History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

War against Persia (583).

X. For twenty-six years had peace been maintained with Philip, the Ætolians vanquished, the peoples of Asia subdued, and the greater part of Greece restored to liberty. Profiting by its co-operation with the Romans against Antiochus, the Achæan league had largely increased, and Philopœmen had brought into it Sparta, Messene, and the island of Zacynthus; but these countries, impatient of the Achæan rule, soon sought to free themselves from it. Thus was realised the prediction of Philip, who told the Thessalian envoys, after the battle of Cynoscephalæ, that the Romans would soon repent of having given liberty to peoples incapable of enjoying it, and whose dissensions and jealousies would always keep up a dangerous agitation.[573 - Titus Livius, XXXIX. 26.] In fact, Sparta and Messene rebelled, and sued for help from Rome. Philopœmen, after having cruelly punished the first of these cities, perished in his struggle with the second. Thessaly and Ætolia were torn by anarchy and civil war.

Whilst the Republic was occupied in restoring tranquillity to these countries, a new adversary came to imprudently attract its wrath. One would say that Fortune, while raising up so many enemies against Rome, took pleasure in delivering them, one after the other, into her hands. The old legend of Horatius killing the three Curiatii in succession was a lesson which the Senate had never forgotten.

Perseus, heir to his father’s crown and enmities, had taken advantage of the peace to increase his army and his resources, to make allies, and to rouse up the kings and peoples of the East against Rome. Besides the warlike population of his own country, he had at his beck barbarous peoples like the Illyrians, the Thracians, and the Bastarnæ, dwelling not far from the Danube. Notwithstanding the treaty, which forbad Macedonia to make war without the consent of the Senate, Perseus had silently aggrandised himself on the side of Thrace; he had placed garrisons in the maritime cities of Oenoe and Maronia, excited the Dardanians[574 - Titus Livius, XLI. 19.] to war, brought under subjection the Dolopes, and advanced as far as Delphi.[575 - Titus Livius, XLI. 22.] He endeavored to draw the Achæans into an alliance, and skilfully obtained the good-will of the Greeks. Eumenes II., king of Pergamus, who, like his father Attalus I., feared the encroachments of Macedonia, denounced at Rome this infraction of the old treaties. The fear with which a powerful prince inspired him, and the gratitude which he owed to the Republic for the aggrandisement of his kingdom after the Asian war, obliged him to cultivate the friendship of the Roman people. In 582 he came to Rome, and, honourably received by the Senate, forgot nothing which might excite it against Perseus, whom he accused of ambitious designs hostile to the Republic. This denunciation raised violent enmities against Eumenes. On his way back to his kingdom, he was attacked by assassins, and dangerously wounded. Suspicion fell on the Macedonian monarch, not without show of reason, and was taken by the Republic as sufficient ground for declaring war on a prince whose power began to offend it.

Bold in planning, Perseus displayed cowardice when it was necessary to act. After having from the first haughtily rejected the Roman claims, he waited in Thessaly for their army, which, ill-commanded and ill-organised, was beaten by his lieutenants and repulsed into mountain gorges, where it might have been easily destroyed. He then offered peace to P. Licinius Crassus; but, notwithstanding his check, the consul replied, with all the firmness of the Roman character, that peace was only possible if Perseus would abandon his person and his kingdom to the discretion of the Senate.[576 - Titus Livius, XLII. 62.] Struck by so much assurance, the king recalled his troops, and suffered the enemy to effect his retreat undisturbed. The incapacity of the Roman generals, however, their violences, and the want of discipline among the soldiers, had alienated the Greeks, who naturally preferred a prince of their own race to a foreign captain; moreover, they did not see the Macedonians get the better of the Romans without a certain satisfaction. In their eyes, it was the Hellenic civilisation overthrowing the presumption of the Western barbarians.

