The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 05

by Unknown

CHAPTER XX. THE RISE OF POMPEY

LEPIDUS AND SERTORIUS

We now enter upon the last stage in the decline and fall of the republic. By a violent effort Sulla had restored the government to the senatorial nobility. But symptoms intimating the insecurity of the fabric which he had hastily reared on blood-bathed foundations showed themselves even before his death. After his secession, Q. Catulus became the chief of the senatorial party. He was son of the Catulus who shared the Cimbrian triumph with Marius, and in the year 79 B.C. he appeared among the candidates for the consulship with the certainty of election. The person who aspired to be his colleague was M. Æmilius Lepidus, a man of illustrious family, but of vain and petulant character. He was supported by many friends, among others by young Pompey. Sulla knew the man, and warned Pompey against entrusting him with power. But Pompey, who already began to talk of “the setting and the rising sun,” disregarded the warning, and Lepidus was elected.

Scarcely was Sulla dead when his words were fulfilled. Lepidus declared himself the chief of the Italian party, and promised to restore all that Sulla had taken away. To prevent a renewal of civil war, the senate bound him and Catulus alike by oath not to take up arms during their consulate. But Lepidus retired to his province of Transalpine Gaul, and, pretending that his oath did not bind him there, began to levy troops. The senate summoned him to return to Rome. He obeyed, but it was at the head of an army. To oppose him, Catulus took post before the Milvian bridge, with Pompey for his lieutenant. Here they were attacked by Lepidus, who was easily defeated. After this failure, he fled to Sardinia, where he died shortly after. But his lieutenants, M. Perperna and M. Junius Brutus, father of Cæsar’s murderer, kept the troops together, and waited for the course of events. A war was raging in Spain, which might well encourage the hopes of discontented persons.

[78-75 B.C.]

It has been mentioned that Q. Sertorius had assumed the government of Spain. But after a vain struggle against superior forces, he was obliged to take refuge in Mauretania. The news from Italy was dispiriting. It seemed as if the Marian cause was lost forever. Sertorius lent ear to the tales of seamen who had lately made a voyage to the Fortunate Islands (so the ancients called the Azores), and seemed to recognise the happy regions which Greek legends assigned as the abode of the blessed. But while the active soldier was indulging in day-dreams of indolent tranquillity, he received an invitation from the Lusitanians to head them in rising against the senatorial governors, and obeyed without a moment’s hesitation. Viriathus himself did not use with better effect the energies of the brave mountaineers. The south of Spain was soon too hot to hold the Sullan leaders; the proscribed Marians came out of their hiding places and joined the new chief. His progress, in the course of two years’ time, became so serious that, when Metellus Pius laid down his consulship, he was sent into Spain to crush Sertorius.

But to crush Sertorius was no easy task. He was no mere soldier, but possessed political qualities of a high order. Like Hamilcar and Hasdrubal of old, he flattered the Spaniards with the hope of rising to independence under his rule. The government which he formed indicated a disposition to dispute empire with Rome. He formed a senate of three hundred, consisting partly of proscribed Romans, partly of Spanish chiefs—a step unparalleled in the provincial government of Rome. All cities in his power he organised after the Italian model; and at Osca (now Huesca in Catalonia) he established a school for the noble youth of Spain. The boys wore the Roman garb, and were taught the tongues of Rome and Athens. Sertorius is almost the only statesman of antiquity who tried to use education as an engine of government. It cannot indeed be pretended that his views were merely philanthropic; no doubt he held the boys as hostages for the fidelity of their sires.

His great talents, above all his acknowledgment of equality between provincials and Romans, won him golden opinions. Everywhere the Spaniards crowded to see him, and loudly protested their readiness to die for him. Their enthusiastic reverence for his person was increased by the presence of a white doe, which continually followed him, and was regarded by the simple people as a familiar spirit, by means of which he held communication with heaven.

Metellus in two campaigns found himself unequal to cope with the new ruler of Spain. In the second of these years (77 B.C.) Perperna, who had retired to Gaul with the best troops of Lepidus, entered Spain, and joined the popular leader; and the senate hastily despatched Pompey to reinforce Metellus. On his march through Gaul, the young general encountered the other remnant of the army of Lepidus under Brutus; and Brutus, who fell into his hands, was put to death in cold blood.

[75-72 B.C.]

Pompey’s aid, however, did not change the face of affairs. In the first battle the young general was saved by the approach of Metellus, on which Sertorius said: “If the old woman had not come up, I should have given the boy a sound drubbing and sent him back to Rome.” At the end of 75 B.C. Pompey wrote a letter to the senate, representing the insufficiency of his forces, and two more legions were at once sent to reinforce him. Meantime Sertorius himself had reasons for apprehension. Some of his Roman friends, disliking his policy of favouring the provincials, made overtures to the senatorial commanders; and Sertorius, severe by nature, still further exasperated the Romans of his party by forming his bodyguard exclusively of Spaniards. But he still maintained his superiority in the field. Nor was it encouraging to learn that he had received envoys from Mithridates, who was about to renew war with Rome. Sertorius agreed to furnish Roman officers to train the soldiers of Asia, while the king was to repay the loan in ships and money.

The despotic power exercised by Sertorius had corrupted his nature. He indulged in the immoderate use of wine, was impatient of the slightest contradiction, and was guilty of many acts of tyranny. Even the Spaniards began to fall away; and Sertorius in a moment of irritation ordered all the boys at Osca to be put to death. This cruel and impolitic act would probably have cost him his power and his life, even if it had not been terminated by treachery. Perperna, who had at first joined him against his own inclination, thought that a favourable opportunity had arrived for grasping power. He invited Sertorius to a banquet at Osca; and the general, having drunk freely according to his custom, fell an easy prey to the dagger of the assassin (72 B.C.).

