History for ready reference, Volume 4, Nicæa to Tunis

by J. N. Larned

fall to the coast (which caused some of the watercourses to
form marshes, and made the Tiber a terror to the Romans for
its floods), told in ways as yet untraced ou the character of
the inhabitants. For one thing the ancient worship of Febris
and Mefitis indicates a constant liability to fever; then the
air of Greece is lighter than the air of Italy, and this may
be the reason that it was more inspiring. … Italian indigenous
literature was of the very scantiest; its oldest element was
to be found in hymns, barely metrical, and so full of
repetitions as to dispense with metre. The hymns were more
like spells than psalms, the singers had an object to gain
rather than feelings to express. The public hymns were prayers
for blessing: there were private chants to charm crops out of
a neighbour's field, and bring other mischief to pass against
him. Such 'evil songs' were a capital offence, though there
was little, perhaps, in their form to suggest a distinction
whether the victim was being bewitched or satirised. The
deliberate articulate expression of spite seemed a guilt and
power of itself. Besides these there were dirges at funerals,
ranging between commemoration of the deceased and his
ancestors, propitiation of the departed spirit, and simple
lamentation. There were songs at banquets in praise of ancient
worthies. … We find no trace of any poet who composed what
free-born youths recited at feasts; probably they extemporised
without training and attained no mastery. If a nation has
strong military instincts, we find legendary or historical
heroes in its very oldest traditions; if a nation has strong
poetical instincts, we find the names of historical or
legendary poets. In Italy we only meet with nameless fauns and
prophets, whose inspired verses were perhaps on the level of
Mother Shipton."
G. A. Simcox,
A History of Latin Literature,
volume 1, introduction.
ROME:
Struggle with the Etruscans.
See ETRUSCANS.
ROME: B. C. 753.
Era of the foundation of the city.
"Great doubts have been entertained, as well by ancient
historians as by modern chronologists, respecting this era.
Polybius fixes it to the year B. C. 751; Cato, who has been
followed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Solinus, and Eusebius,
to B. C. 752; Fabius Pictor, to B. C. 747; Archbishop Usher,
to B. C, 748; and Newton, to B. C. 627: Terentius Varro,
however, refers it to B. C. 753; which computation was adopted
by the Roman emperors, and by Plutarch, Tacitus, Dion, Aulus
Gellius, Censorinus, Onuphrius, Baroius, bishop Beveridge,
Stranchius, Dr. Playfair, and by most modern chronologists:
Livy, Cicero, Pliny, and Velleius Paterculus occasionally
adopted both the Varronian and Catonian computations. Dr.
Hales has, however, determined, from history and astronomy,
that the Varronian computation is correct, viz. B. C. 753."
Sir H. Nicolas,
Chronology of History,
page 2.
ROME: B. C. 753-510.
The legendary period of the kings.
Credibility of the Roman annals.
Probable Etruscan domination.
"It may … be stated, as the result of this inquiry, that the
narrative of Roman affairs, from the foundation of the city to
the expulsion of the Tarquins, is formed out of traditionary
materials. At what time the oral traditions were reduced into
writing, and how much of the existing narrative was the
arbitrary supplement of the historians who first framed the
account which has descended to us, it is now impossible to
ascertain, … The records of them, which were made before the
burning of Rome, 300 B. C., were doubtless rare and meagre in
the extreme; and such as there were at this time chiefly
perished in the conflagration and ruin of the city. It was
probably not till after this period—that is to say, about 120
years after the expulsion of the kings—and above 350 years
after the era assigned for the foundation of the city, that
these oral reports—these hearsay stories of many
generations—began to be entered in the registers of the
pontifices. … The history of the entire regal period, as
respects both its external attestation and its internal
probability, is tolerably uniform in its character. … Niebuhr,
indeed, has drawn a broad line between the reigns of Romulus
and Numa on the one hand, and those of the five last kings on
the other. The former he considers to be purely fabulous and
poetical; the latter he regards as belonging to the
mythico-historical period, when there is a narrative resting
on a historical basis, and most of the persons mentioned are
real. But it is impossible to discover any ground, either in
the contents of the narrative; or in its external evidence, to
support this distinction. Romulus, indeed, from the form of
his name, appears to be a mere personification of the city of
Rome, and to have no better claim to a real existence than
Hellen, Danaus, Ægyptus, Tyrrhenus, or Italus. But Numa
Pompilius stands on the same ground as the remaining kings,
except that he is more ancient; and the narrative of all the
reigns, from the first to the last, seems to be constructed on
the same principles. That the names of the kings after Romulus
are real, is highly probable; during the latter reigns, much
of the history seems to be in the form of legendary
explanations of proper names. … Even with respect to the
Tarquinian family, it may be doubted whether the similarity of
their name to that of the city of Tarquinii was not the origin
of the story of Demaratus and the Etruscan origin. The
circumstance that the two king Tarquins were both named
Lucius, and that it was necessary to distinguish them by the
epithets of Priscus and Superbus, raises a presumption that
the names were real.
{2661}
Müller indeed regards the names of the two Tarquins as merely
representing the influence exercised by the Etruscan city of
Tarquinii in Rome at the periods known as their reigns. … The
leading feature of the government during this period is that
its chief was a king, who obtained his office by the election
of the people, and the confirmation of the Senate, in the same
manner in which consuls and other high magistrates were
appointed after the abolition of royalty; but that, when once
fully elected, he retained his power for life. In the mode of
succession, the Roman differed from the early Greek kings,
whose office was hereditary. The Alban kings, likewise, to
whom the Roman kings traced their origin, are described as
succeeding by inheritance and not by election. … The
predominant belief of the Romans concerning their regal
government was, that the power of the kings was limited by
constitutional checks; that the chief institutions of the
Republic, namely, the Senate and the Popular Assembly, existed
in combination with the royalty, and were only suspended by
the lawless despotism of the second Tarquin. Occasionally,
however, we meet with the idea that the kings were absolute."
Sir G. C. Lewis,
Inquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History,
chapter 11, sections 39-40 (volume 1).
"Of the kings of Rome we have no direct contemporary evidence;
we know them only from tradition, and from the traces they
left behind them in the Republican constitution which
followed. But the 'method of survivals' has here been applied
by a master-hand [Mommsen]; and we can be fairly sure, not
only of the fact that monarchy actually existed at Rome, but
even of some at least of its leading characteristics. Here we
have kingship no longer denoting, as in Homer, a social
position of chieftaincy which bears with it certain
vaguely-conceived prerogatives, but a clearly defined
magistracy within the fully realised State. The rights and
duties of the Rex are indeed defined by no documents, and the
spirit of the age still seems to be obedience and trust; but
we also find the marks of a formal customary procedure, which
is already hardening into constitutional practice, and will in
time further harden into constitutional law. The monarchy has
ceased to be hereditary, if it ever was so; and the method of
appointment, though we are uncertain as to its exact nature,
is beyond doubt regulated with precision, and expressed in
technical terms."
W. W. Fowler,
The City-State of the Greeks and Romans,
pages 74-75.
"The analogy of other states, no less than the subsequent
constitution of Rome, which always retained the marks of its
first monarchical complexion, leaves us in no doubt that kings
once reigned in Rome, and that by a determined uprising of the
people they were expelled, leaving in the Roman mind an
ineradicable hatred of the very name. We have to be content
with these hard facts, extracted from those thrilling stories
with which Livy adorns the reign and the expulsion of
Tarquinius Superbus."
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 2.
The names of the kings, with the dates assigned to them, are
as follows:
Romulus, B. C. 753-717;
Numa Pompilius, B. C. 715-673;
Tullus Hostilius, B. C. 673-642;
Ancus Martius, B. C. 641-617;
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, B. C. 616-579;
Servius Tullius, B. C. 578-535;
Tarquinius Superbus, B. C. 534-510.
According to the legend of early Rome, Romulus attracted
inhabitants to the city he had founded by establishing within
its walls a sanctuary or refuge, for escaped slaves, outlaws
and the like. But he could not in a fair way procure wives for
these rough settlers, because marriage with them was disdained
by the reputable people of neighboring cities. Therefore he
arranged for an imposing celebration of games at Rome, in
honor of the god Consus, and invited his neighbors, the
Sabines, to witness them. These came unsuspectingly with their
wives and daughters, and, when they were absorbed in the show,
the Romans, at a given signal, rushed on them and carried off
such women as they chose to make captive. A long and obstinate
war ensued, which was ended by the interposition of the women
concerned, who had become reconciled to their Roman husbands
and satisfied to remain with them.
Livy,
History,
chapter 9.
"We cannot … agree with Niebuhr, who thinks he can discover
some historical facts through this legendary mist. As he
supposes, the inhabitants of the Palatine had not the right of
intermarriage ('connubium') with their Sabine neighbours on
the Capitoline and the Quirinal. This inferiority of the
Palatine Romans to the Sabines of the Capitoline and Quirinal
hills caused discontent and war. The right of intermarriage
was obtained by force of arms, and this historical fact lies
at the bottom of the tale of the rape of the Sabines. Such a
method of changing legends into history is of very doubtful
utility. It seems more natural to explain the legend from the
customs at the Roman marriage ceremonies"—in which the
pretence of forcible abduction was enacted.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 1, chapter 2.
"With the reign of the fifth king, Tarquinius Priscus, a
marked change takes place. The traditional accounts of the
last three kings not only wear a more historical air than
those of the first four, but they describe something like a
transformation of the Roman city and state. Under the rule of
these latter kings the separate settlements were for the first
time enclosed with a rampart of colossal size and extent. The
low grounds were drained, and a forum and circus elaborately
laid out; on the Capitoline Mount a temple was erected, the
massive foundations of which were an object of wonder even to
Pliny. … The kings increase in power and surround themselves
with new splendour. Abroad, Rome suddenly appears as a
powerful state ruling far and wide over southern Etruria and
Latium. These startling changes are, moreover, ascribed to
kings of alien descent, who one and all ascend the throne in
the teeth of established constitutional forms. Finally, with
the expulsion of the last of them—the younger Tarquin—comes a
sudden shrinkage of power. At the commencement of the republic
Rome is once more a comparatively small state, with hostile
and independent neighbours at her very doors. It is difficult
to avoid the conviction that the true explanation of this
phenomenon is to be found in the supposition that Rome during
this period passed under the rule of powerful Etruscan lords.
Who the people were whom the Romans knew as Etruscans and the
Greeks as Tyrrhenians is a question, which, after centuries of
discussion, still remains unanswered; nor in all probability
will the answer be found until the lost key to their language
has been discovered. That they were regarded by the Italic
tribes, by Umbrians, Sabellians, and Latins, as intruders is
certain. Entering Italy, as they probably did from the north
or northeast, they seem to have first of all made themselves
masters of the rich valley of the Po and of the Umbrians who
dwelt there.
{2662}
Then crossing the Apennines, they overran Etruria proper as
far south as the banks of the Tiber, here too reducing to
subjection the Umbrian owners of the soil. In Etruria they
made themselves dreaded, like the Northmen of a later time, by
sea as well as by land. … We find the Etruscan power
encircling Rome on all sides, and in Rome itself a tradition
of the rule of princes of Etruscan origin. The Tarquinii come
from South Etruria; their name can hardly be anything else
than the Latin equivalent of the Etruscan Tarchon, and is
therefore possibly a title (='lord' or 'prince') rather than a
proper name. … That Etruria had, under the sway of Etruscan
lords, forged ahead of the country south of the Tiber in
wealth and civilisation is a fact which the evidence of
remains has placed beyond doubt. It is therefore significant
that the rule of the Tarquins in Rome is marked by an outward
splendour which stands in strong contrast to the primitive
simplicity of the native kings. … These Etruscan princes are
represented, not only as having raised Rome for the time to a
commanding position in Latium, and lavished upon the city
itself the resources of Etruscan civilisation, but also the
authors of important internal changes. They are represented as
favouring new men at the expense of the old patrician
families, and as reorganising the Roman army on a new footing,
a policy natural enough in military princes of alien birth."
H. F. Pelham,
Outlines of Roman History,
book 1, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
F. W. Newman,
Regal Rome.
T. H. Dyer,
History of the Kings of Rome.
ROME: B. C. 510.
Expulsion of Tarquin the Proud.
The story from Livy.
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, son of
Tarquinius Priscus and son-in-law of Servius Tullius, brought
about the assassination of the latter, and mounted the throne.
"Lucius Tarquin, having thus seized the kingdom (for he had
not the consent either of the Senators or of the Commons to
his deed), bare himself very haughtily, so that men called him
Tarquin the Proud. First, lest some other, taking example by
him, should deal with him as he had dealt with Tullius, he had
about him a company of armed men for guards. And because he
knew that none loved him, he would have them fear him. To this
end he caused men to be accused before him. And when they were
so accused, he judged them by himself, none sitting with him
to see that right was done. Some he slew unjustly, and some he
banished, and some he spoiled of their goods. And when the
number of the Senators was greatly diminished by these means
(for he laid his plots mostly against the Senators, as being
rich men and the chief of the State), he would not choose any
into their place, thinking that the people would lightly
esteem them if there were but a few of them. Nor did he call
them together to ask their counsel, but ruled according to his
own pleasure, making peace and war, and binding treaties or
unbinding, with none to gainsay him. Nevertheless, for a while
he increased greatly in power and glory. He made alliance with
Octavius Mamilius, prince of Tusculum, giving him his daughter
in marriage; nor was there any man greater than Mamilius in
all the cities of the Latins; and Suessa Pometia, that was a
city of the Volsei, he took by force, and finding that the
spoil was very rich (for there were in it forty talents of
gold and silver), he built with the money a temple to Jupiter
on the Capitol, very great and splendid, and worthy not only
of his present kingdom but also of that great Empire that
should be thereafter. Also he took the city of Gabii by fraud.
… By such means did King Tarquin increase his power. Now there
was at Rome in the days of Tarquin a noble youth, by name
Lucius Junius, who was akin to the house of Tarquin, seeing
that his mother was sister to the King. This man, seeing how
the King sought to destroy all the chief men in the State
(and, indeed, the brother of Lucius had been so slain), judged
it well so to bear himself that there should be nothing in him
which the King should either covet or desire. Wherefore he
feigned foolishness, suffering all that he had to be made a
prey; for which reason men gave him the name of Brutus, or the
Foolish. Then he bided his time, waiting till the occasion
should come when he might win freedom for the people." In a
little time "there came to Brutus an occasion of showing what
manner of man he was. Sextus, the King's son, did so grievous
a wrong to Lucretia, that was the wife of Collatinus, that the
woman could not endure to live, but slew herself with her own
hand. But before she died she called to her her husband and
her father and Brutus, and bade them avenge her upon the evil
house of Tarquin. And when her father and her husband sat
silent for grief and fear, Brutus drew the knife wherewith she
slew herself from the wound, and held it before him dripping
with blood, and cried aloud, 'By this blood I swear, calling
the Gods to witness, that I will pursue with fire and sword
and with all other means of destruction Tarquin the Proud,
with his accursed wife and all his race; and that I will
suffer no man hereafter to be king in this city of Rome.' And
when he had ended he bade the others swear after the same form
of words. This they did and, forgetting their grief, thought
only how they might best avenge this great wrong that had been
done. First they carried the body of Lucretia, all covered
with blood, into the marketplace of Collatia (for these things
happened at Collatia), and roused all the people that saw a
thing so shameful and pitiful, till all that were of an age
for war assembled themselves carrying arms. Some of them
stayed behind to keep the gates of Collatia, that no one
should carry tidings of the matter to the King, and the rest
Brutus took with him with all the speed that he might to Rome.
There also was stirred up a like commotion, Brutus calling the
people together and telling them what a shameful wrong the
young Tarquin had done. Also he spake to them of the labours
with which the King wore them out in the building of temples
and palaces and the like, so that they who had been in time
past the conquerors of all the nations round about were now
come to be but his hewers of wood and drawers of water. Also
he set before them in what shameful sort King Tullius had been
slain, and how his daughter had driven her chariot over the
dead body of her father. With suchlike words he stirred up the
people to great wrath, so that they passed a decree that there
should be no more kings in Rome, and that Lucius Tarquin with
his wife and his children should be banished.
{2663}
After this Brutus made haste to the camp and stirred up the
army against the King. And in the meanwhile Queen Tullia fled
from her palace, all that saw her cursing her as she went. As
for King Tarquin, when he came to the city he found the gates
shut against him; thereupon he returned and dwelt at Cære that
is in the land of Etruria, and two of his sons with him; but
Sextus going to Gabii, as to a city which he had made his own,
was slain by the inhabitants. The King and his house being
thus driven out, Brutus was made consul with one Collatinus
for his colleague."
A. J. Church,
Stories from Livy;
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on the History of Rome,
lectures 8-9 (volume 1).
T. H. Dyer,
History of the Kings of Rome,
chapter 10.
ROME: B. C. 509.
The establishment of the Republic.
The Valerian Laws.
"However much the history of the expulsion of the last
Tarquinius, 'the proud,' may have been interwoven with
anecdotes and spun out into a romance, it is not in its
leading outlines to be called in question. … The royal power
was by no means abolished, as is shown by the fact that, when
a vacancy occurred, a 'temporary king' (interrex) was
nominated as before. The one life-king was simply replaced by
two year-kings, who called themselves generals (prætores), or
judges (iudices), or merely colleagues (consules) [consules
are those who 'leap or dance together.' Foot-note]. The
collegiate principle, from which this last—and subsequently
most current—name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in
their case an altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was
not entrusted to the two magistrates conjointly, but each
consul possessed and exercised it for himself as fully and
wholly as it had been possessed and exercised by the king;
and, although a partition of functions doubtless took place
from the first—the one consul for instance undertaking the
command of the army, and the other the administration of
justice—that partition was by no means binding, and each of
the colleagues was legally at liberty to interfere at any time
in the province of the other.
See CONSUL, ROMAN.
… This peculiarly Latin, if not peculiarly Roman, institution
of co-ordinate supreme authorities … manifestly sprang out of
the endeavour to retain the regal power in legally
undiminished fulness. … A similar course was followed in
reference to the termination of their tenure of office. … They
ceased to be magistrates, not upon the expiry of the set term,
but only upon their publicly and solemnly demitting their
office: so that, in the event of their daring to disregard the
term and to continue their magistracy beyond the year, their
official acts were nevertheless valid, and in the earlier
times they scarcely even incurred any other than a moral
responsibility."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 1.
"No revolution can be undertaken and completed with success if
the mass of the people is not led on by some superior
intellect. At the dissolution of an existing legal authority
the only authority remaining is personal and de facto, which
in proportion to the danger of the position is more or less
military and dictatorial. The Romans especially acknowledged
the necessity, when circumstances required it, of submitting
to the unlimited power of a dictator. Such a chief they found,
at the time of the revolution, in Brutus. Collatinus also may,
during a certain time, have stood in a similar manner at the
head of the state, probably from less pure motives than
Brutus, in consequence of which he succumbed to the movement
which he in part may have evoked. After Brutus, Valerius
Publicola was the recognised supreme head and the arbiter of
events in Rome with dictatorial power, until his legislation
made an end of the interregnum, and with all legal forms
founded the true and genuine republic with two annual consuls.
The dictatorship is found in the Latin cities as a state of
transition between monarchy and the yearly prætorship; and we
may conjecture that also in Rome the similar change in the
constitution was effected in a similar way. In important
historical crises the Romans always availed themselves of the
absolute power of a dictator, as in Greece, with similar
objects, Aesymnetae were chosen. … How long the dictatorial
constitution lasted must remain undecided; for we must
renounce the idea of a chronology of that time. It appears to
me not impossible that the period between the expulsion of the
kings and the Valerian laws, which is our authorities is
represented as a year, may have embraced ten years, or much
more."-
W. Ihne,
Researches into the History of the Roman Constitution,
page 61.
"The republic seems to have been first regularly established
by the Valerian laws, of which, unfortunately, we can discover
little more than half obliterated traces in the oldest
traditions of the Romans. According to the story, P. Valerius
was chosen as consul after the banishment of Tarquinius
Collatinus, and remained alone in office after the death of
his colleague, Brutus, without assembling the people for the
election of a second consul. This proceeding excited a
suspicion in the minds of the people, that he intended to take
sole possession of the state, and to re-establish royal power.
But these fears proved groundless. Valerius remained in office
with the sole design of introducing a number of laws intended
to establish the republic on a legal foundation, without the
danger of any interference on the part of a colleague. The
first of these Valerian laws threatened with the curse of the
gods anyone who, without the consent of the people, should
dare to assume the highest magistracy. … The second law of
Valerius … prescribe that in criminal trials, where the life
of a citizen was at stake, the sentence of the consul should
be subject to an appeal to the general assembly of the people.
This Valerian law of appeal was the Roman Habeas Corpus Act."
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).
See, also,
CONSUL, ROMAN;
COMITIA CURIATA;
COMITIA CENTURIATA;
CENSORS;
QUÆSTORS, ROMAN;
SENATE, ROMAN.
ROME: B. C. 494-492.
The first secession of the Plebs.
Origin of the Tribunes of the Plebs, and the Ædiles.
Original and acquired power of the Tribunes.
The two Roman peoples and their antagonism.
"The struggle [of plebeians against patricians in early Rome]
opens with the debt question. We must realize all along how
the internal history is affected by the wars without. The
debtors fall into their difficulties through serving in the
field during the summer; for of course the army is a citizen
army and the citizens are agriculturists. Two patrician
families take the side of the poor, the Horatii and the
Valerii.
{2664}
Manius Valerius Publicola, created dictator, promises the
distressed farmers that, if they will follow him in his
campaign against the Sabines, he will procure the relaxation
of their burdens. They go and return victorious. But Appius
Claudius (whose family had but recently migrated to Rome, a
proud and overbearing Sabine stock) opposed the redemption of
the dictator's promise. The victorious host, forming a seventh
of the arm-bearing population, instantly marched out of the
gate of the city, crossed the river Anio, and took up a
station on the Sacred Mount [Mons Sacer]. They did not mean to
go back again; they were weary of their haughty masters. … At
last a peace is made—a formal peace concluded by the fetiales:
they will come back if they may have magistrates of their own.
This is the origin of the tribunes of the plebs [B. C. 492]. …
The plebs who marched back that day from the Sacred Mount had
done a deed which was to have a wonderful issue in the history
of the world; they had dropped a seed into the soil which
would one day spring up into the imperial government of the
Cæsars. The 'tribunicia potestas,' with which they were
clothing their new magistrates, was to become a more important
element in the claims of the emperors than the purple robe of
the consuls."
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 3.
"The tribunes of the people were so essentially different from
all the other magistrates that, strictly speaking, they could
hardly be called magistrates at all. They were originally
nothing but the official counsel of the plebs—but counsel who
possessed a veto on the execution of any command or any
sentence of the patrician authorities. The tribune of the
people had no military force at his disposal with which to
inforce his veto. … There is no more striking proof of the
high respect for law which was inherent in the Roman people,
than that it was possible for such a magistracy to exercise
functions specially directed against the governing class. … To
strengthen an official authority which was so much wanting in
physical strength, the Romans availed themselves of the
terrors of religion. … The tribunes were accordingly placed
under the special protection of the Deity. They were declared
to be consecrated and inviolable ('sacrosancti'), and whoever
attacked them, or hindered them in the exercise of their
functions, fell a victim to the avenging Deity, and might be
killed by anyone without fear of punishment."
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 2, and book 6, chapter 8.
"The tribune had no political authority. Not being a
magistrate, he could not convoke the curies or the centuries
[see COMITIA CURIATA and COMITIA CENTURIATA]. He could make no
proposition in the senate; it was not supposed, in the
beginning, that he could appear there. He had nothing in
common with the real city—that is to say, with the patrician
city, where men did not recognize any authority of his. He was
not the tribune of the people; he was the tribune of the
plebs. There were then, as previously, two societies in
Rome—the city and the plebs; the one strongly organized,
having laws, magistrates, and a senate; the other a multitude,
which remained without rights and laws, but which found in its
inviolable tribunes protectors and judges. In succeeding years
we can see how the tribunes took courage, and what unexpected
powers they assumed. They had no authority to convoke the
people, but they convoked them. Nothing called them to the
senate; they sat at first at the door of the chamber; later
they sat within. They had no power to judge the patricians;
they judged them and condemned them. This was the result of
the inviolability attached to them as sacrosancti. Every other
power gave way before them. The patricians were disarmed the
day they had pronounced, with solemn rites, that whoever
touched a tribune should be impure. The law said, 'Nothing
shall be done against a tribune.' If, then, this tribune
convoked the plebs, the plebs assembled, and no one could
dissolve this assembly, which the presence of the tribune
placed beyond the power of the patricians and the laws. If the
tribune entered the senate, no one could compel him to retire.
If he seized a consul, no one could take the consul from his
hand. Nothing could resist the boldness of a tribune. Against
a tribune no one had any power, except another tribune. As
soon as the plebs thus had their chiefs, they did not wait
long before they had deliberative assemblies. These did not in
any manner resemble those of the patricians. The plebs, in
their comitia, were distributed into tribes; the domicile, not
religion or wealth, regulated the place of each one. The
assembly did not commence with a sacrifice; religion did not
appear there. They knew nothing of presages, and the voice of
an augur, or a pontiff, could not compel men to separate. It
was really the comitia of the plebs, and they had nothing of
the old rules, or of the religion of the patricians. True,
these assemblies did not at first occupy themselves with the
general interests of the city; they named no magistrates, and
passed no laws. They deliberated only on the interests of
their own order, named the plebeian chiefs, and carried
plebiscita. There was at Rome, for a long time, a double
series of decrees—senatusconsulta for the patricians,
plebiscita for the plebs. The plebs did not obey the
senatusconsulta, nor the patricians the plebiscita. There were
two peoples at Rome. These two peoples, always in presence of
each other, and living within the same walls, still had almost
nothing in common. A plebeian could not be consul of the city,
nor a patrician tribune of the plebs. The plebeian dill not
enter the assembly by curies, nor the patrician the assembly
of the tribes. They were two peoples that did not even
understand each other, not having—so to speak—common ideas. …
The patricians persisted in keeping the plebs without the body
politic, and the plebs established institutions of their own.
The duality of the Roman population became from day to day
more manifest. And yet there was something which formed a tie
between these two peoples: this was war. The patricians were
careful not to deprive themselves of soldiers. They had left
to the plebeians the title of citizens, if only to incorporate
them into the legions. They had taken care, too, that the
inviolability of the tribunes should not extend outside of
Rome, and for this purpose had decided that a tribune should
never go out of the city. In the army, therefore, the plebs
were under control; there was no longer a double power; in
presence of the enemy Rome became one."
N. D. Fustel de Coulanges,
The Ancient City,
book 4, chapter 7.
{2665}
It is supposed that the tribunes were originally two in
number; but later there were five, and, finally, ten. The law
which created their office was "deposited in a temple, under
the charge of two plebeian magistrates specially appointed for
the purpose and called Aediles or 'housemasters.' These
aediles were attached to the tribunes as assistants, and their
jurisdiction chiefly concerned such minor cases as were
settled by fines."
T. Mommsen,
History of the Roman Republic
(abridged by Bryant and Hendy),
chapter 7.
"Besides the tribunes, who stood over against the consuls, two
plebeian ædiles were appointed, who might balance the
patrician quæstors. Their name seems borrowed from the temple
(Ædes Cereris) which is now built on the cattle market between
the Palatine and the river to form a religious centre for the
plebeian interest, as the ancient temple of Saturn was already
a centre for the patrician interest. The goddess of bread is
to preside over the growth of the democracy. The duty of
ædiles is, in the first instance, to keep the public buildings
in repair; but they acquire a position not unlike that of
police-officers."
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 3.
The office of the curule ædiles (two in number, who were
elected in "comitia tributa") was instituted in 366 B. C.
These were patricians at first; but in 304 B. C. the office
was thrown open in alternate years to the plebeians, and in 91
B. C. all restrictions were removed. The curule ædiles had
certain judicial functions, and formed with the plebeian
ædiles a board of police and market administration, having
oversight also of the religious games.
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
Appendix A.
ALSO IN:
Sir G. C. Lewis,
Credibility of Early Roman History,
chapter 12, part 1.
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on the History of Rome,
lecture 16.
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 2 (volume 1).
ROME: B. C. 493.
League with the Latins.
See ROME: B. C. 339-338.
ROME: B. C. 489-450.
Volscian Wars.
The wars of the Romans with the neighboring Volscians
stretched over a period of some forty years (B. C. 489-450)
and ended in the disappearance of the latter from history. The
legend of Coriolanus (Caius Marcius, on whom the added name
was bestowed because of his valiant capture of the Volscian
town of Corioli) is connected with these wars; but modern
critics have stripped it of all historic credit and left it
only a beautiful romance.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 4 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
A. J. Church,
Stories from Livy,
chapter 7.
ROME: B. C. 472-471.-
The Publilian Law of Volero.
Exclusion of Patricians from the Comitia Tributa.
"Volero Publilius was chosen one of the Tribunes for … [B. C.
472]; and he straightway proposed a law, by which it was
provided that the Tribunes and Ædiles of the plebs should be
elected by the plebeians themselves at the Assembly of the
Tribes in the Forum, not at the Assembly of the Centuries in
the Field of Mars. This is usually called the Publilian Law of
Volero. For a whole year the patricians succeeded in putting
off the law. But the plebeians were determined to have it."
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 8 (volume 1).
"The immediate consequence of the tribuneship of the people
was the organisation of the assembly of tribes, the 'comitia
tributa,' whereby they lost their former character as
factional or party meetings and were raised to the·dignity and
functions of assemblies of the Roman people. … The
circumstances which, in 471 B. C., led to the passing of the
Publilian law, seem to indicate that even at that time the
attempt was made by the patricians to change the original
character of the tribuneship of the people, and to open it to
the patrician class. The patricians intruded themselves in the
assembly of the plebeians, surely not for the purpose of
making a disturbance as it is represented, but to enforce a
contested right, by which they claimed to take part in the
comitia of tribes. … This question was decided by the
Publilian law, which excluded the patricians from the comitia
tributa and specified the privileges of these comitia, now
admitted to be purely plebeian. … These were the right of
meeting together unmolested in separate purely plebeian
comitia, the right of freely and independently electing their
representatives, the right of discussing and settling their
own affairs, and in certain matters of passing resolutions
[plebiscita] which affected the whole community. These
resolutions were, of course, not binding on the state, they
had more the character of petitions than enactments, but still
they were the formal expression of the will of a great
majority of the Roman people, and as such they could not
easily be set aside or ignored by the patrician government."
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 8, and book 6, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on History of Rome,
lecture 20.
ROME: B. C. 466-463.
The Plague.
In the war of the Romans with the Volscians, the former were
so hard pressed that "it became necessary to receive men and
cattle within the walls or Rome, just as at Athens in the
Peloponnesian war; and this crowding together of men and
beasts produced a plague [B. C. 466-403]. … It is probable
that the great pestilence which, thirty years later, broke out
in Greece and Carthage, began in Italy as early as that time.
The rate of mortality was fearful; it was a real pestilence,
and not a mere fever. … Both consuls fell victims to the
disease, two of the four augurs, the curio maximus, the fourth
part of the senators, and an immense number of citizens of all
classes."
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on the History of Rome,
lecture 21.
ALSO IN:
T. Arnold,
History of Rome,
chapter 11.
ROME: B. C. 458.
Conquest of the Æqui.
