CHAPTER XXV. MARIUS AND SULLA.-CINNA.
With the name of MARIUS is usually coupled that of LUCIUS CORNELIUS SULLA (138-78). "He was a patrician of the purest blood, had inherited a moderate fortune, and had spent it, like other young men of rank, lounging in theatres and amusing himself with dinner parties. He was a poet, an artist, and a wit. Although apparently indolent, he was naturally a soldier, statesman, and diplomatist. As Quaestor under Marius in the Jugurthine War, he had proved a most active and useful officer." In these African campaigns he showed that he knew how to win the hearts and confidence of his soldiers; and through his whole subsequent career, the secret of his brilliant successes seems to have been the enthusiastic devotion of his troops, whom he always held well under control, even when they were allowed to indulge in plunder and license. It was to Sulla's combined adroitness and courage that Marius owed the final capture of Jugurtha. He served again under Marius in the campaigns against the Cimbri and Teutones, and gave efficient help towards the victory. But the Consul became jealous of his rising power, and all friendly feeling between the two ceased.
After this campaign Sulla lived at Rome for some years, taking no part in politics, and during this time his name and that of his rival are almost unheard. He appeared before the public again in 93, when he was elected Praetor, and increased his popularity by an exhibition of a hundred lions in the arena, matched against Numidian archers. In 92 he went as Propraetor to govern the province of Asia, and here he first met MITHRADÁTES.
This monarch, who ruled over Pontus, was an extraordinary man. He spoke many languages, was the idol, of his subjects, and had boundless ambition. He doubted the durability of the Roman Empire, and began to enlarge his own territory, with no apparent fear of Rome's interference.
Cappadocia, a neighboring country, was under Roman protection, and was ruled by a prince, ARIOBARZÁNES, that Rome had recognized. This country Mithradátes attacked. He killed the prince, and placed on the throne his own nephew.
Rome interfered, and Sulla was instructed to visit the monarch. He accomplished his mission with his usual adroitness, and returned to Rome with new honors. He took an active part in the Social War, eclipsing the fame of his rival, Marius. He was now the recognized leader of the conservative and aristocratic party. The feeling between the rivals was more bitter than ever, for Marius, though old, had by no means lost his prestige with the popular party.
It was at this time that Mithradátes, learning of the Social War, thought it a good opportunity to advance his own interests and extend his realm. He collected all his available forces, and invaded Bithynia. With his fleets he sailed through the Dardanelles into the Archipelago. The extortions of the Roman governors had been so great, that Ionia, Lydia, and Caria, with all the islands near Asia Minor, gladly revolted from Rome, and accepted his protection. All the Roman residents with their families were massacred on a single day. It is said that 80,000 persons perished. Mithradátes himself next crossed the Bosphorus, and marched into Northern Greece, which received him with open arms.
Such was the condition in the East when Sulpicius Rufus carried the bills mentioned in the last chapter. One of these bills was that Marius have charge of the war against Mithradátes. This was not to Sulla's liking. He was in Campania with the legions that had served in the Social War. The soldiers were devoted to him, and ready to follow him anywhere. Sulla, therefore, taking matters into his own hands, marched into the city at the head of his troops. The people resisted; Sulpicius was slain; Marius fled for his life, and retired to Africa, where he lived for a time, watching the course of events.
Sulla could not remain long at the capital. The affairs of the East called him away; and no sooner was he gone than the flames of civil war burst out anew (87).
LUCIUS CORNELIUS CINNA, a friend of Marius, was Consul that year. He tried to recall Marius, but was violently opposed and finally driven from the city. The Senate declared him deposed from his office. He invoked the aid of the soldiers in Campania, and found them ready to follow him. The neighboring Italian towns sent him men and money, and Marius, coming from Africa, joined him with six thousand troops. They marched upon Rome. The city was captured. Cinna was acknowledged Consul, and the sentence of outlawry which had been passed on Marius was revoked.
The next year Marius was made Consul for the seventh time, and Cinna for the second. Then followed the wildest cruelties. Marius had a body-guard of slaves, which he sent out to murder whomever he wished. The houses of the rich were plundered, and the honor of noble families was exposed to the mercy of the slaves. Fortunately Marius died sixteen days after he entered office, and the shedding of blood ceased.