The Romans urge Pompey to aid Metellus

But when Perperna had wrought this shameful deed, he found that the name of Sertorius was still powerful among the Spaniards. Many of them, now that their great leader was no more, forgot his faults, and with the devoted enthusiasm of their nation threw themselves into the flames of his funeral pyre. A few days after the death of Sertorius, Perperna attempted to lead the soldiery against Pompey, but he sustained an ignominious defeat. His men were dispersed, and he was taken prisoner. When brought before Pompey, he endeavoured to gain favour by handing him letters which had been interchanged by Sertorius with some of the chief men at Rome. But Pompey, with prudent magnanimity, threw the letters into the fire and refused to hear him. In the course of a year the last relics of the Marian party in Spain were extinguished.

Before this was effected, Rome was engaged in conflict with Mithridates. [The history of this war will be given later in the chapter.] But here must be noticed a formidable outbreak that took place in Italy, and threatened the very existence of the state. This was:

THE WAR OF THE GLADIATORS

[73-72 B.C.]

For the purpose of the barbarous shows which were so much enjoyed at Rome, it was the custom to keep schools for training gladiators, who were let out by their owners to the ædiles. At Capua there was a large school of this kind; and among the gladiators in training there was Spartacus, a Thracian, who had once led his countrymen against Roman commanders, but now, having been taken prisoner, was destined to make sport for his conquerors. He persuaded about seventy of his fellow-bondsmen to join him in breaking loose; better it was, he argued, to die in battle on the open field, than on the sand of the amphitheatre. This handful of brave men took up a strong position upon Mount Vesuvius, where Spartacus was presently joined by slaves and outlaws of all descriptions. The gladiators, old soldiers like himself, supplied him with officers. Œnomaus and Crixus, the former a Greek, the latter a Gaul, acted as his lieutenants. He enforced strict discipline; and, so long as he was able, obliged his followers to abstain from acts of rapine. Two Roman prætors attacked him, but they were beaten with loss, and the numbers of his army swelled every day. All this happened in 73 B.C., after the Mithridatic War had broken out, and before the Sertorian War was ended.

In the next year (72 B.C.), the same which witnessed the murder of Sertorius, Spartacus had become strong enough to take the offensive. He had to face a formidable power, for both consuls were ordered to take the field. But, at the head of more than one hundred thousand men, he forced the passes of the Apennines and entered Picenum. His subordinates, however, proved unmanageable; and Spartacus, aware that the power of Rome must prevail, bent all his energies towards forcing his way across the Alps, in the hope of reaching some remote region inaccessible to Rome. As he pressed northwards, he was assaulted by both the consuls, but defeated them both, and made his way to Cisalpine Gaul; but here he was repulsed by the prætor Cassius, and obliged by the impatience of his followers to retrace his steps. Still, every other Roman officer who dared to meet him was defeated; at one time the brave gladiator is said to have meditated a descent upon Rome itself. But he relinquished his desperate plan, and spent the remainder of the year in collecting treasure and arms. Little discipline was now observed. The extent of the ravages committed by the bands under his command may be guessed from the well-known line of Horace, in which he promised his friend a jar of wine made in the Social War, “if he could find one that had escaped the clutches of roaming Spartacus.”

The management of the war was now committed to Crassus, who had really won the battle of the Colline Gate. Ever since the triumph of Sulla he had lived quietly at Rome, profiting by the proscription to buy up property cheap; and after that period he had been busied in making the most profitable use of the large fortune which he had amassed.

[72-71 B.C.]

Crassus took the field with six new legions, to be added to the remains of the consular armies. The disorganised battalions of these armies he punished by the unjust and terrible penalty of decimation; but his rigour was successful in restoring discipline. He found Spartacus besieging Rhegium, with the view of establishing a connection with Sicily, and rekindling the Servile War in that island. The gladiator had even agreed with a squadron of Cilician pirates to convey two thousand of his men across the straits; but the faithless marauders took the money and sailed without the men. Crassus determined to shut up the enemy by drawing entrenchments across the narrowest part of the Calabrian peninsula. Twice in one day did Spartacus endeavour to break through the lines; twice he was thrown back with great slaughter. But he continued to defend himself with dauntless pertinacity; and the senate, hearing that Pompey was on his way back from Spain, joined him in the command with Crassus, and urged him to accelerate his march.

Crassus, afraid of losing his laurels, determined to assault Spartacus; but the brave gladiator anticipated him by forcing a passage through the lines, and marching upon Brundusium, where he hoped to seize shipping and make his escape from Italy. But M. Lucullus, brother of Lucius, the commander against Mithridates, had just returned with a force of veteran soldiers from Macedonia to Brundusium. Spartacus, foiled in his intention, turned like a wolf at bay to meet Crassus. A fearful conflict ensued, which remained doubtful till Spartacus was wounded by a dart through the thigh. Supported on his knee, he still fought heroically, till he fell overpowered by numbers. Most of his followers were cut to pieces; but a strong body of the insurgents drew off in good order to the mountains. A division of five thousand made their way to the north of Italy, where Pompey fell in with them on his way home from Spain, and slew them to a man. About six thousand more were taken prisoners by Crassus, who hung them along the road from Rome to Capua.

To Crassus belongs the credit of bringing this dreadful war to a close. In six months he had finished his work. But Pompey claimed the honour of concluding not only the Sertorian War, but also the war with Spartacus. In fact he had not much cause for boasting in either case. The daggers of Perperna really brought the Spanish contest to an end; and as to the gladiatorial conflict, the lucky chance by which Pompey intercepted five thousand fugitives was his only claim to credit. But the young general was a favourite with the soldiery and with the people, while Crassus from his greedy love of money enjoyed little popularity. Public opinion, therefore, seconded claims which were put forward without modesty or justice.

Neither Pompey nor Crassus would enter the city; for both desired a triumph, and their armies lay at the gates to share the honours. The wish of Pompey was at once granted; but to Crassus only an ovation was conceded.

THE CONSULSHIP OF POMPEY AND CRASSUS

[71-70 B.C.]

Before they entered the city, they had both asked permission to offer themselves as candidates for the consulship. Both were excluded by the laws of Sulla. Crassus was still prætor, and at least two years ought to elapse before his consulship. Pompey was only in his thirty-fifth year, and had not even been quæstor. The senate, however, dared not refuse Pompey; for he would not disband his army, and his tone brooked no refusal. And what was granted to Pompey could not be denied to Crassus, who also kept his soldiers under arms. Thus, at the demand of two chiefs, each backed by an army, the senate were, within eight years after Sulla’s death, obliged to break his laws. Pompey was elected by acclamation. Crassus might have been less successful, had there not been a secret understanding between him and Pompey. On the calends of January, 70 B.C., Pompey and Crassus entered on their memorable consulship.