The campaigns of 584 and 585 were not more fortunate for the Roman arms. A consul had the rash idea of invading Macedonia by the passes of Callipeuce, where his army would have been annihilated if the king had had the courage to defend himself. At the approach of the legions he took to flight, and the Romans escaped from their perilous position without loss.[577 - Titus Livius, XLI. 5.] At length, the people, feeling the necessity of having an eminent man at the head of the army, nominated Paulus Æmilius consul, who had given many proofs of his military talents in the Cisalpine. Already the greater part of the Gallo-græci were in treaty with Perseus. The Illyrians and the people of the Danube offered to second him. The Rhodians, and the King of Pergamus himself, persuaded that Fortune was going to declare herself for the King of Macedonia, made him offers of alliance; he chaffered with them with the most inexplicable levity. In the mean time, the Roman army, ably conducted, advanced by forced marches. One single combat terminated the war; and the battle of Pydna, in 586, once more proved the superiority of the Roman legion over the phalanx. This, however, did not yield ingloriously; and, though abandoned by their king, who fled, the Macedonian hoplites died at their post.

When they heard of this defeat, Eumenes and the Rhodians hastened to wipe out the remembrance of their ever having doubted the fortune of Rome[578 - Titus Livius, XLV. 21 et seq.] by the swiftness of their repentance. At the same time, L. Anicius conquered Illyria and seized the person of Gentius. Macedonia was divided into four states called free, that is to say, presided over by magistrates chosen by themselves, but under the protectorate of the Republic. By the law imposed on these new provinces, all marriages, and all exchange of immovable property, were interdicted between the citizens of different states,[579 - Titus Livius, XLV. 29.] and the imports reduced one-half. As we see, the Republic applied the system practised in 416 to dissolve the Latin confederacy, and later, in 449, that of the Hernici. Illyria was also divided into three parts. The towns which had first yielded were exempt from all tribute, and the taxes of the others reduced to half.[580 - Titus Livius, XLV. 26.]

It is not uninteresting to recall to mind how Livy appreciates the institutions which Macedonia and Illyria received at this epoch. “It was decreed,” he says, “that liberty should be given to the Macedonians and Illyrians, to prove to the whole universe that, in carrying their arms so far, the object of the Romans was to deliver the enslaved peoples, not to enslave the free peoples; to guarantee to these last their independence, to the nations subject to kings a milder and more just government; and to convince them that, in the wars which might break out between the Republic and their sovereigns, the result would be the liberty of the peoples: Rome reserving to herself only the honour of victory.”[581 - Titus Livius, XLV. 18. – “The laws given to the Macedonians by Paulus Æmilius were so wisely framed, that they seemed to have been made not for vanquished enemies, but for allies whose services it was desired to reward; and in which, after a long course of years, use, the sole reformer of laws, showed nothing defective.” (Titus Livius, XLV. 32.)]

Greece, and above all Epirus, sacked by Paulus Æmilius, underwent the penalty of defection. As to the Achæan league, the fidelity of which had appeared doubtful, nearly a thousand of the principal citizens, guilty or suspected of having favoured the Macedonians, were sent as hostages to Rome.[582 - Polybius, XXX. 10; XXXV. 6.]

Modification of Roman policy.

XI. In carrying her victorious arms through almost all the borders of the Mediterranean, the Republic had hitherto obeyed either legitimate needs or generous inspirations. Care for her future greatness, for her existence even, made it absolute on her to dispute the empire of the sea with Carthage. Hence the wars, of which Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, Italy, and Africa, by turns, became the theatre. It was also her duty to combat the warlike peoples of the Cisalpine, that she might ensure the safety of her frontiers. As to the expeditions of Macedonia and Asia, Rome had been drawn into them by the conduct of foreign kings, their violation of treaties, their guilty plottings, and their attacks on her allies.

To conquer thus became to her an obligation, under pain of seeing fall to ruin the edifice which she had built up at the price of so many sacrifices; and, what is remarkable, she showed herself after victory magnificent towards her allies, clement to the vanquished, and moderate in her pretensions. Leaving to the kings all the glory of the throne, and to the nations their laws and liberties, she had reduced to Roman provinces only a part of Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, and Cisalpine Gaul. In Sicily she preserved the most intimate alliance with Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, for fifty years. The constant support of this prince must have shown the Senate how much such alliances were preferable to direct dominion. In Spain she augmented the territory of all the chiefs who consented to become her allies. After the battle of Cynoscephalæ, as after that of Magnesia, she maintained on their thrones Philip and Antiochus, and imposed on this last only the same conditions as those offered before the victory. If, after the battle of Pydna, she overthrew Perseus, it was because he had openly violated his engagements; but she gave equitable laws to Macedonia. Justice then ruled her conduct, even towards her oldest rival; for when Masinissa asked the help of the Senate in his quarrels with Carthage, he received for answer that, even in his favour, justice could not be sacrificed.[583 - Titus Livius, XLII. 24. – We see by the following passage in Livy that Masinissa feared the justice of the Senate as against his own interest: “If Perseus had had the advantage, and if Carthage had been deprived of the Roman protection, nothing would then have hindered Masinissa from conquering all Africa.” (Titus Livius, XLII. 29.)]