"Alternating with the raids [of the Romans] against the Volsci
are the almost yearly campaigns with the Æqui, who would pour
down their valleys and occupy Mount Algidus, threatening
Tusculum and the Latin Way which led to Rome. It was on one of
these occasions, when the republic too was engaged with
Sabines to the north, and Volscians to the south, that the
Consul Minucius [B. C. 458] found himself hemmed in on the
mountainside by the Æqui. Very beautiful and very
characteristic is the legend which veils the issue of the
danger. L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, ruined by a fine imposed
upon his son, is tilling his little farm across the Tiber,
when the messengers of the Senate come to announce that he is
made dictator. With great simplicity he leaves his plough,
conquers the Æqui, and returns to his furrows again."
R. F. Horton.
History of the Romans,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
A. J. Church,
Stories from Livy,
chapter 9.
{2666}
ROME: B. C. 456.
The Icilian Law.
The early process of legislation illustrated.
Persuasiveness of Plebeian Petitions.
"The process of legislation in early times has been preserved
to us in a single instance in which Dionysius has followed the
account derived by him from an ancient document. The case is
that of the Lex Icilia de Aventino publicando (B. C. 456), an
interlude in the long struggle over the Terentilian law.
See ROME: B. C. 451-449.
This Lex Icilia was preserved, as Dionysius tells us, on a
brazen column in the temple of Diana on the Aventine. It seems
unlikely that the original tablet in such a situation should
have survived the burning of the city by the Gauls. Yet a
record so important to the plebs would doubtless be at once
restored, and the restoration would show at least the belief
prevalent at this very early period (B. C. 389) as to the
proper procedure in case of such a law. 'Icilius,' says
Dionysius (X. 31), 'approached the consuls then in office and
the senate, and requested them to pass the preliminary decree
for the law that he proposed, and to bring it before the
people.' By threatening to arrest the consuls he compelled
them to assemble the senate, and Icilius addressed the senate
on behalf of his bill. Finally the senate consented … (Dionys.
X. 32). Then, after auspices and sacrifices, 'the law was
passed by the comitia centuriata, which were convened by the
consuls.' … Now here we have an order of proceeding under
which the plebs have a practical initiative in legislation,
and in which, nevertheless, each of the powers of the state
acts in a perfectly natural and constitutional manner. … The
formal legislative power lies solely with the populus Romanus.
The vote of the corporation of the plebs is not then in early
times strictly a legislative process at all. It is merely a
strong and formal petition; an appeal to the sovereign
assembly to grant their request. But this sovereign assembly
can only be convened and the question put to it by a consul.
If the consuls are unfavourable to the bill, they can refuse
to put it to the vote at all. In any case, unless, like Sp.
Cassius, they were themselves revolutionists, they would not
think of doing so save on the recommendation of their
authorised advisers. … The senate is assembled and freely
dis·cusses the law. An adverse vote justifies the consuls in
their resistance. Then follow tedious manœuvres. The senate
treat with members of the college of tribunes to procure their
veto; they urge the necessity of a military expedition, or, as
a last resource, advise the appointment of a dictator. Such is
the general picture we get from Livy's story. If by these
means they can tide over the tribune's year of office, the
whole process has to be gone through again. The senate have
the chance of a lucky accident in getting one of the new
tribunes subservient to them; or sometimes (as in the case of
the proposal to remove to Veii) they may persuade the plebs
itself to throw out the tribunician rogatio when again
introduced (Livy, v. 30). On the other hand the tribunes may
bring to bear their reserved power of impeding all public
business; and the ultima ratio lies with the plebeians, who
have the power of secession in their hands. In practice,
however, the senate is nearly always wise enough to yield
before the plebs is driven to play this its last card. Their
yielding is expressed by their backing the petition of the
plebs and recommending the consuls to put the question of its
acceptance to the populus. With this recommendation on the
part of the senate the struggle is generally at an end. It is
still in the strict right of the consuls to refuse to put the
question to the comitia. Livy (iii. 19) gives us one instance
in the matter of the Terentilian law, when the senate is
disposed to yield, and the consul 'non in plebe coercendâ quam
senatu castigando vehementior fuit.' But a consul so insisting
on his right would incur enormous personal responsibility, and
expose himself, unsheltered by public opinion, to the
vengeance of the plebs when he went out of office. When the
consul too has yielded, and the question is actually put to
the vote of the sovereign (generally in its comitia
centuriata), the controversy has been long ago thoroughly
threshed out. Though it is only at this stage that legislation
in the strict sense of the word commences, yet no instance is
recorded of a refusal on the part of the sovereign people to
assent to the petition of the plebs backed by the
recommendation of the senate."
J. L. Strachan-Davidson,
Plebeian Privilege at Rome
(English Historical Review, April, 1886).
On the bearings of this proceeding on the subsequently adopted
Valerio-Horatian, Publilian, and Hortensian laws.
See ROME: B. C. 286.
ROME: B. C. 451-449.
The Terentilian Law.
The Decemvirs and the Twelve Tables.
Not long after the establishment of the tribuneship, "the
plebeians felt the necessity of putting an end to the
exclusive possession of the laws which the patricians enjoyed,
and to make them the common property of the whole nation. This
could only be done by writing them down and making them
public. A proposal was accordingly made in the assembly of the
tribes by the tribune C. Terentilius Arsa (462 B. C.) to
appoint a commission for the purpose of committing to writing
the whole of the laws. … It is not wonderful that the
patricians opposed with all their strength a measure which
would wrest a most powerful weapon out of their hands. … The
contest for the passing of the bill of Terentilius lasted,
according to tradition, not less than ten years, and all means
of open and secret opposition and of partial concession were
made use of to elude the claims of the popular party. … After
a ten years' struggle it [the motion for a commission] was
passed into law. It proposed that a commission of ten men,
being partly patricians and partly plebeians, should be
appointed, for the purpose of arranging the existing law into
a code. At the same time the consular constitution was to be
suspended, and the ten men to be intrusted with the government
and administration of the commonwealth during the time that
they acted as legislators. By the same law the plebeian
magistracy of the tribunes of the people ceased likewise, and
the ten men became a body of magistrates intrusted with
unlimited authority. … The patricians did not act entirely in
good faith. … They carried the election of ten patricians. …
Having, however, obtained this advantage over the credulity of
their opponents, the patricians made no attempt to use it
insolently as a party victory. The decemvirs proceeded with
wisdom and moderation. Their administration, as well as their
legislation, met with universal approval. They published on
ten tables the greater part of the Roman law, and after these
laws had met with the approbation of the people, they were
declared by a decision of the people to be binding. Thus the
first year of the decemvirate passed, and so far the
traditional story is simple and intelligible."
{2667}
The part of the tradition which follows is largely rejected by
modern critical historians. It relates that when decemvirs
were chosen for another year, to complete their work, Appius
Claudius brought about the election, with himself, of men whom
he could control, and then established a reign of terror which
surpassed the worst tyranny of the kings, refusing to abdicate
when the year expired. The tragic story of Virginia connects
itself with this terrible oppression, and with the legend of
its downfall. In the end, the Roman people delivered
themselves, and secured the permanent authority of the code of
laws, which had been enlarged from ten to twelve Tables.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 9 and 10.
"The Twelve Tables were considered as the foundation of all
law, and Cicero always mentions them with the utmost
reverence. But only fragments remain."
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 11.
"The most celebrated system of jurisprudence known to the
world begins, as it ends, with a code. From the commencement
to the close of its history, the expositors of Roman Law
consistently employed language which implied that the body of
their system rested on the Twelve Decemviral [Tables, and
therefore on a basis of written law. Except in one
particular, no institutions anterior to the Twelve Tables
were recognised at Rome. The theoretical descent of Roman
jurisprudence from a code, the theoretical ascription of
English law to immemorial unwritten tradition, were the chief
reasons why the development of their system differed from the
development of ours. Neither theory corresponded exactly with
the facts, but each produced consequences of the utmost
importance. … The ancient Roman code belongs to a class of
which almost every civilised nation in the world can show a
sample, and which, so far as the Roman and Hellenic worlds
were concerned, were largely diffused over them at epochs not
widely distant from one another. They appeared under
exceedingly similar circumstances, and were produced, to our
knowledge, by very similar causes. … In Greece, in Italy, on
the Hellenised sea-board of Western Asia, these codes all
made their appearance at periods much the same everywhere,
not, I mean, at periods identical in point of time, but
similar in point of the relative progress of each community.
Everywhere, in the countries I have named, laws engraven on
tablets and published to the people take the place of usages
deposited with the recollection of a privileged oligarchy. …
The ancient codes were doubtless originally suggested by the
discovery and diffusion of the art of writing. It is true
that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of
legal knowledge; and at all events their exclusive possession
of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of
those popular movements which began to be universal in the
western world. But, though democratic sentiment may have
added to their popularity, the codes were certainly in the
main a direct result of the invention of writing. Inscribed
tablets were seen to be a better depositary of law, and a
better security for its accurate preservation, than the
memory of a number of persons however strengthened by
habitual exercise. … Among the chief advantages which the
Twelve Tables and similar codes conferred on the societies
which obtained them, was the protection which they afforded
against the frauds of the privileged oligarchy and also
against the spontaneous depravation and debasement of the
national institutions. The Roman Code was merely an
enunciation in words of the existing customs of the Roman
people. Relatively to the progress of the Romans in
civilization, it was a remarkably early code, and it was
published at a time when Roman society had barely emerged
from that intellectual condition in which civil obligation
and religious duty are inevitably confounded."
H. S. Maine,
Ancient Law,
chapter 1.
ROME: B. C. 449.
The Valerio-Horatian Laws.
On the overthrow of the tyranny of the Decemvirs, at Rome, B.
C. 449, L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus, being
elected consuls, brought about the passage of certain laws,
known as the Valerio-Horatian Laws. These renewed an old law
(the Valerian Law) which gave to every Roman citizen an appeal
from the supreme magistrate to the people, and they also made
the plebiscita, or resolutions of the assembly of the tribes,
authoritative laws, binding on the whole body politic.
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 10.
See a discussion of the importance of the last mentioned of
these laws, in its relations to the subsequent Publilian and
Hortensian laws.
See, ROME: B. C. 286.
ROME: B. C. 445-400.
The Canuleian Law.
Creation of the Consular Tribunes.
Progress of the Plebs toward Political Equality.
"The year 449 had not taken from the patricians all their
privileges. Rome has still two classes, but only one people,
and the chiefs of the plebs, sitting in the senate, are
meditating, after the struggle to obtain civil equality, to
commence another to gain political equality. … Two things
maintained the insulting distinction between the two orders:
the prohibition of marriage between patricians and plebeians,
and the tenure of all the magisterial officers by those who
formed since the origin of Rome the sovereign people of the
'patres.' In 445 B. C. the tribune Canuleius demanded the
abolition of the prohibition relative to marriages, and his
colleagues, a share in the consulate. This was a demand for
political equality." The Canuleian law legalizing marriages
between patricians and plebeians was conceded, but not until a
third "secession" of the plebeians had taken place. The
plebeian demand for a share in the consulate was pacified for
the time by a constitutional change which formed out of the

consulate three offices: "the quæstorship, the censorship and
the consular tribunate. The two former are exclusively
patrician. The military [or consular] tribunes, in reality
proconsuls confined, with one exception, to the command of the
legions, could now be chosen without distinction, from the two
orders. But the law, in not requiring that every year a fixed
number of them be plebeians, allowed them to be all
patricians; and they remained so for nearly fifty years. In
spite of such skilful precautions, the senate did not give up
the consulate. It held in reserve and pure from all taint the
patrician magistracy, hoping for better days. … The
constitution of 444 B. C. authorized the nomination of
plebeians to the consular tribunate; down to 400 B. C. none
obtained it; and during the seventy-eight years that this
office continued, the senate twenty-four times nominated
consuls, that is to say, it attempted, and succeeded, one year
in three, in re-establishing the ancient form of government.
{2668}
These perpetual oscillations encouraged the ambitious hopes of
a rich knight, Spurius Mælius (439 B. C.). He thought that the
Romans would willingly resign into his hands their unquiet
liberty, and during a famine he gave very liberally to the
poor. The senate became alarmed at this alms-giving which was
not at all in accordance with the manners of that time, and
raised to the dictatorship Cincinnatus, who, on taking office,
prayed the gods not to grant that his old age should prove a
cause of hurt or damage to the republic. Summoned before the
tribunal of the dictator, Mælius refused to appear, and sought
protection against the lictors amongst the crowd which filled
the Forum. But the master of the horse, Serv. Ahala, managed
to reach him, and ran him through with his sword. In spite of
the indignation of the people, Cincinnatus sanctioned the act
of his lieutenant, caused the house of the traitor to be
demolished, and the 'præfectus annonæ,' Minucius Augurinus,
sold, for an 'as' per 'modius,' the corn amassed by Mælius.
Such is the story of the partisan of the nobles [Livy]; but at
that epoch to have dreamt of reestablishing royalty would have
been a foolish dream in which Spurius could not have indulged.
Without doubt he had wished to obtain, by popular favour, the
military tribunate, and in order to intimidate the plebeian
candidates, the patricians overthrew him by imputing to him
the accusation which Livy complacently details by the mouth of
Cincinnatus, of having aimed at royalty. The crowd always can
be cajoled by words, and the senate had the art of
concentrating on this word 'royalty' all the phases of popular
hatred. The move succeeded; during the eleven years following
the people nine times allowed consuls to be nominated. There
was, however, in 433 B. C. a plebeian dictator, Mamercus
Æmilius, who reduced the tenure of censorship to 18 months.
These nine consulships gave such confidence to the nobles that
the senate itself had to suffer from the proud want of
discipline shown by the consuls of the year 428 B. C. Though
conquered by the Æquians, they refused to nominate a dictator.
To overcome their resistance the senate had recourse to the
tribunes of the people, who threatened to drag the consuls to
prison. To see the tribunitian authority protecting the
majesty of the senate was quite a new phenomenon. From this
day the reputation of the tribunate equalled its power, and
few years passed without the plebeians obtaining some new
advantage. Three years earlier the tribunes, jealous of seeing
the votes always given to the nobles, had proscribed the white
robes, which marked out from a distance, to all eyes, the
patrician candidate: This was the first law against undue
canvassing. In 430 a law put an end to arbitrary valuations of
penalties payable in kind. In 427 the tribunes, by opposing
the levies, obliged the senate to carry to the comitia
centuriata the question of the war against Veii. In 423 they
revived the agrarian law, and demanded that the tithe should
be more punctually paid in the future by the occupiers of
domain land, and applied to the pay of the troops. They
miscarried this time: but in 421 it seemed necessary to raise
the number of quæstors from two to four; the people consented
to it only on the condition that the quæstorship be accessible
to the plebeians. Three years later 3,000 acres of the lands
of Labicum were distributed to fifteen hundred plebeian
families. It was very little: so the people laid claim in 414
to the division of the lands of Bola, taken from the Æquians.
A military tribune, Postumius, being violently opposed to it,
was slain in an outbreak of the soldiery. This crime, unheard
of in the history of Roman armies, did harm to the popular
cause; there was no distribution of lands, and for five years
the senate was able to nominate the consuls. The patrician
reaction produced another against it which ended in the
thorough execution of the constitution of the year 444. An
Icilius in 412, a Mænius in 410 B. C. took up again the
agrarian law, and opposed the levy. The year following three
of the Icilian family were named as tribunes. It was a menace
to the other order. The patricians understood it, and in 410
three plebeians obtained the quæstorship. In 405 pay was
established for the troops, and the rich undertook to pay the
larger portion of it. Finally, in 400, four military tribunes
out of six were plebeians. The chiefs of the people thus
obtained the public offices and even places in the senate, and
the poor obtained an indemnity which supported their families
while they served with the colours. All ambitions, all
desires, are at present satisfied. Calm and union returned to
Rome; we can see it in the vigour of the attacks on external
foes."
V. Duruy,
History of Rome,
volume 1, pages 231-239.
ROME: B. C. 406-396.
The Veientine wars.
Proposed removal to Veii.
"Veii lay about ten miles from Rome, between two small streams
which meet a little below the city and run down into the
Tiber, falling into it nearly opposite to Castel Giubileo, the
ancient Fidenæ. Insignificant in point of size, these little
streams, however, like those of the Campagna generally, are
edged by precipitous rocky cliffs, and thus are capable of
affording a natural defence to a town built on the table-land
above and between them. The space enclosed by the walls of
Veii was equal to the extent of Rome itself, so long as the
walls of Servius Tullius were the boundary of the city. … In
the magnificence of its public and private buildings Veii is
said to have been preferred by the Roman commons to Rome: and
we know enough of the great works of the Etruscans to render
this not impossible."
T. Arnold,
History of Rome,
chapter 12 (volume 1).
"Rome and Veii, equals in strength and size, had engaged in
periodical conflicts from time immemorial. … But the time had
come for the final struggle with Veii. … How the siege lasted
for ten years [B. C. 406-396]; how, at the bidding of a
captured Tuscan seer, the Alban Lake was drained (and is not
the tunnel which drained it visible to-day?); how Camillus,
the dictator, by a tunnel underground took the city, and
fore·stalled the sacrifice; how Juno came from Veii, and took
up her abode upon the Aventine; how Camillus triumphed; and
how the nemesis fell upon him, and he was banished—all this
and more is told by Livy in his matchless way. It is an epic,
and a beautiful epic."
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 4.
{2669}
At the time of the conquest of Veii, there was a proposal that
half the inhabitants of Rome should remove to the empty city,
and found a new state. It was defeated with difficulty. A
little later, when the Gauls had destroyed Rome, its citizens,
having found Veii a strong and comfortable place of refuge,
were nearly persuaded to remain there and not rebuild their
former home. Thus narrowly was the "Eternal City" saved to
history.
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapters 13 and 15.
ROME: B. C. 390-347.
Invasions by the Gauls.
Destruction of the city.
"Before the time we are now speaking of, there had been a
great movement in these Celtic nations [of Gael and Cymri].
Two great swarms went out from Gaul. Of these, one crossed the
Alps into Italy; the other, moving eastward, in the course of
time penetrated into Greece. … It is supposed that the Gael
who dwelt in the eastern parts of Gaul, being oppressed by
Cymric tribes of the west and north, went forth to seck new
homes in distant lands. … At all events, it is certain that
large bodies of Celts passed over the Alps before and after
this time, and having once tasted the wines and eaten the
fruits of Italy, were in no hurry to return from that fair
land into their own less hospitable regions. We read of one
swarm after another pressing into the land of promise; parties
of Lingones, whose fathers lived about Langres in Champagne;
Boians, whose name is traced in French Bourbon and Italian
Bologna; Senones, whose old country was about Sens, and who
have left record of themselves in the name of Senigaglia (Sena
Gallica) on the coast of the Adriatic. … They overran the rich
plains of Northern Italy, and so occupied the territory which
lies between the Alps, the Apennines and the Adriatic [except
Liguria] that the Romans called this territory Gallia
Cisalpina, or Hither Gaul. The northern Etruscans gave way
before these fierce barbarians, and their name is heard of no
more in those parts. Thence the Gauls crossed the Apennines
into southern Etruria, and while they were ravaging that
country they first came in contact with the sons of Rome. The
common date for this event is 300 B. C. … The tribe which took
this course were of the Senones, as an authors say, and
therefore we may suppose they were Gaelic; but it has been
thought they were mixed with Cymri, since the name of their
king or chief was Brennus, and Brenhin is Cymric for a king."
The Romans met the invaders on the banks of the Alia, a little
stream from the Sabine Hills which flows into the Tiber, and
were terribly defeated there. The Gauls entered Rome and
found, as the ancient story is, only a few venerable senators,
sitting in their chairs and robes of state, whom they slew,
because one of the senators resented the stroking of his beard
by an insolent barbarian. The remaining inhabitants had
withdrawn into the Capitol, or taken refuge at Veii and Cære.
After pillaging and burning the city, the Gauls laid siege to
the Capitol, and strove desperately for seven months to
overcome its defenders by arms or famine. In the end they
retreated, without success, but whether bribed, or driven, or
weakened by sickness, is matter of uncertainty. The Romans
cherished many legends connected with the siege of the
Capitol,—like that, for example, of the sentinel and the
sacred geese. "Thirty years after the first irruption (361 B.
C.), we hear that another host of Senonian Gauls burst into
Latium from the north, and, in alliance with the people of
Tibur, ravaged the lands of Rome, Latium and Campania. For
four years they continued their ravages, and then we hear of
them no more. A third irruption followed, ten years later [B.
C. 347], of still more formidable character. At that time, the
Gauls formed a stationary camp on the Alban Hills and kept
Rome in perpetual terror. … After some months they poured
southwards, and disappear from history."
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 14 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 4.
A. J. Church,
Stories from Livy,
chapters 13-14.
ROME: B. C. 376-367.
The Licinian Laws.
"C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius … being Tribunes of the
Plebs together in the year 376 B. C. promulgated the three
bills which have ever since borne the name of the Licinian
Rogations. These were:
I. That of all debts on which interest had been paid, the sum
of the interest paid should be deducted from the principal,
and the remainder paid off in three successive years.
II. That no citizen should hold more than 500 jugera (nearly
320 acres) of the Public Land, nor should feed on the public
pastures more than 100 head of larger cattle and 500 of
smaller, under penalty of a heavy fine.
III. That henceforth Consuls, not Consular Tribunes, should
always be elected, and that one of the two Consuls must be a
Plebeian."
The patricians made a desperate resistance to the adoption of
these proposed enactments for ten years, during most of which
long period the operations of government were nearly paralyzed
by the obstinate tribunes, who inflexibly employed their
formidable power of veto to compel submission to the popular
demand. In the end they prevailed, and the Licinian rogations
became Laws.
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 15 (volume 1).
"Licinius evidently designed reuniting the divided members of
the plebeian body. Not one of them, whether rich or poor, but
seems called back by these bills to stand with his own order
from that time on. If this supposition was true, then Licinius
was the greatest leader whom the plebeians ever had up to the
time of Cæsar. But from the first he was disappointed. The
plebeians who most wanted relief cared so little for having
the consulship opened to the richer men of their estate that
they would readily have dropped the bill concerning it, lest a
demand should endanger their own desires. In the same temper
the more eminent men of the order, themselves among the
creditors of the poor and the tenants of the domain, would
have quashed the proceedings of the tribunes respecting the
discharge of debt and the distribution of land, so that they
carried the third bill only, which would make them consuls
without disturbing their possessions. While the plebeians
continued severed from one another, the patricians drew
together in resistance to the bills. Licinius stood forth
demanding, at once, all that it had cost his predecessors
their utmost energy to demand, singly and at long intervals,
from the patricians. … The very comprehensiveness of his
measures proved the safeguard of Licinius. Had he preferred
but one of these demands, he would have been unhesitatingly
opposed by the great majority of the patricians. On the other
hand he would have had comparatively doubtful support from the
plebs." In the end, after a struggle of ten years duration,
Licinius and Sextius carried their three bills, together with
a fourth, brought forward later, which opened to the plebeians
the office of the duumvirs, who consulted the Sibyline books.
{2670}
"It takes all the subsequent history of Rome to measure the
consequences of the Revolution achieved by Licinius and
Sextius; but the immediate working of their laws could have
been nothing but a disappointment to their originators and
upholders. … For some ten years the law regarding the
consulship was observed, after which it was occasionally
violated, but can still be called a success. The laws of
relief, as may be supposed of all such sumptuary enactments,
were violated from the first. No general recovery of the
public land from those occupying more than five hundred jugera
ever took place. Consequently there was no general division of
land among the lack-land class. Conflicting claims and
jealousy on the part of the poor must have done much to
embarrass and prevent the execution of the law. No system of
land survey to distinguish between 'ager publicus' and 'ager
privatus' existed. Licinius Stolo himself was afterwards
convicted of violating his own law. The law respecting debts
met with much the same obstacles. The causes of embarrassment
and poverty being much the same and undisturbed, soon
reproduced the effects which no reduction of interest or
installment of principal could effectually remove. … These
laws, then, had little or no effect upon the domain question
or the re-distribution of land. They did not fulfil the
evident expectation of their author in uniting the plebeians
into one political body. This was impossible. What they did do
was to break up and practically abolish the patriciate.
Henceforth were the Roman people divided into rich and poor
on]y."
A. Stephenson,
Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic
(Johns Hopkins University Studies, 9th series, numbers 7-8).
ALSO IN:
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1).
S. Eliot,
The Liberty of Rome,
book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1).
ROME: B. C. 366.
Institution of the Prætorship.
"By the establishment of the prætorship (366 B. C.) the office
of chief judge was separated as a distinct magistracy from the
consulship. … The prætor was always looked upon as the
colleague of the consuls. He was elected in the same manner as
the consuls by centuriate comitia, and, moreover, under the
same auspices. He was furnished with the imperium, had lictors
and fasces. He represented the consuls in town by assembling
the senate, conducting its proceedings, executing its decrees.
… Up to the time of the first Punic war one prætor only was
annually elected. Then a second was added to conduct the
jurisdiction between citizens and foreigners. A distinction
was now made between the city prætor (prætor urbanus), who was
always looked upon as having a higher dignity, and the foreign
prætor (prætor peregrinus). On the final establishment of the
two provinces of Sicily and Sardinia, probably 227 B. C., two
new prætors were appointed to superintend the regular
government of those provinces, and still later on two more
were added for the two provinces of Spain. The number of
annual prætors now amounted to six, and so it remained until
the legislation of Sulla."
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 6, chapter 5.
See, also, CONSUL, ROMAN.
ROME: B. C. 343-290.
The Samnite Wars.
When the Romans had made themselves dominant in middle Italy,
and the Samnites [see SAMNITES] in southern Italy, the
question which of the two peoples should be masters of the
peninsula at large was sure to demand settlement. About the
middle of the fourth century, B. C., it began to urge the two
rivals into collision, and the next two generations of Romans
were busied chiefly with Samnite Wars, of which they fought
three, with brief intervals to divide them, and at the end of
which the Samnite name had been practically erased from
history. The first hostilities grew out of a quarrel between
the Samnites of the mountains and their degenerate countrymen
of Capua and Campania. The latter sought help from the Romans,
and, according to the Romans, surrendered their city to them
in order to secure it; but this is obviously untrue. The First
Samnite War, which followed this (B. C. 343-341), had no
definite result, and seems to have been brought to an end
rather abruptly by a mutiny in the Roman army and by trouble
between Rome and her Latin allies. According to the Roman
annals there were three great battles fought in this war, one
on Mount Gaurus, and two elsewhere; but Mommsen and other
historians entirely distrust the historic details as handed
down. The Second or Great Samnite War occurred after an
interval of fifteen years, during which time the Romans had
conquered all Latium, reducing their Latin kinsmen from
confederates to subjects. That accomplished, the Romans were
quite ready to measure swords again with their more important
rivals in the south. The long, desperate and doubtful war
which ensued was of twenty-two years duration (B. C. 326-304).
In the first years of this war victory was with the Romans and
the Samnites sued for peace; but the terms offered were too
hard fur them and they fought on. Then Fortune smiled on them
and gave them an opportunity to inflict on their haughty enemy
one of the greatest humiliations that Rome in all her history
ever suffered. The entire Roman army, commanded by the two
consuls of the year, was caught in a mountain defile (B. C.
321), at a place called the Caudine Forks, and compelled to
surrender to the Samnite genera], C. Pontius. The consuls and
other officers of the Romans signed a treaty of peace with
Pontius, and all were then set free, after giving up their
armor and their cloaks and passing "under the yoke." But the
Roman senate refused to ratify the treaty, and gave up those
who had signed it to the Samnites. The latter refused to
receive the offered prisoners and vainly demanded a fulfilment
of the treaty. Their great victory had been thrown away, and,
although they won another important success at Lautulæ, the
final result of the war which they were forced to resume was
disastrous to them. After twenty-two years of obstinate
fighting they accepted terms (B. C. 304) which stripped them
of all their territory on the sea-coast, and required them to
acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. The peace so purchased
lasted less than six years. The Samnites were tempted (B. C.
298) while the Romans had a war with Etruscans and Gauls on
their hands, to attempt the avenging of their humiliations.
Their fate was decided at the battle of Sentinum (B. C. 295),
won by the old consul, Q. Fabius Maximus, against the allied
Samnites and Gauls, through the heroic self-sacrifice of his
colleague, P. Decius Mus [imitating his father, of the same
name.]
See ROME: B. C. 339-338.
{2671}
The Samnites struggled hopelessly on some five years longer
and submitted finally in 290 B. C. Their great leader,
Pontius, was put to death in the dungeons of the state prison
under the Capitoline.
J. Michelet,
History of the Roman Republic,
book 2, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapters 19, and 21-24.
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 6.
ROME: B. C. 340.
The Publilian Laws.
"In the second year of the Latin war (340 B. C.) the Plebeian
Consul, Q. Publilius Philo, being named Dictator by his
Patrician colleague for some purpose now unknown, proposed and
carried three laws still further abridging the few remaining
privileges of the Patrician Lords. The first Publilian law
enacted that one of the Censors, as one of the Consuls, must
be a Plebeian. … The second gave fuller sanction to the
principle already established, that the Resolutions of the
Plebeian Assembly should have the force of law. The third
provided that all laws passed at the Comitia of the Centuries
or of the Tribes should receive beforehand the sanction of the
Curies."
G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 20 (volume 1).
See a discussion of these laws in their relation to the
preceding Valerio-Horatian law, and the subsequent Hortensian
laws.
ROME: B. C. 286.
ROME: B. C. 339-338.
Subjugation of the Latins.
Grant of pseudo-citizenship.
The real concession of the next century and its effects.
A league between the Romans and their kinsmen and neighbors,
the Latins, of Tibur, Præneste, Lanuvium, Aricia, Velitræ, and
other towns, as well as with the Hernicans, existed during a
century and a half, from the treaty of Sp. Cassius, B. C. 493,
according to the Roman annals. At first, the members of the
league stood together on fairly equal terms fighting
successful wars with the Volscians, the Æquians and the
Etruscans. But all the time the Romans contrived to be the
greater gainers by the alliance, and as their power grew their
arrogance increased, until the Latin allies were denied almost
all share in the conquests and the spoils which they helped to
win. The discontent which this caused fermented to an outbreak
after the first of the Samnite wars. The Latins demanded to be
admitted to Roman citizenship and to a share in the government
of the state. Their demand was haughtily and even insultingly
refused, and a fierce, deadly war between the kindred peoples
ensued (B. C. 339-338). The decisive battle of the war was
fought under Mount Vesuvius, and the Romans were said to have
owed their victory to the self-sacrifice of the plebeian
consul, P. Decius Mus, who, by a solemn ceremony, devoted
himself and the army of the enemy to the infernal gods, and
then threw himself into the thick of the fight, to be slain.
The Latin towns were all reduced to dependence upon Rome,—some
with a certain autonomy left to them, some with none. "Thus,
isolated, politically powerless, socially dependent on Rome,
the old towns of the Latins, once so proud and so free, became
gradually provincial towns of the Roman territory. … The old
Latium disappeared and a new Latium took its place, which, by
means of Latin colonies, carried the Roman institutions, in
the course of two centuries, over the whole peninsula."
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 6 (volume 1).
"The Latins, being conquered, surrendered,—that is to say,
they gave up to the Romans their cities, their worships, their
laws, and their lands. Their position was cruel. A consul said
in the senate that, if they did not wish Rome to be surrounded
by a vast desert, the fate of the Latins should be settled
with some regard to clemency. Livy does not clearly explain
what was done. If we are to trust him, the Latins obtained the
right of Roman citizenship without including in the political
privileges the right of suffrage, or in the civil the right of
marriage. We may also note, that these new citizens were not
counted in the census. It is clear that the senate deceived
the Latins in giving them the name of Roman citizens. This
title disguised a real subjection, since the men who bore it
had the obligations of citizens without the rights. So true is
this, that several Latin cities revolted, in order that this
pretended citizenship might be withdrawn. A century passed,
and, without Livy's notice of the fact, we might easily
discover that Rome had changed her policy. The condition of
the Latins having the rights of citizens, without suffrage and
without connubium, no longer existed. Rome had withdrawn from
them the title of citizens, or, rather, had done away with
this falsehood, and had decided to restore to the different
cities their municipal governments, their laws, and their
magistracies. But by a skilful device Rome opened a door
which, narrow as it was, permitted subjects to enter the Roman
city. It granted to every Latin who had been a magistrate in
his native city the right to become a Roman citizen at the
expiration of his term of office. This time the gift of this
right was complete and without reserve; suffrage,
magistracies, census, marriage, private law, all were
included. … By being a citizen of Rome, a man gained honor,
wealth, and security. The Latins, therefore, became eager to
obtain this title, and used all sorts of means to acquire it.