On that day Pompey gave intimation of his intention to pursue a popular course of policy. In a set speech he declared his intention of releasing the tribunes from the trammels imposed upon them by Sulla, and of attempting a reform of the judicial system. Both of Pompey’s announcements were received with shouts of applause. To the former the senate offered but a feeble opposition. The tribunes were restored to the exercise of their power, and with their restoration it may be said that the keystone of the arch erected by Sulla fell. With the resuscitation of this popular power revived also the independence of the tribe assembly, and hence followed by necessity a struggle between that body and the senate.

But the other measure broached by Pompey was one which the senate determined to oppose to the uttermost. They could not tamely abandon their absolute power over the law courts. Yet in the last ten years, scandal had been great. Among other persons Cæsar had reason to complain. After his escape from Sulla’s vengeance, he also, like Cicero, resorted to the schools of Greek philosophy. On his return, though only in his twenty-third year, he indicted Cn. Dolabella for misgovernment in Macedonia. Dolabella was defended by Q. Hortensius, the first advocate of the day, a determined adherent of the senatorial party, and as a matter of course he was acquitted. It had, however, been remarked that the knights were little less corrupt than the senators; and the law proposed under Pompey’s authority by the city prætor, L. Aurelius Cotta, was so devised as to establish a court composed of three elements, each of which might serve as a check upon the other two. In each jury one-third of the jurymen was to be furnished by the senate, one-third by the knights, and the remaining third by the tribunes of the treasury. Catulus endeavoured to promote a compromise; but Pompey was resolute, and the nobles prepared to maintain their privilege by arms.

An event, however, occurred which smoothed the way for Cotta’s law. Cicero, after the great credit he had won by his bold defence of Sext. Roscius, had quitted Rome for two years. He returned in 77 B.C., and immediately began to dispute with Hortensius the sway which he exercised in the law courts. Except during the year 75 B.C., when he was serving as quæstor in Sicily, he was employed as an advocate at Rome. His polished eloquence excited universal admiration; his defence of many wealthy clients brought him in much money and connected him with many powerful families. He was of the same age as Pompey; and, being now a candidate for the ædileship, he began to be eager for political distinction. To obtain this by military commands was not suited to his tastes or talents. But it was possible to achieve it by the public impeachment of some powerful offender. C. Cornelius Verres, a man connected with some of the highest senatorial families, had for three years been prætor of Sicily, from which province he had returned after practising extortions and iniquities unexampled even in those days. The Sicilians, remembering the industry and equity with which Cicero had lately executed the functions of quæstor in their island, begged him to come forward as the accuser of this man; and the orator, who saw how he might at once strengthen the hands of Pompey and share the popular triumph of the consul, readily undertook the cause.

The first attempt which the dexterous advocate of Verres made to elude Cicero’s attack was to put forward Q. Cæcilius Niger, who had been quæstor under Verres, to contend that to him belonged the task of accusation. But Cicero exposed the intended fraud so unanswerably that even the senatorial jurymen named Cicero as prosecutor. He demanded ninety days for the purpose of collecting evidence in Sicily. But he only used fifty of them, and on the fifth of August he opened this famous impeachment. He had in the meantime been elected ædile. But Hortensius had also become consul-elect; and one of the Metelli, a warm friend of the accused, was designated to succeed Glabrio, who now presided in the court as prætor peregrinus. It was therefore a great object for Verres to get the trial postponed to the next year, when his great senatorial friends would fill the most important offices in the state. To baffle this design, Cicero contented himself with a brief statement of his case, and at once proceeded to call witnesses. So overpowering was the evidence that Hortensius threw up his brief, and Verres sought impunity in a voluntary exile. To show what he could have done, Cicero published the five great pleadings in which he intended to have set forth the crimes of Verres; and they remain to us as a notable picture of the misery which it was in the power of a Roman proconsul to inflict.

Roman General

(From Trajan’s Column)

Soon after the trial came to this abrupt issue, the law was passed, seemingly with little opposition; and thus a second great breach was made in the Sullan constitution.

The corrupt state of the senate itself was made manifest by a step now taken by Catulus and his friends. They restored the censorial office, which had been suspended for sixteen years. The censors of the year 70 B.C. discharged their duties with severe integrity, and sixty-four senators were degraded. For Catulus they revived the high rank of princeps, and he was the last independent senator who held that rank. When it was next called into existence, it served to give a title to the despotic authority of Augustus. The review of the knights was made remarkable by the fact that the consul Pompey appeared in the procession, leading his horse through the Forum, and submitting himself to the censorial scrutiny.

The jealousy of Crassus increased with Pompey’s popularity. Both the consuls continued to maintain an armed force near the city; and, though the liberal measures of Pompey had won the Forum, yet the gold of Crassus commanded many followers. The senate dreaded that the days of Marius or Cinna might return. But Crassus calculated the risks of a conflict, and prudently resolved to give a pledge of peace. At the close of the year he publicly offered his hand to Pompey, which the latter deigned to accept after the manner of a prince. It did not suit Crassus to disturb credit and imperil his vast fortune by a civil war; Pompey was satisfied so long as no other disputed his claim to be the first citizen of the republic.

Thus ended by far the most remarkable year that had passed since the time of Sulla. Two generals, backed by an armed force, had trampled on the great dictator’s laws; and one of them had rudely shaken the political edifice reared in so much blood. Behind them appeared the form of one who sought to gain by eloquence and civil arts what had lately been arrogated by the sword. But it was some years yet before Cæsar descended into the political arena.[b]

POMPEY SUBDUES THE CILICIAN PIRATES

[84-67 B.C.]