For the next three years Cinna ruled Rome. Constitutional government was practically suspended. For the years 85 and 84 Cinna himself and a trusty colleague were Consuls, but no regular elections were held. In 84, he was murdered, when on the eve of setting out against Sulla in Asia.
Sulla left Italy for the East with 30,000 troops. He marched against Athens, where Archeláus, the general of Mithradátes, was intrenched. After a long siege, he captured and pillaged the city, March 1, 86. The same year he defeated Archeláus at CHAERONÉA in Boeotia, and the next year at ORCHOMENOS.
Meanwhile Sulla's lieutenant, LUCULLUS, raised a fleet and gained two victories off the coast of Asia Minor. The Asiatic king was now ready to negotiate. Sulla crossed the Hellespont in 84, and in a personal interview with the king arranged the terms of peace, which were as follows. The king was to give up Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Cappadocia, and withdraw to his former dominions. He was also to pay an indemnity amounting to about $3,500,000, and surrender eighty ships of war.
Having thus settled matters with the king, Sulla punished the Lydians and Carians, in whose territory the Romans had been massacred, by compelling them to pay at one time five years' tribute. He was now ready to return to Rome.
The same year that Cinna died, Sulla landed at Brundisium, with 40,000 troops and a large following of nobles who had fled from Rome. Every preparation was made by the Marian party for his reception; but no sooner did he land in Italy than the soldiers were induced to desert to him in immense numbers, and he soon found himself in possession of all Lower Italy. Among those who hastened to his standard was young POMPEY, then but twenty-three years old, and it was to his efforts that Sulla's success was largely due. The next year, 83, the Marian party was joined by the Samnites, and the war raged more fiercely than ever. At length, however, Sulla was victorious under the walls of Rome. The city lay at his mercy. His first act, an order for the slaughter of 6,000 Samnite prisoners, was a fit prelude to his conduct in the city. Every effort was made to eradicate the last trace of Marian blood and sympathy from the city. A list of men, declared to be outlaws and public enemies, was exhibited in the Forum, and a succession of wholesale murders and confiscations throughout Rome and Italy, made the name of Sulla forever infamous.
Having received the title of Dictator, and celebrated a splendid triumph for the Mithradátic war, he carried (80-79) his political measures. The main object of these was to invest the Senate, the thinned ranks of which he filled with his own creatures, with full control over the state, over every magistrate and every province.
In 79 he resigned his dictatorship and went to Puteoli, where he died the next year, from a loathsome disease brought on by his excesses.
THE REFORMS OF SULLA.
Sulla restricted the power of the magistrates to the advantage of the Senate. Senators were alone made eligible for the tribuneship, and no former Tribune could hold any curule office. No one could be Praetor without having first been Quaestor, or Consul without having held the praetorship. Every candidate for the office of Quaestor must be at least thirty years old. The number of Praetors was increased from six to eight; that of Quaestors, from twelve to twenty. The Consuls and Praetors were to remain at Rome during their first year of office, and then go to the provinces as Proconsuls and Propraetors.
Three hundred new Senators, taken from the Equites, were added, and all who had been Quaestors were made eligible to the Senate.
The control of the courts was transferred from the Equites to the Senate.
On the death of Sulla, in 78, CRASSUS and LEPIDUS were chosen Consuls; but such was the instability of the times that they were sworn not to raise an army during their consulship. Lepidus attempted to evade his oath by going to Gaul, and, when summoned by the Senate to return, marched against the city at the head of his forces. He was defeated by Crassus and Pompey in 78, and soon after died.
CHAPTER XXVI. SERTORIUS.—SPARTACUS.—LUCULLUS.—POMPEY AND CRASSUS.
Quintus Sertorius (121-72), a native of the little Sabine village of Nursia under the Apennines, had joined the party of Marius, and served under him in the campaigns against the Cimbri and Teutones. In 97 he served in Spain, and became acquainted with the country with which his fame is chiefly associated. In 91 he was Quaestor in Cisalpine Gaul. He was a partisan of Marius during his troubles with Sulla, and on Sulla's return from the East he left Rome for Spain, where he took the lead of the Marian party. His bravery, kindness, and eloquence pleased the Spaniards. Many Roman refugees and deserters joined him. He defeated one of Sulla's generals, and drove out of Lusitania (Portugal) METELLUS PIUS,(Footnote: Son of Metellus Numidicus. He received the agnomen of Pius on account of the love which he displayed for his father, whom he begged the people to recall from banishment in 99.) who had been specially sent against him from Rome.
