The History of Rome, Book IV / The Revolution

by Theodor Mommsen

Chapter V

1. If Cicero has not allowed himself to fall into an anachronism when he makes Africanus say this as early as 625 (de Rep. iii. 9), the view indicated in the text remains perhaps the only possible one. This enactment did not refer to Northern Italy and Liguria, as the cultivation of the vine by the Genuates in 637 (III. XII. Culture Of Oil and Wine, and Rearing of Cattle, note) proves; and as little to the immediate territory of Massilia (Just. xliii 4; Posidon. Fr. 25, Mull.; Strabo, iv. 179). The large export of wine and oil from Italy to the region of the Rhone in the seventh century of the city is well known.

2. In Auvergne. Their capital, Nemetum or Nemossus, lay not far from Clermont.

3. The battle at Vindalium is placed by the epitomator of Livy and by Orosius before that on the Isara; but the reverse order is supported by Floras and Strabo (iv. 191), and is confirmed partly by the circumstance that Maximus, according to the epitome of Livy and Pliny, H. N. vii. 50, conquered the Gauls when consul, partly and especially by the Capitoline Fasti, according to which Maximus not only triumphed before Ahenobarbus, but the former triumphed over the Allobroges and the king of the Arverni, the latter only over the Arverni. It is clear that the battle with the Allobroges and Arverni must have taken place earlier than that with the Arverni alone.

4. Aquae was not a colony, as Livy says (Ep. 61), but a -castellum- (Strabo, iv. 180; Velleius, i. 15; Madvig, Opusc. i. 303). The same holds true of Italica (p. 214), and of many other places—Vindonissa, for instance, never was in law anything else than a Celtic village, but was withal a fortified Roman camp, and a township of very considerable importance.

5. III. VII. Measures Adopted to Check the Immigrations of the Transalpine Gauls

6. III. III. Expedition against Scodra

7. III. III. Impression in Greece and Macedonia

8. III. X. Humiliation of the Greeks in General

9. IV. I. Province of Macedonia. the Pirustae in the valleys of the Drin belonged to the province of Macedonia, but made forays into the neighbouring Illyricum (Caesar, B. G. v. 1).

10. II. IV. the Celts Assail the Etruscans in Northern Italy

11. "The Helvetii dwelt," Tacitus says (Germ. 28), "between the Hercynian Forest (i. e. here probably the Rauhe Alp), the Rhine, and the Main; the Boii farther on." Posidonius also (ap. Strab. vii. 293) states that the Boii, at the time when they repulsed the Cimbri, inhabited the Hercynian Forest, i. e. the mountains from the Rauhe Alp to the Bohmerwald The circumstance that Caesar transplants them "beyond the Rhine" (B. G. i. 5) is by no means inconsistent with this, for, as he there speaks from the Helvetian point of view, he may very well mean the country to the north-east of the lake of Constance; which quite accords with the fact, that Strabo (vii. 292) describes the former Boian country as bordering on the lake of Constance, except that he is not quite accurate in naming along with them the Vindelici as dwelling by the lake of Constance, for the latter only established themselves there after the Boii had evacuated these districts. From these seats of theirs the Boii were dispossessed by the Marcomani and other Germanic tribes even before the time of Posidonius, consequently before 650; detached portions of them in Caesar's time roamed about in Carinthia (B. G. i. 5), and came thence to the Helvetii and into western Gaul; another swarm found new settlements on the Plattensee, where it was annihilated by the Getae; but the district—the "Boian desert," as it was called—preserved the name of this the most harassed of all the Celtic peoples (III. VII. Colonizing of The Region South of The Po, note).

12. They are called in the Triumphal Fasti -Galli Karni-; and in Victor -Ligures Taurisci- (for such should be the reading instead of the received -Ligures et Caurisci-).