During the party struggles in Italy, Sicily, Africa, and Spain, during the dictatorship of Sulla and its sanguinary effects, felt long afterwards in the Sertorian and Slave wars, the sufferings of Rome and her provinces were increased by a scourge of a peculiar character which had gradually attained alarming proportions.

The coasts of the western part of that district of Asia Minor known as Cilicia, where the wild mountains of the Taurus, which intersect the country, afford a safe refuge to the robber and his prey, had been from ancient times the home of piracy. The hopeless confusion of the Syrian kingdom, of which Cilicia formed a part, set order at defiance and for a long time allowed full play to the lucrative trade which flourished under the protection of the states of Rhodes, Cyprus, and Egypt, all of them at enmity with the Syrian monarchy.

We know how in the year 228 Rome had punished the Illyrian pirates, but it was only about the year 103 that Marcus Antonius was sent against those of Cilicia and after some time celebrated a hard-earned triumph. The torpor of the Roman government and the civil disturbances were more inimical to the safety of the seas than to that of the land; and in the war against Mithridates, in which civil disturbances played such a disastrous part, the ships of the Cilicians offered the same refuge to the vanquished—whether he were of Pontus, Greece, or Rome, whether Mithridates or Sulla had made him homeless—as they afforded to escaped convicts, runaway slaves, and the outcasts of every nation and every country. Their pirate sails were soon to be found all over the Mediterranean Sea. After the collapse of the Grecian states and the decay of the Roman sea power there was soon no safety for any merchant ship, or coast district.

When the captured men could not ransom themselves by large sums of money, they were taken to the great slave markets of which the island of Delos was the chief depot, and in the secure and unassailable mountain castles of Cilicia the corsairs deposited the money and other property which their boats and fleets had seized throughout the whole district of the Mediterranean.

The excellent organisation of this roving power added tenfold to its danger. Any one who belonged to the great association could claim assistance from any ship that carried the pirate flag. There was no fear of treachery; a common interest, common foes, a similar life had created a kind of national cohesion and national feeling among these freebooters of the sea.

The repeated efforts of the Romans to stem the danger had been without avail. L. Murena (84-81) accomplished nothing, neither was anything of a decisive nature effected by P. Servilius Vatia (78-75), although he conducted the war with much will and energy. He did his best; and by his capture of the city of Isaura, in Taurus, he won for himself the surname of Isauricus and a triumph at which he was able to produce rich booty and, to the especial delight of the people, some pirate captains as prisoners. Cilicia was formed into a Roman province, but this left the evil practically untouched. The selection in the year 74 of Marcus Antonius, a son of the Marcus Antonius mentioned above, as proprætor against the Cilician corsairs, with considerable means at his disposal, was also a failure, for the chiefs of the Cretan pirate horde annihilated the greater portion of his fleet. Emboldened by success, the corsairs of the Syrian coasts ventured as far as the Pillars of Hercules; they mocked at the power and sapped the vitality of the Roman state. Notable men like P. Clodius and Julius Cæsar fell into their hands. Ambassadors of foreign powers on their way to Rome were captured, and Roman ambassadors and curule magistrates had to be ransomed. Twelve axes, Cicero moaned, fell into the hands of the pirates, who with these insignia in their possession mocked at the supremacy of Rome. Italian cities such as Caieta, and Misenum, to say nothing of Greek ones like Cnidus, Colophon, and Samos were plundered, and the pirate squadron—the nimble little myoparones—even appeared at Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber. Trade and the free supply of provisions were everywhere seriously obstructed and this was particularly felt at Rome; the high price of corn, and the emptiness of the treasury, whose source of replenishment was cut off, pressed heavily on the nation and at last became unendurable.

The half-measures adopted so far having accomplished nothing, it was evident that the pirates must either be destroyed by one great blow or left to do as they pleased.

[67 B.C.]

In these circumstances Gabinius, one of the tribunes of the people for the year 67, a favourite of Pompey and in the pay of the latter, came forward with the momentous proposal that a general invested with extensive powers should be entrusted with the extermination of the pirates. He should be an imperator for three years with proconsular and irresponsible power extending from the Pillars of Hercules to the farthest east. He should have unlimited command throughout the sea and four hundred stadia inland in all countries, including Italy. Fifteen senatorial legati with a prætor’s privileges, and appointed by himself; two hundred ships, six thousand Attic talents and whatever land forces he might require, should be placed at the disposal of this imperator. In making this proposal no name was given, but everybody knew that it pointed to Pompey. This rogation was received with great applause. Pompey had been successful in all his preceding efforts and had just re-established the tribunician power; he was the idol of every Roman citizen, and the people reposed in him that unlimited confidence which the multitude are wont to accord to those whom they have once chosen for their favourites. Naturally the senate did not receive the appointment in the same spirit. To give one man such boundless power was the same, it was said, as to give it to him forever; it was to exchange freedom for the government of one; to turn, as the punsters said, a navarch into a monarch. Q. Catulus tried to throw the weight of his esteemed name, and Q. Hortensius that of his eloquence, into the scale against the dangerous measure. They sought to obtain the veto of the rest of the tribunes against the rogation which would place all the power of the republic at the disposal of one man, and might thus create a regular tyranny, a new Romulus; and here and there party bitterness may have vented itself in angry words, saying that the new Romulus should be treated like the old, whose mangled remains were carried away from the Field of Mars under the togas of the senators. But when the measure was put to the vote of the assembly, all opposition was futile against the unanimous and clamorous voice of the people and of the most renowned leaders of the popular party whose interests, like those of Julius Cæsar, were intimately connected with those of Pompey. The tribune Trebellius ventured to interpose his veto and maintained it until seventeen tribes voted for his removal from office when his firmness forsook him. It was in vain that Q. Catulus counselled that the deputies should be appointed by the people and not by Pompey; all resistance was useless. One hundred and twenty thousand infantry, five thousand cavalry, twenty-four deputies and five hundred ships, which exceeded the first commission, were placed at the service of Pompey, who with assumed modesty begged to be spared the difficult task. And so high were the hopes centred in him that the price of corn fell immediately on his appointment and before he had done anything.

