the public treasure behind. In sixty days Cæsar had
possession of all Italy. Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain were
next conquered from the officers of Pompey, when he returned
to Rome, and was created dictator by his party. He treated
all his enemies with clemency. Pompey had gone into Greece,
48—where he gathered a large army. Cæsar followed with
his veteran legions, and defeated him in the battle of
Pharsalia in Thessaly. Pompey fled to Egypt, where he was
treacherously slain, to the great indignation of Cæsar, who
would shed no blood but in necessary battle. Thus he became
sole master of the world.

In a conflict with the Egyptians in Alexandria Cæsar set on
fire their fleet, he being attended by but few troops, and
the conflagration extended to the Alexandrian Library, filled
with inestimable treasures of ancient literature, which
were destroyed, to the great loss of future generations.
Cæsar soon subdued Egypt,
47—defeated Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, and returned to Rome.

46—He soon passed into Africa, where he defeated his enemies.
The celebrated Cato, an inflexible enemy of Cæsar, committed
suicide rather than submit to him. In Spain he soon after
defeated the sons of Pompey, the last of his foes in arms.
He rebuilt Carthage and
45—Corinth. He projected many great public works and useful
reforms. The whole power of Roman sovereignty
44—was formally conferred on him by the people, when he was
suddenly assassinated by a band of senators and certain
conspirators, who imagined it possible to restore the ancient
Republic. His nephew, Augustus, succeeded him soon after.

43—The eminent Cicero, never a friend to Cæsar, was
assassinated by the connivance of Augustus.

42—The republican and aristocratic conspirators were defeated
by Augustus and Antony at Philippi, in Greece. Brutus and
Cassius, the republican leaders, and assassins of Cæsar, were
slain. The second “Triumvirate,” composed of Augustus, Antony
and Lepidus, having acquired possession of all the powers of
the state, ruthlessly murdered thousands of their political
enemies. They soon grew jealous of each other, and fought and
intrigued for eleven years, Augustus, with great prudence,
firmly settling himself in Rome, and Antony becoming the
slave of the beautiful and infamous Cleopatra, queen of Egypt.

31—At length, at the battle of Actium, Antony was defeated,
and soon after both Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide.
Egypt became formally a Roman province, and Augustus absolute
emperor of the world.