In Egypt her protection preserved the crown on the head of Ptolemy Philometor and of his sister Cleopatra.[584 - Titus Livius, XLV. 13.] Finally, when all the kings came after the victory of Pydna to offer their congratulations to the Roman people, and to implore their protection, the Senate regulated their demands with extreme justice. Eumenes, himself an object of suspicion, sent his brother Attalus to Rome; and he, willing to profit by the favourable impression he had made, thought to ask for him a part of the kingdom of Pergamus. He was recommended to give up the design. The Senate restored his son to Cotys, king of Thrace, without ransom, saying that the Roman people did not make a traffic of their benefits.[585 - Titus Livius, XLV. 42.] Finally, in the disputes between Prusias, king of Bithynia, and the Gallo-græcians, it declared that justice alone could dictate its decision.[586 - Titus Livius, XLV. 44.]

How, then, did so much nobleness of views, so much magnanimity in success, so much prudence in conduct seem to be belied, dating from that period of twenty-two years which divides the war against Persia from the third Punic war? Because too much success dazzles nations as well as kings. When the Romans began to think that nothing could resist them in the future because nothing had resisted them in the past, they believed that all was permitted them. They no longer made war to protect their allies, defend their frontiers, or destroy coalitions, but to crush the weak, and use nations for their own profit. We must also acknowledge that the inconstancy of the peoples, faithful in appearance, but always plotting some defection, and the hatred of the kings, concealing their resentment under a show of abasement, concurred to render the Republic more suspicious and more exacting, and caused it to count from henceforth rather on its subjects than on its allies. Vainly did the Senate seek to follow the grand traditions of the past; it was no longer strong enough to curb individual ambitions; and the same institutions which formerly brought forth the virtues, now only protected the vices of aggrandised Rome. The generals dared no longer to obey; thus, the consul Cn. Manlius attacks the Gallo-græcians in Asia without the orders of the Senate;[587 - Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 45.] A. Manlius takes on himself to make an expedition into Istria;[588 - Titus Livius, XLI. 7.] the consul C. Cassius abandons the Cisalpine, his province, and attempts of his own accord to penetrate into Macedonia by Illyria;[589 - Titus Livius, XLIII. 1.] the prætor Furius, on his own authority, disarms one of the peoples of Cisalpine Gaul, the Cenomani, at peace with Rome;[590 - Titus Livius, XXXIX. 3.] Popilius Lænas attacks the Statiellates without cause, and sells ten thousand of them; others also oppress the peoples of Spain.[591 - “It was commonly said that the masters of the Spanish provinces themselves opposed the prosecution of noble and powerful persons.” (Titus Livius, XLIII. 2.)] All these things doubtless incur the blame of the Senate; the consuls and prætors are disavowed, even accused, but their disobedience none the less remain unpunished, and the accusations without result. In 599, it is true, L. Lentulus, consul in the preceding year, underwent condemnation for exaction, but that did not prevent him from being raised again to the chief honours.[592 - Valerius Maximus, VI. ix. 10.]

As long as the object was only to form men destined for a modest part on a narrow theatre, nothing was better than the annual election of the consuls and prætors, by which, in a certain space of time, a great number of the principal citizens of both the patrician and plebeian nobility participated in the highest offices. Powers thus exercised under the eyes of their fellow-citizens, rather for honour than interest, obliged them to be worthy of their trust; but when, leading their legions into the most remote countries, the generals, far from all control, and invested with absolute power, enriched themselves by the spoils of the vanquished, dignities were sought merely to furnish them with wealth during their short continuance. The frequent re-election of the magistrates, in multiplying the contests of candidates, multiplied the ambitious, who scrupled at nothing to attain their object. Thus Montesquieu justly observes, that “good laws which have made a small republic great, become a burden to it when it has increased, because their natural effect was to create a grand people, and not to govern it.”[593 - Montesquieu, Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, ix. 66.]