Pompey justified the hopes of Rome. He turned to the best account the means placed at his disposal. He divided his command into thirteen areas under his deputies, and moved with his main forces from west to east. The corsairs were chased from one lurking-place to another, from retreat to retreat, and one admiral drove them into another’s net. Before forty days had elapsed the western Mediterranean was free, and the corn ships from Africa, Sardinia, and Sicily now had free course into the Roman harbours, as had not been the case for years. After a short stay at Rome, Pompey again set sail for Brundusium, and the chase commenced afresh. Treachery and submission decreased the number of the pirates who could no longer hold out and who were wisely spared by Pompey when they submitted. In less than three months he was on the western coast of wild Cilicia and arrived at the promontory of Coracesium, where a final battle put an end to the war. The remaining corsairs were there assembled and were defeated. The seas were now free, and the mountain castles opened and disgorged their plunder, their arms, their treasure, and their prisoners. Thirteen hundred ships were burned, seventy-two taken, and 306 surrendered. One hundred and twenty strongholds and towns were destroyed, ten thousand pirates were killed, and twenty thousand taken prisoners.

The liberated prisoners who now returned to their homes, the soldiers enriched by the chase, the Roman people saved from hunger, the merchants of the wide Roman dominions whose commerce was reinstated—all lauded the name of the great proconsul who had accomplished in three months what had been vainly desired for seventeen years. In fact, this extermination of the corsairs of the Mediterranean was probably the most brilliant and in any case the most meritorious achievement in the life of Pompey, although it must also be noted that this swift conquest was as illustrative of the power of Rome when it assembled and united its forces, as it was of the capacity of Pompey. The pirates themselves moreover had no cause to complain of undue severity. The better sort were allowed to settle in the town of Soli in Cilicia, whose name, Pompeiopolis, immortalised the memory of its conqueror; others found shelter in different inland places and towns, whilst some were even bestowed in southern Italy. The temperate way in which Pompey treated the conquered led the Cretans, who had been conquered in 68 by Q. Metellus and treated with great cruelty, to send their submission by an embassy.

Pompey accepted it and sent them his deputy L. Octavius; Metellus protested loudly against this invasion of his province, and took up arms against him, but his protest was unjustifiable in face of the Gabinian law. Thus a regular civil war arose in the island, which was of little importance in itself but greatly increased the very unsettled condition of the republic and its government.

THE SECOND AND THIRD MITHRIDATIC WARS

[84-73 B.C.]

In the meanwhile Pompey was by no means inclined to be contented with this triumph. He expected that the command in the Pirate War would lead to a greater and more important one. The war in Asia had always been the object of his desires, and now, after crushing the corsairs, the people could not refuse him anything. L. Licinius Murena, left by Sulla in Asia in the year 84 with the two Fimbrian legions, had recommenced the war directly after his general’s departure, but without success, and at Sulla’s command he abandoned it; these military operations, which ended in the year 81 with the triumph of the proprætor Murena, were distinguished by the name of the Second Mithridatic War. Mithridates knew that the peace with Sulla was only a truce, and he saw himself threatened anew when the Romans made Bithynia a province in the year 75, its last king, Nicomedes III, having died and bequeathed his kingdom to the Roman people. We know that through the Marians who had taken refuge at his court, Mithridates entered into negotiations with Sertorius, and therefore in the year 74 the consuls, L. Licinius Lucullus and M. Aurelius Cotta, accepted the king’s challenge to the Third Mithridatic War.

The king found that the corsairs were allies not to be despised on the sea; and the Roman outlaws at his court, as well as the officers sent him by Sertorius, helped him to drill his army in the Roman fashion. Lucullus and Cotta were entrusted with the direction of the war. The former, a man belonging to the aristocratic class had exhibited great capacity in the eastern seat of war, and in all the appointments since filled by him, he had proved himself a skilful and intelligent officer, while his moderation and gentleness united with unusual cultivation had won Sulla’s highest approval.

In the year 74 the war commenced. Mithridates began operations by calling many districts in Asia Minor to arms and by making himself master in Bithynia by means of his fleet and army. The Romans had retired to Chalcedon; and here Cotta, who refused to wait for his advancing colleague, was beaten by land and water, and the king proceeded in a southwesterly direction, towards the town of Cyzicus, and laid siege to it. The Hellenic inhabitants offered a firm resistance, for they knew the fate that awaited conquered cities at the hands of the Pontian king. Lucullus was therefore able to move to a spot east of the camp of Mithridates. By this stroke he cut off the king’s communication with his Pontian territory and closing the way on the land side left Mithridates only the sea open to him. At the river Rhyndacus (east of Cyzicus) Lucullus defeated a portion of the enemy’s army which was attempting to break through the Roman lines. The sufferings from the winter season and want of care consequent on the stoppage of the transports had naturally thinned the ranks of the three hundred thousand men who were besieging the city. So in the spring of 73 the king was finally forced to raise the siege and escape with the rest of his fleet; and the failure would have been fatal to him, had not the Roman ships been burned in the harbour the previous year.

[73-70 B.C.]

Thus the Pontian fleet, which swept the Black Sea and the Propontis, met with no opposition in its expedition to the Ægean Sea, and it was said that the Roman exiles who commanded it had decided to attempt a landing in Italy. However, Lucullus himself, who had turned westward from Cyzicus, commanded the little fleet, which had been collected in the Ægean waters and defeated the enemy’s squadron in a battle between Lemnos and Scyros in which most of the Roman exiles lost their lives.

In the meanwhile, Lucullus’ deputies Voconius, Barba, and Triarius, united against Mithridates, who was stationed with his troops at Nicomedia (Bithynia). The king avoided a battle and fled on a pirate ship, besieged Heraclea on the way, where he assembled the rest of his fleet which the storm had almost entirely scattered, and then proceeded past Sinope to Amisus. The foes being now driven back to their own domains, the Romans took the offensive.

Aurelius Cotta stationed himself at Heraclea. Lucullus himself passed in the autumn of the year 73 into the Pontian district. Mithridates avoided a battle and retired inland where the pursuing enemy would find it difficult to obtain supplies. Lucullus followed, leaving parties to besiege or watch Amisus and Eupatoria, the most important cities of Pontus; and deaf to the murmurs of his soldiers, quickly pursued the king and arrived in the spring of 72 at Cabira (on the Lycus in Pontus).