13. The quaestor of Macedonia M. Annius P. f., to whom the town of Lete (Aivati four leagues to the north-west of Thessalonica) erected in the year 29 of the province and 636 of the city this memorial stone (Dittenberger, Syll. 247), is not otherwise known; the praetor Sex. Pompeius whose fall is mentioned in it can be no other than the grandfather of the Pompeius with whom Caesar fought and the brother-in- law of the poet Lucilius. The enemy are designated as —Galaton ethnos—. It is brought into prominence that Annius in order to spare the provincials omitted to call out their contingents and repelled the barbarians with the Roman troops alone. To all appearance Macedonia even at that time required a de facto standing Roman garrison.

14. If Quintus Fabius Maximus Eburnus consul in 638 went to Macedonia (C. I. Gr. 1534; Zumpt, Comm. Epigr. ii. 167), he too must have suffered a misfortune there, since Cicero, in Pison. 16, 38, says: -ex (Macedonia) aliquot praetorio imperio, consulari quidem nemo rediit, qui incolumis fuerit, quin triumpharit-; for the triumphal list, which is complete for this epoch, knows only the three Macedonian triumphs of Metellus in 643, of Drusus in 644, and of Minucius in 648.

15. As, according to Frontinus (ii. 43), Velleius and Eutropius, the tribe conquered by Minucius was the Scordisci, it can only be through an error on the part of Florus that he mentions the Hebrus (the Maritza) instead of the Margus (Morava).

16. This annihilation of the Scordisci, while the Maedi and Dardani were admitted to treaty, is reported by Appian (Illyr. 5), and in fact thence forth the Scordisci disappear from this region. If the final subjugation took place in the 32nd year —apo teis proteis es Keltous peiras—, it would seem that this must be understood of a thirty-two years' war between the Romans and the Scordisci, the commencement of which presumably falls not long after the constituting of the province of Macedonia (608) and of which the incidents in arms above recorded, 636-647, are a part. It is obvious from Appian's narrative that the conquest ensued shortly before the outbreak of the Italian civil wars, and so probably at the latest in 663. It falls between 650 and 656, if a triumph followed it, for the triumphal list before and after is complete; it is possible however that for some reason there was no triumph. The victor is not further known; perhaps it was no other than the consul of the year 671; since the latter may well have been late in attaining the consulate in consequence of the Cinnan-Marian troubles.

17. The account that large tracts on the coasts of the North Sea had been torn away by inundations, and that this had occasioned the migration of the Cimbri in a body (Strabo, vii. 293), does not indeed appear to us fabulous, as it seemed to those who recorded it; but whether it was based on tradition or on conjecture, cannot be decided.

18. III. VII. Measures Adopted to Check the Immigrations of the Transalpine Gauls

19. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law

20. The usual hypothesis, that the Tougeni and Tigorini had advanced at the same time with the Cimbri into Gaul, cannot be supported by Strabo (vii. 293), and is little in harmony with the separate part acted by the Helvetii. Our traditional accounts of this war are, besides, so fragmentary that, just as in the case of the Samnite wars, a connected historical narration can only lay claim to approximate accuracy.