The remedy for this overflowing of unruly passions would have been, on the one hand, to moderate the desire for conquest; on the other, to diminish the number of aspirants to power, by giving them a longer term of duration. But then, the people alone, guided by its instincts, felt the need of remedying this defect in the institution, by retaining in authority those who had their confidence. Thus, they wished to appoint Scipio Africanus perpetual dictator;[594 - Scipio reproves the people, who wished to make him perpetual consul and dictator. (Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 56.)] while pretended reformers, such as Portius Cato, enslaved to old customs, and in a spirit of exaggerated rigorism, made laws to interdict the same man from aspiring twice to the consulship, and to advance the age at which it was lawful to try for this high office.

All these measures were contrary to the object at which they aimed. In maintaining annual elections, the way was left free to vulgar covetousness; in excluding youth from high functions, they repressed the impulses of those choice natures which early reveal themselves, and the exceptional elevation of which had so often saved Rome from the greatest disasters. Have we not seen, for example, in 406, Marcus Valerius Corvus, raised to the consulate at twenty-three years of age, gain the battle of Mount Gaurus against the Samnites; Scipio Africanus, nominated proconsul at twenty-four, conquer Spain and humiliate Carthage; the consul Quinctius Flamininus, at thirty, carry off from Philip the victory of Cynoscephalæ? Finally, Scipio Æmilianus, who is to destroy Carthage, will be elected consul, even before the age fixed by the law of Cato.

No doubt, Cato the Censor, honest and incorruptible, had the laudable design of arresting the decline of morals. But, instead of attacking the cause, he only attacked the effect; instead of strengthening authority, he tended to weaken it; instead of leaving the nations a certain independence, he urged the Senate to bring them all under its absolute dominion; instead of adopting what came from Greece with an enlightened discernment, he indiscriminately condemned all that was of foreign origin.[595 - Cato used interpreters in speaking to the Athenians, though he understood Greek perfectly. (Plutarch, Cato the Censor, 18.) – It was an old habit of the Romans, indeed, to address strangers only in Latin. (Valerius Maximus, II. ii. 2.)] There was in Cato’s austerity more ostentation than real virtue. Thus, during his censorship, he expelled Manlius from the Senate for having kissed his wife before his daughter in open daylight; he took pleasure in regulating the toilette and extravagance of the Roman ladies; and, by an exaggerated disinterestedness, he sold his horse when he quitted Spain, to save the Republic the cost of transport.[596 - Plutarch, Cato the Censor, 8, 25.]

But the Senate contained men less absolute, and wiser appreciators of the needs of the age; they desired to repress abuses, to carry out a policy of moderation, to curb the spirit of conquest, and to accept from Greece all that she had of good. Scipio Nasica and Scipio Æmilianus figured among the most important.[597 - Titus Livius, Epitome, XLVIII. – Valerius Maximus, IV. i. 10.] One did not reject whatever might soften manners and increase human knowledge; the other cultivated the new muses, and was even said to have assisted Terence.

The irresistible inclination of the people towards all that elevates the soul and ennobles existence was not to be arrested. Greece had brought to Italy her literature, her arts, her science, her eloquence; and when, in 597, there came to Rome three celebrated philosophers – Carneades the Academician, Diogenes the Stoic, and Critolaus the Peripatetic – as ambassadors from Athens, they produced an immense sensation. The young men flocked in crowds to see and hear them; the Senate itself approved this homage paid to men whose talent must polish, by the culture of letters, minds still rude and unformed.[598 - Plutarch, Cato the Censor, 34. – Aulus Gellius, VI. 14.] Cato alone, inexorable, pretended that these arts would soon corrupt the Roman youth, and destroy its taste for arms; and he caused these philosophers to be dismissed.

Sent to Africa as arbiter to appease the struggle between Masinissa and Carthage, he only embittered it. Jealous at seeing this ancient rival still great and prosperous, he did not cease pronouncing against her that famous decree of death: Delenda est Carthago. Scipio Nasica, on the contrary, opposed the destruction of Carthage, which he considered too weak to do injury, yet strong enough to keep up a salutary fear, which might prevent the people from casting themselves into all those excesses which are the inevitable consequences of the unbounded increase of empires.[599 - Titus Livius, Epitome, XLIX.] Unhappily, the opinion of Cato triumphed.

As one of our first writers says, it must be “that truth is a divine thing, since the errors of good men are as fatal to humanity as vice, which is the error of the wicked.”