Roman Galley

The king had looked in vain for allies in the winter; neither the great ruler of Armenia, his son-in-law Tigranes, nor the Parthians would support him. But a powerful army of forty thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry was meanwhile levied in his own states under the command of Diophantus and Taxiles, whilst Lucullus only mustered three legions. Mithridates’ cavalry, his best support, was completely defeated by Lucullus’ deputy, M. Fabius Hadrianus, and when the king ordered a further retreat, the camp became the scene of blind fear and confusion which was turned into a complete rout by a timely onslaught from Lucullus. The king fled with two thousand cavalry over the border of his kingdom to Armenia, where his son-in-law Tigranes received him. The rich booty of the camp fell into the hands of the Roman soldiers; by the king’s command an eunuch forced the women of the harem to drink of a flagon of poison to save them from falling into the hands of the enemy—the greatest of all disgraces for an oriental ruler.

There was now a pause in the war. The flat country submitted everywhere to the Romans; only Amisus on the Pontian coast, Sinope and Amastris on the Paphlagonian, and Heraclea on the Bithynian coast, made an obstinate resistance, supported by the troops of the king and his allies, the corsairs, with their ships.

While the deputies were occupied with these sieges, from 72-70, the commander-in-chief organised the internal affairs of the Asiatic province, where there was a pressing need for the attention of an upright man like Lucullus. Sulla’s peace had left the inhabitants of these beautiful countries to their hopeless misery under Roman tax gatherers. The twenty thousand talents which Sulla had imposed on them had grown to a debt of 120,000 talents under the usurious interest of the Roman capitalists, who advanced the community the money for the indemnity; and to satisfy the creditors the sacred vessels in the temples of the gods had to be melted down, freemen sold their sons and daughters into slavery, and where payment was delayed or impossible every torture was resorted to which inventive avarice could devise; so that according to Plutarch’s expression “slavery seemed like peace and seisachtheia[101] in comparison.”

To mitigate this disgraceful state of things, Lucullus issued a decree at Ephesus forbidding more than twelve per cent. interest, releasing debtors from the obligation to pay interest whose total exceeded the original capital, and prohibiting the creditor from claiming more than a quarter of the debtor’s property.

The provincials congratulated themselves on having such a just and humane proconsul, but his policy aroused the deadly hatred of the Roman capitalists as it injured their business, and they spared no efforts in Rome to accomplish his fall as soon as possible. In this they received great assistance from the increasing discontent of the soldiers who were as much opposed to the justice and moderation of Lucullus as they were to the long continuation of the war, which had just taken a fresh start.

Mithridates had worked the whole winter trying to draw Tigranes into the Roman war which he must sooner or later be unable to avoid. His own power had broken down, his son Machares, the satrap of his kingdom of the Bosporus had made peace with Lucullus on his own account and his ships returning from Crete and Spain had been destroyed by Lucullus’ deputy at Tenedos.

THE ARMENIAN WAR

[70-68 B.C.]

Tigranes’ kingdom of Armenia had previously been, like so many others, a province of the Syrian kingdom, and its governor had asserted his independence under Antiochus the Great. Tigranes had extended it on every side and had increased it by fragments taken from the Syrian kingdom which was now falling into ruins, whilst princes of the house of the Seleucidæ quarrelled over its remains. From the year 83 Syria and Cilicia appear as Armenian provinces under Armenian governors. But the great king Tigranes himself held his gorgeous court in eastern fashion at Tigranocerta near the borders of Mesopotamia. It was one of those gigantic cities rapidly built and filled at the bidding of a despot, the ruins of which are to be found in the East scattered here and there as witnesses to the evanescent character of despotic creations.

In earlier times the Roman government would not have so long delayed showing this despot his proper place. Lucullus, contrary to the will of the government now carried the war into Tigranes’ territory, demanding from the great ruler that he should deliver up Mithridates. This was suggested by Appius Claudius, whose bold speech filled the barbarian ruler with astonishment. He was furious and enraged that Lucullus did not give him his title of “King of Kings,” but only addressed him as king, and avenged himself by refusing the title of “imperator” to the Roman, and making common cause with Mithridates whom he had not previously admitted to his presence.

Lucullus led his unwilling army, of which the Fimbrian legions after thirteen campaigns were now with some reason demanding to be disbanded, over the Cappadocian Mountains and then across the Euphrates. This was an ill-advised course considering the nature of the Armenian territory and the small numbers and ill-humour of his soldiers who were in no way pleased to be leaving the Pontian district behind them.

Whilst King Tigranes was still rocking himself in the ignorance of an eastern prince and listening to his courtiers’ assurances that the Roman army would never venture to face the hosts of the King of Kings, a messenger arrived to acquaint him with its approach. The messenger who brought the unpleasant news was rewarded by death, but it was none the less true. Mithrobarzanes was given the command of the band now sent against the Romans as punishment for not having joined the flatteries of the courtiers, but he was easily beaten. Tigranes left his capital just before the arrival of the Romans, and reinforcements gradually arrived from the different nations of his kingdom. Their appearance and their numbers—there were Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Adiabenians, Armenians, Iberians, and Albanians from the heights and valleys of the Caucasus—inspired him with confidence. He rejected the counsel of Mithridates, who, from his own experience of the Romans, advised him to avoid a battle and to employ his own superior cavalry to cut off the enemy’s supplies, and the heights around Tigranocerta were soon covered with the king’s army of 150,000 heavy infantry, 20,000 light infantry, and 55,000 mounted men, 17,000 being in coat of mail. Lucullus left 6000 men before the city, and the remainder, who seemed to the king to be too many for an embassy and too few for an army went up the river to find a ford. “There they fly, these invincible Roman hoplites!” exclaimed the king, with confidence. However, he soon afterwards saw to his horror, how the eagle of the first legion wheeled round and then one cohort after another crossed the river in the proud and confident manner of Roman troops. Quickly the king sought to array his followers but it was another barbarian battle, in which the stampede commenced before the troops were ranged in order. Driven back by the first attack and thrown into confusion the masses of men offered a wide target and an easy prey for the swords of the enemy.