One day, when Rome wished to appear a little severe, she found
that 12,000 of them had obtained it through fraud. Ordinarily,
Rome shut her eyes, knowing that by this means her population
increased, and that the losses of war were thus repaired. But
the Latin cities suffered; their richest inhabitants became
Roman citizens, and Latium was impoverished. The taxes, from
which the richest were exempt as Roman citizens, became more
and more burdensome, and the contingent of soldiers that had
to be furnished to Rome was every year more difficult to fill
up."
N. D. Fustel de Coulanges,
The Ancient City,
book 5, chapter 2.
ROME: B. C. 326-304?
Abolition of personal slavery for debt.
See DEBT, ROMAN LAW CONCERNING.
ROME: B. C. 312.
The censorship of Appius Claudius.
His admission of the freedmen to the Tribes.
The building of the Appian Way.
"Appius Claudius, … afterwards known as Appius the Blind, …
was elected Censor [B. C. 312], … and, as was usual, entered,
with his colleague, Plautius Decianus, upon the charge of
filling the vacancies which had occurred within the Senate
since the last nominations to that body by the preceding
Censors. The new elections were always made, it appears, from
certain lists of citizens who had either borne great offices
or possessed high rank; but Appius, determined from the
beginning to secure his authority, either for his own sake or
for that of his faction, through any support he could command,
now named several of the lowest men in Rome as Senators,
amongst whom he even admitted some sons of freedmen, who, as
such, were scarcely to be considered to be absolutely free,
much less to be worthy of any political advancement.
{2672}
The nomination, backed by a powerful party, out of rather than
in the Senate, and vainly, if not feebly, opposed by Plautius
Decianus, who resigned his office in disgust at his colleague,
was carried, but was set aside in the following year by the
Consuls, who could call such Senators as they pleased, and
those only, as it seems, to their sessions. Appius, still
keeping his place, was soon after assailed by some of the
Tribunes, now the representatives, as must be remembered, of
the moderate party, rather than of the Plebeian estate. At
this the Censor admitted all the freedmen in Rome to the
Tribes, amongst which he distributed them in such a manner as
promised him the most effectual support. Appius, however, was
not wholly absorbed in mere political intrigues. A large
portion of his energy and his ambition was spent upon the Way
[Appian Way] and the Aqueduct which have borne his name to our
day, and which, in his own time, were undertakings so vast as
to obtain for him the name of 'the Hundred-handed.' He was an
author, a jurist, a philosopher, and a poet, besides. … Cneius
Flavius, the son of a freedman, one, therefore, of the
partisans on whom the Censor and his faction were willing to
lavish pretended favor in return for unstinted support, was
employed by Appius near his person, in the capacity of private
secretary. Appius, who, as already mentioned, was a jurist and
an author, appears to have compiled a sort of manual
concerning the business-days of the Calendar and the forms of
instituting or conducting a suit before the courts; both these
subjects being kept in profound concealment from the mass of
the people, who were therefore obliged, in case of any legal
proceeding, to resort first to the Pontiff to learn on what
day, and next to the Patrician jurist to inquire in what form,
they could lawfully manage their affairs before the judicial
tribunals. This manual was very likely given to Flavius to
copy; but it could scarcely have been with the knowledge, much
less with the desire, of his employer, that it was published.
… But Flavius stood in a position which tempted him, whether
he were generous or designing, to divulge the secrets of the
manual he had obtained; and it may very well have been from a
desire to conciliate the real party of the Plebeians, which
ranked above him, as a freedman, that he published his
discoveries. He did not go unrewarded, but was raised to
various offices, amongst them to the tribuneship of the
Plebeians, and finally to the curule ædileship, in which his
disclosures are sometimes represented as having been made. …
The predominance of the popular party is plainly attested in
the same year by the censorship of Fabius Rullianus and Decius
Mus, the two great generals, who, succeeding to Appius
Claudius, removed the freedmen he had enrolled amongst all the
Tribes into four Tribes by themselves."
S. Eliot,
The Liberty of Rome: Rome,
book 2, chapter 8 (volume 2).
ROME: B. C. 300.
The Ogulnian Law.
In the year 300 B. C., "Quintus and Cneius Ogulnius appear in
the tribuneship, as zealous champions of the popular party
against the combination of the highest and the lowest classes.
Instead, however, of making any wild attack upon their
adversaries, the Tribunes seem to have exerted themselves in
the wiser view of detaching the populace from its Patrician
leaders, in order to unite the severed forces of the Plebeians
upon a common ground. … A bill to increase the number of the
Pontiffs by four, and that of the Augurs by five new
incumbents, who should then, and, as was probably added,
thenceforward, be chosen from the Plebeians, was proposed by
the Tribunes. … Though some strenuous opposition was made to
its passage, it became a law. The highest places of the
priesthood, as well as of the civil magistracies, were opened
to the Plebeians, whose name will no longer serve us as it has
done, so entirely have the old distinctions of their estate
from that of the Patricians been obliterated. The Ogulnii did
not follow up the success they had gained, and the alliance
between the lower Plebeians and the higher Patricians was
rather cemented than loosened by a law professedly devised to
the advantage of the upper classes of the Plebeians."
S. Eliot,
Liberty of Rome: Rome,
book 2, chapter 9 (volume 2).
ROME: B. C. 295-191.
Conquest of the Cisalpine Gauls.
Early in the 3d century B. C. the Gauls on the southern side
of the Alps, being reinforced from Transalpine Gaul, again
entered Roman territory, encouraged and assisted by the
Samnites, who were then just engaging in their third war with
Rome. A Roman legion which first encountered them in Etruria,
under Scipio Barbatus, was annihilated, B. C. 295. But the
vengeance of Rome overtook them before that year closed, at
Sentinum, where the consuls Fabius and Decius ended the war at
one blow. The Gauls were quiet after this for ten years; but
in 285 B. C. the Senonian tribes invaded Etruria again and
inflicted an alarming defeat on the Romans at Arretium. They
also put to death some Roman ambassadors who were sent to
negotiate an exchange of prisoners; after which the war of
Rome against them was pushed to extermination. The whole race
was destroyed or reduced to slavery and Roman colonies were
established on its lands. The Boian Gauls, between the
Apennines and the Po, now resented this intrusion on Gallic
territory, but were terribly defeated at the Vadimonian Lake
and sued for peace. This peace was maintained for nearly sixty
years, during which time the Romans were strengthening
themselves beyond the Apennines, with a strong colony at
Ariminum (modern Rimini) on the Adriatic Sea, with thick
settlements in the Senonian country, and with a great road—the
Via Flaminia—in process of construction from Rome northwards
across the Apennines, through Umbria and along the Adriatic
coast to Ariminum. The Boians saw that the yoke was being
prepared for them, and in 225 B. C. they made a great effort
to break it. In the first encounter with them the Romans were
beaten, as in previous wars, but at the great battle of
Telamon, fought soon afterwards, the Gallic hosts were almost
totally destroyed. The next year the Boians were completely
subjugated, and in 223 and 222 B. C. the Insubrians were
likewise conquered, their capital Mediolanum (Milan) occupied,
and all north Italy to the Alps brought under Roman rule,
except as the Ligurians in the mountains were still unsubdued
and the Cenomanians and the Veneti retained a nominal
independence as allies of Rome.
{2673}
But Hannibal's invasion of Italy, occurring soon after,
interrupted the settlement and pacification of the Gallic
country and made a reconquest necessary after the war with the
Carthaginians had been ended. The new Roman fortified colony
of Placentia was taken by the Gauls and most of the
inhabitants slain. The sister colony of Cremona was besieged,
but resisted until relieved. Among the battles fought, that of
Comum, B. C. 196, appears to have been the most important. The
war was prolonged until 191 B. C., after which there appears
to have been no more resistance to Roman rule among the
Cisalpine Gauls.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapters 12-13;
book 4. chapter 5;
book 5, chapter 7.
ROME: B. C. 286.
The last Secession of the Plebs.
The Hortensian Laws.
"About the year 286 B. C. the mass of the poorer citizens [of
Rome], consisting (as may be guessed) chiefly of those who had
lately been enfranchised by Appius, left the city and encamped
in an oak-wood upon the Janiculum. To appease this last
Secession, Q. Hortensius was named Dictator, and he succeeded
in bringing back the people by allowing them to enact several
laws upon the spot. One of these Hortensian laws was probably
an extension of the Agrarian law of Curius, granting not seven
but fourteen jugera (about 9 acres) to each of the poorer
citizens. Another provided for the reduction of debt. But that
which is best known as the Hortensian law was one enacting
that all Resolutions of the Tribes should be law for the whole
Roman people. This was nearly in the same terms as the law
passed by Valerius and Horatius at the close of the
Decemvirate, and that passed by Publilius Philo the Dictator,
after the conquest of Latium. Hortensius died in his
Dictatorship,—an unparalleled event, which was considered
ominous. Yet with his death ended the last Secession of the
People."
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapter 25 (volume 1).
"It is impossible to suppose that the assembly of the plebs
advanced at a single step from the meeting of a private
corporation to be the delegated alter ego of the sovereign
populus Romanus. We may be sure that the right of the plebs to
legislate for the nation was accorded under checks and
qualifications, long before they were invested with this
absolute authority. We find, in fact, two occasions prior to
the Hortensian law, on which the legislative competency of the
plebs is said to have been recognised. The first of these is
the Valerio-Horatian Law of B. C. 449 [see ROME: B. C. 449],
the year after the decemvirate, the second the law of the
dictator Publilius Philo, B. C. 339 [see ROME: B. C. 340].
Unfortunately the historians describe these laws in words
which merely repeat the contents of the Hortensian law. … Some
modern writers have been disposed to get over the difficulty
by the conjecture that the laws of Publilius Philo and
Hortensius were only re-enactments of that of Valerius and
Horatius, and that the full powers of the plebs date back to
the year B. C. 449. Mommsen's arguments against this view
appear to me conclusive. Why should the jurists universally
refer the powers exercised by the plebs to a mere
re-enactment, rather than to the original source of their
authority? … Niebuhr believes that the law of Valerius and
Horatius gave the plebs legislative authority, subject to the
consent of a sort of upper house, the general assembly of the
patrician body; he identifies this assembly with the 'comitia
curiata.' … Mommsen's method of dealing with the question" is
to strike out the Valerio-Horatian law and that of Publilius
Philo from the series of enactments relating to the plebs. "He
believes that both these laws regulated the proceedings of the
'comitia populi tributa,' and are transferred by a mere
blunder of our authorities to the 'concilium plebis tributum.'
… But the supposition of a possible blunder is too small a
foundation on which to establish such an explanation. … I
believe that, for the purpose of showing how the legislative
power of the plebs may gradually have established itself, the
known powers of the sovereign 'populus,' of the magistrates of
the Roman people, and of the senate, will supply us with
sufficient material; and that the assumptions of the German
historians are therefore unnecessary. … I imagine … that the
law of Valerius and Horatius simply recognised de jure the
power which Icilius [see ROME: B. C. 456] had exercised de
facto: that is to say, it ordered the consul to bring any
petition of the plebs at once to the notice of the senate, and
empowered the tribune to plead his cause before the senate;
perhaps it went further and deprived the consul of his right
of arbitrarily refusing to accede to the recommendation of the
senate, if such were given, and directed that he should in
such case convene the comitia and submit the proposal to its
vote. If this restriction of the power of the consul removed
the first obstacle in the way of tribunician bills supported
by the vote of the plebs, another facility still remained to
be given. The consul might be deprived of the opportunity of
sheltering himself behind the moral responsibility of the
senate. Does it not suggest itself as a plausible conjecture
that the law of Publilius Philo struck out the intervening
senatorial deliberation and compelled the consul to bring the
petition of the plebs immediately before the 'comitia populi
Romani'? If such were the tenor of the Publilian law, it would
be only a very slight inaccuracy to describe it as conferring
legislative power on the plebs. … The Hortensian law which
formally transferred the sovereign power to the plebs would
thus be a change greater de jure than de facto. … This power,
if the theory put forward in these pages be correct, was
placed within the reach of the plebeians by the law of
Valerius and Horatius, and was fully secured to them by the
law of Publilius Philo."
J. L. Strachan-Davidson,
The Growth of Plebeian Privilege at Rome
(English Historical Review, April, 1886).
"With the passing of the Lex Hortensia the long struggle
between the orders came to an end. The ancient patrician
gentes remained, but the exclusive privileges of the
patriciate as a ruling order were gone. For the great offices
of state and for seats in the senate the plebeians were by law
equally eligible with patricians. The assemblies, whether of
people or plebs, were independent of patrician control. In
private life inter-marriages between patricians and plebeians
were recognised as lawful, and entailed no disabilities on the
children. Finally, great as continued to be the prestige
attaching to patrician birth, and prominent as was the part
played in the subsequent history by individual patricians and
by some of the patrician houses, the plebs were now in numbers
and even in wealth the preponderant section of the people.
{2674}
Whatever struggles might arise in the future, a second
struggle between patricians and plebeians was an
impossibility. Such being the case, it might have been
expected that the separate organisation, to which the victory
of the plebs was largely due, would, now that the reason for
its existence was gone, have disappeared. Had this happened,
the history of the republic might have been different. As it
was, this plebeian machinery—the plebeian tribunes,
assemblies, and resolutions—survived untouched, and lived to
play a decisive part in a new conflict, not between patricians
and plebeians, but between a governing class, itself mainly
plebeian, and the mass of the people, and finally to place at
the head of the state a patrician Cæsar. Nor was the promise
of a genuine democracy, offered by the opening of the
magistracies and the Hortensian law, fulfilled. For one
hundred and fifty years afterwards the drift of events was in
the opposite direction, and when the popular leaders of the
first century B. C. endeavoured to make government by the
people a reality, it was already too late."
H. F. Pelham,
Outlines of Roman History,
book 2, chapter 1.
ROME: B. C. 282-275.
War with Tarentum and Pyrrhus.
The conquest of the Samnites by the Romans, which was
completed in 290 B. C., extended the power of the latter to
the very gates of the Greek cities on the Tarentine gulf, of
which Tarentum was the chief. At once there arose a party in
Tarentum which foresaw the hopelessness of resistance to Roman
aggression and favored a spontaneous submission to the
supremacy of the formidable city on the Tiber. The patriotic
party which opposed this humiliation looked abroad for aid,
and found an eager ally in the Molossian king of Epirus, the
adventurous and warlike Pyrrhus (see EPIRUS), who sprang from
the family of Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great. In the
autumn of 282 B. C., the inevitable war between Rome and
Tarentum broke out, and early in 280 B. C. Pyrrhus landed a
powerful army in Italy, comprising 20,000 heavy-armed
foot-soldiers, 3,000 horse, 2,000 archers and 20 elephants.
The Romans met him soon after at Heraclea, on the coast. It
was the first collision of the Roman legion and the Macedonian
phalanx, and the first encounter of the Latin soldier with the
huge war-beast of the Asiatics. Pyrrhus won a bloody victory,
but won it at such cost that it terrified him. He tried at
once to arrange a peace, but the proud Romans made no terms
with an invader. Next year he inflicted another great defeat
upon them near Asculum, in Apulia; but nothing seemed to come
of it, and the indomitable Romans were as little conquered as
ever. Then the restless Epirot king took his much shaken army
over to Sicily and joined the Greeks there in their war with
the Carthaginians. The latter were driven out of all parts of
the island except Lilybæum; but failing, after a long siege,
to reduce Lilybæum, Pyrrhus lost the whole fruits of his
success. The autumn of 276 B. C. found him back again in
Italy, where the Romans, during his absence of three years,
had recovered much ground. Next year, in the valley of
Beneventum, they had their revenge upon him for Heraclea and
Asculum, and he was glad to take the shattered remains of his
army back to Greece. His career of ambition and adventure was
ended three years afterwards, under the walls of Argos, by a
tile which a woman flung down upon his head.
See MACEDONIA: B. C. 277-244.
In due time all Magna Græcia succumbed to the dominion of
Rome, and the commerce and wealth of Tarentum passed over
under Roman auspices to the new port of Brundisium, on the
Adriatic side of the same promontory.
T. Arnold,
History of Rome,
chapters 36-37 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 3, chapters 14-17.
ROME: B. C. 275.
Union of Italy under the sovereignty of the republic.
Differing relations of the subject communities to the
sovereign state.
Roman citizenship as variously qualified.
"For the first time Italy was united into one state under the
sovereignty of the Roman community. What political privileges
the Roman community on this occasion withdrew from the various
other Italian communities and took into its own sole keeping,
or in other words, what conception of political power is to be
associated with this sovereignty of Rome, we are nowhere
expressly informed. … The only privileges that demonstrably
belonged to it were the right of making war, of concluding
treaties, and of coining money. No Italian community could
declare war against any foreign state, or even negotiate with
it, or coin money for circulation. On the other hand, every
war and every state-treaty resolved upon by the Roman people
were binding in law on all the other Italian communities, and
the silver money of Rome was legally current throughout all
Italy. It is probable that formerly the general rights of the
leading community extended no further. But to these rights
there was necessarily attached a prerogative of sovereignty
that practically went far beyond them. The relations, which
the Italians sustained to the leading community, exhibited in
detail great inequalities. In this point of view, in addition
to the full burgesses of Rome, there were three different
classes of subjects to be distinguished. The full franchise
itself, in the first place, was extended as far as was
possible, without wholly abandoning the idea of an urban
commonwealth in the case of the Roman commune. Not only was
the old burgess-domain extended by individual assignation far
into Etruria on the one hand and into Campania on the other,
but, after the example was first set in the case of Tusculum,
a great number of communities more or less remote were
gradually incorporated with the Roman state and merged in it
completely. … Accordingly the Roman burgess-body probably
extended northward as far as the neighbourhood of Caere,
eastward to the Apennines, and southward as far as, or beyond,
Formiae. In its case, however, we cannot use the term
'boundaries' in a strict sense. Isolated communities within
this region, such as Tibur, Praeneste, Signia, and Norba, had
not the Roman franchise; others beyond its bounds, such as
Sena, possessed it; and it is probable that families of Roman
farmers were already dispersed throughout all Italy, either
altogether isolated or associated in villages. Among the
subject communities the most privileged and most important
class was that of the Latin towns, which now embraced but few
of the original participants in the Alban festival (and these,
with the exception of Tibur and Praeneste, altogether
insignificant communities), but on the other hand obtained
accessions equally numerous and important in the autonomous
communities founded by Rome in and even beyond Italy —the
Latin colonies, as they were called—and was always increasing
in consequence of new settlements of the same nature.
{2675}
These new urban communities of Roman origin, but with Latin
rights, became more and more the real buttresses of the Roman
rule. These Latins, however, were by no means those with whom
the battles of the lake Regillus and Trifanum had been fought.
… The Latins of the later times of the republic, on the
contrary, consisted almost exclusively of communities, which
from the beginning had honoured Rome as their capital and
parent city; which, settled amidst peoples of alien language
and of alien habits, were attached to Rome by community of
language, of law, and of manners; which, as the petty tyrants
of the surrounding districts, were obliged doubtless to lean
on Rome for their very existence, like advanced posts leaning
upon the main army. … The main advantage enjoyed by them, as
compared with other subjects, consisted in their equalization
with burgesses of the Roman community so far as regarded
private rights—those of traffic and barter as well as those of
inheritance. The Roman franchise was in future conferred only
on such citizens of these townships as had filled a public
magistracy in them: in that case, however, it was, apparently
from the first, conferred without any limitation of rights. …
The two other classes of Roman subjects, the subject Roman
burgesses and the non-Latin allied communities, were in a far
inferior position. The communities having the Roman franchise
without the privilege of electing or being elected (civitas
sine suffragio), approached nearer in form to the full Roman
burgesses than the Latin communities that were legally
autonomous. Their members were, as Roman burgesses, liable to
all the burdens of citizenship, especially to the levy and
taxation, and were subject to the Roman census; whereas, as
their very designation indicates, they had no claim to its
honorary rights. They lived under Roman laws, and had justice
administered by Roman judges; but the hardship was lessened by
the fact that their former common law was, after undergoing
revision by Rome, restored to them as Roman local law, and a
'deputy' (praefectus) annually nominated by the Roman praetor
was sent to them to conduct its administration. In other
respects these communities retained their own administration,
and chose for that purpose their own chief magistrates. …
Lastly, the relations of the non-Latin allied communities were
subject, as a matter of course, to very various rules, just as
each particular treaty of alliance had defined them. Many of
these perpetual treaties of alliance, such as that with the
Hernican communities and those with Neapolis, Nola, and
Heraclea, granted rights comparatively comprehensive, while
others, such as the Tarentine and Samnite treaties, probably
approximated to despotism. … The central administration at
Rome solved the difficult problem of preserving its
supervision and control over the mass of the Italian
communities liable to furnish contingents, partly by means of
the four Italian quaestors, partly by the extension of the
Roman censorship over the whole of the dependent communities.
The quaestors of the fleet, along with their more immediate
duty, had to raise the revenues from the newly acquired
domains and to control the contingents of the new allies; they
were the first Roman functionaries to whom a residence and
district out of Rome were assigned by law, and they formed the
necessary intermediate authority between the Roman senate and
the Italian communities. … Lastly, with this military
administrative union of the whole peoples dwelling to the
south of the Apennines, as far as the Iapygian promontory and
the straits of Rhegium, was connected the rise of a new name
common to them all—that of 'the men of the toga' (togati),
which was their oldest designation in Roman state law, or that
of the 'Italians,' which was the appellation originally in use
among the Greeks and thence became universally current. … As
the Gallic territory down to a late period stood contrasted in
law with the Italian, so the 'men of the toga' were thus named
in contrast to the Celtic 'men of the hose' (braccati); and it
is probable that the repelling of the Celtic invasions played
an important diplomatic part as a reason or pretext for
centralizing the military resources of Italy in the hands of
the Romans. … The name Italia, which originally and even in
the Greek authors of the 5th century—in Aristotle for
instance—pertained only to the modern Calabria, was
transferred to the whole land of these wearers of the toga.
The earliest boundaries of this great armed confederacy led by
Rome, or of the new Italy, reached on the western coast as far
as the district of Leghorn south of the Arnus, on the east as
far as the Aesis north of Ancona. …The new Italy had thus
become a political unity; it was also in the course of
becoming a national unity."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1).
ROME: B. C. 264-241.
The first Punic War.
Conquest of Sicily.
"The ten years preceding the First Punic War were probably a
time of the greatest physical prosperity which the mass of the

Roman people ever knew. Within twenty years two agrarian laws
had been passed on a most extensive scale, and the poorer
citizens had received besides what may be called a large
dividend in money out of the lands which the state had
conquered. In addition to this, the farming of the state
domains, or of their produce, furnished those who had money
with abundant opportunities of profitable adventure. … No
wonder, then, that war was at this time popular. … But our
'pleasant vices' are ever made instruments to scourge us; and
the First Punic War, into which the Roman people forced the
senate to enter, not only in its long course bore most heavily
upon the poorer citizens, but, from the feelings of enmity
which it excited in the breast of Hamilcar, led most surely to
that fearful visitation of Hannibal's sixteen years' invasion
of Italy, which destroyed for ever, not indeed the pride of
the Roman dominion, but the well-being of the Roman people."
T. Arnold,
History of Rome,
pages 538-540.
"The occasion of the First Punic War was dishonourable to
Rome. Certain mercenary soldiers had seized Messana in Sicily,
destroyed the citizens, and held possession against the
Syracusans, 284 B. C. They were beaten in the field, and
blockaded in Messana by Hiero, king of Syracuse, and then,
driven to extremity, sent a deputation to Rome, praying that
'the Romans, the sovereigns of Italy, would not suffer an
Italian people to be destroyed by Greeks and Carthaginians,'
264 B. C. It was singular that such a request should be made
to the Romans, who only six years before had chastised the
military revolt of their brethren Mamertines in Rhegium,
taking the city by storm, scourging and beheading the
defenders, and then restoring the old inhabitants (270 B. C.).
{2676}
The senate was opposed to the request of the Messana
deputation; but the consuls and the people of Rome, already
jealous of Carthaginian influence in Sicily and the
Mediterranean, resolved to protect the Mamertine buccaneers
and to receive them as their friends and allies. Thus
dishonestly and disgracefully did the Romans depart from their
purely Italian and continental policy, which had so well
succeeded, to enter upon another system, the results of which
no one then could foresee. Some excuse may be found in the
fact that the Carthaginians had been placed by their partisans
in Messana in possession of the citadel, and this great rival
power of Carthage was thus brought unpleasantly near to the
recent conquered territory of Rome. The fear of Carthaginian
influence overcame the natural reluctance to an alliance with
traitors false to their military oath, the murderers and
plunderers of a city which they were bound to protect. Thus
began 'the First Punic War, which lasted, without
intermission, 22 years, a longer space of time than the whole
period occupied by the wars of the French Revolution.' In this
war Duilius won the first naval battle near Mylæ (Melarro).
Regulus invaded Africa proper, the territory of Carthage, with
great success, until beaten and taken prisoner at Zama,
256-255 B. C. The war was carried on in Sicily and on the sea
until 241 B. C., when peace was made on conditions that the
Carthaginians should evacuate Sicily and make no war upon
Hiero, king of Sicily (the ally of the Romans), that they
should pay 3,200 Euboic talents (about £110,000) within ten
years, 241 B. C. The effects of an exhausting war were soon
overcome by ancient nations, so that both Rome and Carthage
rapidly recovered, 'because wars in those days were not
maintained at the expense of posterity.' Rome had to check the
Illyrian pirates and to complete the conquest of Cisalpine
Gaul and the Ligurians 238-221 B. C. Meanwhile the
Carthaginians, hampered by a three years' rebellion of its
mercenary troops, quietly permitted the Romans to take
possession of Corsica and Sardinia, and agreed to pay 1,200
talents as compensation to Roman merchants. On the other hand,
measures were in process to re-establish the Carthaginian
power; the patriotic party, the Barcine family, under
Hamilcar, commenced the carrying out of the extensions and
consolidations of the territories in Spain."
W. B. Boyce,
Introduction to the Study of History,
period 4, section 4.
ALSO IN:
Polybius,
Histories,
book 1.
R. B. Smith,
Carthage,
chapters 4-7.
A. J. Church,
The Story of Carthage,
part 4, chapters 1-3.
See, also, PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.
ROME: B. C. 218-211.
The Second Punic War; Hannibal in Italy.
Cannæ.
"Twenty-three years passed between the end of the first Punic
War and the beginning of the second. But in the meanwhile the
Romans got possession, rather unfairly, of the islands of
Sardinia and Corsica, which Carthage had kept by the peace. On
the other hand a Carthaginian dominion was growing up in Spain
under Hamilcar Barkas, one of the greatest men that Carthage
ever reared, his son-in-law Hasdrubal, and his son Hannibal,
the greatest man of all, and probably the greatest general
that the world ever saw. Another quarrel arose between
Carthage and Rome, when Hannibal took the Spanish town of
Saguntum, which the Romans claimed as an ally. War began in
218, and Hannibal carried it on by invading Italy by land.
This was one of the most famous enterprises in all history.
Never was Rome so near destruction as in the war with
Hannibal. He crossed the Alps and defeated the Romans in four
battles, the greatest of which was that of Cannae in B. C.
216."
E. A. Freeman,
Outlines of History
(or General Sketch of European History),
chapter 3.
"The first battle was fought (218) on the river Ticinus, which
runs into the Padus from the north. The Romans were driven
back, and Hannibal passed the Padus. Meanwhile another Roman
army had come up, and its general, the consul, Tiberius
Sempronius Longus, wanted to fight at once. The little river
of the Trebbia lay between the two armies, and on a cold
morning the Roman general marched his soldiers through the
water against Hannibal. The Romans were entirely beaten, and
driven out of Gaul. All northern Italy had thus passed under
Hannibal's power, and its people were his friends; so next
year, 217, Hannibal went into Etruria, and marched south
towards Rome itself, plundering as he went. The Roman consul,
Caius Flaminius Nepos, went to meet him, and a battle was
fought on the shores of the Lake Trasimenus. It was a misty
day, and the Romans, who were marching after Hannibal, were
surrounded by him and taken by surprise: they were entirely
beaten, and the consul was killed in battle. Then the Romans
were in great distress, and elected a dictator, Quintus Fabius
Maximus. He saw that it was no use to fight battles with
Hannibal, so he followed him about, and watched him, and did
little things against him when he could; so he was called
'Cunctator,' or 'the Delayer.' But, although this plan of
waiting was very useful, the Romans did not like it, for
Hannibal was left to plunder as he thought fit, and there was
always danger that the other Italians would join him against
Rome. So next year, 216, the Romans made a great attempt to
get rid of him. They sent both the consuls with an army twice
as large as Hannibal's, but again they were defeated at Cannæ.
They lost 70,000 men, while Hannibal only lost 6,000; all
their best soldiers were killed, and it seemed as though they
had no hope left. But nations are not conquered only by the
loss of battles. Hannibal hoped, after the battle of Cannæ,
that the Italians would all come to his side, and leave Rome.
Some did so, but all the Latin cities, and all the Roman
colonies held by Rome. So long as this was the case, Rome was
not yet conquered. Hannibal could win battles very quickly,
but it would take him a long time to besiege all the cities
that still held to Rome, and for that he must have a larger
army. But he could not get more soldiers,—the Romans had sent
an army into Spain, and Hannibal's brother, Hasdrubal, was
busy fighting the Romans there, and could not send any troops
to Italy. The Carthaginians also would not send any, for they
were becoming afraid of Hannibal, and they did not know
anything about Italy. So they answered his letters, asking for
more men, by saying, that if he had won such great battles, he
ought not to want any more troops.
{2677}
At Cannæ, then, Hannibal had struck his greatest blow: he
could do no more. The Romans had learned to wait, and be
careful: so they fought no more great battles, but every year
they grew stronger and Hannibal grew weaker. The chief town
that had gone over to Hannibal's side was Capua, but in 211
the Romans took it again, and Hannibal was not strong enough
to prevent them. The chief men of Capua were so afraid of
falling into the hands of the Romans that they all poisoned
themselves. After this all the Italian cities that had joined
Hannibal began to leave him again."
M. Creighton,
History of Rome,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
T. A. Dodge,
Hannibal,
chapters 11-39.
T. Arnold,
History of Rome,
chapters 43-47.
See, also, PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.
ROME: B. C. 214-146.
The Macedonian Wars.
Conquest of Greece.
See GREECE: B. C. 214-146; also 280-146.
ROME: B. C. 211.
The Second Punic War: Hannibal at the gates.