Cato, by persecuting with his accusations the principal citizens, and, among others, Scipio Africanus, taught the Romans to doubt virtue.[600 - “Cato barked without ceasing at the greatness of Scipio.” (Titus Livius, XXXVIII. 54.)] By exaggeration in his attacks, and by delivering his judgments with passion, he caused his justice to be suspected.[601 - “P. Cato had a bitter mind, a sharp and unmeasured tongue.” (Titus Livius, XXXIX. 40.)] By condemning the vices from which he himself was not exempt, he deprived his remonstrances of all moral force.[602 - “He declaimed against usurers, and he himself lent out, at high interest, the money which he got from his estates. He condemned the sale of young slaves, yet trafficked in the same under an assumed name.” (Plutarch, Cato the Censor, 33.)] When he scourged the people as accuser and judge, without seeking to raise them by education and laws, he resembled, says a learned German, that Persian king who whipped the sea with rods to make the tempest cease.[603 - Drumann, Geschichte Roms, v., p. 148.] His influence, though powerless to arrest the movement of one civilisation taking the place of another, failed not to produce a fatal effect on the policy of that period.[604 - “The last act of his political life was to cause the ruin of Carthage to be determined on.” (Plutarch, Cato the Censor, 39.)] The Senate, renouncing the moderation and justice which hitherto had stamped all its deeds, adopted in their stead a crafty and arrogant line of action, and a system of extermination.

Towards the beginning of the seventh century, everything disappears before the Roman power. The independence of peoples, kingdoms, and republics ceases to exist. Carthage is destroyed, Greece gives up her arms, Macedonia loses her liberty, that of Spain perishes at Numantia, and shortly afterwards Pergamus undergoes the same fate.

Third Punic War (605-608).

XII. Notwithstanding her abasement, Carthage still existed, the eternal object of hatred and distrust. She was accused of connivance with the Macedonians, ever impatient of their yoke; and to her was imputed the resistance of the Celtiberian hordes. In 603, Masinissa and the Carthaginians engaged in a new struggle. As, according to their treaties, these last could not make war without authorisation, the Senate deliberated on the course it was to take. Cato desired war immediately. Scipio Nasica, on the contrary, obtained the appointment of a new embassy, which succeeded in persuading Masinissa to evacuate the territory in dispute; on its part, the Senate of Carthage consented to submit to the wisdom of the ambassadors, when the populace at Carthage, excited by those men who in troublous times speculate on the passions of the mob, breaks out in insurrection, insults the Roman envoys, and expels the chief citizens.[605 - Titus Livius, Epitome, XLVIII.] A fatal insurrection; for in moments of external crisis all popular movements ruin a nation,[606 - At Carthage, the multitude governed; at Rome, the power of the Senate was absolute. (Polybius, VI. 51.)] as all political change is fatal in the presence of a foreigner invading the soil of the fatherland. However, the Roman Senate judged it best to temporise, because of the war in Spain, where Scipio Æmilianus then served in the capacity of tribune. Ordered to Africa (603), to obtain from Masinissa elephants for the war against the Celtiberians, he witnessed a sanguinary defeat of the Carthaginian army. This event decided the question of Roman intervention; the Senate, in fact, had no intention of leaving the entire sovereignty of Africa to the Numidian king, whose possessions already extended from the ocean to Cyrene.[607 - Titus Livius, L. 16.]

In vain did Carthage send ambassadors to Rome to explain her conduct. They obtained no satisfaction. Utica yielded to the Romans (604), and the two consuls, L. Marcius Censorinus, and M. Manlius Nepos, arrived there at the head of 80,000 men in 605. Carthage sues for peace; they impose the condition that she shall give up her arms; she delivers them up, with 2,000 engines of war. But soon exactions increase; the inhabitants are commanded to quit their city and retire ten miles inland. Exasperated by so much severity, the Carthaginians recover their energy; they forge new weapons, raise the populace, fling into the campaign Hasdrubal, who has soon collected 70,000 men in his camp at Nepheris, and gives the consuls reason to fear the success of their enterprise.[608 - Appian, Punic Wars, 93 et seq.]