The Romans were almost ashamed at their easy victory, for it cost them only five dead and 105 wounded. The enemy’s loss was incalculable. The tiara and diadem of the Armenian king fell into Roman hands; and the city of Tigranocerta had to surrender. It was taken and given over to the soldiers to plunder; some of the heterogeneous population were sent back to their native districts.

Lucullus wished to follow up the victory so as to give the enemy no time to assemble for a fresh resistance. Submission was made to him by many of the subjects of Tigranes, and an embassy of the Parthians appeared with an offering of friendship. Only one more blow was needed to finally drive the Armenian from his throne. But it was some time before the general could appease his discontented, unwilling soldiers and the allied kings made use of the opportunity to reassemble an army of seventy thousand infantry and thirty-five thousand cavalry. This time they followed Mithridates’ advice to avoid a battle. However, when Artaxata (on the Araxes) the second city of the kingdom was threatened, a battle ensued on the river Arsanias in the neighbourhood. The conflict lasted somewhat longer this time and the victory was bought more dearly, the loss of the enemy was somewhat slighter, but the result was the same. No Asiatic army, albeit large and well chosen, could be victorious over a well-commanded Roman army.

[68-67 B.C.]

But Lucullus had not yet accomplished his purpose. His military capacity was indisputable, but he was wanting in the power of attaching the soldiers to himself by that personal charm which was almost a more important gift in those times.

They murmured that the richest towns had been past by, none had been taken by storm, so that they had come in for no plunder; but they maintained that the imperator looked out for himself though he gave them nothing, and it cannot be denied that Lucullus enriched himself. In his cold, severe manner the general ignored their desire for loot, and they hated him not only because he was an aristocrat but because he treated the inhabitants of the cities with consideration, whilst they, as savage soldiery, regarded them as profitable booty. The snow-covered mountains and the endless precipitous roads filled them with aversion; never had they wintered in a friendly Hellenic city, and the officers concurred in these complaints, particularly P. Clodius, the brother-in-law of the general, who actively fostered the feeling against Lucullus in the camp as well as the capital.

The proconsul could not induce his soldiers to help him to take Artaxata, the second city of the Armenian kingdom. Half ceding to their pressure he turned southward to Mesopotamia, whose capital Nisibis surrendered to him. But here the unwilling machine denied him further service. The troops insisted on winter quarters in Nisibis and its environs where they wished to wait for the successor of Lucullus. This was advantageous to the enemy as it delayed the final blow.

However Tigranes gained nothing, as L. Fannius came opportunely to the aid of Lucullus’ soldiers whom Tigranes had surprised. Nevertheless Mithridates strove to benefit by the discontent in the Roman army and regain his kingdom.

He arrived at Pontus and attacked the Romans, who had excited universal hatred in the country, with a small force, and not unsuccessfully for he had learned somewhat in the long war, and in the following year (67) he defeated the deputy Triarius at Zela on the river Iris (southwest of Pontus) when the Romans lost seven thousand killed, amongst them a great number of officers.

Lucullus, hearing the bad news, withdrew to Mesopotamia and returned to Pontus, and Mithridates carried the war from thence to Cappadocia. When Lucullus wished to follow him thither, the Fimbrian soldiers declined to obey him as he was no longer their general and they declared they would only remain under arms with the other legions, until the autumn.

Mithridates profited by these occurrences. Acilius Glabrio, the governor of Bithynia who was to have been replaced by Lucullus, and Q. Marcius Rex, the governor of Cilicia, were inactive in their provinces, and when the ten commissioners of the Roman senate arrived to join with Lucullus in organising the conquered district of Pontus as a province, Mithridates had reconquered the greater part of it. In the meanwhile, the mine laid at Rome against the general of the aristocracy by his active enemies, namely, Pompey and his friends, the embittered members of the equestrian order, the offended officers and the misguided people, was finally sprung and the inevitable Pompey, who reaped everywhere where he had not sown, was appointed commander-in-chief in the East and this time with full powers more comprehensive and extravagant than those conferred in the previous year by the Gabinian law.[c]

[67-66 B.C.]

Pompey

(From a coin)

During the year of inaction that had preceded Pompey’s appointment, Mithridates had collected a fresh army, with which he occupied the frontier of Pontus. Pompey received his new commission in the summer of 66 B.C., and he at once pushed forward towards Cabira, through a country wasted by previous campaigns. Mithridates, anxious to avoid a battle, retired towards the sources of the Halys, but he was overtaken by the Roman general, and obliged to give battle on a spot afterwards marked by the city of Nicopolis, founded by Pompey in memory of the battle. Here Mithridates was entirely defeated, and with only a few stragglers succeeded in crossing the Euphrates. But Tigranes refused to harbour him in Armenia, and he made his way northward, with great difficulty, through the wild mountain tribes of Caucasus to Dioscurias (Iskuria) on the coast of Circassia. Banished from the regions south of Caucasus, his adventurous genius formed the conception of uniting the Sarmatian tribes northward of the Black Sea, and making a descent upon Italy. Panic-stricken at his father’s approach, Machares, viceroy of the Crimea, sought death by his own hand; and the Crimea again became subject to Mithridates.

So great was the terror caused by the victories of the Roman general, that Tigranes would have prostrated himself at his feet, had not Pompey prevented the humiliation; and Phraates of Parthia, who had assumed the proud title of “King of Kings,” lately arrogated by Tigranes, sent to make an alliance with the victorious Roman, who turned his steps northward in pursuit of Mithridates. At midwinter he celebrated the Saturnalia on the river Cyrus (Kur), and in the spring advanced along the coast to the Phasis. But learning that Mithridates was safe in the Crimea, he turned back to his old quarters on the Cyrus, and spent the summer in reducing the tribes which occupied the southern slopes of Caucasus. One of his victories was celebrated by the foundation of another Nicopolis. But he was obliged to return to Pontus for winter quarters. Here he received ambassadors from the neighbouring potentates, and busied himself in reducing Pontus to the form of a Roman province. For the next two years he occupied himself by campaigns in the famous countries to the south of Asia Minor.[b]

THE END OF MITHRIDATES

[66-63 B.C.]