In the eighth year of the Second Punic War (B. C. 211), when
fortune had begun to desert the arms of Hannibal—when Capua,
his ally and mainstay in Italy was under siege by the Romans
and he was powerless to relieve the doomed senators and
citizens—the Carthaginian commander made a sudden march upon
Rome. He moved his army to the gates of his great enemy, "not
with any hope of taking the city, but with the hope that the
Romans, panic-stricken at the realization of a fear they had
felt for five years past, would summon the consuls from the
walls of Capua. But the cool head of Fabius, who was in Rome,
guessed the meaning of that manœuvre, and would only permit
one of the consuls, Flaccus, to be recalled. Thus the leaguer
of the rebel city was not broken. Hannibal failed in his
purpose, but he left an indelible impression of his terrible
presence upon the Roman mind. Looming through a mist of
romantic fable, unconquerable, pitiless, he was actually seen
touching the walls of Rome, hurling with his own hand a spear
into the sacred Pomoerium. He had marched along the Via
Latina, driving crowds of fugitives before him, who sought
refuge in the city. … He had fixed his camp on the Anio,
within three miles of the Esquiline. To realize the state of
feeling in Rome during those days of panic would be to get at
the very heart of the Hannibalic war. The Senate left the
Curia and sat in the Forum, to reassure, by their calm
composure, the excited crowds. Fabius noticed from the
battlements that the ravagers spared his property. It was a
cunning attempt on the part of Hannibal to bring suspicion on
him; but he forthwith offered the property for sale; and such
was the effect of his quiet confidence that the market price
even of the land on which the camp of the enemy was drawn
never fell an 'as.' … Hannibal marched away into the Sabine
country, and made his way back to Tarentum, Rome unsacked,
Capua unrelieved."
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
T. Arnold,
History of Rome,
chapter 44.
T. A. Dodge,
Hannibal,
chapter 34.
ROME: B. C. 211-202.
The Second Punic War:
Defeat of Hasdrubal at the Metaurus.
The war in Africa.
The end at Zama.
Acquisition of Spain.
"The conquest of Capua was the turning point in the war.
Hannibal lost his stronghold in Campania and was obliged to
retire to the southern part of Italy. Rome was gaining
everywhere. The Italians who had joined Hannibal began to lose
confidence. Salapia and many towns in Samnium were betrayed to
the Romans. But when Fulvius, the proconsul who commanded in
Apulia, appeared before Herdonea, which he hoped to gain
possession of by treachery, Hannibal marched from Bruttium,
attacked the Roman army, and gained a brilliant victory. In
the following year the Romans recovered several places in
Lucania and Bruttium, and Fabius Maximus crowned his long
military career with the recapture of Tarentum (B. C. 209).
The inhabitants were sold as slaves; the town was plundered
and the works of art were sent to Rome. The next year
Marcellus, for the fifth time elected to the consulship, was
surprised near Venusia and killed. … The war had lasted ten
years, yet its favorable conclusion seemed far off. There were
increasing symptoms of discontent among the allies, while the
news from Spain left little doubt that the long prepared
expedition of Hasdrubal over the Alps to join his brother in
Italy was at last to be realized. Rome strained every nerve to
meet the impending danger. The number of legions was increased
from twenty-one to twenty-three. The preparations were
incomplete, when the news came that Hasdrubal was crossing the
Alps by the same route which his brother had taken eleven
years before. The consuls for the new year were M. Livius
Salinator and G. Claudius Nero. Hannibal, at the beginning of
spring, after reorganizing his force in Bruttium, advanced
northward, encountered the consul Nero at Grumentum, whence,
after a bloody but indecisive battle, he continued his march
to Canusium. Here he waited for news from his brother. The
expected despatch was intercepted by Nero, who formed the bold
resolution of joining his colleague in the north, and with
their united armies crushing Hasdrubal while Hannibal was
waiting for the expected despatch. Hasdrubal had appointed a
rendezvous with his brother in Umbria, whence with their
united armies they were both to advance on Narnia and Rome.
Nero, selecting from his army 7,000 of the best soldiers and
1,000 cavalry, left his camp so quietly that Hannibal knew
nothing of his departure. Near Sena he found his colleague
Livius, and in the night entered his camp that his arrival
might not be known to the Carthaginians. Hasdrubal, when he
heard the trumpet sound twice from the Roman camp and saw the
increased numbers, was no longer ignorant that both consuls
were in front of him. Thinking that his brother had been
defeated, he resolved to retire across the Metaurus and wait
for accurate information. Missing his way, wandering up and
down the river to find a ford, pursued and attacked by the
Romans, he was compelled to accept battle. Although in an
unfavorable position, a deep river in his rear, his troops
exhausted by marching all night, still the victory long hung
in suspense. Hasdrubal displayed all the qualities of a great
general, and when he saw that all was lost, he plunged into
the thickest of the battle and was slain. The consul returned
to Apulia with the same rapidity with which he had come. He
announced to Hannibal the defeat and death of his brother by
casting Hasdrubal's head within the outposts and by sending
two Carthaginian captives to give him an account of the
disastrous battle.
{2678}
'I foresee the doom of Carthage,' said Hannibal sadly, when he
recognized the bloody head of his brother. This battle decided
the war in Italy. Hannibal withdrew his garrisons from the
towns in southern Italy, retired to the peninsula of Bruttium,
where for four long years, in that wild and mountainous
country, with unabated courage and astounding tenacity, the
dying lion clung to the land that had been so long the theatre
of his glory. … The time had come to carry into execution that
expedition to Africa which Sempronius had attempted in the
beginning of the war. Publius Scipio, on his return from
Spain, offered himself for the consulship and was unanimously
elected. His design was to carry the war into Africa and in
this way compel Carthage to recall Hannibal. … The senate
finally consented that he should cross from his province of
Sicily to Africa, but they voted no adequate means for such an
expedition. Scipio called for volunteers. The whole of the
year B. C. 205 passed away before he completed his
preparations. Meanwhile the Carthaginians made one last effort
to help Hannibal. Mago, Hannibal's youngest brother, was sent
to Liguria with 14,000 men to rouse the Ligurians and Gauls to
renew the war on Rome; but having met a Roman army under
Quintilius Varus, and being wounded in the engagement which
followed, his movements were so crippled that nothing of
importance was accomplished. In the spring of B. C. 204 Scipio
had completed his preparations. He embarked his army from
Lilybæum, and after three days landed at the Fair Promontory
near Utica. After laying siege to Utica all summer, he was
compelled to fall back and entrench himself on the promontory.
Masinissa had joined him immediately on his arrival. By his
advice Scipio planned a night attack on Hasdrubal, the son of
Gisgo, and Syphax, who were encamped near Utica. This
enterprise was completely successful. A short time afterwards
Hasdrubal and Syphax were again defeated. Syphax fled to
Numidia, where he was followed by Lælius and Masinissa and
compelled to surrender. These successes convinced the
Carthaginians that with the existing forces the Roman invasion
could not long be resisted. Therefore they opened negotiations
for peace with Scipio, in order probably to gain time to
recall their generals from Italy. The desire of Scipio to
bring the war to a conclusion induced him to agree upon
preliminaries of peace, subject to the approval of the Roman
senate and people. … Meanwhile the arrival of Hannibal at
Hadrumetum had so encouraged the Carthaginians that the
armistice had been broken before the return of the ambassadors
from Rome. All hopes of peace by negotiation vanished, and
Scipio prepared to renew the war, which, since the arrival of
Hannibal, had assumed a more serious character. The details of
the operations which ended in the battle of Zama are but
imperfectly known. The decisive battle was fought on the river
Bagradas, near Zama, on the 19th of October, B. C. 202.
Hannibal managed the battle with his usual skill. His veterans
fought like the men who had so often conquered in Italy, but
his army was annihilated. The elephants were rendered
unavailing by Scipio's skillful management. Instead of the
three lines of battle, with the usual intervals, Scipio
arranged his companies behind each other like the rounds of a
ladder. Through these openings the elephants could pass
without breaking the line. This battle terminated the long
struggle. … Hannibal himself advised peace."
R. F. Leighton,
History of Rome,
chapters 23-24.
"Scipio prepared as though he would besiege the city, but his
heart also inclined to peace. … The terms which he offered
were severe enough, and had the Carthaginians only realised
what they involved, they would surely have asked to be allowed
to meet their fate at once. They were to retain indeed their
own laws and their home domain in Africa; but they were to
give up all the deserters and prisoners of war, all their
elephants, and all their ships of the line but ten. They were
not to wage war, either in Africa or outside of it, without
the sanction of the Roman Senate. They were to recognise
Massinissa as the king of Numidia, and, with it, the
prescriptive right which he would enjoy of plundering and
annoying them at his pleasure, while they looked on with their
hands tied, not daring to make reprisals. Finally, they were
to give up all claim to the rich islands of the Mediterranean
and to the Spanish kingdom, the creation of the Barcides, of
which the fortune of war had already robbed them; and thus
shorn of the sources of their wealth, they were to pay within
a given term of seven years a crushing war contribution!
Henceforward, in fact, they would exist on sufferance only,
and that the sufferance of the Romans. … The conclusion of the
peace was celebrated at Carthage by a cruel sight, the most
cruel which the citizens could have beheld, except the
destruction of the city itself—the destruction of their fleet.
Five hundred vessels, the pride and glory of the Phœnician
race, the symbol and the seal of the commerce, the
colonisation, and the conquests of this most imperial of
Phœnician cities, were towed out of the harbour and were
deliberately burned in the sight of the citizens."
R. B. Smith,
Rome and Carthage: the Punic Wars,
chapter 17.
ALSO IN:
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
chapters 31-34.
See, also.
PUNIC WAR: THE SECOND.
ROME: B. C. 2d Century.
Greek influences.
See HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE.
ROME: B. C. 191.
War with Antiochus the Great of Syria.
First conquests in Asia Minor bestowed on the
king of Pergamum and the Republic of Rhodes.
See SELEUCIDÆ: B. U. 224-187.
ROME: B. C. 189-139.
Wars with the Lusitanians.
See PORTUGAL: EARLY HISTORY; and LUSITANIA.
ROME: B. C. 184-149.
The Spoils of Conquest and the Corruption they wrought.
"The victories of the last half-century seemed to promise ease
and wealth to Rome. She was to live on the spoils and revenue
from the conquered countries. Not only did they pay a fixed
tax to her exchequer, but the rich lands of Capua, the royal
domain lands of the kings of Syracuse and of Macedonia, became
public property, and produced a large annual rent. It was
found possible in 167 to relieve citizens from the property
tax or tributum, which was not collected again until the year
after the death of Julius Caesar. But the sudden influx of
wealth had the usual effect of raising the standard of
expense; and new tastes and desires required increased means
for their gratification. All manner of luxuries were finding
their way into the city from the East.
{2679}
Splendid furniture, costly ornaments, wanton dances and music
for their banquets, became the fashion among the Roman nobles;
and the younger men went to lengths of debauchery and
extravagance hitherto unknown. The result to many was
financial embarrassment, from which relief was sought in
malversation and extortion. The old standard of honour in
regard to public money was distinctly lowered, and cases of
misconduct and oppression were becoming more common and less
reprobated. … The fashionable taste for Greek works of art, in
the adornment of private houses, was another incentive to
plunder, and in 149 it was for the first time found necessary
to establish a permanent court or 'quaestio' for cases of
malversation in the provinces. Attempts were indeed made to
restrain the extravagance which was at the root of the evil.
In 184 Cato, as censor, had imposed a tax on the sale of
slaves under twenty above a certain price, and on personal
ornaments above a certain value; and though the 'lex Oppia,'
limiting the amount of women's jewelry, had been repealed in
spite of him in 195, other sumptuary laws were passed. A 'lex
Orchia' in 182 limited the number of guests, a 'lex Fannia' in
161 the amount to be spent on banquets; while a 'lex Didia' in
143 extended the operation of the law to all Italy. And though
such laws, even if enforced, could not really remedy the evil,
they perhaps had a certain effect in producing a sentiment;
for long afterwards we find overcrowded dinners regarded as
indecorous and vulgar. Another cause, believed by some to be
unfavourably affecting Roman character, was the growing
influence of Greek culture and Greek teachers. For many years
the education of the young, once regarded as the special
business of the parents, had been passing into the hands of
Greek slaves or freedmen. … On the superiority of Greek
culture there was a division of opinion. The Scipios and their
party patronised Greek philosophy and literature. … This
tendency, which went far beyond a mere question of literary
taste, was opposed by a party of which M. Porcius Cato was the
most striking member. … In Cato's view the reform needed was a
return to the old ways, before Rome was infected by Greece."
E. S. Shuckburgh,
History of Rome to the Battle of Actium,
chapter 32.
ROME: B. C. 159-133.
Decline of the Republic.
Social and economic causes.
The growing system of Slavery and its effects.
Monopoly of land by capitalists.
Extinction of small cultivators.
Rapid decrease of citizens.
"In the Rome of this epoch the two evils of a degenerate
oligarchy and a democracy not yet developed but already
cankered in the bud were interwoven in a manner pregnant with
fatal results. According to their party names, which were
first heard during this period, the ' Optimates' wished to
give effect to the will of the best, the 'Populares' to that
of the community; but in fact there was in the Rome of that
day neither a true aristocracy nor a truly self-determining
community. Both parties contended alike for shadows. … Both
were equally affected by political corruption, and both were
in fact equally worthless. … The commonwealth was politically
and morally more and more unhinged, and was verging towards
its total dissolution. The crisis with which the Roman
revolution was opened arose not out of this paltry political
conflict, but out of the economic and social relations which
the Roman government allowed, like everything else, simply to
take their course"; and which had brought about "the
depreciation of the Italian farms; the supplanting of the
petty husbandry, first in a part of the provinces and then in
Italy, by the farming of large estates; the prevailing
tendency to devote the latter in Italy to the rearing of
cattle and the culture of the olive and vine; finally, the
replacing of the free labourers in the provinces as in Italy
by slaves. … Before we attempt to describe the course of this
second great conflict between labour and capital, it is
necessary to give here some indication of the nature and
extent of the system of slavery. We have not now to do with
the old, in some measure innocent, rural slavery, under which
the farmer either tilled the field along with his slave, or,
if he possessed more land than he could manage, placed the
slave … over a detached farm. … What we now refer to is the
system of slavery on a great scale, which in the Roman state,
as formerly in the Carthaginian, grew out of the ascendancy of
capital. While the captives taken in war and the hereditary
transmission of slavery sufficed to keep up the stock of
slaves during the earlier period, this system of slavery was,
just like that of America, based on the methodically
prosecuted hunting of man. … No country where this species of
game could be hunted remained exempt from visitation; even in
Italy it was a thing by no means unheard of, that the poor
free man was placed by his employer among the slaves. But the
Negroland of that period was western Asia, where the Cretan
and Cilician corsairs, the real professional slave-hunters and
slave-dealers, robbed the coasts of Syria and the Greek
islands; and where, emulating their feats, the Roman
revenue-farmers instituted human hunts in the client states
and incorporated those whom they captured among their slaves.
… At the great slave market in Delos, where the slave-dealers
of Asia Minor disposed of their wares to Italian speculators,
on one day as many as 10,000 slaves are said to have been
disembarked in the morning and to have heen all sold before
evening. … In whatever direction speculation applied itself,
its instrument was invariably man reduced in the eye of the
law to a brute. Trades were in great part carried on by
slaves, so that the proceeds belonged to the master. The
levying of the public revenues in the lower departments was
regularly conducted by the slaves of the associations that
leased them. Servile hands performed the operations of mining,
making pitch, and others of a similar kind; it became early
the custom to send herds of slaves to the Spanish mines. … The
tending of cattle was universally performed by slaves. … But
far worse in every respect was the plantation system
proper—the cultivation of the fields by a band of slaves not
unfrequent]y branded with iron, who with shackles on their
legs performed the labours of the field under overseers during
the day, and were locked up together by night in the common,
frequently subterranean, labourers' prison. This plantation
system had migrated from the East to Carthage, … and seems to
have been brought by the Carthaginians to Sicily. …
{2680}
The abyss of misery and woe which opens before our eyes in
this most miserable of all proletariates, we leave to be
fathomed by those who venture to gaze into such depths; It is
very possible that, compared with the sufferings of the Roman
slaves, the sum of all Negro suffering is but a drop. Here we
are not so much concerned with the distress of the slaves
themselves as with the perils which it brought upon the Roman
state. …
See SLAVE WARS IN SICILY AND ITALY.
The capitalists continued to buy out the small landholders, or
indeed, if they remained obstinate, to seize their fields
without title of purchase. … The landlords continued mainly to
employ slaves instead of free labourers, because the former
could not like the latter be called away to military service;
and thus reduced the free proletariate to the same level of
misery with the slaves. They continued to supersede Italian
grain in the market of the capital, and to lessen its value
over the whole peninsula, by selling Sicilian slave-corn at a
mere nominal price. … After 595 [B. C. 159], … when the census
yielded 328,000 citizens capable of bearing arms, there
appears a regular falling off, for the list in 600 [B. C. 154]
stood at 324,000, that in 607 [B. C. 147] at 322,000, that in
623 [B. C. 131] at 319,000 burgesses fit for service—an
alarming result for a period of profound peace at home and
abroad. If matters were to go on at this rate, the
burgess-body would resolve itself into planters and slaves;
and the Roman state might at length, as was the case with the
Parthians, purchase its soldiers in the slave-market. Such was
the external and internal condition of Rome, when the state
entered on the 7th century of its existence. Wherever the eye
turned, it encountered abuses and decay; the question could
not but force itself on every sagacious and well disposed man,
whether this state of things were not capable of remedy or
amendment."
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 4, chapter 2 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
T. Arnold,
History of the Roman Commonwealth,
chapter 2.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 1, chapters 10-12.
W. R. Brownlow,
Slavery and Serfdom in Europe,
lectures 1-2.
ROME: B. C. 151-146.
The Third Punic War: Destruction of Carthage.
"Carthage, bound hand and foot by the treaty of 201 B. C., was
placed under the jealous watch of the loyal prince of Numidia,
who himself willingly acknowledged the suzerainty of Rome. But
it was impossible for this arrangement to be permanent. Every
symptom of reviving prosperity at Carthage was regarded at
Rome with feverish anxiety, and neither the expulsion of
Hannibal in 195 B. C. nor his death in 183 B. C. did much to
check the growing conviction that Rome would never be secure
while her rival existed. It was therefore with grim
satisfaction that many in the Roman senate watched the
increasing irritation of the Carthaginians under the harassing
raids and encroachments of their favoured neighbour,
Masinissa, and waited for the moment when Carthage should, by
some breach of the conditions imposed upon her, supply Rome
with a pretext for interference. At last in 151 B. C. came the
news that Carthage, in defiance of treaty obligations, was
actually at war with Masinissa. The anti-Carthaginian party in
the senate, headed by M. Porcius Cato, eagerly seized the
opportunity; in spite of the protests of Scipio Nasica and
others, war was declared, and nothing short of the destruction
of their city itself was demanded from the despairing
Carthaginians. This demand, as the senate, no doubt, foresaw,
was refused, and in 149 B. C. the siege of Carthage began.
During the next two years little progress was made, but in 147
P. Cornelius Scipio Æmilianus, son of L. Æmilius Paulus,
conqueror of Macedonia, and grandson by adoption of the
conqueror of Hannibal, was, at the age of 37, and though only
a candidate for the ædileship, elected consul and given the
command in Africa. In the next year (146 B. C.) Carthage was
taken and razed to the ground. Its territory became the Roman
province of Africa, while Numidia, now ruled by the three sons
of Masinissa, remained as an allied state under Roman
suzerainty, and served to protect the new province against the
raids of the desert tribes. Within little more than a century
from the commencement of the first Punic war, the whole of the
former dominions of Carthage had been brought under the direct
rule of Roman magistrates, and were regularly organised as
Roman provinces."
H. F. Pelham,
Outlines of Roman History,
book 3, chapter 1.
See, also, CARTHAGE: B. C. 146.
ROME: B. C. 146.
Supremacy of the Senate.
"At the close of a century first of deadly struggle and then
of rapid and dazzling success, Rome found herself the supreme
power in the civilised world. … We have now to consider how
this period of conflict and conquest had affected the
victorious state. Outwardly the constitution underwent but
little change. It continued to be in form a moderate
democracy. The sovereignty of the people finally established
by the Hortensian law remained untouched in theory. It was by
the people in assembly that the magistrates of the year were
elected, and that laws were passed; only by 'order of the
people' could capital punishment be inflicted upon a Roman
citizen. For election to a magistracy, or for a seat in the
senate, patrician and plebeian were equally eligible. But
between the theory and the practice of the constitution there
was a wide difference. Throughout this period the actually
sovereign authority in Rome was that of the senate, and behind
the senate stood an order of nobles (nobiles), who claimed and
enjoyed privileges as wide as those which immemorial custom
had formerly conceded to the patriciate. The ascendency of the
senate, which thus arrested the march of democracy in Rome,
was not, to any appreciable extent, the result of legislation.
It was the direct outcome of the practical necessities of the
time, and when these no longer existed, it was at once and
successfully challenged in the name and on the behalf of the
constitutional rights of the people. Nevertheless, from the
commencement of the Punic wars down to the moment when with
the destruction of Carthage in 146 B. C. Rome's only rival
disappeared, this ascendency was complete and almost
unquestioned. It was within the walls of the senate-house, and
by decrees of the senate, that the foreign and the domestic
policy of the state were alike determined. … Though the
ascendency of the senate was mainly due to the fact that
without it the government of the state could scarcely have
been carried on, it was strengthened and confirmed by the
close and intimate connection which existed between the senate
and the nobility. This 'nobility' was in its nature and origin
widely different from the old patriciate.
{2681}
Though every patrician was of course 'noble,' the majority of
the families which in this period styled themselves noble were
not patrician but plebeian, and the typical nobles of the time
of the elder Cato, of the Gracchi, or of Cicero, the Metelli,
Livii, or Licinii were plebeians. The title nobilis was
apparently conceded by custom to those plebeian families one
or more of whose members had, after the opening of the
magistracies, been elected to a curule office, and which in
consequence were entitled to place in their halls, and to
display at their funeral processions the 'imagines' of these
distinguished ancestors. The man who, by his election to a
curule office thus ennobled his descendants, was said to be
the 'founder of his family,' though himself only a new man. …
Office brought wealth and prestige, and both wealth and
prestige were freely employed to exclude 'new men' and to
secure for the 'noble families' a monopoly of office. The
ennobled plebeians not only united with the patricians to form
a distinct order, but outdid them in pride and arrogance. …
The establishment of senatorial ascendency was not the only
result of this period of growth and expansion. During the same
time the foundations were laid of the provincial system, and
with this of the new and dangerous powers of the proconsuls."
H. F. Pelham,
Outlines of Roman History,
book 3, chapter 3.
"The great struggle against Hannibal left the Senate the all
but undisputed government of Rome. Originally a mere
consulting board, assessors of the king or consul, the Senate
had become the supreme executive body. That the government
solely by the comitia and the magistrates should by experience
be found wanting was as inevitable at Rome as at Athens. Rome
was more fortunate than Athens in that she could develop a new
organism to meet the need. The growth of the power of the
Senate was all the more natural and legitimate the less it
possessed strict legal standing-ground. But the fatal dualism
thus introduced into the constitution—the Assembly governing
de jure, and the Senate governing de facto—made all government
after a time impossible. The position of the Senate being,
strictly speaking, an unconstitutional one, it was open to any
demagogue to bring matters of foreign policy or administration
before an Assembly which was without continuity, without
special knowledge, and in which there was no debate. Now, if
the Senate governed badly, the Assembly 'could not govern at
all;' and there could be, in the long run, but one end to the
constant struggle between the two sources of authority."
W. T. Arnold,
The Roman System of Provincial Administration,
chapter 2.
See, also, SENATE, ROMAN.
ROME: B. C. 133-121.
The attempted reforms of the Gracchi.
"The first systematic attack upon the senatorial government is
connected with the names of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and
its immediate occasion was an attempt to deal with no less a
danger than the threatened disappearance of the class to which
of all others Rome had owed most in the past. For, while Rome
had been extending her sway westward and eastward, and while
her nobles and merchants were amassing colossal fortunes
abroad, the small landholders throughout the greater part of
Italy were sinking deeper into ruin under the pressure of
accumulated difficulties. The Hannibalic war had laid waste
their fields and thinned their numbers, nor when peace
returned to Italy did it bring with it any revival of
prosperity. The heavy burden of military service still pressed
ruinously upon them, and in addition they were called upon to
compete with the foreign corn imported from beyond the sea,
and with the foreign slave-labour purchased by the capital of
the wealthier men. … The small holders went off to follow the
eagles or swell the proletariate of the cities, and their
holdings were left to run waste or merged in the vineyards,
oliveyards, and above all in the great cattle-farms of the
rich, while their own place was taken by slaves. The evil was
not equally serious in all parts of Italy. It was least felt
in the central highlands, in Campania, and in the newly
settled fertile valley of the Po. It was worst in Etruria and
in southern Italy; but everywhere it was serious enough to
demand the earnest attention of Roman statesmen. Of its
existence the government had received plenty of warning in the
declining numbers of able-bodied males returned at the census,
in the increasing difficulties of recruiting for the legions,
in servile out-breaks in Etruria and Apulia."
H. F. Pelham,
Outlines of Roman History,
book 4, chapter 1.
The earlier agrarian laws which the Roman plebeians had wrung
from the patricians (the Licinian Law and similar ones—see
ROME: B. C. 376-367; also AGRARIAN LAWS) had not availed to
prevent the absorption, by one means and another, of the
public domain—the "ager publicus," the conquered land which
the state had neither sold nor given away—into the possession
of great families and capitalists, who held it in vast blocks,
to be cultivated by slaves. Time had almost sanctioned this
condition of things, when Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, elder
of the two famous brothers called "The Gracchi," undertook in
133 B. C. a reformation of it. As one of the tribunes of the
people that year, he brought forward a law which was intended
to enforce the provisions of the Licinian Law of 367 B. C., by
taking away from the holders of public land what they held in
excess of 500 jugera (about 320 acres) each. Three
commissioners, called Triumviri, were to be appointed to
superintend the execution of the law and to redistribute the
land recovered, among needy citizens. Naturally the proposal
of this act aroused a fierce opposition in the wealthy class
whose ill-gotten estates were threatened by it. One of the
fellow-tribunes of Tiberius was gained over by the opposition
and used the power of his veto to prevent the taking of a vote
upon the bill. Then Gracchus, to overcome the obstacle, had
recourse to an unconstitutional measure. The obstinate tribune
was deposed from his office by a vote of the people, and the
law was then enacted. For the carrying out of his measure, and
for his own protection, no less, Tiberius sought a re-election
to the tribunate, which was contrary to usage, if not against
positive law. His enemies raised a tumult against him on the
day of election and he was slain, with three hundred of his
party, and their corpses were flung into the Tiber. Nine years
later, his younger brother, Caius Gracchus, obtained election
to the tribune's office and took up the work of democratic
political reform which Tiberius had sacrificed his life in
attempting. His measures were radical, attacking the powers
and privileges of the ruling orders. But mixed with them were
schemes of demagoguery which did infinite mischief to the
Roman people and state.
{2682}
He carried the first frumentarian law (lex frumentaria) as it
was called, by which corn was bought with public money, and
stored, for sale to Roman citizens at a nominal price. After
three years of power, through the favor of the people, he,
too, in 121 B. C. was deserted by them and the party of the
patricians was permitted to put him to death, with a great
number of his supporters.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 1, chapters 10-13, 18-19.
"Caius, it is said, was the first Roman statesman who
appointed a regular distribution of corn among the poorer
citizens, requiring the state to buy up large consignments of
grain from the provinces, and to sell it again at a fixed rate
below the natural price. The nobles themselves seem to have
acquiesced without alarm in this measure, by which they hoped
to secure the city from seditious movements in time of
scarcity; but they failed to foresee the discouragement it
would give to industry, the crowds of idle and dissipated
citizens it would entice into the forum, the appetite it would
create for shows, entertainments and largesses, and the power
it would thus throw into the hands of unprincipled demagogues.
Caius next established customs duties upon various articles of
luxury imported into the city for the use of the rich: he
decreed the gratuitous supply of clothing to the soldiers, who
had hitherto been required to provide themselves out of their
pay; he founded colonies for the immediate gratification of
the poorer citizens, who were waiting in vain for the promised
distribution of lands: he caused the construction of public
granaries, bridges and roads, to furnish objects of useful
labour to those who were not unwilling to work. Caius himself,
it is said, directed the course and superintended the making
of the roads, some of which we may still trace traversing
Italy in straight lines from point to point, filling up
depressions and hollowing excrescences in the face of the
country, and built upon huge substructions of solid masonry.
Those who most feared and hated him confessed their amazement
at the magnificence of his projects and the energy of his
proceedings; the people, in whose interests he toiled, were
filled with admiration and delight, when they saw him attended
from morning to night by crowds of contractors, artificers,
ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, and men of learning, to
all of whom he was easy of access, adapting his behaviour to
the condition of each in turn: thus proving, as they declared,
the falsehood of those who presumed to call him violent and
tyrannical. … By these innovations Caius laid a wide basis of
popularity. Thereupon he commenced his meditated attack upon
the privileged classes. We possess at least one obscure
intimation of a change he effected or proposed in the manner
of voting by centuries, which struck at the influence of the
wealthier classes. He confirmed and extended the Porcian law,
for the protection of citizens against the aggression of the
magistrates without a formal appeal to the people. Even the
powers of the dictatorship, to which the senate had been wont
to resort for the coercion of its refractory opponents, were
crippled by these provisions; and we shall see that no
recourse was again had to this extraordinary and odious
appointment till the oligarchy had gained for a time a
complete victory over their adversaries. Another change, even
more important, was that by which the knights were admitted to
the greater share, if not, as some suppose, to the whole, of
the judicial appointments. … As long as the senators were the
judges, the provincial governors, who were themselves
senators, were secure from the consequence of impeachment. If
the knights were to fill the same office, it might be expected
that the publicani, the farmers of the revenues abroad would
be not less assured of impunity, whatever were the enormity of
their exactions. … It was vain, indeed, to expect greater
purity from the second order of citizens than from the first.
If the senators openly denied justice to complainants, the
knights almost as openly sold it. This was in itself a
grievous degradation of the tone of public morality; but this
was not all the evil of the tribune's reform. It arrayed the
two privileged classes of citizens in direct hostility to one
another. 'Caius made the republic double-headed,' was the
profound remark of antiquity. He sowed the seeds of a war of
an hundred years. Tiberius had attempted to raise up a class
of small proprietors, who, by the simplicity of their manners
and moderation of their tastes, might form, as he hoped, a
strong conservative barrier between the tyranny of the nobles
and the envy of the people; but Caius, on the failure of this
attempt, was content to elevate a class to power, who should
touch upon both extremes of the social scale,—the rich by
their wealth, and the poor by their origin. Unfortunately this
was to create not a new class, but a new party. … One direct
advantage, at all events, Caius expected to derive, besides
the humiliation of his brother's murderers, from this
elevation of the knights: he hoped to secure their grateful
co-operation towards the important object he next had in view:
this was no less than the full admission of the Latins and
Italians to the right of suffrage."
C. Merivale,
The Fall of the Roman Republic,
chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
Plutarch,
Tiberius Gracchus;
Caius Gracchus.
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 4, chapters 2-3 (volume 3).
S. Eliot,
Liberty of Rome: Rome,
book 3, chapter 1.
See, also, AGER PUBLICUS.
ROME: B. C. 125-121.
Conquest of the Salyes and Allobroges in Gaul.
Treaty of friendship with the Ædui.
See SALYES; ALLOBROGES; and ÆDUI.
ROME: B. C. 118-99.
Increasing corruption of government.
The Jugurthine War.
Invasion and defeat of the Cimbri and Teutones.
The power of Marius.