The Roman army met with a resistance it was far from expecting. Endangered by Manlius, it was saved by the tribune, Scipio Æmilianus, on whom all eyes were turned. On his return to Rome, he was in 607 elected consul at the age of thirty-six years, and charged with the direction of the war, which henceforth took a new aspect. Carthage is soon inclosed by works of prodigious labour; on land, trenches surround the place and protect the besiegers; by sea, a colossal bar interrupts all communication, and gives up the city to famine; but the Carthaginians build a second fleet in their inner port, and excavate a new communication with the sea. During the winter Scipio goes and forces the camp at Nepheris, and on the return of spring makes himself master of the first enclosure; finally, after a siege which lasted for three years, with heroic efforts on both sides, the town and its citadel Byrsa are carried, and entirely razed to the ground. Hasdrubal surrendered, with fifty thousand inhabitants, the remains of an immense population; but on a fragment of the wall which had escaped the fire, the wife of the last Carthaginian chief, dressed in her most gorgeous robes, was seen to curse her husband, who had not had the courage to die; then, after having slain her two children, she flung herself into the flames. A mournful image of a nation which achieves her own ruin, but which does not fall ingloriously.

When the vessel laden with magnificent spoils, and adorned with laurels, entered the Tiber, bearer of the grand news, all the citizens rushed out into the streets embracing and congratulating each other on so joyful a victory. Now only did Rome feel herself free from all fear, and the mistress of the world. Nevertheless, the destruction of Carthage was a crime which Caius Gracchus, Julius Cæsar, and Augustus sought to repair.

Greece, Macedonia, Numantia, and Pergamus reduced to Provinces.

XIII. The same year saw the destruction of the Greek autonomy. Since the war with Persia, the preponderance of Roman influence had maintained order in Achaia; but on the return of the hostages, in 603, coincident with the troubles of Macedonia, party enmities were re-awakened. Dissensions soon broke out between the Achæan league and the cities of the Peloponnesus, which it coveted, and the resistance of which it did not hesitate to punish by destruction and pillage.

Sparta soon rebelled, and Peloponnesus was all in flames. The Romans made vain efforts to allay this general disturbance. The envoys of the Senate carried a decree to Corinth, which detached from the league Sparta, Argos, Orchomenus, and Arcadia. On hearing this, the Achæans massacred the Lacedæmonians then at Corinth, and loaded the Roman commissioners with insults.[609 - Justin, XXXIV. 1. – Titus Livius, Epitome, LI. – Polybius, I. 2, 3.] Before using severity, the Roman Senate resolved to make one appeal to conciliation; but the words of the new envoys were not listened to.

The Achæan league, united with Eubœa and Bœotia, then dared to declare war against Rome, which they knew to be occupied in Spain and Africa. The league was soon vanquished at Scarphia, in Locris, by Metellus, and at Leucopetra, near Corinth, by Mummius. The towns of the Achæan league were treated rigorously; Corinth was sacked; and Greece, under the name of Achaia, remained in subjection to the Romans (608).[610 - Pausanias, VII. 16. – Justin, XXXIV. 2.]

However, Mummius, as Polybius himself avows,[611 - Polybius, XL. 11.] showed as much moderation as disinterestedness after the victory. He preserved in their places the statues of Philopœmen, kept none of the trophies taken in Greece for himself, and remained so poor that the Senate conferred a dowry upon his daughter from the public treasury.

About the same time the severity of the Senate had not spared Macedonia. During the last Punic war, a Greek adventurer, Andriscus, pretending to be the son of Perseus, had stirred up the country to rebellion, with an army of Thracians. Driven out of Thessaly by Scipio Nasica, he returned there, slew the prætor Juventius Thalna, and formed an alliance with the Carthaginians. Beaten by Metellus, he was sent to Rome loaded with chains. Some years later, a second impostor having also endeavoured to seize the succession of Perseus, the Senate reduced Macedonia to a Roman province (612). It was the same with Illyria after the submission of the Ardæi (618). Never had so many triumphs been seen. Scipio Æmilianus had triumphed over Africa, Metellus over Macedonia, Mummius over Achaia, and Fulvius Flaccus over Illyria.