Mithridates spent part of his youth away from his father’s court; he had been put on the wildest horses, which he had learned to master; he retired into the most impenetrable hunting districts, so that half the time no one knew where he was. He differed from all kings with whom the Romans had fought because he had pure Persian and true Asiatic blood flowing through his veins; for he was descended from Persian satraps.

The aim of his life was to make the throne of Pontus the centre of the national Asiatic opposition to Rome. Thereby he enjoyed great momentary success: but he was defeated by the great power of the Romans in their union with the Greek element. He was then robbed of his father’s lands. Nothing but the life of an adventurous fugitive remained for him. His brave wife Hypsicratia, who had to look after him and his horse, accompanied him to the citadel, where the royal treasure was kept. Mithridates divided it among the loyal followers who were still around him. He is said to have entertained the same thoughts attributed to Philip III of Macedonia of advancing on Italy through the lands of the Danube, and from the east of seeking the Romans in their home, as did Hannibal. But these daring chimeras were joined to a feeling of immediate danger.

Among his followers he divided equal shares of poison, so as to insure them against the danger of falling into the hands of the Romans. He himself did not die from poison; he sought support in his Bosporus possessions. But as there his son rebelled against him, he had the death-blow given him by a true Gaul. The son, Pharnaces, joined the Romans.

After Mithridates had been driven out, Pompey turned against Tigranes in Armenia, who at this time was waging war with the Parthian king Phraates whom the younger Tigranes had joined. In the midst of all these dissensions in Armenia, Pompey stepped in, not precisely as an enemy, but as arbitrator. There are many accounts of the submissiveness which Tigranes expressed towards Pompey. The main point is that he praised Pompey as the man into whose hands the fate of the world had now been laid.

Tigranes had to give up all acquisitions which he had made in war with the Seleucians; he kept Armenia. The son was led away into captivity. Armenia had more or less already been drawn into the circle of universal history. But Pompey can be added to the men who have carried on the historical movement of the world in provinces which up till this time had remained undisturbed by it. At the election he met the Albanians, who still continued in the primitive simplicity of a pastoral people. With their cavalcades they tried to prevent the Romans from reaching the Black Sea, or at least, if this was unsuccessful, to make their return impossible. In the year 65 a battle took place in which the Roman manœuvres had the upper hand. Albanians, Iberians, and a few other independent nations sealed a compact with them. Pompey is said to have had the desire, like Alexander, to seek the Caucasian Rock, to which, according to Greek tradition, Prometheus was chained. But the Roman leader was not the man to let himself be led by an illusion of this kind; it was sufficient for him to have subjected Pontus and Armenia. Already he felt himself strong enough to deprive the king of the Parthians of the title of “King of Kings.” He took up the interests of Armenia against the Parthians. As Tigranes had lost his acquisitions, so Phraates was to lose his. Phraates did not dare take up arms against the victorious Roman army. The ambassadors of Elymais and Media appeared at the winter camp of Pompey at Amisus.

POMPEY IN JERUSALEM

Through the victory in Armenia the Romans at the same time became masters in Syria, which it was impossible to give back to the Seleucians, as they did not know how to defend themselves. The survivors of this battle had to content themselves with the grant of a small province, and acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. After the example of the Syrian kings, Pompey could not think of introducing the Greek worship of the gods into Jerusalem; he occupied himself only with the political interests.[d]

As he advanced southward, his authority was called in to settle a quarrel between two brothers of that royal family, which had inherited the Jewish sceptre and high priesthood from the brave Maccabees. Aristobulus was the reigning king of Judea, but his title was disputed by his brother Hyrcanus. It was the latter who applied for aid to the Roman general. Pompey accepted the appeal. But the Jews, attached to the reigning prince, refused obedience, and Pompey was obliged to undertake the siege of Jerusalem. For three months the Jews defended themselves with their wonted obstinacy; but their submission was enforced by famine, and Pompey entered the Holy City. Pillage he forbade: but, excited by the curiosity which even then the spiritual worship of Jehovah created in the minds of Roman idolaters, he entered the sacred precincts of the Temple, and ventured even to intrude into the Holy of Holies, and to stand behind that solemn veil which had hitherto been lifted but once a year, and that by the high priest alone. We know little of the impression produced upon Pompey’s mind by finding the shrine untenanted by any object of worship. But it is interesting to compare the irreverent curiosity of the Roman with the conduct attributed to the Great Alexander upon a similar occasion. Hyrcanus was established in the sovereignty, on condition of paying a tribute to Rome: Aristobulus followed the conqueror as his prisoner.

Aretas, king of the Nabatæan Arabs, defied the arms of Pompey; and the conqueror was preparing to enter the rocky deserts of Idumæa, so as to penetrate to Petra, when he received news which suddenly recalled him to Asia Minor. Mithridates was no more. Pompey hastened to Sinope, to which place the body of the old king had been sent by his son. It was honoured with a royal funeral, and placed in the sepulchre of his fathers.

The remainder of the year 63 B.C. was spent by the general in regulating the new provinces of Bithynia, Pontus, and Syria, and in settling the kingdoms which he allowed to remain under Roman protection on the frontiers of these provinces. Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, was left in the possession of the Crimea and its dependencies; Deiotarus, chief of Galatia, received an increase of territory; Ariobarzanes was restored for the fourth time to the principality of Cappadocia. All this was done by Pompey’s sole authority, without advice from the senate.

[62-61 B.C.]

Early in 62 B.C. he left Asia, and proceeded slowly through Macedonia and Greece—so slowly, that on the 1st of January, 61 B.C., he had not yet appeared before the walls of Rome to claim his triumph. He had been absent from Italy for nearly seven years. His intentions were known to none. But the power given him by the devotion of his soldiers was absolute; and the senatorial chiefs might well feel anxiety till he disclosed his will. But before we speak of his arrival in Rome, we must relate the important events that had occurred during his absence.[b]