"After the death of Caius Gracchus, the nobles did what they
pleased in Rome. They paid no more attention to the Agrarian
Law, and the state of Italy grew worse and worse. … The nobles
cared nothing for Rome's honour, but only for their own
pockets. They governed badly, and took bribes from foreign
kings, who were allowed to do what they liked if they could
pay enough. This was especially seen in a war that took place
in Africa. After Carthage had been destroyed, the greatest
state in Africa was Numidia. The king of Numidia was a friend
of the Roman people, and had fought with them against
Carthage. So Rome had a good deal to do with Numidia, and the
Numidians often helped Rome in her wars. In 118 a king of
Numidia died, and left the kingdom to his two sons and an
adopted son named Jugurtha. Jugurtha determined to have the
kingdom all to himself, so he murdered one of the sons and
made war upon the other, who applied to Rome for help.
See NUMIDIA: B. C. 118-104.
{2683}
The Senate was bribed by Jugurtha, and did all it could to
please him; at last, however, Jugurtha besieged his brother in
Cirta, and when he took the city put him and all his army to
death (112). After this the Romans thought they must
interfere, but the Senate for more money were willing to let
Jugurtha off very easily. He came to Rome to excuse himself
before the people, and whilst he was there he had a Numidian
prince, of whom he was afraid, murdered in Rome itself. But
his bribes were stronger than the laws. … The Romans declared
war against Jugurtha, but he bribed the generals, and for
three years very little was done against him. At last, in 108,
a good general, who would not take bribes, Quintus Metellus,
went against him and defeated him. Metellus would have
finished the war, but in 106 the command was taken from him by
Caius Marius the consul. This Caius Marius was a man of low
birth, but a good soldier. He had risen in war by his bravery,
and had held magistracies in Rome. He was an officer in the
army of Metellus, and was very much liked by the common
soldiers, for he was a rough man like themselves, and talked
with them, and lived as they did. … Marius left Africa and
went to Rome to try and be made consul in 106. He found fault
with Metellus before the people, and said that he could carry
on the war better himself. So the people made him consul, and
more than that, they said that he should be general in Africa
instead of Metellus. … Marius finished the war in Africa, and
brought Jugurtha in triumph to Italy in 104. … When it was
over, Marius was the most powerful man in Rome. He was the
leader of the popular party, and also the general of the army.
The army had greatly changed since the time of Hannibal. The
Roman soldiers were no longer citizens who fought when their
country wanted them, and then went back to their work. But as
wars were now constantly going on, and going on too in distant
countries, this could no longer be the case, and the army was
full of men who took to a soldier's life as a trade. Marius
was the favourite of these soldiers: he was a soldier by trade
himself, and had risen in consequence to power in the state.
Notice, then, that when Marius was made consul, it was a sign
that the government for the future was to be carried on by the
army, as well as by the people and the nobles. Marius was soon
wanted to carry on another war. Two great tribes of barbarians
from the north had entered Gaul west of the Alps, and
threatened to drive out the Romans, and even attack Italy.
They came with their wives and children, like a wandering
people looking for a home. … At first these Cimbri defeated
the Roman generals in southern Gaul, where the Romans had
conquered the country along the Rhone, and made it a province,
which is still called the province, or Provence. The Romans,
after this defeat, were afraid of another burning of their
city by barbarians, so Marius was made consul again, and for
the next five years he was elected again and again. … In the
year 102 the Teutones and the Cimbri marched to attack Italy,
but Marius defeated them in two great battles.
See CIMBRI AND TEUTONES: B. C. 113-102.
Afterwards when he went back to Rome in triumph he was so
powerful that he could have done what he chose in the state.
The people were very grateful to him, the soldiers were very
fond of him, and the nobles were very much afraid of him. But
Marius did not think much of the good of the state: he thought
much more of his own greatness, and how he might become a
still greater man. So, first, he joined the party of the
people, and one of the tribunes. Lucius Appuleius Saturninus,
brought forward some laws like those of Caius Gracchus, and
Marius helped him. But there were riots in consequence, and
the Senate begged Marius to help them in putting down the
riots. For a time Marius doubted what to do, but at last he
armed the people, and Saturninus was killed (99). But now
neither side liked Marius, for he was true to neither, and did
only what he thought would make himself most powerful. So for
the future Marius was not likely to be of much use in the
troubles of the Roman state."
M. Creighton.
History of Rome (Primer).
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
chapters 54-56 (volume 2).
V. Duruy,
History of Rome,
chapters 39-41 (volume 2).
Plutarch,
Marius.
ROME: B. C. 90-88.
Demands of the Italian Socii for Roman citizenship.
The Marsian or Social War.

Rise of Sulla.
"It is a most erroneous though widely prevalent opinion that
the whole of Italy was conquered by the force of Roman arms,
and joined to the empire [of the Republic] against its will.
Roman valour and the admirable organization of the legions, it
is true, contributed to extend the dominion of Rome, but they
were not nearly so effective as the political wisdom of the
Roman senate. … The subjects of Rome were called by the
honourable name of allies (Socii). But the manner in which
they had become allies was not always the same. It differed
widely according to circumstances. Some had joined Rome on an
equal footing by a free alliance ('fœdus æquum'). which
implied nothing like subjection. … Others sought the alliance
of Rome as a protection from pressing enemies or troublesome
neighbours. … On the whole, the condition of the allies, Latin
colonies as well as confederated Italians, seems to have been
satisfactory, at least in the earlier period. … But even the
right of self-government which Rome had left to the Italian
communities proved an illusion in all cases where the
interests of the ruling town seemed to require it. A law
passed in Rome, nay, a simple senatorial decree, or a
magisterial order, could at pleasure be applied to the whole
of Italy. Roman law gradually took the place of local laws,
though the Italians had no part in the legislation of the
Roman people, or any influence on the decrees of the Roman
senate and magistrates. … All public works in Italy, such as
roads, aqueducts, and temples, were carried out solely for the
benefit of Rome. … Not in peace only, but also in the time of
war, the allies were gradually made to feel how heavily the
hand of Rome weighed upon them. … In proportion as with the
increase of their power the Romans felt more and more secure
and independent of the allies, they showed them less
consideration and tenderness, and made them feel that they had
gradually sunk from their former position of friends to be no
more than subjects." There was increasing discontent among the
Italian allies, or Socii, with this state of things,
especially after the time of the Gracchi, when a proposal to
extend the Roman citizenship and franchise to them was
strongly pressed.
{2684}
In the next generation after the murder of Caius Gracchus,
there arose another political reformer, Marcus Livius Drusus,
who likewise sought to have justice done to the Italians, by
giving them a voice in the state which owed its conquests to
their arms. He, too, was killed by the political enemies he
provoked; and then the allies determined to enforce their
claims by war. The tribes of the Sabellian race—Marsians,
Samnites, Hirpenians, Lucanians, and their fellows—organized a
league, with the town of Corfinium (its name changed to
Italica) for its capital, and broke into open revolt. The
prominence of the Marsians in the struggle caused the war
which ensued to be sometimes called the Marsian War; it was
also called the Italian War, but, more commonly, the Social
War. It was opened, B. C. 90, by a horrible massacre of Roman
citizens residing at Asculum, Picenum,—a tragedy for the guilt
of which that town paid piteously the next year, when it was
taken at the end of a long siege and after a great battle
fought under its walls. But the Romans had suffered many
defeats before that achievement was reached. At the end of the
first year of the war they had made no headway against the
revolt, and it is the opinion of Ihne and other historians
that "Rome never was so near her destruction," and that "her
downfall was averted, not by the heroism of her citizens, as
in the war of Hannibal, but by a reversal" of her "policy of
selfish exclusion and haughty disdain." A law called the
Julian Law, because proposed by the consul L. Julius Cæsar,
was adopted B. C. 90, which gave the Roman franchise to the
Latins, and to all the other Italian communities which had so
far remained faithful. Soon afterward two of the new tribunes
carried a further measure, the Plautio-Papirian Law, which
offered the same privilege to any Italian who, within two
months, should present himself before a Roman magistrate to
claim it. These concessions broke the spirit of the revolt and
the Roman armies began to be victorious. Sulla, who was in the
field, added greatly to his reputation by successes at Nola
(where his army honored him by acclaim with the title of
Imperator) and at Bovianum, which he took. The last important
battle of the war was fought on the old blood-drenched plain
of Cannæ, and this time the victory was for Rome. After that,
for another year, some desperate towns and remnants of the
revolted Socii held out, but their resistance was no more than
the death throes of a lost cause.
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 6, chapter 9, with foot-note,
and book 7, chapters 13-14.
ALSO IN:
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 2, chapters 15-16.
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on the History of Rome,
lectures 83-84 (volume 2).
ROME: B. C. 88-78.
Rivalry of Marius and Sulla.
War with Mithridates.
Civil war.
Successive proscriptions and reigns of terror.
Sulla's dictatorship.
The political diseases of which the Roman Republic was dying
made quick progress in the generation that passed between the
murder of Caius Gracchus and the Social War. The Roman rabble
which was nominally sovereign and the oligarchy which ruled
actually, by combined bribery and brow-beating of the
populace, had both been worse corrupted and debased by the
increasing flow of tribute and plunder from provinces and
subject states. Rome had familiarized itself with mob
violence, and the old respect for authority and for law was
dead. The soldier with an army at his back need not stand any
longer in awe of the fasces of a tribune or a consul. It was a
natural consequence of that state of things that the two
foremost soldiers of the time, Caius Marius and L. Cornelius
Sulla (or Sylla, as often written,) should become the
recognized chiefs of the two opposing factions of the day.
Marius was old, his military glory was waning, he had enjoyed
six consulships and coveted a seventh; Sulla was in the prime
of life, just fairly beginning to show his surpassing
capabilities and entering on his real career. Marius was a
plebeian of plebeians and rude in all his tastes; Sulla came
from the great Cornelian gens, and refined a little the
dissoluteness of his life by studies of Greek letters and
philosophy. Marius was sullenly jealous; Sulla was resolutely
ambitious. A new war, which promised great prizes to ambition
and cupidity, alike, was breaking out in the east,—the war
with Mithridates. Both Marius and Sulla aspired to the command
in it; but Sulla had been elected one of the consuls for the
year 88 B. C. and, by custom and law, would have the conduct
of the war assigned to him. Marius, however, intrigued with
the demagogues and leaders of the mob, and brought about a
turbulent demonstration and popular vote, by which he could
claim to be appointed to lead the forces of the state against
Mithridates. Sulla fled to his army, in camp at Nola, and laid
his case before the officers and men. The former, for the most
part, shrank from opposing themselves to Rome; the latter had
no scruples and demanded to be led against the Roman mob.
Sulla took them at their word, and marched them straight to
the city. For the first time in its history (by no means the
last) the great capital was forcibly entered by one of its own
armies. There was some resistance, but not much. Sulla
paralyzed his opponents by his energy, and by a threat to burn
the city if it did not submit. Marius and his chief partisans
fled. Sulla contented himself with outlawing twelve, some of
whom were taken and put to death. Marius, himself, escaped to
Africa, after many strange adventures, in the story of which
there is romance unquestionably mixed. Sulla (with his
colleague in harmony with him) fulfilled the year of his
consulate at Rome and then departed for Greece to conduct the
war against Mithridates. In doing so, he certainly knew that
he was giving up the government to his enemies; but he trusted
his future in a remarkable way, and the necessity, for Rome,
of confronting Mithridates was imperative. The departure of
Sulla was the signal for fresh disorders at Rome. Cinna, one
of the new consuls, was driven from the city, and became the
head of a movement which appealed to the "new citizens," as
they were called, or the "Italian party"—the allies who had
been enfranchised as the result of the Social War. Marius came
back from exile to join it. Sertorius and Carbo were other
leaders who played important parts. Presently there were four
armies beleaguering Rome, and after some unsuccessful
resistance the gates were opened to them, by order of the
Roman senate. Cinna, the consul, was nominally restored to
authority, but Marius was really supreme, and Marius was
implacable in his sullen rage.
{2685}
Rome was treated like a conquered city. The public and private
enemies of Marius and of all who chose to call themselves
Marians, were hunted down and slain. To stop the massacre, at
last, Sertorius—the best of the new masters of Rome—was
forced to turn his soldiers against the bands of the assassins
and to slaughter several thousands of them. Then some degree
of order was restored and there was the quiet in Rome of a
city of the dead. The next year Marius realized his ambition
for a seventh consulship, but died before the end of the first
month of it. Meantime, Sulla devoted himself steadily to the
war against Mithridates [see MITHRIDATIC WARS], watching from
afar the sinister course of events at Rome, and making no
sign. It was not until the spring of 83 B. C., four years
after his departure from Italy and three years after the death
of Marius, that he was ready to return and settle accounts
with his enemies. On landing with his army in Italy he was
joined speedily by Pompey, Crassus, and other important
chiefs. Cinna had been killed by mutinous soldiers; Carbo and
young Marius were the leaders of the "Italian party." There
was a fierce battle at Sacriportus, near Præneste, with young
Marius, and a second with Carbo at Clusium. Later, there was
another furious fight with the Samnites, under the walls of
Rome, at the Colline Gate, where 50,000 of the combatants
fell. Then Sulla was master of Rome. Every one of his
suspected friends in the senate had been butchered by the last
orders of young Marius. His retaliation was not slow; but he
pursued it with a horrible deliberation. He made lists, to be
posted in public, of men who were marked for death and whom
anybody might slay. There are differing accounts of the number
doomed by this proscription; according to one annalist the
death-roll was swelled to 4,700 before the reign of terror
ceased. Sulla ruled as a conqueror until it pleased him to
take an official title, when he commanded the people to elect
him Dictator, for such term as he might judge to be fit. They
obeyed. As Dictator, he proceeded to remodel the Roman
constitution by a series of laws which were adopted at his
command. One of these laws enfranchised 10,000 slaves and made
them citizens. Another took a way from the tribunes a great
part of their powers; allowed none but members of the senate
to be candidates for the office, and no person once a tribune
to hold a curule office. Others reconstructed the senate,
adding 300 new members to its depleted ranks, and restored to
it the judicial function which C. Gracchus had transferred to
the knights; they also restored to it the initiative in
legislation. Having remodeled the Roman government to his
liking, Sulla astounded his friends and enemies by suddenly
laying down his dictatorial powers and retiring to private
life at his villa, near Puteoli, on the Bay of Naples. There
he wrote his memoirs, which have been lost, and gave himself
up to the life of pleasure which was even dearer to him than
the life of power. But he enjoyed it scarcely a year, when he
died, B. C. 78. His body, taken to Rome, was burned with pomp.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 2, chapters 17-29.
ALSO IN:
W. Ihne,
History of Rome,
book 7, chapters 15-23.
Plutarch,
Marius and Sulla.
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 4, chapters 9-10.
C. Merivale,
The Fall of the Roman Republic,
chapters 4-5.
ROME: B. C. 80.
The throne of Egypt bequeathed to the Republic
by Ptolemy Alexander.
See EGYPT: B. C. 80-48.
ROME: B. C. 78-68.
Danger from the legionaries.
Rising power of Pompeius.
Attempt of Lepidus.
Pompeius against Sertorius in Spain.
Insurrection of Spartacus and the Gladiators.
The second Mithridatic War, and war in Armenia.
"The Roman legionary, … drawn from the dregs of the populace,
and quartered through the best years of his life in Greece and
Asia, in Spain and Gaul, lived solely upon his pay, enhanced
by extortion or plunder. His thirst of rapine grew upon him.
He required his chiefs to indulge him with the spoil of cities
and provinces; and when a foreign enemy was not at hand, he
was tempted to turn against the subjects of the state, or, if
need be, against the state itself. … Marius and Sulla, Cinna
and Carbo had led the forces of Rome against Rome herself. …
The problem which thus presented itself to the minds of
patriots—how, namely, to avert the impending dissolution of
their polity under the blows of their own defenders—was indeed
an anxious and might well appear a hopeless one. It was to the
legions only that they could trust, and the legions were
notoriously devoted to their chiefs. … The triumph of Sulla
had been secured by the accession to his side of Pompeius
Strabo, the commander of a large force quartered in Italy.
These troops had transferred their obedience to a younger
Pompeius, the son of their late leader. Under his auspices
they had gained many victories; they had put down the Marian
faction, headed by Carbo, in Sicily, and had finally secured
the ascendency of the senate on the shores of Africa. Sulla
had evinced some jealousy of their captain, who was young in
years, and as yet had not risen above the rank of Eques; but
when Pompeius led his victorious legions back to Italy, the
people rose in the greatest enthusiasm to welcome him, and the
dictator, yielding to their impetuosity, had granted him a
triumph and hailed him with the title of 'Magnus.' Young as he
was, he became at once, on the abdication of Sulla, the
greatest power in the commonwealth. This he soon caused to be
known and felt. The lead of the senatorial party had now
fallen to Q. Lutatius Catulus and M. Æmilius Lepidus, the
heads of two of the oldest and noblest families of Rome. The
election of these chiefs to the consulship for the year 676 of
the city (B. C. 78) seemed to secure for the time the
ascendency of the nobles, and the maintenance of Sulla's
oligarchical constitution bequeathed to their care. … But
there were divisions within the party itself which seemed to
seize the opportunity for breaking forth. Lepidus was inflamed
with ambition to create a faction of his own, and imitate the
career of the usurpers before him. … But he had miscalculated
his strength. Pompeius disavowed him, and lent the weight of
his popularity and power to the support of Catulus; and the
senate hoped to avert an outbreak by engaging both the consuls
by an oath to abstain from assailing each other. During the
remainder of his term of office Lepidus refrained from action;
but as soon as he reached his province, the Narbonensis in
Gaul, he developed his plans, summoned to his standard the
Marians, who had taken refuge in great numbers in that region,
and invoked the aid of
the Italians, with the promise of restoring to them the lands
of which they had been dispossessed by Sulla's veterans.
{2686}
With the aid of M. Junius Brutus, who commanded in the
Cisalpine, he made an inroad into Etruria, and called upon the
remnant of its people, who had been decimated by Sulla, to
rise against the faction of their oppressors. The senate, now
thoroughly alarmed, charged Catulus with its defence; the
veterans, restless and dissatisfied with their fields and
farms, crowded to the standard of Pompeius. Two Roman armies
met near the Milvian bridge, a few miles to the north of the
city, and Lepidus received a check, which was again and again
repeated, till he was driven to flee into Sardinia, and there
perished shortly afterwards of fever. Pompeius pursued Brutus
into the Cisalpine. … The remnant of [Lepidus'] troops was
carried over to Spain by Perperna, and there swelled the
forces of an abler leader of the same party, Q. Sertorius."
Sertorius had established himself strongly in Spain, and
aspired to the founding of an independent state; but after a
prolonged struggle he was overcome by Pompeius and
assassinated by traitors in his own ranks.
See SPAIN: B. C. 83-72.
"Pompeius had thus recovered a great province for the republic
at the moment when it seemed on the point of being lost
through the inefficiency of one of the senatorial chiefs.
Another leader of the dominant party was about to yield him
another victory. A war was raging in the heart of Italy. A
body of gladiators had broken away from their confinement at
Capua under the lead of Spartacus, a Thracian captive, had
seized a large quantity of arms, and had made themselves a
retreat or place of defence in the crater of Mount Vesuvius. …
See SPARTACUS, THE RISING OF.
The consuls were directed to lead the legions against them,
but were ignominiously defeated [B. C. 72]. In the absence of
Pompeius in Spain and of Lucullus in the East, M. Crassus was
the most prominent among the chiefs of the party in power.
This illustrious noble was a man of great influence, acquired
more by his wealth, for which he obtained the surname of
Dives, than for any marked ability in the field or in the
forum; but he had a large following of clients and dependents,
who … now swelled the cry for placing a powerful force under
his orders, and entrusting to his hands the deliverance of
Italy. The brigands themselves were becoming demoralized by
lack of discipline. Crassus drove them before him to the
extremity of the peninsula. … Spartacus could only save a
remnant of them by furiously breaking through the lines of his
assailants. This brave gladiator was still formidable, and it
was feared that Rome itself might be exposed to his desperate
attack. The senate sent importunate messages to recall both
Pompeius and Lucullus to its defence. … Spartacus had now
become an easy prey, and the laurels were quickly won with
which Pompeius was honoured by his partial countrymen. Crassus
was deeply mortified, and the senate itself might feel some
alarm at the redoubled triumphs of a champion of whose loyalty
it was not secure. But the senatorial party had yet another
leader, and a man of more ability than Crassus, at the head of
another army. The authority of Pompeius in the western
provinces was balanced in the East by that of L. Licinius
Lucullus, who commanded the forces of the republic in the
struggle which she was still maintaining against Mithridates.
… The military successes of Lucullus fully justified the
choice of the government." He expelled Mithridates from all
the dominions which he claimed and drove him to take refuge
with the king of Armenia. "The kingdom of Armenia under
Tigranes III. was at the height of its power when Clodius, the
brother-in-law of Lucullus, then serving under him, was
despatched to the royal residence at Tigranocerta to demand
the surrender of Mithridates. … The capital of Armenia was
well defended by its position among the mountains and the
length and severity of its winter season. It was necessary to
strike once for all [B. C. 61)]. Lucullus had a small but
well-trained and well-appointed army of veterans. Tigranes
surrounded and encumbered himself with a vast cloud of
undisciplined barbarians, the flower of whom, consisting of
17,000 mailed cavalry, however formidable in appearance, made
but a feeble resistance to the dint of the Roman spear and
broadsword. When their ranks were broken they fell back upon
the inert masses behind them, and threw them into hopeless
confusion. Tigranes made his escape with dastardly
precipitation. A bloody massacre ensued. … In the following
year Lucullus advanced his posts still further eastward. …
But a spirit of discontent or lassitude had crept over his own
soldiers. … He was constrained to withdraw from the siege of
Artaxata, the furthest stronghold of Tigranes, on the banks of
the Araxes, and after crowning his victories with a successful
assault upon Nisibis, he gave the signal for retreat, leaving
the destruction of Mithridates still unaccomplished. Meanwhile
the brave proconsul's enemies were making head against him at
Rome."
C. Merivale,
The Roman Triumvirates,
chapter 1.
Lucullus "wished to consummate the ruin of Tigranes, and
afterwards to carry his arms to Parthia. He had not this
perilous glory. Hitherto, his principal means of success had
been to conciliate the people, by restraining the avidity both
of his soldiers and of the Italian publicans. The first
refused to pursue a war which only enriched the general; the
second wrote to Rome, where the party of knights was every day
regaining its ancient ascendancy. They accused of rapacity him
who had repressed theirs. All were inclined to believe, in
short, that Lucullus had drawn enormous sums from the towns
which he preserved from the soldiers and publicans. They
obtained the appointment of a successor, and by this change
the fruit of this conquest was in a great measure lost. Even
before Lucullus had quitted Asia, Mithridates re-entered
Pontus, invaded Cappadocia, and leagued himself more closely
with the pirates."
J. Michelet,
History of the Roman Republic,
page 308.
"It was imagined at Rome that Mithridates was as good as
conquered, and that a new province of Bithynia and Pontus was
awaiting organisation. … Ten commissioners as usual had been
despatched to assist. … Lucullus had hoped before their
arrival to strike some blow to recover his losses; but Marcius
Rex had refused his appeal for help from Cilicia, and his own
troops had … declined to march … when they learnt that the
command was about to pass from Lucullus to Glabrio."
E. S. Shuckburgh,
History of Rome to the Battle of Actium,
page 677.
ALSO IN:
Plutarch,
Pompeius Magnus.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 2, chapters 30-33,
and volume 3, chapters 1-5.
G. Rawlinson,
Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 10.
{2687}
ROME: B. C. 69-63.
The drift towards revolution.
Pompeius in the East.
His extraordinary commission.
His enlargement of the Roman dominions.
His power.
Ambitions and projects of Cæsar.
Consulship of Cicero.
"To a superficial observer, at the close of the year 70 B. C.,
it might possibly have seemed that the Republic had been given
a new lease of life. … And, indeed, for two or three years
this promising condition of things continued. The years 69 and
68 B. C. must have been tolerably quiet ones, for our
authorities have very little to tell us of them. … Had a
single real statesman appeared on the scene at this moment, or
even if the average senator or citizen had been possessed of
some honesty and insight, it was not impossible that the
government might have been carried on fairly well even under
republican forms. But there was no leading statesman of a
character suited to raise the whole tone of politics; and
there was no general disposition on the part of either Senate
or people to make the best of the lull in the storm, to repair
damages, or to set the ship on her only true course. So the
next few years show her fast drifting in the direction of
revolution; and the current that bore her was not a local one,
or visible to the eye of the ordinary Roman, but one of
world-wide force, whose origin and direction could only be
perceived by the highest political intelligence. It was during
these years that Cæsar was quietly learning the business of
government, both at home and in the provinces. … Cæsar was
elected quæstor in 69 B. C., and served the office in the
following year. It fell to him to begin his acquaintance with
government in the province of Further Spain, and thus began
his lifelong connection with the peoples of the West. … On his
return to Rome, which must have taken place about the
beginning of 67 B. C., Cæsar was drawn at once into closer
connection with the man who, during the next twenty years, was
to be his friend, his rival, and his enemy. Pompeius was by
this time tired of a quiet life. … Both to him and his
friends, it seemed impossible to be idle any longer. There was
real and abundant reason for the employment of the ablest
soldier of the day. The audacity of the pirates was greater
than ever.
See CILICIA, PIRATES OF.
Lucullus, too, in Asia, had begun to meet with disasters, and
was unable, with his troops in a mutinous temper, to cope with
the combined forces of the kings of Armenia and Pontus. … In
this year, 67 B. C., a bill was proposed by a tribune,
Gabinius, in the assembly of the plebs, in spite of opposition
in the Senate, giving Pompeius exactly that extensive power
against the pirates which he himself desired, and which was
really necessary if the work was to be done swiftly and
completely. He was to have exclusive command for three years
over the whole Mediterranean, and over the resources of the
provinces and dependent states. For fifty miles inland in
every province bordering on these seas—i. e., in the whole
Empire—he was to exercise an authority equal to that of the
existing provincial governor. He was to have almost unlimited
means of raising both fleets and armies, and was to nominate
his own staff of twenty·five 'legati' (lieutenant-generals),
who were all to have the rank of prætor. Nor was this all; for
it was quite understood that this was only part of a plan
which was to place him at the head of the armies in Asia
Minor, superseding the able but now discredited Lucullus. In
fact, by another law of Gabinius, Lucullus was recalled, and
his command given to one of the consuls of the year, neither
of whom, as was well known, was likely to wield it with the
requisite ability. whichever consul it might be, he would only
be recognised as keeping the place warm for Pompeius. …
Pompeius left Rome in the spring of 67 B. C., rapidly cleared
the seas of piracy, and in the following year superseded
Lucullus in the command of the war against Mithridates [with
the powers given him by the Gabinian Law prolonged and
extended by another, known as the Manilian Law]. He did not
return till the beginning of 61 B. C. At first sight it might
seem as though his absence should have cleared the air, and
left the political leaders at Rome a freer hand. But the power
and the resources voted him, and the unprecedented success
with which he used them, made him in reality as formidable to
the parties at home as he was to the peoples of the East. He
put an end at last to the power of Mithridates, received the
submission of Tigranes of Armenia, and added to the Roman
dominion the greater part of the possessions of both these
kings. The sphere of Roman influence now for the first time
reached the river Euphrates, and the Empire was brought into
contact with the great Parthian kingdom beyond it. Asia Minor
became wholly Roman, with the exception of some part of the
interior, which obedient kinglets were allowed to retain.
Syria was made a Roman province. Pompeius took Jerusalem, and
added Judæa to Syria. …
See JEWS: B. C. 166-40].
The man to whom all this was due became at once the leading
figure in the world. It became clear that when his career of
conquest was over yet another task would devolve on him, if he
chose to accept it—the re-organisation of the central
government at Rome. … His gathered power overhung the state
like an avalanche ready to fall; and in the possible path of
an avalanche it is waste of time and labour to build any solid
work. So these years, for Cæsar as for the rest, are years of
plotting and intrigue on one side, and of half-hearted
government on the other. … He was elected to the
curule-ædileship—the next above the quæstorship in the series
of magistracies—and entered on his office on January 1, 65 B.
C. … Cæsar's political connection with Crassus at this time is
by no means clear. The two were sailing the same course, and
watching Pompeius with the same anxiety; but there could not
have been much in common between them, and they were in fact
rapidly getting in each other's way. The great money-lender,
however, must have been in the main responsible for the
enormous expenditure which Cæsar risked in this ædileship and
the next three years. … At the close of the year 64 B. C., on
the accession to office of a new board of tribunes, … an
agrarian bill on a vast scale was promulgated by the tribune
Servilius Rullus.
{2688}
The two most startling features of this were: first, the
creation of a board of ten to carry out its provisions, each
member of which was to be invested with military and judicial
powers like those of the consuls and prætors; and secondly,
the clauses which entrusted this board with enormous financial
resources, to be raised by the public sale of all the
territories and property acquired since the year 88 B. C.,
together with the booty and revenues now in the hands of
Pompeius. The bill included, as its immediate object, a huge
scheme of colonisation for Italy, on the lines of the Gracchan
agrarian bills. … But it was really an attack on the weak
fortress of senatorial government, in order to turn out its
garrison, and occupy and fortify it in the name of the
democratic or Marian party, against the return of the new
Sulla, which was now thought to be imminent. The bill may also
have had another and secondary object—namely, to force the
hand of the able and ambitious consul [Cicero] who would come
into office on January 1, 63; at any rate it succeeded in
doing this, though it succeeded in nothing else. Cicero's
great talents, and the courage and skill with which he had so
far for the most part used them, had made him already a
considerable power in Rome; but no one knew for certain to
which party he would finally attach himself. … On the very
first day of his office he attacked the bill in the Senate and
exposed its real intention, and showed plainly that his policy
was to convert Pompeius into a pillar of the constitution, and
to counteract all democratic plots directed against him. …
Whether it was his eloquence, or the people's indifference,
that caused the bill to be dropped, can only be matter of
conjecture; but it was withdrawn at once by its proposer, and
the whole scheme fell through. This was Cicero's first and
only real victory over Cæsar. … It was about this time, in the
spring of 63 B. C., that the office of Pontifex Maximus became
vacant by the death of old Metellus Pius, and Cæsar at once
took steps to secure it for himself. The chances in his favour
were small, but the prize was a tempting one. Success would
place him at the head of the whole Roman religious system. …
He was eligible, for he had already been for several years one
of the college of pontifices, but as the law of election
stood, a man so young and so democratic would have no chance
against candidates like the venerable conservative leader
Catulus, and Cæsar's own old commander in the East, Servilius
Isauricus, both of whom were standing. Sulla's law, which
placed the election in the hands of the college itself—a law
framed expressly to exclude persons of Cæsar's stamp—must be
repealed, and the choice vested once more in the people. The
useful tribune Labienus was again set to work, the law was
passed, and on March 6th Cæsar was elected by a large
majority. … The latter part of this memorable year was
occupied with a last and desperate attempt of the democratic
party to possess themselves of the state power while there was
yet time to forestall Pompeius. This is the famous conspiracy
of Catilina; it was an attack of the left wing on the
senatorial position, and the real leaders of the democracy
took no open or active part in it."
W. W. Fowler,
Julius Cæsar,
chapters 4-5.
ALSO IN
J. A. Froude,
Cæsar,
chapter 10.
Suetonius,
Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Julius,
sections 7-13.
C. Middleton,
Life of Cicero,
section 2.
ROME: B. C. 63.
The conspiracy of Catiline.