Delivered henceforth from its troubles in the east and south, the Senate turned its attention towards Spain. This country had never entirely yielded: its strength hardly restored, it took up arms again. After the pacification which Scipio Africanus and Sempronius Gracchus successively induced, new insurrections broke forth; the Lusitanians, yielding to the instigations of Carthage, had revolted in 601, and had gained some advantages over Mummius and his successor Galba (603). But this last, by an act of infamous treachery, massacred thirty thousand prisoners. Prosecuted for this act at Rome by Cato, he was acquitted. Subsequently, another consul showed no less perfidy: Licinius Lucullus, having entered the town of Cauca, which had surrendered, slew twenty thousand of its inhabitants, and sold the rest.[612 - Appian, Wars of Spain, 52.]

So much cruelty excited the indignation of the peoples of Northern Spain, and, as always happens, the national feeling brought forth a hero. Viriathus, who had escaped the massacre of the Lusitanians, and from a shepherd had become a general, began a war of partisans, and, for five years, having vanquished the Roman generals, ended by rousing the Celtiberians. Whilst these occupied Metellus the Macedonian, Fabius, left alone against Viriathus, was hemmed into a defile by him, and constrained to accept peace. The murder of Viriathus left the issue of the war no longer doubtful. This death was too advantageous to the Romans not to be imputed to Cæpio, successor to his brother Fabius. But when the murderers came to demand the wages of their crime, they were told that the Romans had never approved of the massacre of a general by his soldiers.[613 - Eutropius, IV. 7.] The Lusitanians, however, submitted, and the legions penetrated to the ocean.

The war, ended in the west, became concentrated round Numantia,[614 - The town of Garray, in Spain, situated about a league from Soria, on the Duero, is built on the site of ancient Numantia. (Miñano, Diccionario Geográfico de España.)] where, in the course of five years, several consuls were defeated. When, in 616, Mancinus, surrounded by the enemy on all sides, was reduced to save his army by a shameful capitulation, like that of the Furculæ Caudinæ, the Senate refused to ratify the treaty, and gave up the consul loaded with chains. The same fate was reserved for Tiberius Gracchus, his questor, who had guaranteed the treaty; but, through the favour of the people, he remained at Rome. The Numantines still resisted for a long time with rare energy. The conqueror of Carthage himself had to go to direct the siege, which required immense works; and yet the town was taken only by famine (621). Spain was overcome, but her spirit of independence survived for a great number of years.

Although the fall of the kingdom of Pergamus was posterior to the events we have just related, we will speak of it here because it is the continuation of the system of reducing all peoples to subjection. Attalus III., a monster of cruelty and folly, had, when dying, bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman people, who sent troops to take possession of it; but a natural son of Eumenes, Aristonicus, raised the inhabitants, and defeated the consul Licinius Crassus, soon avenged by one of his successors. Aristonicus was taken, and the kingdom, pacified, passed by the name of Asia under Roman domination (625).

Summary.

XIV. The more the Republic extended its empire, the more the number of the high functions increased, and the more important they became. The consuls, the proconsuls, and the prætors, governed not only foreign countries, but Italy itself. In fact, Appian tells us that the proconsuls exercised their authority in certain countries of the peninsula.[615 - Appian, Civil Wars, V. iv. 38.]

The Roman provinces were nine in number: – 1. Cisalpine Gaul. 2. Farther Spain. 3. Nearer Spain. 4. Sardinia and Corsica. 5. Sicily. 6. Northern Africa. 7. Illyria. 8. Macedonia and Achaia. 9. Asia. The people appointed yearly two consuls and seven prætors to go and govern these distant countries; but generally these high offices were attainable only by those who had been questors or ediles. Now, the edileship required a large fortune; for the ediles were obliged to spend great sums in fêtes and public works to please the people. The rich alone could aspire to this first dignity; consequently, it was only the members of the aristocracy who had a chance of arriving at the elevated position, where, for one or two years, they were absolute masters of the destinies of vast kingdoms. Thus, the nobility sought to keep these high offices closed against new men. From 535 to 621 – eighty-six years – nine families alone obtained eighty-three consulships. Still later, twelve members of the family Metellus gained various dignities in less than twelve years (630-642.)[616 - Velleius Paterculus, II. 20.] Nabis, tyrant of Sparta, was right then, when, addressing the consul Quinctius Flamininus, he said, “With you, it is regard for the pay which determines enlistments into the cavalry and infantry. Power is for a small number; dependence is the lot of the multitude. Our lawgiver (Lycurgus), on the contrary, did not wish to put all the power into the hands of certain citizens, whose assembling together you call the Senate, nor to give a legal pre-eminence to one or two orders.”[617 - Titus Livius, XXXIV. 31.]