The object of Sertorius was to establish a government in Spain after the Roman model. He formed a Senate of three hundred members, and founded at Osca a school for native children. He was strict and severe towards his soldiers, but kind to the people. A white fawn was his favorite pet and constant follower. He ruled Spain for six years. In 77 he was joined by PERPERNA a Roman officer. The same year Pompey, then a young man, was sent to co-operate with Metellus. Sertorius proved more than a match for both of these generals, and defeated them near Saguntum.
The position of the Romans was becoming critical, for Sertorius now formed a league with the pirates of the Mediterranean. He also entered into negotiations with Mithradátes, and opened correspondence with the slaves in Italy, who were rebelling.
But intrigues and jealousies arose in his camp. The outcome of these was that he was treacherously murdered by Perperna at a banquet in 72, and with his death fell the Marian party in Spain.
Meanwhile a dangerous enemy was threatening Italy within her own borders. In 73 a band of gladiators, under the leadership of one of their number, named SPARTACUS escaped from the training school at Capua and took up a strong position on Mount Vesuvius. They were joined by large numbers of slaves and outcasts of every description, and were soon in a position to defeat two Praetors who were sent against them.
The next year they assumed the offensive; and Spartacus found himself at the head of 100,000 men. Four generals sent against him were defeated; and for two years he ravaged Italy at will, and even threatened Rome. But intestine division showed itself in his ranks; his lieutenants grew jealous of him, and his strength began to wane.
In 71 the command of the war was given to CRASSUS, who finished it in six months. Spartacus fell, fighting bravely, near Brundisium. Pompey, returning from the Sertorian war in Spain, met five thousand of those who had escaped from the array of Spartacus. These he slew to a man. Crassus pointed the moral of his victory by hanging, along the road from Rome to Capua, six thousand captives whom he had taken.
Mithradátes meanwhile, taking advantage of the troubles at Rome, was again in arms, and in 74 LUCIUS LICINIUS LUCULLUS was sent against him.
Lucullus, of plebeian birth, first distinguished himself in the Social War, where he gained the favor of Sulla, and accompanied him, as Quaestor, in his campaign against Mithradátes in 88. With Cotta he was chosen to the consulship in 74. The province of Cilicia was assigned to him, Bithynia to Cotta. Mithradátes invaded Bithynia, defeated Cotta, and besieged him at Chalcédon.
Lucullus, after reorganizing and disciplining his army, went to the aid of his colleague, drove the king into Pontus, and defeated him at Cabíra in 72, and his fleet at Tenedos in 71, compelling him to take refuge with his son-in-law, TIGRÁNES, King of Armenia.
Lucullus endeavored to work reforms in the administration of provincial governments in the East. The revenues of the provinces were farmed out, and the measures of Lucullus were intended to protect the tax-payers against the tax-gatherers (publicani). His reforms met with bitter opposition at Rome, especially from the Equites, whose chief source of income was often this same tax-farming. Intrigues against him by persons sent from Rome began to create dissatisfaction among his troops. He had been a severe disciplinarian, and so it was all the easier to turn the soldiers against him.
In 68 he won a victory over Tigránes and Mithradátes, at the river Arsanias; but his legions refused to follow him farther, and he was obliged to lead them into winter quarters in Mesopotamia. The next year his soldiers again mutinied, and he was replaced by Pompey.
Returning to Rome, Lucullus spent the rest of his days in retirement, dying about 57. He was very rich, and was famed for the luxurious dinners which he gave.
POMPEY AND CRASSUS.
The Sullan system stood for nine years, and was then overthrown, as it had been established, by a soldier. It was the fortune of Pompey, a favorite officer of Sulla, to cause the first violation of the laws laid down by his general.