The conspiracy organized against the senatorial government of
Rome by L. Sergius Catilina, B. C. 63, owes much of its
prominence in Roman history to the preservation of the great
speeches in which Cicero exposed it, and by which he rallied
the Roman people to support him in putting it down. Cicero was
consul that year, and the official responsibility of the
government was on his shoulders. The central conspirators were
a desperate, disreputable clique of men, who had everything to
gain and nothing to lose by revolution. Behind them were all
the discontents and malignant tempers of demoralized and
disorganized Rome; and still behind these were suspected to
be, darkly hidden, the secret intrigues of men like Cæsar and
Crassus, who watched and waited for the expiring breath of the
dying republic. Cicero, having made a timely discovery of the
plot, managed the disclosure of it with great adroitness and
won the support of the people to his proceedings against the
conspirators. Catiline made his escape from Rome and placed
himself' at the head of a small army which his supporters had
raised in Etruria; but he and it were both destroyed in the
single battle fought. Five of his fellow-conspirators were
hastily put to death without trial, by being strangled in the
Tullianum.
W. Forsyth,
Life of Cicero,
chapter 8.
ALSO IN
A. Trollope,
Life of c,
chapter 9.
A. J. Church,
Roman Life in the Days of Cicero,
chapter 7.
Cicero,
Orations
(translated by (J. D. Yonge),
volume 2.
ROME: B. C. 63-58.
Increasing disorders in the capital.
The wasted opportunities of Pompeius.
His alliance with Cæsar and Crassus.
The First Triumvirate.
Cæsar's consulship.
His appointment to the command in Cisalpine Gaul.
Exile of Cicero.
"Recent events had fully demonstrated the impotence of both
the Senate and the democratic party; neither was strong enough
to defeat the other or to govern the State. There was no third
party—no class remaining out of which a government might be
erected; the only alternative was monarchy—the rule of a
single person. Who the monarch would be was still uncertain;
though, at the present moment, Pompeius was clearly the only
man in whose power it lay to take up the crown that offered
itself. … For the moment the question which agitated all minds
was whether Pompeius would accept the gift offered him by
fortune, or would retire and leave the throne vacant. … In the
autumn of 63 B. C. Quintus Metellus Nepos arrived in the
capital from the camp of Pompeius, and got himself elected
tribune with the avowed purpose of procuring for Pompeius the
command against Catilina by special decree, and afterwards the
consulship for 61 B. C. … The aristocracy at once showed their
hostility to the proposals of Metellus, and Cato had himself
elected tribune expressly for the purpose of thwarting him.
But the democrats were more pliant, and it was soon evident
that they had come to a cordial understanding with the
general's emissary. Metellus and his master both adopted the
democratic view of the illegal executions [of the
Catilinarians]; and the first act of Cæsar's prætorship was to
call Catulus to account for the moneys alleged to have been
embezzled by him in rebuilding the Capitoline temple and to
transfer the superintendence of the works to Pompeius. … On
the day of voting, Cato and another of the tribunes put their
veto upon the proposals of Metellus, who disregarded it.
{2689}
There were conflicts of the armed bands of both sides, which
terminated in favour of the government. The Senate followed up
the victory by suspending Metellus and Cæsar from their
offices. Metellus immediately departed for the camp of
Pompeius; and when Cæsar disregarded the decree of suspension
against himself, the Senate had ultimately to revoke it.
Nothing could have been more favourable to the interests of
Pompeius than these late events. After the illegal executions
of the Catilinarians, and the acts of violence against
Metellus, he 'could appear at once as the defender of the two
palladia of Roman liberty'—the right of appeal, and the
inviolability of the tribunate,—and as the champion of the
party of order against the Catilinarian band. But his courage
was unequal to the emergency; he lingered in Asia during the
winter of 63-62 B. C., and thus gave the Senate time to crush
the insurrection in Italy, and deprived himself of a valid
pretext for keeping his legions together. In the autumn of 62
B. C. he landed at Brundisium, and, disbanding his army,
proceeded to Rome with a small escort. On his arrival in the
city in 61 B. C. he found himself in a position of complete
isolation; he was feared by the democrats, hated by the
aristocracy, and distrusted by the wealthy class. He at once
demanded for himself a second consulship, the confirmation of
all his acts in the East, and the fulfilment of the promise he
had made to his soldiers to furnish them with lands. But each
of these demands was met with the most determined opposition.
… His promise of lands to his soldiers was indeed ratified,
but not executed, and no steps were taken to provide the
necessary funds and lands. … From this disagreeable position,
Pompeius was rescued by the sagacity and address of Cæsar, who
saw in the necessities of Pompeius the opportunity of the
democratic party. Ever since the return of Pompeius, Cæsar had
grown rapidly in influence and weight. He had been prætor in
62 B. C., and, in 61, governor in Farther Spain, where he
utilized his position to free himself from his debts, and to
lay the foundation of the military position he desired for
himself. Returning in 60 B. C., he readily relinquished his
claim to a triumph, in order to enter the city in time to
stand for the consulship. … It was quite possible that the
aristocracy might be strong enough to defeat the candidature
of Cæsar, as it had defeated that of Catilina; and again, the
consulship was not enough; an extraordinary command, secured
to him for several years, was necessary for the fulfilment of
his purpose. Without allies such a command could not be hoped
for; and allies were found where they had been found ten years
before, in Pompeius and Crassus, and in the rich equestrian
class. Such a treaty was suicide on the part of Pompeius; …
but he had drifted into a situation so awkward that he was
glad to be released from it on any terms. … The bargain was
struck in the summer of 60 B. C. [forming what became known in
Roman history as the First Triumvirate]. Cæsar was promised
the consulship and a governorship afterwards; Pompeius, the
ratification of his arrangements in the East, and land for his
soldiers; Crassus received no definite equivalent, but the
capitalists were promised a remission of part of the money
they had undertaken to pay for the lease of the Asiatic taxes.
… Cæsar was easily elected consul for 59 B. C. All that the
exertions of the Senate could do was to give him an
aristocratic colleague in Marcus Bibulus. Cæsar at once
proceeded to fulfil his obligations to Pompeius by proposing
an agrarian law. All remaining Italian domain land, which
meant practically the territory of Capua, was to be given up
to allotments, and other estates in Italy were to be purchased
out of the revenues of the new Eastern provinces. The soldiers
were simply recommended to the commission, and thus the
principle of giving rewards of land for military service was
not asserted. The execution of the bill was to be entrusted to
a commission of twenty. … At length all these proposals were
passed by the assembly [after rejection by the Senate], and
the commission of twenty, with Pompeius and Crassus at their
head, began the execution of the agrarian law. Now that the
first victory was won, the coalition was able to carry out the
rest of its programme without much difficulty. … It was
determined by the confederates that Cæsar should be invested
by decree of the people with a special command resembling that
lately held by Pompeius. Accordingly the tribune Vatinius
submitted to the tribes a proposal which was at once adopted.
By it Cæsar obtained the governorship of Cisalpine Gaul, and
the supreme command of the three legions stationed there, for
five years, with the rank of proprætor for his adjutants. His
jurisdiction extended southwards as far as the Rubicon, and
included Luca and Ravenna. Subsequently the province of Narbo
was added by the Senate, on the motion of Pompeius. … Cæsar
had hardly laid down his consulship when it was proposed, in
the Senate, to annul the Julian laws. …
See JULIAN LAWS.
The regents determined to make examples of some of the most
determined of their opponents." Cicero was accordingly sent
into exile, by a resolution of the tribes, and Cato was
appointed to an odious public mission, which carried him out
of the way, to Cyprus.
T. Mommsen,
History of the Roman Republic,
(abridged by Bryan and Hendy),
chapter 33.
ALSO IN
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 3, chapters 17-20.
C. Middleton,
Life of Cicero,
section 4.
Napoleon III.,
History of Julius Cæsar,
chapters 3-4.
ROME: B. C. 58-51.
Cæsar's conquest of Gaul.
See GAUL: B. C. 58-51.
ROME: B. C. 57-52.
Effect of Cæsar's Gallic victories.
Return of Cicero from exile.
New arrangements of the Triumvirs.
Cæsar's Proconsulship extended.
The Trebonian Law.
Disaster and death of Crassus at Carrhæ.
Increasing anarchy in the city.
"In Rome the enemies of Cæsar … were awed into silence [by his
victorious career in Gaul], and the Senate granted the
unprecedented honour of fifteen days' 'supplicatio' to the
gods for the brilliant successes in Gaul. Among the supporters
of this motion was, as Cæsar learnt in the winter from the
magistrates and senators who came to pay court to him at
Ravenna, M. Tullius Cicero. From the day of his exile the
efforts to secure his return had begun, but it was not until
the 4th of August that the Senate, led by the consul, P.
Lentulus Spinther, carried the motion for his return, in spite
of the violence of the armed gang of Clodius, and summoned all
the country tribes to crowd the comitia on Campus Martius, and
ratify the senatus consultum.
{2690}
The return of the great orator to the country which he had
saved in the terrible days of 63 B. C. was more like a triumph
than the entrance of a pardoned criminal. … But he had come
back on sufferance; the great Three must be conciliated. …
Cicero, like many other optimates in Rome, was looking for the
beginnings of a breach between Pompeius, Crassus and Cæsar,
and was anxious to nourish any germs of opposition to the
triple-headed monarchy. He pleaded against Cæsar's friend
Vatinius, and he gave notice of a motion for checking the
action of the agrarian law in Campania. But these signs of an
independent opposition were suddenly terminated by a
humiliating recantation; for before entering upon his third
campaign Cæsar crossed the Apennines, and appeared at the
Roman colony of Lucca. … Two hundred senators crowded to the
rendezvous, but arrangements were made by the Three very
independently of Senate in Rome or Senate in Lucca. It was
agreed that Pompeius and Crassus should hold a joint
consulship again next year, and before the expiration of
Cæsar's five years they were to secure his reappointment for
another five. … Unfortunate Cicero was awed, and in his other
speeches of this year tried to win the favor of the great men
by supporting their proposed provincial arrangements, and
pleading in defence of Cæsar's friend and protege, L. Balbus."
In the year 55 B. C. the Trebonian Law was passed, "which gave
to Crassus and Pompeius, as proconsular provinces, Syria and
Spain, for the extraordinary term of five years. In this
repeated creation of extraordinary powers in favor of the
coalition of dynasts, Cato rightly saw an end of republican
institutions. … Crassus … started in 54 B. C., at the head of
seven legions, in face of the combined opposition of tribunes
and augurs, to secure the eastern frontier of Roman dominion
by vanquishing the Parthian power, which, reared on the ruins
of the kingdom of the Seleucids, was now supreme in Ctesiphon
and Seleucia. Led into the desert by the Arab Sheikh Abgarus,
acting as a traitor, the Roman army was surrounded by the
fleet Parthian horsemen, who could attack and retreat,
shooting their showers of missiles all the time. In the
blinding sand and sun of the desert near Carrhæ [on the river
Belik, one of the branches of the Euphrates, the supposed site
of the Haran of Biblical history], Crassus experienced a
defeat which took its rank with Cannæ and the Arausio. A few
days afterwards (June 9th, 53 B. C.) he was murdered in a
conference to which the commander of the Parthian forces
invited him. … The shock of this event went through the Roman
world, and though Cassius, the lieutenant of Crassus,
retrieved the honour of the Roman arms against the Parthians
in the following year, that agile people remained to the last
unconquered, and the Roman boundary was never to advance
further to the east. Crassus, then, was dead, and Pompeius,
though he lent Cæsar a legion at the beginning of the year,
was more ready to assume the natural antagonism to Cæsar,
since the death of his wife Julia in September, 54 B. C., had
broken a strong tie with his father-in-law. Further, the
condition of the capital seemed reaching a point of anarchy at
which Pompeius, as the only strong man on the spot, would have
to be appointed absolute dictator. In 53 B. C. no consuls
could, in the violence and turmoil of the comitia, be elected
until July, and the year closed without any elections having
taken place for 52 B. C. T. Annius Milo, who was a candidate
for the consulship, and P. Clodius, who was seeking the
prætorship, turned every street of Rome into a gladiatorial
arena." In January Clodius was killed. "Pompeius was waiting
in his new gardens near the Porta Carmentalis, until a
despairing government should invest him with dictatorial
power; he was altogether too timid and too constitutional to
seize it. But with Cato in Rome no one dared mention the word
dictator. Pompeius, disappointed, was named sole consul on the
4th of February [B. C. 52], and by July he had got as his
colleague his new father-in-law, Metellus."
R. F. Horton,
History of the Romans,
chapter 29.
ALSO IN
W. Forsyth,
Life of Cicero,
chapters 13-16 (volumes 1-2).
C. Merivale,
The Roman Triumvirates,
chapter 5.
G. Rawlinson,
The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,
chapter 11.
ROME: B. C. 55-54.
Cæsar's invasions of Britain.
See BRITAIN: B. C. 55-54.
ROME: B. C. 52-50.
Rivalry of Pompeius and Cæsar.
Approach of the crisis.
Cæsar's legions in motion towards the capital.
"Cæsar had long ago resolved upon the overthrow of Pompey, as
had Pompey, for that matter, upon his. For Crassus, the fear
of whom had hitherto kept them in peace, having now been
killed in Parthia, if the one of them wished to make himself
the greatest man in Rome, he had only to overthrow the other;
and if he again wished to prevent his own fall, he had nothing
for it but to be beforehand with him whom he feared. Pompey
had not been long under any such apprehensions, having till
lately despised Cæsar, as thinking it no difficult matter to
put down him whom he himself had advanced. But Cæsar had
entertained this design from the beginning against his rivals,
and had retired, like an expert wrestler, to prepare himself
apart for the combat. Making the Gallic wars his
exercise-ground, he had at once improved the strength of his
soldiery, and had heightened his own glory by his great
actions, so that he was looked on as one who might challenge
comparison with Pompey. Nor did he let go any of those
advantages which were now given him, both by Pompey himself
and the times, and the ill government of Rome, where all who
were candidates for office publicly gave money, and without
any shame bribed the people, who, having received their pay,
did not contend for their benefactors with their bare
suffrages, but with bows, swords and slings. So that after
having many times stained the place of election with the blood
of men killed upon the spot, they left the city at last
without a government at all, to be carried about like a ship
without a pilot to steer her; while all who had any wisdom
could only be thankful if a course of such wild and stormy
disorder and madness might end no worse than in a monarchy.
Some were so bold as to declare openly that the government was
incurable but by a monarchy, and that they ought to take that
remedy from the hands of the gentlest physician, meaning
Pompey, who, though in words he pretended to decline it, yet
in reality made his utmost efforts to be declared dictator.
{2691}
Cato, perceiving his design, prevailed with the Senate to make
him sole consul [B. C. 52], that with the offer of a more
legal sort of monarchy he might be withheld from demanding the
dictatorship. They over and above voted him the continuance of
his provinces, for he had two, Spain and all Africa, which he
governed by his lieutenants, and maintained armies under him,
at the yearly charge of a thousand talents out of the public
treasury. Upon this Cæsar also sent and petitioned for the
consulship, and the continuance of his provinces. Pompey at
first did not stir in it, but Marcellus and Lentulus opposed
it, who had always hated Cæsar, and now did everything,
whether fit or unfit, which might disgrace and affront him.
For they took away the privilege of Roman citizens from the
people of New Comum, who were a colony that Cæsar had lately
planted in Gaul; and Marcellus, who was then consul, ordered
one of the senators of that town, then at Rome, to be whipped
[B. C. 51], and told him he laid that mark upon him to signify
he was no citizen of Rome, bidding him, when he went back
again, to show it to Cæsar. After Marcellus's consulship,
Cæsar began to lavish gifts upon all the public men out of the
riches he had taken from the Gauls; discharged Curio, the
tribune, from his great debts; gave Paulus, then consul, 1,500
talents, with which he built the noble court of justice
adjoining the forum, to supply the place of that called the
Fulvian. Pompey, alarmed at these preparations, now openly
took steps, both by himself and his friends, to have a
successor appointed in Cæsar's room, and sent to demand back
the soldiers whom he had lent him to carry on the wars in
Gaul. Cæsar returned them, and made each soldier a present of
250 drachmas. The officer who brought them home to Pompey,
spread amongst the people no very fair or favorable report of
Cæsar, and flattered Pompey himself with false suggestions
that he was wished for by Cæsar's army; and though his affairs
here were in some embarrassment through the envy of some, and
the ill state of the government, yet there the army was at his
command, and if they once crossed into Italy, would presently
declare for him; so weary were they of Cæsar's endless
expeditions, and so suspicious of his designs for a monarchy.
Upon this Pompey grew presumptuous, and neglected all warlike
preparations, as fearing no danger. … Yet the demands which
Cæsar made had the fairest colors of equity imaginable. For he
proposed to lay down his arms, and that Pompey should do the
same, and both together should become private men, and each
expect a reward of his services from the public. For that
those who proposed to disarm him, and at the same time to
confirm Pompey in all the power he held, were simply
establishing the one in the tyranny which they accused the
other of aiming at. When Curio made these proposals to the
people in Cæsar's name, he was loudly applauded, and some
threw garlands towards him, and dismissed him as they do
successful wrestlers, crowned with flowers. Antony, being
tribune, produced a letter sent from Cæsar on this occasion,
and read it, though the consuls did what they could to oppose
it. But Scipio, Pompey's father-in-law, proposed in the
Senate, that if Cæsar did not lay down his arms within such a
time, he should be voted an enemy; and the consuls putting it
to the question, whether Pompey should dismiss his soldiers,
and again, whether Cæsar should disband his, very few assented
to the first, but almost all to the latter. But Antony
proposing again, that both should lay down their commissions,
all but a very few agreed to it. Scipio was upon this very
violent, and Lentulus the consul cried aloud, that they had
need of arms, and not of suffrages, against a robber; so that
the senators for the present adjourned, and appeared in
mourning as a mark of their grief for the dissension.
Afterwards there came other letters from Cæsar, which seemed
yet more moderate, for he proposed to quit everything else,
and only to retain Gaul within the Alps, Illyricum, and two
legions, till he should stand a second time for consul.
Cicero, the orator, who was lately returned from Cilicia,
endeavored to reconcile differences, and softened Pompey, who
was willing to comply in other things, but not to allow him
the soldiers. At last Cicero used his persuasions with Cæsar's
friends to accept of the provinces and 6,000 soldiers only,

and so to make up the quarrel. And Pompey was inclined to give
way to this, but Lentulus, the consul, would not hearken to
it, but drove Antony and Curio out of the senate-house with
insults, by which he afforded Caesar [then at Ravenna] the
most plausible pretence that could be, and one which he could
readily use to inflame the soldiers, by showing them two
persons of such repute and authority, who were forced to
escape in a hired carriage in the dress of slaves. For so they
were glad to disguise themselves, when they fled out of Rome.
There were not about him at that time [November, B. C. 50]
above 300 horse, and 5,000 foot: for the rest of his army,
which was left behind the Alps, was to be brought after him by
officers who had received orders for that purpose. But he
thought the first motion towards the design which he had on
foot did not require large forces at present, and that what
was wanted was to make this first step suddenly, and so as to
astound his enemies with the boldness of it. … Therefore, he
commanded his captains and other officers to go only with
their swords in their hands, without any other arms, and make
themselves masters of Ariminum, a large city cf Gaul, with as
little disturbance and bloodshed as possible. He committed the
care of these forces to Hortensius, and himself spent the day
in public as a stander-by and spectator of the gladiators, who
exercised before him. A little before night he attended to his
person, and then went into the hall, and conversed for some
time with those he had invited to supper, till it began to
grow dusk, when he rose from table, and made his excuses to
the company, begging them to stay till he came back, having
already given private directions to a few immediate friends,
that they should follow him, not all the same way, but some
one way, some another. He himself got into one of the hired
carriages, and drove at first another way, but presently
turned towards Ariminum."
Plutarch,
Cæsar
(Clough's Dryden's translation)
ALSO IN
Cæsar,
Commentaries on the Civil War,
book 1, chapters 1-8.
T. Arnold,
History of the Later Roman Commonwealth,
chapter 8 (volume 1).
{2692}
ROME: B. C. 50-49.
Cæsar's passage of the Rubicon.
Flight of Pompeius and the Consuls from Italy.
Cæsar at the capital.
"About ten miles from Ariminum, and twice that distance from
Ravenna, the frontier of Italy and Gaul was traced by the
stream of the Rubicon. This little river, red with the
drainage of the peat mosses from which it descends [and
evidently deriving its name from its color], is formed by the
union of three mountain torrents, and is nearly dry in the
summer, like most of the water courses on the eastern side of
the Appenines. In the month of November the winter flood might
present a barrier more worthy of the important position which
it once occupied; but the northern frontier of Italy had long
been secure from invasion, and the channel was spanned by a
bridge of no great dimensions. … The ancients amused
themselves with picturing the guilty hesitation with which the
founder of a line of despots stood, as they imagined, on the
brink of the fatal river [in the night of the 27th of
November, B. C. 50, corrected calendar, or January 15, B. C.
49, without the correction], and paused for an instant before
he committed the irrevocable act, pregnant with the destinies
of a long futurity. Cæsar, indeed, in his Commentaries, makes
no allusion to the passage of the Rubicon, and, at the moment
of stepping on the bridge, his mind was probably absorbed in
the arrangements he had made for the march of his legions or
for their reception by his friends in Ariminum."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 14.
After the crossing of the Rubicon there were still more,
messages between Cæsar and Pompey, and the consuls supporting
the latter. "Each demands that the other shall first abandon
his position. Of course, all these messages mean nothing.
Cæsar, complaining bitterly of injustice, sends a portion of
his small army still farther into the Roman territory. Marc
Antony goes to Arezzo with five cohorts, and Cæsar occupies
three other cities with a cohort each. The marvel is that he
was not attacked and driven back by Pompey. We may probably
conclude that the soldiers, though under the command of
Pompey, were not trustworthy as against Cæsar. As Cæsar
regrets his two legions, so no doubt do the two legions regret
their commander. At any rate, the consular forces, with Pompey
and the consuls and a host of senators, retreat southwards to
Brundusium—Brindisi—intending to leave Italy. … During this
retreat, the first blood in the civil war is spilt at
Corfinium, a town which, if it now stood at all, would stand
in the Abruzzi. Cæsar there is victor in a small engagement,
and obtained possession of the town. The Pompeian officers
whom he finds there he sends away, and allows them even to
carry with them money which he believes to have been taken
from the public treasury. Throughout his route southward the
soldiers of Pompey—who had heretofore been his soldiers—return
to him. Pompey and the consuls still retreat, and still Cæsar
follows them, though Pompey had boasted, when first warned to
beware of Cæsar, that he had only to stamp upon Italian soil
and legions would arise from the earth ready to obey him. He
knows, however, that away from Rome, in her provinces, in
Macedonia and Achaia, in Asia and Cilicia, in Sicily,
Sardinia, and Africa, in Mauritania and the two Spains, there
are Roman legions which as yet know no Cæsar. It may be better
for Pompey that he should stamp his foot somewhere out of
Italy. At any rate he sends the obedient consuls and his
attendant senators over to Dyrrhachium in Illyria with a part
of his army, and follows with the remainder as soon as Cæsar
is at his heels. Cæsar makes an effort to intercept him and
his fleet, but in that he fails. Thus Pompey deserts Rome and
Italy,—and never again sees the imperial city or the fair
land. Cæsar explains to us why he does not follow his enemy
and endeavour at once to put an end to the struggle. Pompey is
provided with shipping and he is not; and he is aware that the
force of Rome lies in her provinces. Moreover, Rome may be
starved by Pompey, unless he, Cæsar, can take care that the
corn-growing countries, which are the granaries of Rome, are
left free for the use of the city."
A. Trollope,
The Commentaries of Cæsar,
chapter 9.
Turning back from Brundisium, Cæsar proceeded to Rome to take
possession of the seat of government which his enemies had
abandoned to him. He was scrupulous of legal forms, and, being
a proconsul, holding military command, did not enter the city
in person. But he called together, outside of the walls, such
of the senators as were in Rome and such as could be persuaded
to return to the city, and obtained their formal sanction to
various acts. Among the measures so authorized was the
appropriation of the sacred treasure stored up in the vaults
of the temple of Saturn. It was a consecrated reserve, to be
used for no purpose except the repelling of a Gallic invasion
which had been, for many generations, the greatest dread of
Rome. Cæsar claimed it, because he had put an end to that
fear, by conquering the Gauls. His stay at Rome on this
occasion (April, B. C. 49) was brief, for he needed to make
haste to encounter the Pompeian legions in Spain, and to
secure the submission of all the west before he followed
Pompeius into the Eastern world.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapters 1-4.
ALSO IN
J. A. Froude,
Cæsar,
chapter 21.
ROME: B. C. 49.
Cæsar's first campaign against the Pompeians in Spain.
His conquest of Massilia.
In Spain, all the strong forces of the country were commanded
by partisans of Pompeius and the Optimate party. Cæsar had
already sent forward C. Fabius from Southern Gaul with three
legions, to take possession of the passes of the Pyrenees and
the principal Spanish roads. Following quickly in person, he
found that his orders had been vigorously obeyed. Fabius was
confronting the Pompeian generals, Afranius and Petreius at
Ilerda (modern Lerida in Catalonia), on the river Sicoris
(modern Segre), where they made their stand. They had five
legions of well-trained veterans, besides native auxiliaries
to a considerable number. Cæsar's army, with the
reinforcements that he had added to it, was about the same.
The Pompeians had every advantage of position, commanding the
passage of the river by a permanent bridge of stone and
drawing supplies from both banks. Cæsar, on the other hand,
had great difficulty in maintaining his communications, and
was placed in mortal peril by a sudden flood which destroyed
his bridges. Yet, without any general battle, by pure
strategic skill and by resistless energy, he forced the
hostile army out of its advantageous position, intercepted its
retreat and compelled an unconditional surrender. This Spanish
campaign, which occupied but forty days, and which was
decisive of the contest for all Spain, was one of the finest
of Cæsar's military achievements.
{2693}
The Greek city of Massilia (modern Marseilles), still
nominally independent and the ally of Rome, although
surrounded by the Roman conquests in Gaul, had seen fit to
range itself on the side of Pompeius and the Optimates, and to
close its gates in the face of Cæsar, when he set out for his
campaign in Spain. He had not hesitated to leave three legions
of his moderate army before the city, while he ordered a fleet
to be built at Arelates (Arles), for coöperation in the siege.
Decimus Brutus commanded the fleet and Trebonius was the
general of the land force. The siege was made notable by
remarkable engineering operations on both sides, but the
courage of the Massiliots was of no long endurance. When Cæsar
returned from his Spanish campaign he found them ready to
surrender. Notwithstanding they had been guilty of a great act
of treachery during the siege, by breaking an armistice, he
spared their city, on account, he said, of its name and
antiquity. His soldiers, who had expected rich booty, were
offended, and a dangerous mutiny, which occurred soon
afterwards at Placentia, had this for its main provocation.
Cæsar,
The Civil War,
book 1, chapters 36-81,
and book 2, chapters 1-22.
ALSO IN
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapters 5 and 8.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapters 15-16.
ROME: B. C. 48.
The war in Epirus and Thessaly.
Cæsar's decisive victory at Pharsalia.
Having established his authority in Italy, Gaul and Spain, and
having legalized it by procuring from the assembly of the
Roman citizens his formal election to the consulship, for the
year A. U. 706 (B. C. 48), Cæsar prepared to follow Pompeius
and the Senatorial party across the Adriatic. As the calendar
then stood, it was in January that he arrived at Brundisium to
take ship; but the season corresponded with November in the
calendar as Cæsar, himself, corrected it soon afterwards. The
vessels at his command were so few that he could transport
only 15,500 of his troops on the first expedition, and it was
with that number that he landed at Palæste on the coast of
Epirus. The sea was swarming with the fleets of his enemies,
and, although he escaped them in going, his small squadron was
caught on the return voyage and many of its ships destroyed.
Moreover, the Pompeian cruisers became so vigilant that the
second detachment of his army, left behind at Brundisium,
under Marcus Antonius, found no opportunity to follow him
until the winter had nearly passed. Meantime, with his small
force, Cæsar proceeded boldly into Macedonia to confront
Pompeius, reducing fortresses and occupying towns as he
marched. Although his great antagonist had been gathering
troops in Macedonia for months, and now numbered an army of
some 90,000 or 100,000 men, it was Cæsar, not Pompeius, who
pressed for a battle, even before Mark Antony had joined him.
As soon as the junction had occurred he pushed the enemy with
all possible vigor. But Pompeius had no confidence in his
untrained host. He drew his whole army into a strongly
fortified, immense camp, on the sea coast near Dyrrhachium, at
a point called Petra, and there he defied Cæsar to dislodge
him. The latter undertook to wall him in on the land-side of
his camp, by a line of ramparts and towers seventeen miles in
length. It was an undertaking too great for his force.
Pompeius made a sudden flank movement which disconcerted all
his plans, and so defeated and demoralized his men that he was
placed in extreme peril for a time. Had the Senatorial chief
shown half of Cæsar's energy at that critical moment, the
cause of Cæsar would probably have been lost. But Pompeius and
his party took time to rejoice over their victory, while Cæsar
framed plans to repair his defeat. He promptly abandoned his
lines before the enemy's camp and fell back into the interior
of the country, to form a junction with certain troops which
he had previously sent eastward to meet reënforcements then
coming to Pompeius. He calculated that Pompeius would follow
him, and Pompeius did so. The result was to give Cæsar, at
last, the opportunity he had been seeking for months, to
confront with his tried legions the motley levies of his
antagonist on an open field. The decisive and ever memorable
battle was fought in Thessaly, on the plain of Pharsalia,
through which flows the river Enipeus, and overlooking which,
from a contiguous height, stood anciently the city of
Pharsalus. It was fought on the 9th of August, in the year 48
before Christ. It was a battle quickly ended. The
foot-soldiers of Pompeius out-numbered those of Cæsar at least
as two to one; but they could not stand the charge which the
latter made upon them. His cavalry was largely composed of the
young nobility of Rome, and Cæsar had few horsemen with which
to meet them; but he set against them a strong reserve of his
sturdy veterans on foot, and they broke the horsemen's ranks.
The defeat was speedily a rout; there was no rallying.
Pompeius fled with a few attendants and made his way to
Alexandria, where his tragical fate overtook him. Some of the
other leaders escaped in different directions. Some, like
Brutus, submitted to Cæsar, who was practically the master,
from that hour, of the Roman realm, although Thapsus had still
to be fought.
Cæsar,
The Civil War,
book 3.
ALSO IN
W. W. Fowler,
Julius Cæsar,
chapter 16.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapters 10-17.
T. A. Dodge,
Cæsar,
chapters 31-35.
ROME: B. C. 48-47.
Pursuit or Pompeius to Egypt.
His assassination.
Cæsar at Alexandria, with Cleopatra.
The rising against him.
His peril.
His deliverance.
See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 48-47.
ROME: B. C. 47-46.
Cæsar's overthrow or Pharnaces at Zela.
His return to Rome.
The last stand or his opponents in Africa.
Their defeat at Thapsus.
At the time when Cæsar was in a difficult position at
Alexandria, and the subjects of Rome were generally uncertain
as to whether their yoke would be broken or not by the pending
civil war, Pharnaces, son of the vanquished Pontic king,
Mithridates, made an effort to recover the lost kingdom of his
father. He himself had been a traitor to his father, and had
been rewarded for his treason by Pompeius, who gave him the
small kingdom of Bosporus, in the Crimea. He now thought the
moment favorable for regaining Pontus, Cappadocia and Lesser
Armenia. Cæsar's lieutenant in Asia Minor, Domitius Calvinus,
marched against him with a small force, and was badly defeated
at Nicopolis (B. C. 48), in Armenia Minor.