21. To this, beyond doubt, the fragment of Diodorus (Vat. p. 122) relates.

22. IV. IV. The Proletariate and Equestrian Order under the Restoration

23. The deposition from office of the proconsul Caepio, with which was combined the confiscation of his property (Liv. Ep. 67), was probably pronounced by the assembly of the people immediately after the battle of Arausio (6th October 649). That some time elapsed between the deposition and his proper downfall, is clearly shown by the proposal made in 650, and aimed at Caepio, that deposition from office should involve the forfeiture of a seat in the senate (Asconius in Cornel, p. 78). The fragments of Licinianus (p. 10; -Cn. Manilius ob eandem causam quam et Caepio L. Saturnini rogatione e civitate est cito [?] eiectus-; which clears up the allusion in Cic. de Or. ii. 28, 125) now inform us that a law proposed by Lucius Appuleius Saturninus brought about this catastrophe. This is evidently no other than the Appuleian law as to the -minuta maiestas- of the Roman state (Cic. de Or. ii. 25, 107; 49, 201), or, as its tenor was already formerly explained (ii. p. 143 of the first edition [of the German]), the proposal of Saturninus for the appointment of an extraordinary commission to investigate the treasons that had taken place during the Cimbrian troubles. The commission of inquiry as to the gold of Tolosa (Cic. de N. D. iii. 30, 74) arose in quite a similar way out of the Appuleian law, as the special courts of inquiry—further mentioned in that passage—as to a scandalous bribery of judges out of the Mucian law of 613, as to the occurrences with the Vestals out of the Peducaean law of 641, and as to the Jugurthine war out of the Mamilian law of 644. A comparison of these cases also shows that in such special commissions—different in this respect from the ordinary ones—even punishments affecting life and limb might be and were inflicted. If elsewhere the tribune of the people, Gaius Norbanus, is named as the person who set agoing the proceedings against Caepio and was afterwards brought to trial for doing so (Cic. de Or. ii. 40, 167; 48, 199; 49, 200; Or. Part. 30, 105, et al.), this is not inconsistent with the view given above; for the proposal proceeded as usual from several tribunes of the people (ad Herenn. i. 14, 24; Cic. de Or. ii. 47, 197), and, as Saturninus was already dead when the aristocratic party was in a position to think of retaliation, they fastened on his colleague. As to the period of this second and final condemnation of Caepio, the usual very inconsiderate hypothesis, which places it in 659, ten years after the battle of Arausio, has been already rejected. It rests simply on the fact that Crassus when consul, consequently in 659, spoke in favour of Caepio (Cic. Brut. 44, 162); which, however, he manifestly did not as his advocate, but on the occasion when Norbanus was brought to account by Publius Sulpicius Rufus for his conduct toward Caepio in 659. Formerly the year 650 was assumed for this second accusation; now that we know that it originated from a proposal of Saturninus, we can only hesitate between 651, when he was tribune of the people for the first time (Plutarch, Mar. 14; Oros, v. 17; App. i. 28; Diodor. p. 608, 631), and 654, when he held that office a second time. There are not materials for deciding the point with entire certainty, but the great preponderance of probability is in favour of the former year; partly because it was nearer to the disastrous events in Gaul, partly because in the tolerably full accounts of the second tribunate of Saturninus there is no mention of Quintus Caepio the father and the acts of violence directed against him. The circumstance, that the sums paid back to the treasury in consequence of the verdicts as to the embezzlement of the Tolosan booty were claimed by Saturninus in his second tribunate for his schemes of colonization (De Viris Ill. 73, 5, and thereon Orelli, Ind. Legg. p. 137), is not in itself decisive, and may, moreover, have been easily transferred by mistake from the first African to the second general agrarian law of Saturninus.

The fact that afterwards, when Norbanus was impeached, his impeachment proceeded on the very ground of the law which he had taken part in suggesting, was an ironical incident common in the Roman political procedure of this period (Cic. Brut. 89, 305) and should not mislead us into the belief that the Appuleian law was, like the later Cornelian, a general law of high treason.

24. The view here presented rests in the main on the comparatively trustworthy account in the Epitome of Livy (where we should read -reversi in Gallium in Vellocassis se Teutonis coniunxerunt) and in Obsequens; to the disregard of authorities of lesser weight, which make the Teutones appear by the side of the Cimbri at an earlier date, some of them, such as Appian, Celt. 13, even as early as the battle of Noreia. With these we connect the notices in Caesar (B. G. i. 33; ii. 4, 29); as the invasion of the Roman province and of Italy by the Cimbri can only mean the expedition of 652.

25. It is injudicious to deviate from the traditional account and to transfer the field of battle to Verona: in so doing the fact is overlooked that a whole winter and various movements of troops intervened between the conflicts on the Adige and the decisive engagement, and that Catulus, according to express statement (Plut. Mar. 24), had retreated as far as the right bank of the Po. The statements that the Cimbri were defeated on the Po (Hier. Chron.), and that they were defeated where Stilicho afterwards defeated the Getae, i. e. at Cherasco on the Tanaro, although both inaccurate, point at least to Vercellae much rather than to Verona.