It is curious to see a tyrant of Greece give lessons in democracy to a Roman. In reality, notwithstanding the changes introduced into the comitia, the bearing of which is difficult to explain, the nobility preserved its preponderance, and the habit of addressing the people only after having taken the sense of the Senate, was still persisted in.[618 - Titus Livius, XLV. 21.] The Roman government, always aristocratic, became more oppressive in proportion as the State increased in extent, and it lost in influence what the people of Italy gained in intelligence and in legitimate aspirations towards a better future.

Besides, ever since the beginning of the Republic, it had harboured in its breast two opposite parties, the one seeking to extend, the other to restrict, the rights of the people. When the first came into power, all the liberal laws of the past were restored to force; when the second came in, these laws were evaded. Thus we see now the law Valeria, which consecrates appeal to the people, thrice revived; now the law interdicting the re-election of the consuls before an interval of ten years, promulgated by Genucius in 412,[619 - Titus Livius, VII. 43.] and immediately abandoned, renewed in 603, and subsequently restored by Sylla; now the law which threw the freedmen into the urban tribes, in order to annul their vote, revived at three different epochs;[620 - In 555, 585, and 639. (Titus Livius, XLV. 15.) – Aurelius Victor, Illustrious Men, lxii.] now the measures against solicitation, against exactions, against usury, continually put into force; and finally, the right of election to the sacerdotal office by turn, refused or granted to the people.[621 - The tribune Licinius Crassus proposed, in 609, to transfer to the people the election of the pontiffs, until then nominated by the sacerdotal college. This proposition was adopted only in 650 by the law Domitia, and was anew abolished by Sylla.] By the Portian laws of 557 and 559, it was forbidden to strike with rods, or put to death, a Roman citizen, before the people had pronounced upon his doom. And yet Scipio Æmilianus, to evade this law, caused his auxiliaries to be beaten with sticks and his soldiers with vine-stalks.[622 - Titus Livius, Epitome, LVII.] At the beginning of the seventh century, the principle of secret voting was admitted in all elections; in 615, in the elections of the magistrates; in 617, for the decision of the people in judicial condemnations; in 623, in the votes on proposals for laws. Finally, by the institution of permanent tribunals (quæstiones perpetuæ), established from 605, it was sought to remedy the spoliation of the provinces; but these institutions, successively adopted or abandoned, could not heal the ills of society. The manly virtues of an intelligent aristocracy had until then maintained the Republic in a state of concord and greatness; its vices were soon to shake it to its foundations.

We have just related the principal events of a period of one hundred and thirty-three years, during which Rome displayed an energy which no nation has ever equalled. On all sides, and almost at the same time, she has passed her natural limits. In the north, she has subdued the Cisalpine Gauls and crossed the Alps; in the west and south, she has conquered the great islands of the Mediterranean and the greater part of Spain. Carthage, her powerful rival, has ceased to exist. To the east, the coasts of the Adriatic are colonised; the Illyrians, the Istrians, the Dalmatians, are subjected; the kingdom of Macedonia has become a tributary province; and the legions have penetrated even to the Danube.[623 - The expedition against the Scordisci, in 619.] Farther than this exist only unknown lands, the country of barbarians, too weak yet to cause alarm. Continental Greece, her isles, Asia Minor up to Mount Taurus, all this country, the cradle of civilisation, has entered into the Roman empire. The rest of Asia receives her laws and obeys her influence. Egypt, the most powerful of the kingdoms which made part of the heritage of Alexander, is under her tutelage. The Jews implore her alliance. The Mediterranean has become a Roman lake. The Republic vainly seeks an adversary worthy of her arms. But if from without no serious danger seems to threaten her, within exist great interests not satisfied, and peoples discontented.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GRACCHI, MARIUS, AND SYLLA

(621-676.)

State of the Republic.

I. THE age of disinterestedness and stoic virtues was passed; it had lasted nearly four hundred years, and during that period, the antagonism created by divergency of opinions and interests had never led to sanguinary conflicts. The patriotism of the aristocracy and the good sense of the people had prevented this fatal extremity; but, dating from the first years of the seventh century, everything had changed, and at every proposal of reform, or desire of power, nothing was seen but sedition, civil wars, massacres, and proscriptions.