The Grandeur That Was Rome: a survey of Roman culture and civilisation

by J. C. Stobart

FIG. 1. ETRUSCAN WARRIOR: BRONZE STATUETTE	FIG 2. ROMAN LEGIONARY OF THE EMPIRE: BRONZE STATUETTE
Plate XII.

Much of this policy, we have to admit, was pure demagogy, but for that the conservative nobles, who cared nothing for the welfare of the state, and were impervious to anything but force, are directly responsible. Gracchus got his measures through the comitia, and secured his re-election for the next year. Feeling that his policy had secured him a large and faithful party of supporters, he now prepared to introduce a measure which he knew to be necessary for the salvation of his country, but which he must equally well have known to be unpopular at Rome, namely, the grant of citizen rights to the Italians. By this we see that Gaius Gracchus, if he sometimes stooped to the arts of the demagogue, was also capable of real statesmanship. The progressive grant of burgess rights as soon as subject peoples were sufficiently Romanised to be fit for them was the old Roman policy, which had made the city great in the past, and kept her safe in the shock of invasion. But the Romans had now become jealous and exclusive. The proposal was detested in Rome. Each side organised its gangs of roughs; there were daily riots in the streets, and at last the senatorial party once more charged down into the forum and slaughtered the second reformer as they had slaughtered the first. In the prosecutions that followed no fewer than 3000 of his partisans were executed.

In all this it is evident that the Roman political system had completely broken down. The constitution had always been incredibly ill-defined. There is no doubt that sovereignty legally belonged to the people, and that senatorial government was a usurpation, as the Gracchi called it. By calling the citizen body of Rome a mob or a rabble you do not alter the rights of the case. It was largely the fault of the Government that they had been allowed to become so selfish, so disorderly, and so corrupt. The extraordinary machinery of the tribunate—ten magistrates, each with an absolute veto upon all government—had made it impossible to find any constitutional method of reform. The policy of Gaius Gracchus was the only possible one if Rome was to be saved, and as a matter of plain fact it was the policy which after a century of unceasing bloodshed Rome eventually adopted. It was to be a disguised monarchy, like that of Pericles at Athens, working on the basis of the tribunician powers. The old ascendancy of the Senate could not stand a challenge; not only did it rest upon no legal title, but it had lost whatever claim to respect it ever possessed on the score of patriotism or statesmanship. For the agrarian problem it had no policy but to hold fast to its ill-gotten lands; to the demands of the Italian allies it had nothing but a miserly “no.” It watched with indifference the ruin of Italy, the degeneracy of Rome, and the oppression of the provincial world. The policy of the Gracchi may have included dreams and nightmares, but it did look forward and hold out hopes. The Gracchi had now definitely started a party system. They had laid the foundation of a democratic movement, and it is Rome’s misfortune that this foundation was built of such rotten materials. The democracy had been bought by bribes, but it had failed to exhibit a spark of disinterested statesmanship. If ever a state needed a master that state was Rome. Henceforth until a master came the condition of Rome and Italy and the provinces was simply deplorable. Nothing could be done in politics without a hired gang of bravos.

Marius

The next conspicuous attempt at reform comes from a genuine son of the people, one of the very few peasants who emerge into the light of history at Rome. In the wretchedly mismanaged Jugurthan war Gaius Marius had shouldered his way to the front by sheer courage and capacity for war through a crowd of cowardly and incompetent aristocrats, who almost openly trafficked with the foreign enemy of Rome. The course of this business requires a brief sketch if we are to understand the condition of Roman government at this period.

The king of the client state of Numidia dying divided his realm between two legitimate sons and one illegitimate, the latter being Jugurtha. This amiable bastard straightway murdered one of his brothers and attacked the other, who fled to the Roman province and appealed to the senate for protection. Jugurtha, already knowing the ropes of senatorial policy, sent envoys with well-filled purses, and easily convinced the senate of his innocence and good intentions. The senate decided to send out a commission to divide the kingdom equitably between Jugurtha and his half-brother. The result of its labours was that Adherbal got the desert and the capital, while Jugurtha got all the fertile part of the country, and the commission returned home rich and happy. Jugurtha had now only to obtain the capital, but as Adherbal refused to fight and kept appealing to Rome, there was nothing for it but to besiege Cirta. Numerous envoys came to Jugurtha from the senate in the course of the siege, but he easily assured them of his pacific intentions. As soon as he had taken the city he put his rival to death with torture, and massacred the entire male population, including a great number of Italian and Roman citizens.

The senate did not feel that this course of action was entirely meritorious, but it required the stimulus of a democratic agitation and another troublesome tribune to induce them to declare war. The senate sent out two of its best men in Bestia and Scaurus; the latter especially was generally reputed to be a veritable Aristides, for he had ventured to protest against the former iniquities. When the Roman army arrived, Jugurtha knew better ways than fighting. He submitted at discretion, surrendered the Roman deserters, whom of course he did not want to keep, and a few elephants, which he soon afterwards repurchased privately. In return he was permitted to retain his kingdom. Once more there were outcries at Rome, voiced by the same democratic tribune Memmius, who insisted that Jugurtha should be summoned to Rome to answer for his sins. Meekly but with bulging moneybags Jugurtha arrived. As soon as Memmius began to cross-examine him another tribune interposed his veto. During his visit Jugurtha was able to purchase a strong party in the senate; he also had time to procure the assassination of an obnoxious fellow-countryman in the city itself. This outrage, combined with the ambition of the new consul, Spurius Albinus, led to another declaration of war, Jugurtha himself being allowed to go home and prepare for it. As he departed he uttered the famous words, “Ah, Rome! Venal city! She would sell herself if she could find a purchaser.”

When Albinus led out the second army, he found it utterly incapable of fighting. It was a band of cowardly brigands, who spent their time in plundering their own province; and when the consul’s brother conceived the spirited project of seizing the king’s treasury for himself, instead of waiting for the more tedious and uncertain profits of bribery, he led the Roman army into an ambush. It surrendered readily. It was forced to go under the yoke, and agree to evacuate all Numidia.