{2694}
As a consequence, Cæsar, on being extricated from Alexandria,
could not return to Rome, although his affairs there sorely
needed him, until he had restored the Roman authority in Asia
Minor. As soon as he could reach Pharnaces, although his army
was small in numbers, he struck and shattered the flimsy
throne at a single blow. The battle was fought (B. C. 47) at
Zela, in Pontus, where Mithridates had once gained a victory
over the Romans. It was of this battle that Cæsar is said to
have written his famous 'Veni, vidi, vici.' "Plutarch says
that this expression was used in a letter to one Amintius; the
name is probably a mistake. Suetonius asserts that the three
words were inscribed on a banner and carried in Cæsar's
triumph. Appian and Dion refer to them as notorious."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 18.
After defeating Pharnaces at Zela, destroying his army, "Cæsar
passed on through Galatia and Bithynia to the province of Asia
proper, settling affairs in every centre; and leaving the
faithful Mithridates [of Pergamum—See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 48-47]
with the title of King of the Bosphorus, as a guarantee for
the security of these provinces, he sailed for Italy, and
arrived at Tarentum before anyone was aware of his approach.
If he had really wasted time or lost energy in Egypt, he was
making up for it now. On the way from Tarentum to Brundisium
he met Cicero, who had been waiting for him here for nearly a
year. He alighted, embraced his old friend, and walked with
him some distance. The result of their talk was shown by
Cicero's conduct for the rest of Cæsar's lifetime; he retired
to his villas, and sought relief in literary work, encouraged
doubtless by Cæsar's ardent praise. The magical effect of
Cæsar's presence was felt throughout Italy; all sedition
ceased, and Rome, which had been the scene of riot and
bloodshed under the uncertain rule of Antonius, was quiet in
an instant. The master spent three months in the city, working
hard. He had been a second time appointed dictator while he
was in Egypt, and probably without any limit of time, space or
power; and he acted now without scruple as an absolute
monarch. Everything that had to be done he saw to himself.
Money was raised, bills were passed, the Senate recruited,
magistrates and provincial governors appointed. But there was
no time for any attempt at permanent organisation; he must
wrest Africa from his enemies. … He quelled a most serious
mutiny, in which even his faithful tenth legion was concerned,
with all his wonderful skill and knowledge of human nature;
sent on all available forces to Sicily, and arrived himself at
Lilybæum in the middle of December."
W. W. Fowler,
Julius Cæsar,
chapter 17.
The last stand of Cæsar's opponents as a party—the senatorial
party, or the republicans, as they are sometimes called—was
made in Africa, on the old Carthaginian territory, with the
city of Utica for their headquarters, and with Juba, the
Numidian king, for their active ally. Varus, who had held his
ground there, defeating and slaying Cæsar's friend Curio, was
joined first by Scipio, afterwards by Cato, Labienus and other
leaders, Cato having led a wonderful march through the desert
from the Lesser Syrtis. In the course of the year of respite
from pursuit which Cæsar's occupations elsewhere allowed them,
they gathered and organized a formidable army. It was near the
end of the year 47 B. G. that Cæsar assembled his forces at
Lilybæum, in Sicily, and sailed with the first detachment for
Africa. As happened so often to him in his bold military
adventures, the troops which should follow were delayed by
storms, and he was exposed to imminent peril before they
arrived. But he succeeded in fortifying and maintaining a
position on the coast, near Ruspina, until they came. As soon
as they reached him he offered battle to his adversaries, and
found presently an opportunity to force the fighting upon them
at Thapsus, a coast town in their possession, which he
attacked. The battle was decided by the first charge of
Cæsar's legionaries, which swept everything—foot-soldiers,
cavalry and elephants —before it. The victors in their
ferocity gave no quarter and slaughtered 10,000 of the enemy,
while losing from their own ranks but fifty men. The decisive
battle of Thapsus was fought on the 6th of April, B. C. 46,
uncorrected calendar, or February 6th, as corrected later.
Scipio, the commander, fled to Spain, was intercepted on the
voyage, and ended his own life. The high-minded, stoical Cato
committed suicide at Utica, rather than surrender his freedom
to Cæsar. Juba, the Numidian king, likewise destroyed himself
in despair; his kingdom was extinguished and Numidia became a
Roman province. A few scattered leaders of revolt still
disputed Cæsar's supremacy, but his power was firmly fixed.
A. Hirtius,
The African War.
ALSO IN
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapters 24-27.
ROME: B. C. 45:
Cæsar's last campaign against the Pompeians in Spain.
His victory at Munda.
After Thapsus, Cæsar had one more deadly and desperate battle
to fight for his sovereignty over the dominions of Rome. Cnæus
Pompeius, son of Pompeius Magnus, with Labienus and Varus, of
the survivors of the African field, had found disaffection in
Spain, out of which they drew an army, with Pompeius in
command. Cæsar marched in person against this new revolt,
crossing the Alps and the Pyrenees with his customary
celerity. After a number of minor engagements had been fought,
the decisive battle occurred at Munda, in the valley of the
Guadalquiver (modern Munda, between Honda and Malaga), on the
17th of March, B. C. 45. "Never, it is said, was the great
conqueror brought so near to defeat and destruction;" but he
won the day in the end, and only Sextus Pompeius survived
among the leaders of his enemies. The dead on the field were
30,000.
Julius Cæsar,
Commentary on the Spanish War.
ALSO IN
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 19.
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapter 30.
ROME: B. C. 45-44.
The Sovereignty of Cæsar and his titles.
His permanent Imperatorship.
His unfulfilled projects.
"At Home, official enthusiasm burst forth anew at the tidings
of these successes [in Spain]. The Senate decreed fifty days
of supplications, and recognized Cæsar's right to extend the
pomœrium, since he had extended the limits of the Empire. …
After Thapsus he was more than a demi-god; after Munda he was
a god altogether. A statue was raised to him in the temple of
Quirinus with the inscription: 'To the invincible God,' and a
college of priests, the Julian, was consecrated to him. … On
the 18th September the dictator appeared at the gates of Rome,
but he did not triumph till the beginning of October.
{2695}
This time there was no barbarian king or chieftain to veil the
victories won over citizens. But Cæsar thought he had no
longer need to keep up such consideration; since he was now
the State, his enemies, whatever name they bore, must be
enemies of the State. … It was expected that Cæsar, having
suffered so many outrages, would now punish severely, and
Cicero, who had always doubted his clemency, believed that
tyranny would break out as soon as the tyrant was above fear.
But jealousies, recollections of party strifes, did not reach
to the height of Cæsar. … He restored the statues of Sylla; he
replaced that of Pompey on the rostra. … He pardoned Cassius,
who had tried to assassinate him, the consularis Marcellus who
had stirred up war against him, and Quintus Ligarius who had
betrayed him in Africa. As a temporary precaution, however, he
forbade to the Pompeians, by a 'lex Hirtia,' admission to the
magistracy. For his authority, Cæsar sought no new forms. …
Senate, comitia, magistracies existed as before; but he
centred public action in himself alone by combining in his own
hands all the republican offices. The instrument which Cæsar
used in order to give to his power legal sanction was the
Senate. In former times, the general, after the triumph; laid
aside his title of imperator and imperium, which included
absolute authority over the army, the judicial department and
the administrative power; Cæsar, by a decree of the Senate,
retained both during life, with the right of drawing freely
from the treasury. His dictatorship and his office of
præfectus morum were declared perpetual; the consulship was
offered him for ten years, but he would not accept it; the
Senate wished to join executive to electoral authority by
offering him the right of appointment in all curule and
plebeian offices; he reserved for himself merely the privilege
of nominating half the magistracy. The Senate had enjoined the
members chosen to swear, before entering on office, that they
would undertake nothing contrary to the dictator's acts, these
having the force of law. Further, they gave to his person the
legal inviolability of the tribunes, and in order to ensure
it, knights and senators offered to serve as guards, while the
whole Senate took an oath to watch over his safety. To the
reality of power were added the outward signs. In the Senate,
at the theatre, in the circus, on his tribunal, he sat,
dressed in the royal robe, on a throne of gold, and his effigy
was stamped on the coins, where the Roman magistrates had not
yet ventured to engrave more than their names. They even went
as far as talking of succession, as in a regular monarchy. His
title of imperator and the sovereign pontificate were
transmissible to his legitimate or adopted children. … Cæsar
was not deceived by the secret perfidy which prompted such
servilities, and he valued them as they deserved. But his
enemies found in them fresh reasons for hating the great man
who had saved them. … The Senate had … sunk from its character
of supreme council of the Republic into that of a committee of
consultation, which the master often forgot to consult. The
Civil war had decimated it; Cæsar appointed to it brave
soldiers, even sons of freedmen who had served him well, and a
considerable number of provincials, Spaniards, Gauls of Gallia
Narbonensis, who had long been Romans. He had so many services
to reward that his Senate reached the number of 900 members. …
One day the Senate went in a body to the temple of Venus
Genetrix to present to Cæsar certain decrees drawn up in his
honor. The demi-god was ill and dared not leave his couch.
This was imprudent, for the report spread that he had not
deigned to rise. … The higher nobles remained apart, not from
honours, but from power; but they forgot neither Pharsalia nor
Thapsus. They would have consented to obey on condition of
having the appearance of commanding. This disguised obedience
is for an able government more convenient than outward
servility. A few concessions made to vanity obtain tranquil
possession of power. This was the policy of Augustus, but it
is not that of great ambitions or of a true statesman. These
pretences leave everything doubtful; nothing is settled; and
Cæsar wished to lay the foundations of a government which
should bring a new order of things out of a chaos of ruins.
Unless we are paying too much attention to mere anecdotes, he
desired the royal diadem. … It is difficult not to believe
that Cæsar considered the constituting of a monarchical power
as the rational achievement of the revolution which he was
carrying out. In this way we could explain the persistence of
his friends in offering him a title odious to the Romans, who
were quite ready to accept a monarch, but not monarchy. … In
order to attain to this royal title … he must mount still
higher, and this new greatness he would seek in the East. … It
was meet that he should wipe out the second military
humiliation of Rome after effacing the first; that he should
avenge Crassus."
V. Duruy,
History of Rome,
chapter 58, sections 2-3 (volume 3).
"Cæsar was born to do great things, and had a passion after
honor. … It was in fact a sort of emulous struggle with
himself, as it had been with another, how he might outdo his
past actions by his future. In pursuit of these thoughts he
resolved to make war upon the Parthians, and when he had
subdued them, to pass through Hyrcania; thence to march along
by the Caspian Sea to Mount Caucasus, and so on about Pontus,
till he came into Scythia; then to overrun all the countries
bordering upon Germany, and Germany itself; and so to return
through Gaul into Italy, after completing the whole circle of
his intended empire, and bounding it on every side by the
ocean. While preparations were making for this expedition, he
proposed to dig through the isthmus on which Corinth stands;
and appointed Anienus to superintend the work. He had also a
design of diverting the Tiber, and carrying it by a deep
channel directly from Rome to Circeii, and so into the sea
near Tarracina, that there might be a safe and easy passage
for all merchants who traded to Rome. Besides this, he
intended to drain all the marshes by Pomentium and Setia, and
gain ground enough from the water to employ many thousands of
men in tillage. He proposed further to make great mounds on
the shore nearest Rome, to hinder the sea from breaking in
upon the land, to clear the coast at Ostia of all the hidden
rocks and shoals that made it unsafe for shipping, and to form
ports and harbors fit to receive the large number of vessels
that would frequent them. These things were designed without
being carried into effect; but his reformation of the calendar
[See CALENDAR, JULIAN], in order to rectify the irregularity
of time, was not only projected with great scientific
ingenuity, but was brought to its completion, and proved of
very great use."
Plutarch,
Cæsar (Clough's Dryden's translation).
ALSO IN
T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 5, chapter 11, with note.
{2696}
ROME: B. C. 44.
The Assassination of Cæsar.
"The question of the kingship was over; but a vague alarm had
been created, which answered the purpose of the Optimates.
Cæsar was at their mercy any day. They had sworn to maintain
all his acts. They had sworn, after Cicero's speech,
individually and collectively to defend his life. Cæsar,
whether he believed them sincere or not, had taken them at
their word, and came daily to the Senate unarmed and without a
guard. … There were no troops in the city. Lepidus, Cæsar's
master of the horse, who had been appointed governor of Gaul,
was outside the gates with a few cohorts; but Lepidus was a
person of feeble character, and they trusted to be able to
deal with him. Sixty senators, in all, were parties to the
immediate conspiracy. Of these, nine tenths were members of
the old faction whom Cæsar had pardoned, and who, of all his
acts, resented most that he had been able to pardon them. They
were the men who had stayed at home, like Cicero, from the
fields of Thapsus and Munda, and had pretended penitence and
submission that they might take an easier road to rid
themselves of their enemy. Their motives were the ambition of
their order and personal hatred of Cæsar; but they persuaded
themselves that they were animated by patriotism, and as, in
their hands, the Republic had been a mockery of liberty, so
they aimed at restoring it by a mock tyrannicide. … One man
only they were able to attract into coöperation who had a
reputation for honesty, and could be conceived, without
absurdity, to be animated by a disinterested purpose. Marcus
Brutus was the son of Cato's sister Servilia, the friend, and
a scandal said the mistress, of Cæsar. That he was Cæsar's son
was not too absurd for the credulity of Roman drawing-rooms.
Brutus himself could not have believed in the existence of
such a relation, for he was deeply attached to his mother; and
although, under the influence of his uncle Cato, he had taken
the Senate's side in the war, he had accepted afterwards not
pardon only from Cæsar, but favors of many kinds, for which he
had professed, and probably felt, some real gratitude. …
Brutus was perhaps the only member of the senatorial party in
whom Cæsar felt genuine confidence. His known integrity, and
Cæsar's acknowledged regard for him, made his accession to the
conspiracy an object of particular importance. … Brutus, once
wrought upon, became with Cassius the most ardent in the cause
which assumed the aspect to him of a sacred duty. Behind them
were the crowd of senators of the familiar faction, and others
worse than they, who had not even the excuse of having been
partisans of the beaten cause; men who had fought at Cæsar's
side till the war was over, and believed, like Labienus, that
to them Cæsar owed his fortune, and that he alone ought not to
reap the harvest. … The Ides of March drew near. Cæsar was to
set out in a few days for Parthia. Decimus Brutus was going,
as governor, to the north of Italy, Lepidus to Gaul, Marcus
Brutus to Macedonia, and Trebonius to Asia Minor. Antony,
Cæsar's colleague in the consulship, was to remain in Italy.
Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law, was to be consul with him as
soon as Cæsar should have left for the East. The foreign
appointments were all made for five years, and in another week
the party would be scattered. The time for action had come, if
action there was to be. … An important meeting of the Senate
had been called for the Ides (the 15th) of the month. The
Pontifices, it was whispered, intended to bring on again the
question of the Kingship before Cæsar's departure. The
occasion would be appropriate. The Senate-house itself was a
convenient scene of operations. The conspirators met at supper
the evening before at Cassius's house. Cicero, to his regret,
was not invited. The plan was simple, and was rapidly
arranged. Cæsar would attend unarmed. The senators not in the
secret would be unarmed also. The party who intended to act
were to provide themselves with poniards, which could be
easily concealed in their paper boxes. So far all was simple;
but a question rose whether Cæsar only was to be killed, or
whether Antony and Lepidus were to be dispatched along with
him. They decided that Cæsar's death would be sufficient. …
Antony and Lepidus were not to be touched. For the rest the
assassins had merely to be in their places in the Senate in
good time. When Cæsar entered, Trebonius was to detain Antony
in conversation at the door. The others were to gather about
Cæsar's chair on pretence of presenting a petition, and so
could make an end. A gang of gladiators were to be secreted in
the adjoining theatre to be ready should any unforeseen
difficulty present itself. … Strange stories were told in
after years of the uneasy labors of the elements that night. …
Calpurnia dreamt her husband was murdered, and that she saw
him ascending into heaven, and received by the hand of God. In
the morning (March 15th) the sacrifices were again
unfavorable. Cæsar was restless. Some natural disorder
affected his spirits, and his spirits were reacting on his
body. Contrary to his usual habit, he gave way to depression.
He decided, at his wife's entreaty, that he would not attend
the Senate that day. The house was full. The conspirators were
in their places with their daggers ready. Attendants came in
to remove Cæsar's chair. It was announced that he was not
coming. Delay might be fatal. They conjectured that he already
suspected something. A day's respite, and all might be
discovered. His familiar friend whom he trusted —the
coincidence is striking—was employed to betray him. Decimus
Brutus, whom it was impossible for him to distrust, went to
entreat his attendance. … Cæsar shook off his uneasiness, and
rose to go. As he crossed the hall his statue fell and
shivered on the stones. Some servant, perhaps, had heard
whispers, and wished to warn him. As he still passed on, a
stranger thrust a scroll into his hand, and begged him to read
it on the spot. It contained a list of the conspirators, with
a clear account of the plot. He supposed it to be a petition
and placed it carelessly among his other papers. The fate of
the Empire hung upon a thread, but the thread was not broken.
… Cæsar entered and took his seat.
{2697}
His presence awed men, in spite of themselves, and the
conspirators had determined to act at once, lest they should
lose courage to act at all. He was familiar and easy of
access. They gathered round him. … One had a story to tell
him; another some favor to ask. Tullius Cimber, whom he had
just made governor of Bithynia, then came close to him, with
some request which he was unwilling to grant. Cimber caught
his gown, as if in entreaty, and dragged it from his
shoulders. Cassius, who was standing behind, stabbed him in
the throat. He started up with a cry and caught Cassius's arm.
Another poniard entered his breast, giving a mortal wound. He
looked round, and seeing not one friendly face, but only a
ring of daggers pointing at him, he drew his gown over his
head, gathered the folds about him that he might fall
decently, and sank down without uttering another word. … The
Senate rose with shrieks and confusion, and rushed into the
Forum. The crowd outside caught the words that Cæsar was dead,
and scattered to their houses. Antony, guessing that those who
had killed Cæsar would not spare himself, hurried off into
concealment. The murderers, bleeding some of them from wounds
which they had given one another in their eagerness, followed,
crying that the tyrant was dead, and that Rome was free; and
the body of the great Cæsar was left alone in the house where
a few weeks before Cicero told him that he was so necessary to
his country that every senator would die before harm should
reach him."
J. A. Froude,
Cæsar,
chapter 26.
ROME: B. C. 44.
The genius and character of Cæsar.
His rank among great men.
"Was Cæsar, upon the whole, the greatest of men? Dr. Beattie
once observed, that if that question were left to be collected
from the suffrages already expressed in books, and scattered
throughout the literature of all nations, the scale would be
found to have turned prodigiously in Cæsar's favor, as against
any single competitor; and there is no doubt whatsoever, that
even amongst his own countrymen, and his own contemporaries,
the same verdict would have been returned, had it been
collected upon the famous principle of Themistocles, that he
should be reputed the first, whom the greatest number of rival
voices had pronounced the second."
T. De Quincey,
The Cæsars,
chapter 1.
"The founder of the Roman Empire was a very great man. With
such genius and such fortune it is not surprising that he
should be made an idol. In intellectual stature he was at
least an inch higher than his fellows, which is in itself
enough to confound all our notions of right and wrong. He had
the advantage of being a statesman before he was a soldier,
whereas Napoleon was a soldier before he was a statesman. His
ambition coincided with the necessity of the world, which
required to be held together by force; and, therefore, his
Empire endured for four hundred, or, if we include its Eastern
offset, for fourteen hundred years, while that of Napoleon
crumbled to pieces in four. But unscrupulous ambition was the
root of his character. It was necessary, in fact, to enable
him to trample down the respect for legality which still
hampered other men. To connect him with any principle seems to
me impossible. He came forward, it is true, as the leader of
what is styled the democratic party, and in that sense the
empire which he founded may be called democratic. But to the
gamblers who brought their fortunes to that vast hazard table,
the democratic and aristocratic parties were merely rouge and
noir. The social and political equity, the reign of which we
desire to see, was, in truth, unknown to the men of Cæsar's
time. It is impossible to believe that there was an essential
difference of principle between one member of the triumvirate
and another. The great adventurer had begun by getting deeply
into debt, and had thus in fact bound himself to overthrow the
republic. He fomented anarchy to prepare the way for his
dictatorship. He shrank from no accomplice however tainted,
not even from Catiline; from no act however profligate or even
cruel. … The noblest feature in Cæsar's character was his
clemency. But we are reminded that it was ancient, not modern
clemency, when we find numbered among the signal instances of
it his having cut the throats of the pirates before he hanged
them, and his having put to death without torture (simplici
morte punivit) a slave suspected of conspiring against his
life. Some have gone so far as to speak of him as the
incarnation of humanity. But in the whole history of Roman
conquest will you find a more ruthless conqueror? A million of
Gauls we are told perished by the sword. Multitudes were sold
into slavery. The extermination of the Eburones went to the
verge even of ancient licence. The gallant Vercingetorix, who
had fallen into Cæsar's hands under circumstances which would
have touched any but a depraved heart, was kept by him a
captive for six years, and butchered in cold blood on the day
of the triumph. The sentiment of humanity was then
undeveloped. Be it so, but then we must not call Cæsar the
incarnation of humanity. Vast plans are ascribed to Cæsar at
the time of his death, and it seems to be thought that a world
of hopes for humanity perished when he fell. But if he had
lived and acted for another century, what could he have done
with those moral and political materials but found, what he
did found, a military and sensualist empire. A multitude of
projects are attributed to him by writers, who, we must
remember, are late, and who make him ride a fairy charger with
feet like the hands of a man. Some of these projects are
really great, such as the codification of the law, and
measures for the encouragement of intellect and science;
others are questionable, such as the restoration of commercial
cities from which commerce had departed; others, great works
to be accomplished by an unlimited command of men and money,
are the common dreams of every Nebuchadnezzar. … Still Cæsar
was a very great man, and he played a dazzling part, as all
men do who come just at the fall of an old system, when
society is as clay in the hands of the potter, and found a new
system in its place; while the less dazzling task of making
the new system work, by probity and industry, and of restoring
the shattered allegiance of a people to its institutions,
descends upon unlaurelled heads. But that the men of his time
were bound to recognise in him a Messiah, to use the phrase of
the Emperor of the French, and that those who opposed him were
Jews crucifying their Messiah is an impression which I venture
to think will in time subside."
Goldwin Smith,
The Last Republicans of Rome
(Macmillan's Magazine, April, 1868).
ALSO IN:
T. Arnold,
History of the Later Roman Commonwealth,
chapter 9 (volume 2).
A. Trollope,
Life of Cicero,
volume 2, chapter 8.
{2698}
ROME: B. C. 44.
After Cæsar's death.
Flight of "the Liberators."
Mark Antony in power.-
Arrival and wise conduct of Cæsar's heir, the young Octavius.
The assassins of Cæsar were not long in discovering that Rome
gave no applause to their bloody deed. Its first effect was a
simply stupefying consternation. The Senators fled,—the forum
and the streets were nearly emptied. When Brutus attempted an
harangue his hearers were few and silent. In gloomy alarm, he
made haste, with his associates, to take refuge on the heights
of the capitol. During the night which followed, a few
senators, who approved the assassination—Cicero among the
number—climbed the hill and held council with them in their
place of retreat. The result was a second attempt made, on the
following day, to rouse public feeling in their favor by
speeches in the forum. The demonstration was again a failure,
and the "liberators," as they wished to be deemed, returned
with disappointment to the capitol. Meantime, the surviving
consul, who had been Cæsar's colleague for the year, M.
Antonius—known more commonly as Mark Antony—had acted with
vigor to secure power in his own hands. He had taken
possession of the great treasure which Cæsar left, and had
acquired his papers. He had come to a secure understanding,
moreover, with Lepidus, Cæsar's Master of Horse, who
controlled a legion quartered near by, and who really
commanded the situation, if his energy and his abilities had
been equal to it. Lepidus marched his legion into the city,
and its presence preserved order. Yet, with all the advantage
in their favor, neither Antony nor Lepidus took any bold
attitude against Cæsar's murderers. On the contrary, Antony
listened to propositions from them and consented, as consul,
to call a meeting of the Senate for deliberation on their act.
At that meeting he even advocated what might be called a
decree of oblivion, so far as concerned the striking down of
Cæsar, and a confirmation of all the acts executed and
unexecuted, of the late Imperator. These had included the
recent appointment of Brutus, Cassius and other leaders among
the assassins to high proconsular commands in the provinces.
Of course the proposed measure was acceptable to them and
their friends, while Antony, having Cæsar's papers in his
possession, expected to gain everything from it. Under cover
of the blank confirmation of Cæsar's acts, he found in Cæsar's
papers a ground of authority for whatever he willed to do, and
was accused of forging without limit where the genuine
documents failed him. At the same time, taking advantage of
the opportunity that was given to him by a public funeral
decreed to Cæsar, he delivered an artful oration, which
infuriated the people and drove the bloodstained "liberators"
in terror from the city. But in many ways Antonius weakened
the strong position which his skilful combinations had won for
him. In his undisguised selfishness he secured no friends of
his own; he alienated the friends of Cæsar by his calm
indifference to the crime of the assassins of Cæsar, while he
harvested for himself the fruits of it; above all, he offended
and insulted the people by his impudent appropriation of
Cæsar's vast hoard of wealth. The will of the slain Imperator
had been read, and it was known that he had bequeathed three
hundred sesterces—nearly £3 sterling, or $15—to every citizen
of Rome. The heir named to the greater part of the estate was
Cæsar's favorite grand-nephew (grandson of his younger sister,
Julia) Caius Octavius, who became, by the terms of the will,
his adopted son, and who was henceforth to bear the name Caius
Julius Cæsar Octavianus. The young heir, then but eighteen
years of age, was at Apollonia, in Illyria, at the quarters of
a considerable force which Cæsar had assembled there. With
wonderful coolness and prudence for his age, he declined
proposals to lead the army to Rome, for the assertion of his
rights, but went quietly thither with a few friends, feeling
the public pulse as he journeyed. At Rome he demanded from
Antony the moneys which Cæsar had left, but the profligate and
reckless consul had spent them and would give no account. By
great exertions Octavius raised sufficient means on his own
account to pay Cæsar's legacy to the Roman citizens, and
thereby he consolidated a popular feeling in his own favor,
against Antony, which placed him, at once, in important
rivalry with the latter. It enabled him presently to share the
possession of power with Antony and Lepidus, in the Second
Triumvirate, and, finally, to seize the whole sovereignty
which Cæsar intended to bequeath to him.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapters 23-24.
ALSO IN:
G. Long,
Decline of the Roman Republic,
volume 5, chapter 34.
ROME: B. C. 44-42.
Destruction of the Liberators.
Combination of Antony, Octavius and Lepidus.
The Second Triumvirate.
Mark Antony's arrangement of peace with the murderers of
Cæsar, on the basis of a confirmation in the Senate of all
Cæsar's acts, gave to Marcus Brutus the government of
Macedonia, to Decimus Brutus that of Cisalpine Gaul, and to
Cassius that of Syria, since Cæsar had already named them to
those several commands before they slew him. But Antony
succeeded ere long in procuring decrees from the Senate,
transferring Macedonia to his brother, and Syria to Dolabella.
A little later he obtained a vote of the people giving
Cisalpine Gaul to himself, and cancelling the commission of
Decimus Brutus. His consular term was now near its expiration
and he had no intention to surrender the power he had enjoyed.
An army in northern Italy would afford the support which his
plans required. But, before those plans were ripe, his
position had grown exceedingly precarious. The Senate and the
people were alike unfriendly to him, and alike disposed to
advance Octavius in opposition. The latter, without office or
commission, had already, in the lawless manner of the time, by
virtue of the encouragement given to him, collected an army of
several legions under his personal banner. Decimus Brutus
refused to surrender the government of Gaul, and was supported
by the best wishes of the Senate in defying Antony to wrest it
from him. The latter now faced the situation boldly, and,
although two legions brought from Epirus went over to
Octavius, he collected a strong force at Ariminum, marched
into Cisalpine Gaul and blockaded Decimus Brutus in Mutina
(modern Modena). Meantime, new consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, had
taken office at Rome, and the Senate, led by Cicero, had
declared its hostility to Antony.
{2699}
Octavius was called upon to join the new consuls with his
army, in proceeding against the late consul—now treated as a
public enemy, though not so pronounced. He did so, and two
battles were fought, on the 15th of April, B. C. 43, at Forum
Gallorum, and on the 27th of the same month under the walls of
Mutina, which forced Antony to retreat, but which cost Rome
the lives of both her consuls. Antony retired across the Alps
and joined his old friend Lepidus in Transalpine Gaul.
Octavius declined to follow. Instead of doing so, he sent a
military deputation to Rome to demand the consulship, and
quickly followed it with his army when the demand had been
refused. The demonstration proved persuasive, and he was
elected consul, with his half-brother for colleague. His next
business was to come to terms with Antony and Lepidus, as
against the Liberators and their friends. A conference was
arranged, and the three new masters of Rome met in October, B.
C. 43, on an island near Bononia (modern Bologna),
constituting themselves a commission of three—a triumvirate
—to settle the affairs of the commonwealth. They framed a
formal contract of five years' duration; divided the powers of
government between themselves; named officials for the
subordinate places; and—most serious proceeding of
all—prepared a proscription list, as Sulla had done, of
enemies to be put out of the way. It was an appalling list of
300 senators (the immortal Cicero at their head) and 2,000
knights. When the work of massacre in Rome and Italy had been
done, and when the terrified Senate had legalized the
self-assumed title and authority of the triumvirs, these
turned their attention to the East, where M. Brutus and
Cassius had established and maintained themselves in power.
Decimus Brutus was already slain, after desertion by his army
and capture in attempted flight. In the summer of the year 42
B. C., Antony led a division of the joint army of the
triumvirate across the sea and through Macedonia, followed
soon after by Octavius with additional forces. They were met
at Philippi, and there, in two great battles, fought with an
interval of twenty days between, the republic of Rome was
finally done to death. "The battle of Philippi, in the
estimation of the Roman writers, was the most memorable
conflict in their military annals. The numbers engaged on
either side far exceed all former experience. Eighty thousand
legionaries alone were counted on the one side, and perhaps
120,000 on the other—at least three times as many as fought at
Pharsalia." Both Cassius and Brutus died by their own hands.
There was no more opposition to the triumvirs, except from
Sextus Pompeius, last survivor of the family of the great
Pompeius, who had created for himself at sea a little
half-piratical realm, and who forced the three to recognize
him for a time as a fourth power in the Roman world. But he,
too, perished, B. C. 35. For seven years, from B. C. 42 to B.
C. 36, Antony ruled the East, Octavius the West, and Lepidus
reigned in Africa.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapters 24-28.
ALSO IN:
C. Merivale,
The Fall of the Roman Republic,
chapter 15.
ROME: B. C. 31.
The victory of Octavius at Actium.
The rise of the Empire.
The battles of Philippi, which delivered the whole Roman world
to Antony, Octavius and Lepidus (the Triumvirs), were fought
in the summer of 42 B. C. The battle of Actium, which made
Octavius—soon to be named Augustus—the single master of a now
fully founded Empire, was fought on the 2d of September, B. C.
31. In the interval of eleven years, Octavius, governing Rome,
Italy, and the provinces of the West, had steadily
consolidated and increased his power, gaining the confidence,
the favor and the fear of his subject people. Antony,
oppressing the East, had consumed his energies and his time in
dalliance with Cleopatra, and had made himself the object of
hatred and contempt. Lepidus, who had Africa for his dominion
to begin with, had measured swords with Octavius and had been
summarily deposed, in the year 36 B. C. It was simply a
question of time as to when Antony, in his turn, should make
room for the coming monarch. Already, in the year after
Philippi, the two sovereign-partners had been at the verge of
war. Antony's brother and his wife, Fulvia, had raised a
revolt in Italy against Octavius, and it had been crushed at
Perusia, before Antony could rouse himself to make a movement
in support of it. He did make a formidable demonstration at

last; but the soldiers of the two rivals compelled them on
that occasion to patch up a new peace, which was accomplished
by a treaty negotiated at Brundisium and sealed by the
marriage of Antony to Octavia, sister of Octavius. This peace
was maintained for ten years, while the jealousies and
animosities of the two potentates grew steadily more bitter.