GNEIUS POMPEIUS MAGNUS (106-48) led a soldier's life from his boyhood to his death. When a youth of seventeen he fought by his father's side in the civil struggles between Marius and Sulla. He was a partisan of the latter, and connected himself with the cause of the aristocracy. He defeated the followers of Marius in Sicily and Africa, and in 81 was allowed to enjoy a triumph, though still an Eques and not legally qualified. Sulla then greeted him with the surname of Magnus, which he ever afterwards bore. He was then sent to Spain, with what success we have seen in the previous chapter. In 70 Pompey and MARCUS LICINIUS CRASSUS were elected Consuls amid great enthusiasm.
Crassus (108-53), the conqueror of Spartacus, had amassed immense wealth by speculation, mining, dealing in slaves, and other methods. Avarice is said to have been his ruling passion, though he gave large sums to the people for political effect.
Neither Pompey nor Crassus, according to the laws passed by Sulla, was eligible to the consulship. The former had never been Quaestor, and was only thirty-five years old; the latter was still Praetor, and ought to have waited two years.
The work of Sulla was now quickly undone. The Tribunes regained their prerogative, the veto. The control of the criminal courts was transferred again from the Senate to the Equites, and the former body was cleared of its most worthless members, who had been appointed by Sulla.
For three years (70-67) after the expiration of his consulship, Pompey remained quietly at Rome. He was then put in charge of an expedition against the Greek pirates. From the earliest times these marauders had been in the habit of depredating on the shores of the Mediterranean. During the civil wars of Rome they had become much bolder, so that the city was compelled to take an active part against them. They had paralyzed the trade of the Mediterranean, and even the coasts of Italy were not safe from their raids.
GABINIUS, a Tribune, proposed that Pompey should hold his command for three years; that he should have supreme authority over all Roman magistrates in the provinces throughout the Mediterranean, and over the coasts for fifty miles inland. He was to have fifteen lieutenants, all ex-praetors, two hundred ships, and all the troops he needed.
In three months the pirates were swept from the sea.
The next year (66) Pompey's powers were still further enlarged by the MANILIAN LAW, proposed by the Tribune Manilius. By this law the entire control of the Roman policy in the East was given to Pompey. His appointment was violently opposed by the Senate, especially by CATULUS, the "father of the Senate," and by the orator HORTENSIUS; but CICERO with his first political speech (Pro Lege Manilia) came to Pompey's assistance, and to him was given the command by which he became virtually dictator in the East. His operations there were thoroughly successful, and, though he doubtless owed much to the previous victories of Lucullus, he showed himself an able soldier. Mithradátes was obliged to flee across the Black Sea to Panticapaeum (Kertch).
In the year 64 Pompey went to Syria, took possession of the country in the name of Rome, and made it a province.
Next he was invited to act as judge between Hyrcánus and Aristobúlus, two aspirants to the Jewish throne. His decision was contrary to the wishes of the people, and to enforce it he led his army against Jerusalem, which he captured after a siege of three months. He installed Hyrcánus on the throne on condition of an annual tribute.
Meanwhile Mithradátes had returned to Pontus for the prosecution of his old design; but so great was the terror inspired by the Roman arms, that even his own son refused to join him. Desperate at the turn affairs had taken, the aged monarch put an end to his own life in 63, after a reign of fifty-seven years. With him ceased for many years all formidable opposition to Rome in Asia.
Besides Syria, Pontus, to which Bithynia was joined, and Crete were now made provinces. Cilicia was reorganized, and enlarged by the addition of Pamphylia and Isauria. The three countries in Asia Minor not yet provinces, but dependencies, were Galatia, ruled by Deiotarus; Cappadocia, by Ariobarzánes; and Paphlagonia, by Attalus.
After an absence of nearly seven years, Pompey returned to Rome, January 1, 61, and enjoyed a well earned triumph. He was forty-five years old, had accomplished a really great work, had founded several cities which afterwards became centres of Greek life and civilization, and was hailed as the conqueror of Spain, Africa, and Asia.
The rest of Pompey's life is closely connected with that of Caesar. His wife, Julia, was Caesar's daughter, and thus far the relations between the two men had been friendly.
Pompey's absence in the East was marked at Rome by the rise to political importance of CAESAR and CICERO, and by the conspiracy of CATILINE.