It came to an end when Octavius felt strong enough to defy the
superior resources, in money, men and ships, which Antony held
at his command. The preparations then made on both sides for
the great struggle were stupendous and consumed a year. It was
by the determination of Antony that the war assumed chiefly a
naval character; but Octavius, not Antony, forced the
sea-fight when it came. His smaller squadrons sought and
attacked the swarming fleets of Egypt and Asia, in the
Ambracian gulf, where they had been assembled. The great
battle was fought at the inlet of the gulf, off the point, or
"acte," of a tongue of land, projecting from the shores of
Acarnania, on which stood a temple to Apollo, called the
Actium. Hence the name of the battle. The cowardly flight of
Cleopatra, followed by Antony, ended the conflict quickly, and
the Antonian fleet was entirely destroyed. The deserted army,
on shore, which had idly watched the sea-fight, threw down its
arms, when the flight of Antonius was known. Before Octavius
pursued his enemy into Egypt and to a despairing death, he had
other work to do, which occupied him for nearly a year. But he
was already sure of the sole sovereignty that he claimed. The
date of the battle of Actium "has been formally recorded by
historians as signalizing the termination of the republic and
the commencement of the Roman monarchy."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 28.
{2700}
ROME: B. C. 31-A. D. 14.
The settlement of the Empire by the second Cæsar,
Octavius, called Augustus.
His organization of government.
"Power and repute had passed away from the old forms of the
Republic. The whole world lay at the feet of the master of
many legions; it remained only to define the constitutional
forms in which the new forces were to work. But to do this was
no easy task. The perplexities of his position, the fears and
hopes that crossed his mind, are thrown into dramatic form by
the historian Dion Cassius, who brings a scene before our
fancy in which Octavianus listens to the conflicting counsels
of his two great advisers, Agrippa and Mæcenas. … There is
little doubt that schemes of resignation were at some time
discussed by the Emperor and by his circle of advisers. It is
even possible, as the same writer tells us, that he laid
before the Senators at this time some proposal to leave the
helm of state and let them guide it as of old. … The scene, if
ever really acted, was but an idle comedy. … It is more
probable that he was content with some faint show of
resistance when the Senate heaped their honours on his head,
as afterwards when, more than once, after a ten years'
interval, they solemnly renewed the tenure of his power. But
we cannot doubt his sincerity in one respect—in his wish to
avoid the kingly title and all the odious associations of the
same. … He shrank also from another title, truly Roman in its
character, but odious since the days of Sulla; and though the
populace of Rome, when panic-struck by pestilence and famine,
clamoured to have him made dictator, … yet nothing would
induce him to bear the hateful name. But the name of Cæsar he
had taken long ago, after his illustrious uncle's death, and
this became the title first of the dynasty and then of the
imperial office.
See CÆSAR, THE TITLE.
Besides this he allowed himself to be styled Augustus, a name
which roused no jealousy and outraged no Roman sentiment, yet
vaguely implied some dignity and reverence from its long
association with the objects of religion. …
See AUGUSTUS, THE TITLE.
With this exception he assumed no new symbol of monarchic
power, but was satisfied with the old official titles, which,
though charged with memories of the Republic, yet singly
corresponded to some side or fragment of absolute authority.
The first of these was Imperator, which served to connect him
with the army. … The title of the tribunician power connected
the monarch with the interests of the lower orders. … The
Emperor did not, indeed, assume the tribunate, but was vested
with the tribunician power which overshadowed the annual
holders of the office. It made his person sacred. … The
'princeps senatus' in old days had been the foremost senator
of his time. … No one but the Emperor could fill this position
safely, and he assumed the name henceforth to connect him with
the Senate, as other titles seemed to bind him to the army and
the people. For the post of Supreme Pontiff, Augustus was
content to wait awhile, until it passed by death from the
feeble hands of Lepidus. He then claimed the exclusive tenure
of the office, and after this time Pontifex Maximus was always
added to the long list of imperial titles. … Besides these
titles to which he assumed an exclusive right he also filled
occasionally and for short periods most of the republican
offices of higher rank, both in the capital and in the country
towns. He took from time to time the consular power, with its
august traditions and imposing ceremonial. The authority of
censor lay ready to his hands when a moral reform was to be
set on foot, … or when the Senate was to be purged of unworthy
members and the order of equites or knights to be reviewed and
its dignity consulted. Beyond the capital the pro-consular
power was vested in him without local limitations. … The
offices of state at Rome, meantime, lasted on from the
Republic to the Empire, unchanged in name, and with little
seeming change of functions. Consuls, Prætors, Quæstors,
Tribunes, and Ædiles rose from the same classes as before, and
moved for the most part in the same round of work, though they
had lost for ever their power of initiative and real control.
… They were now mainly the nominees of Cæsar, though the forms
of popular election were still for a time observed. … The
consulship was entirely reserved for his nominees, but passed
rapidly from hand to hand, since in order to gratify a larger
number it was granted at varying intervals for a few months
only. … It was part of the policy of Augustus to disturb as
little as possible the old names and forms of the Republic. …
But besides these he set up a number of new offices, often of
more real power, though of lower rank. … The name præfectus,
the 'préfêt' of modern France, stood in earlier days for the
deputy of any officer of state charged specially to execute
some definite work. The præfects of Cæsar were his servants,
named by him and responsible to him, set to discharge duties
which the old constitution had commonly ignored. The præfect
of the city had appeared in shadowy form under the Republic to
represent the consul in his absence. Augustus felt the need,
when called away from Rome, to have some one there whom he
could trust to watch the jealous nobles and control the fickle
mob. His trustiest confidants, Mæcenas and Agrippa, filled the
post, and it became a standing office, with a growing sphere
of competence, overtopping the magistracies of earlier date.
The præfects of the prætorian cohorts first appeared when the
Senate formally assigned a body-guard to Augustus later in his
reign. …
See PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.
Next to these in power and importance came the præfects of the
watch—the new police force organised by Augustus as a
protection against the dangers of the night, and of the corn
supplies of Rome, which were always an object of especial care
on the part of the imperial government. … The title
'procurator,' which has come down to us in the form of
'proctor,' was at first mainly a term of civil law, and was
used for a financial agent or attorney. The officers so called
were regarded at the first as stewards of the Emperor's
property or managers of his private business. … The agents of
the Emperor's privy purse throughout the provinces were called
by the same title, but were commonly of higher rank and more
repute. Such in its bare outline was the executive of the
imperial government. We have next to see what was the position
of the Senate. … It was one of the first cares of Augustus to
restore its credit. At the risk of odium and personal danger
he more than once revised the list, and purged it of unworthy
members, summoning eminent provincials in their place. … The
functions also of the Senate were in theory enlarged. … But
the substance of power and independence had passed away from
it forever. Matters of great moment were debated first, not in
the Senate House, but in a sort of Privy Council formed by the
trusted advisers of the Emperor. …
{2701}
If we now turn our thoughts from the centre to the provinces
we shall find that the imperial system brought with it more
sweeping changes and more real improvement. … Augustus left to
the Senate the nominal control of the more peaceful provinces,
which needed little military force. … The remaining countries,
called imperial provinces, were ruled by generals, called
'legati,' or in some few cases by proctors only. They held
office during the good pleasure of their master. … There are
signs that the imperial provinces were better ruled, and that
the transference of a country to this class from the other was
looked upon as a real boon, and not as an empty honour. Such
in its chief features was the system of Augustus. … This was
his constructive policy, and on the value of this creative
work his claims to greatness must be based."
W. W. Capes,
Roman History: The Early Empire,
chapter 1.
"The arrangement undoubtedly satisfied the requirements of the
moment. It saved, at least in appearance, the integrity of the
republic, while at the same time it recognised and legalised
the authority of the man, who was already by common consent
'master of all things'; and this it effected without any
formal alteration of the constitution, without, the creation
of any new office, and by means of the old constitutional
machinery of senate and assembly. But it was an arrangement
avowedly of an exceptional and temporary character. The powers
voted to Augustus were, like those voted to Pompey in 67 B.
C., voted only to him, and, with the exception of the
tribunician power, voted only for a limited time. No provision
was made for the continuance of the arrangement, after his
death, in favour of any other person. And though in fact the
powers first granted to Augustus were granted in turn to each
of the long line of Roman Cæsars, the temporary and
provisional character impressed upon the 'principate' at its
birth clung to it throughout. When the princeps for the time
being died or was deposed, it was always in theory an open
question whether any other citizen should be invested with the
powers he had held. Who the man should be, or how he should be
chosen, were questions which it was left to circumstances to
answer, and even the powers to be assigned to him were,
strictly speaking, determined solely by the discretion of the
senate and people in each case. It is true that necessity
required that some one must always be selected to fill the
position first given to Augustus; that accidents, such as
kinship by blood or adoption to the last emperor, military
ability, popularity with the soldiers or the senate,
determined the selection; and that usage decided that the
powers conferred upon the selected person should be in the
main those conferred upon Augustus. But to the last the Roman
emperor was legally merely a citizen whom the senate and
people had freely invested with an exceptional authority for
special reasons. Unlike the ordinary sovereign, he did not
inherit a great office by an established law of succession;
and in direct contrast to the modern maxim that 'the king
never dies,' it has been well said that the Roman
'principate,' died with the princeps. Of the many attempts
made to get rid of this irregular, intermittent character,
none were completely successful, and the inconveniences and
dangers resulting from it are apparent throughout the history
of the empire."
H. F. Pelham,
Outlines of Roman History,
book 5, chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
W. T. Arnold,
The Roman System of Provincial Administration,
chapter 3.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 30-34 (volume 3-4).
ROME: B. C. 16-15
Conquest of Rhætia.
See RHÆTIA.
ROME: B. C. 12-9.
Campaigns of Drusus in Germany.
See GERMANY: B. C. 12-9.
ROME: B. C. 8-A. D. 11.
Campaigns of Tiberius in Germany.
See GERMANY: B. C. 8-A. D. 11.
ROME: A. D. 14-16.
Campaigns of Germanicus in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 14-16.
ROME: A. D. 14-37.
Reign of Tiberius.
Increasing vices and cruelties of his rule.
Campaigns of Germanicus in Germany.
His death.
The Delatores and their victims.
Malignant ascendancy of Sejanus.
The Prætorians quartered at Rome.
Augustus had one child only, a daughter, Julia, who was
brought to him by his second wife Scribonia; but on his last
marriage, with Livia, divorced wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero
(divorced by his command), he had adopted her two sons,
Tiberius and Drusus. He gave his daughter Julia in marriage,
first, to his nephew, Marcellus, the son of his sister
Octavia, by her first husband, C. Marcellus. But Marcellus
soon died, without offspring, and Julia became the spouse of
the emperor's friend and counsellor, Agrippa, to whom she bore
three sons, Caius, Lucius, and Agrippa Posthumus (all of whom
died before the end of the life of Augustus), and two
daughters. Thus the emperor was left with no male heir in his
own family, and the imperial succession fell to his adopted
son Tiberius—the eldest son of his wife Livia and of her first
husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero. There were suspicions that
Livia had some agency in bringing about the several deaths
which cleared her son's way to the throne. When Augustus died,
Tiberius was "in his 56th year, or at least at the close of
the 55th. … He had by this time acquired a perfect mastery in
dissembling his lusts, and his mistrust. … He was anxious to
appear as a moral man, while in secret he abandoned himself to
lusts and debaucheries of every kind. … In accordance with
this character, Tiberius now played the farce which is so
admirably but painfully described by Tacitus; he declined
accepting the imperium, and made the senate beg and intreat
him to accept it for the sake of the public good. In the end
Tiberius yielded, inasmuch as he compelled the senate to
oblige him to undertake the government. This painful scene
forms the beginning of Tacitus' Annals. The early part of his
reign is marked by insurrections among the troops in Pannonia
and on the Rhine. … Drusus [the son of Tiberius] quelled the
insurrection in Illyricum, and Germanicus [the emperor's
nephew, son of his brother Drusus, who had died in Germany, B.
C. 9], that on the Rhine; but, notwithstanding this, it was in
reality the government that was obliged to yield. … The reign
of Tiberius, which lasted for 23 years, that is till A. D. 37,
is by no means rich in events; the early period of it only is
celebrated for the wars of Germanicus in Germany. … The war of
Germanicus was carried into Germany as far as the river Weser
[see GERMANY. A. D. 14-16], and it is surprising to see that
the Romans thought it necessary to employ such numerous armies
against tribes which had no fortified towns. …
{2702}
The history of his reign after the German wars becomes more
and more confined to the interior and to his family. He had an
only son, Drusus, by his first wife Agrippina; and Germanicus,
the son of his brother Drusus, was adopted by him. Drusus must
have been a young man deserving of praise; but Germanicus was
the adored darling of the Roman people, and with justice: he
was the worthy son of a worthy father, the hero of the German
wars. … Germanicus had declined the sovereignty, which his
legions had offered to him after the death of Augustus, and he
remained faithful to his adopted father, although he certainly
could not love him. Tiberius, however, had no faith in virtue,
because he himself was destitute of it; he therefore
mistrusted Germanicus, and removed him from his victorious
legions." He sent him "to superintend the eastern frontiers
and provinces. On his arrival there he was received with the
same enthusiasm as at Rome; but he died very soon afterwards,
whether by a natural death or by poison is a question upon
which the ancients themselves are not agreed. … In the reign
of Augustus, any offence against the person of the imperator
had, by some law with which we are not further acquainted,
been made a 'crimen majestatis,' as though it had been
committed against the republic itself. This 'crimen' in its
undefined character was a fearful thing; for hundreds of
offences might be made to come within the reach of the law
concerning it. All these deplorable cases were tried by the
senate, which formed a sort of condemning machine set in
motion by the tyrant, just like the national convention under
Robespierre. … In the early part of Tiberius' reign, these
prosecutions occurred very rarely; but there gradually arose a
numerous class of denouncers ('delatores'), who made it their
business to bring to trial anyone whom the emperor disliked."
See DELATION.—DELATORS).
This was after the death of the emperor's mother, Livia, whom
he feared, and who restrained his worst propensities. After
her influence was removed, "his dark and tyrannical nature got
the upper hand: the hateful side of his character became daily
more developed, and his only enjoyment was the indulgence of
his detestable lust. … His only friend was Aelius Sejanus, a
man of equestrian rank. … His character bore the greatest
resemblance to that of his sovereign, who raised him to the
office of præfectus praetorio. … Sejanus increased the number
of the praetorian cohorts, and persuaded Tiberius to
concentrate them in the neighbourhood of Rome, in the 'castrum
praetorianum,' which formed us it were the citadel outside the
wall of Servius Tullius, but in the midst of the present city.
The consequences of this measure render it one of the most
important events in Roman history; for the praetorians now
became the real sovereigns, and occupied a position similar to
that which the Janissaries obtained in Algeria: they
determined the fate of the empire until the reign of
Diocletian. …
See PRÆTORIAN GUARDS.
The influence of Sejanus over Tiberius increased every day,
and he contrived to inspire his imperial friend with
sufficient confidence to go to the island of Capreae. While
Tiberius was there indulging in his lusts, Sejanus remained at
Rome and governed as his vicegerent. … Prosecutions were now
instituted against all persons of any consequence at Rome; the
time when Tiberius left the capital is the beginning of the
fearful annals of his reign." The tyrannical proceedings of
Sejanus "continued for a number of years, until at length he
himself incurred the suspicion of Tiberius," and was put out
of the way. "But a man worse even than he succeeded; this was
Macro, who had none of the great qualities of Sejanus, but
only analogous vices. … The butchery at Rome even increased. …
Caius Caesar, the son of Germanicus, commonly known by the
name of Caligula, formed with Macro a connexion of the basest
kind, and promised him the high post of 'praefectus praetorio'
if he would assist him in getting rid of the aged monarch.
Tiberius was at the time severely ill at a villa near cape
Misenum. He fell into a state of lethargy, and everybody
believed him to be dead. He came to life again however; on
which he was suffocated, or at least his death was accelerated
in some way, for our accounts differ on this point. Thus
Tiberius died in the 23d year of his reign, A. D. 37, at the
age of 78."
B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on the History of Rome,
lectures 111-112 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Tacitus,
Annals,
books 1-6.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 42-46 (volume 5).
ROME: A. D. 37-41.
Reign of Caligula, the first of the imperial madmen.
Cains Cæsar, son of Germanicus, owed his nickname, Caligula,
to the soldiers of his father's command, among whom he was a
great favorite in his childhood. The name was derived from
"Caliga," a kind of foot covering worn by the common soldiers,
and is sometimes translated "Little Boots." "Having … secured
the imperial power, he fulfilled by his elevation the wish of
the Roman people, I may venture to say, of all mankind: for he
had long been the object of expectation and desire to the
greater part of the provincials and soldiers, who had known
him when a child; and to the whole people of Rome, from their
affection for the memory of Germanicus, his father, and
compassion for the family almost entirely destroyed. …
Immediately on his entering the city, by the joint
acclamations of the senate, and people, who broke into the
senate-house, Tiberius's will was set aside, it having left
his other grandson, then a minor, coheir with him; the whole
government and administration of affairs was placed in his
hands; so much to the joy and satisfaction of the public that,
in less than three months after, above 160,000 victims are
said to have been offered in sacrifice. … To this
extraordinary love entertained for him by his countrymen was
added an uncommon regard by foreign nations. … Caligula
himself inflamed this devotion by practising all the arts of
popularity. … He published accounts of the proceedings of the
government—a practice which had been introduced by Augustus,
but discontinued by Tiberius. He granted the magistrates a
full and free jurisdiction, without any appeal to himself. He
made a very strict and exact review of the Roman knights, but
conducted it with moderation; publicly depriving of his horse
every knight who lay under the stigma of any thing base and
dishonourable. … He attempted likewise to restore to the
people their ancient right of voting in the choice of
magistrates. … He twice distributed to the people a bounty of
300 sesterces a man, and as often gave a splendid feast to the
senate and the equestrian order, with their wives and
children. …
{2703}
He frequently entertained the people with stage-plays of
various kinds, and in several parts of the city, and sometimes
by night, when he caused the whole city to be lighted. … He
likewise exhibited a great number of circensian games from
morning until night; intermixed with the hunting of wild
beasts from Africa. … Thus far we have spoken of him as a
prince. What remains to be said of him bespeaks him rather a
monster than a man. … He was strongly inclined to assume the
diadem, and change the form of government from imperial to
regal; but being told that he far exceeded the grandeur of
kings and princes, he began to arrogate to himself a divine
majesty. He ordered all the images of the gods which were
famous either for their beauty or the veneration paid them,
among which was that of Jupiter Olympius, to be brought from
Greece, that he might take the heads off, and put on his own.
Having continued part of the Palatium as far as the Forum, and
the temple of Castor and Pollux being converted into a kind of
vestibule to his house, he often stationed himself between the
twin brothers, and so presented himself to be worshipped by
all votaries; some of whom saluted him by the name of Jupiter
Latialis. He also instituted a temple and priests, with
choicest victims, in honour of his own divinity. … The most
opulent persons in the city offered themselves as candidates
for the honour of being his priests, and purchased it
successively at an immense price. … In the day-time he talked
in private to Jupiter Capitolinus; one while whispering to
him, and another turning his ear to him. … He was unwilling to
be thought or called the grandson of Agrippa, because of the
obscurity of his birth. … He said that his mother was the
fruit of an incestuous commerce maintained by Augustus with
his daughter Julia. … He lived in the habit of incest with an
his sisters. … Whether in the marriage of his wives, in
repudiating them, or retaining them, he acted with greater
infamy, it is difficult to say." Some senators, "who had borne
the highest offices in the government, he suffered to run by
his litter in their togas for several miles together, and to
attend him at supper, sometimes at the head of his couch,
sometimes at his feet, with napkins. Others of them, after he
had privately put them to death, he nevertheless continued to
send for, as if they were still alive, and after a few days
pretended that they had laid violent hands upon themselves. …
When flesh was only to be had at a high price for feeding his
wild beasts reserved for the spectacles, he ordered that
criminals should be given them to be devoured; and upon
inspecting them in a row, while he stood in the middle of the
portico, without troubling himself to examine their cases he
ordered them to be dragged away, from 'bald-pate to bald-pate'
distinction.—Translator's foot-note]. … After disfiguring many
persons of honourable rank, by branding them in the face with
hot irons, he condemned them to the mines, to work in
repairing the high-ways, or to fight with wild beasts; or
tying them, by the neck and heels, in the manner of beasts
carried to slaughter, would shut them up in cages, or saw them
asunder. … He compelled parents to be present at the execution
of their sons. … He generally prolonged the sufferings of his
victims by causing them to be inflicted by slight and
frequently repeated strokes; this being his well-known and
constant order: . Strike so that he may feel himself die.' …
Being incensed at the people's applauding a party at the
Circensian games in opposition to him, he exclaimed, 'I wish
the Roman people had but one neck.' … He used also to complain
aloud of the state of the times, because it was not rendered
remarkable by any public calamities. … He wished for some
terrible slaughter of his troops, a famine, a pestilence,
conflagrations, or an earthquake. Even in the midst of his
diversions, while gaming or feasting, this savage ferocity,
both in his language and actions, never forsook him. Persons
were often put to the torture in his presence, whilst he was
dining or carousing. A soldier, who was an adept in the art of
beheading, used at such times to take off the heads of
prisoners, who were brought in for that purpose. … He never
had the least regard either to the chastity of his own person,
or that of others. … Besides his incest with his sisters …
there was hardly any lady of distinction with whom he did not
make free. … Only once in his life did he take an active part
in military affairs. … He resolved upon an expedition into
Germany. … There being no hostilities, he ordered a few
Germans of his guard to be carried over and placed in
concealment on the other side of the Rhine, and word to be
brought him after dinner that an enemy was advancing with
great impetuosity. This being accordingly done, he immediately
threw himself, with his friends, and a party of the pretorian
knights, into the adjoining wood, where, lopping branches from
the trees, and forming trophies of them, he returned by
torch-light, upbraiding those who did not follow him with
timorousness and cowardice. … At last, as if resolved to make
war in earnest, he drew up his army upon the shore of the
ocean, with his balistæ and other engines of war, and while no
one could imagine what he intended to do, on a sudden
commanded them to gather up the sea shells, and fill their
helmets and the folds of their dress with them, calling them
'the spoils of the ocean due to the Capitol and the Palatium.'
As a monument of his success he raised a lofty tower. … He was
crazy both in body and mind, being subject, when a boy, to the
falling sickness. … What most of all disordered him was want
of sleep, for he seldom had more than three or four hours'
rest in a night; and even then his sleep was not sound."
Suetonius,
Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Caligula
(translated by A. Thomson).
ALSO IN:
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 47-48 (volume 5).
S. Baring-Gould,
The Tragedy of the Cæsars,
volume 2.
ROME: A. D. 41.
The murder of Caligula.
Elevation of Claudius to the throne by the Prætorians.
Beginning of the domination of the soldiery.
"If we may believe our accounts, the tyrant's overthrow was
due not to abhorrence of his crimes or indignation at his
assaults on the Roman liberties, so much as to resentment at a
private affront. Among the indiscretions which seem to
indicate the partial madness of the wretched Caius, was the
caprice with which he turned from his known foes against his
personal friends and familiars. … No one felt himself secure,
neither the freedmen who attended on his person, nor the
guards who watched over his safety.
{2704}
Among these last was Cassius Chærea, tribune of a prætorian
cohort, whose shrill woman's voice provoked the merriment of
his master, and subjected him to injurious insinuations. Even
when he demanded the watchword for the night the emperor would
insult him with words and gestures. Chærea resolved to wipe
out the affront in blood. He sought Callistus and others … and
organized with them and some of the most daring of the nobles
a plot against the emperor's life. … The festival of the
Palatine games was fixed on for carrying the project into
effect. Four days did Caius preside in the theatre, surrounded
by the friends and guards who were sworn to slay him, but
still lacked the courage. On the fifth and last, the 24th of
January 794 [A. D. 41], feeling indisposed from the evening's
debauch, he hesitated at first to rise. His attendants,
however, prevailed on him to return once more to the shows;
and as he was passing through the vaulted passage which led
from the palace to the Circus, he inspected a choir of noble
youths from Asia, who were engaged to perform upon the stage.
… Caius was still engaged in conversation with them when
Chærea and another tribune, Sabinus, made their way to him:
the one struck him on the throat from behind with his sword,
while the other was in the act of demanding the watchword. A
second blow cleft the tyrant's jaw. He fell, and drawing his
limbs together to save his body, still screamed, 'I live! I
live!' while the conspirators thronging over him, and crying,
'again! again!' hacked him with thirty wounds. The bearers of
his litter rushed to his assistance with their poles, while
his body-guard of Germans struck wildly at the assassins, and
amongst the crowd which surrounded them, killed, it was said,
more than one senator who had taken no part in the affair. …
When each of the conspirators had thrust his weapon into the
mangled body, and the last shrieks of its agony had been
silenced, they escaped with all speed from the corridor in
which it lay; but they had made no dispositions for what was
to follow, and were content to leave it to the consuls and
senate, amazed and unprepared, to decide on the future destiny
of the republic. … Some cohorts of the city guards accepted
the orders of the consuls, and occupied the public places
under their direction. At the same time the consuls, Sentins
Saturninus and Pomponins Secundus, the latter of whom had been
substituted for Caius himself only a few days before, convened
the senate. … The first act of the sitting was to issue an
edict in which the tyranny of Caius was denounced, and a
remission of the most obnoxious of his taxes proclaimed,
together with the promise of a donative to the soldiers. The
fathers next proceeded to deliberate on the form under which
the government should be henceforth administered. On this
point no settled principles prevailed. Some were ready to vote
that the memory of the Cæsars should be abolished, their
temples overthrown, and the free state of the Scipios and
Catos restored; others contended for the continuance of
monarchy in another family, and among the chiefs of nobility
more than one candidate sprang up presently to claim it. The
debate lasted late into the night; and in default of any other
specific arrangement, the consuls continued to act as the
leaders of the commonwealth. … But while the senate
deliberated, the prætorian guards had resolved. … In the
confusion which ensued on the first news of the event, several
of their body had flung themselves furiously into the palace,
and begun to plunder its glittering chambers. None dared to
offer them any opposition; the slaves and freedmen fled or
concealed themselves. One of the inmates, half hidden behind a
curtain in an obscure corner, was dragged forth with brutal
violence; and great was the intruders' surprise when they
recognised him as Claudius, the long despised and neglected
uncle of the murdered emperor. He sank at their feet almost
senseless with terror: but the soldiers in their wildest mood
still respected the blood of the Cæsars, and instead of
slaying or maltreating the suppliant, the brother of
Germanicus, they hailed him, more in jest perhaps than
earnest, with the title of Imperator, and carried him off to
their camp. … In the morning, when it was found that the
senate had come to no conclusion, and that the people crowding
about its place of meeting were urging it with loud cries to
appoint a single chief, and were actually naming him as the
object of their choice, Claudius found courage to suffer the
prætorians to swear allegiance to him, and at the same time
promised them a donative of 15,000 sesterces apiece. … The
senators assembled once again in the temple of Jupiter; but
now their numbers were reduced to not more than a hundred, and
even these met rather to support the pretensions of certain of
their members, who aspired to the empire … than to maintain
the cause of the ancient republic. But the formidable array of
the prætorians, who had issued from their camp into the city,
and the demonstrations of the popular will, daunted all
parties in the assembly. … Presently the Urban cohorts passed
over, with their officers and colours, to the opposite side.
All was lost; the prætorians, thus reinforced, led their hero
to the palace, and there he commanded the senate to attend
upon him. Nothing remained but to obey and pass the decree,
which had now become a formal act of investiture, by which the
name and honours of Imperator were bestowed upon the new chief
of the commonwealth. Such was the first creation of an emperor
by the military power of the prætorians. … Surrounded by drawn
swords Claudius had found courage to face his nephew's
murderers, and to vindicate his authority to the citizens, by
a strong measure of retribution, in sending Chærea and Lupus,
with a few others of the blood-embrued, to immediate
execution. … Claudius was satisfied with this act of vigour,
and proceeded, with a moderation but little expected, to
publish an amnesty for all the words and acts of the late
interregnum. Nevertheless for thirty days he did not venture
to come himself into the Curia. … The personal fears, indeed,
of the new emperor contributed, with a kindly and placable
disposition, to make him anxious to gain his subjects'
good-will by the gentleness and urbanity of his deportment. …
His proclamation of amnesty was followed by the pardon of
numerous exiles and criminals, especially such as were
suffering under sentence for the crime of majestas. … The
popularity of the new prince, though manifested, thanks to his
own discretion, by no such grotesque and impious flatteries as
attended on the opening promise of Caius, was certainly not
less deeply felt. …
{2705}
The confidence indeed of the upper classes, after the bitter
disappointment they had so lately suffered, was not to be so
lightly won. The senate and knights might view their new ruler
with indulgence, and hope for the best; but they had been too
long accustomed to regard him as proscribed from power by
constitutional unfitness, as imbecile in mind, and which was
perhaps in their estimation even a worse defect, as misshapen
and half-developed in physical form, to anticipate from him a
wise or vigorous administration. … In another rank he would
have been exposed perhaps in infancy; as the son of Drusus and
Antonia he was permitted to live: but he became from the first
an object of disgust to his parents, who put him generally out
of their sight, and left him to grow up in the hands of
hirelings without judgment or feeling. … That the judgment of
one from whom the practical knowledge of men and things had
been withheld was not equal to his learning, and that the
infirmities of his body affected his powers of decision, his
presence of mind, and steadfastness of purpose, may easily be
imagined: nevertheless, it may be allowed that in a private
station, and anywhere but at Rome, Claudius would have passed
muster as a respectable, and not, perhaps, an useless member
of society. The opinion which is here given of this prince's
character may possibly be influenced in some degree by the
study of his countenance in the numerous busts still existing,
which represent it as one of the most interesting of the whole
imperial series. If his figure, as we are told, was tall, and
when sitting appeared not ungraceful, his face, at least in
repose, was eminently handsome. But it is impossible not to
remark in it an expression of pain and anxiety which forcibly
arrests our sympathy. It is the face of an honest and
well-meaning man, who feels himself unequal to the task
imposed upon him. … There is the expression of fatigue both of
mind and body, which speaks of midnight watches over books,
varied with midnight carouses at the imperial table, and the
fierce caresses of rival mistresses. There is the glance of
fear, not of open enemies, but of pretended friends; the
reminiscence of wanton blows, and the anticipation of the
deadly potion. Above all, there is the anxious glance of
dependence, which seems to cast about for a model to imitate,
for ministers to shape a policy, and for satellites to execute
it. The model Claudius found was the policy of the venerated
Augustus; but his ministers were the most profligate of women,
and the most selfish of emancipated slaves. … The commencement
of the new reign was marked by the renewed activity of the
armies on the frontiers."
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 48-49 (volume 5).
ALSO IN:
W. W. Capes,
The Early Empire,
chapters 3-4.
ROME: A. D. 42-67.
St. Peter and the Roman Church: The question.
See PAPACY: ST. PETER AND THE CHURCH AT ROM[E.
ROME: A. D. 43-53.
Conquests of Claudius in Britain.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 43-53.
ROME: A. D. 47-54.
The wives of Claudius, Messalina and Agrippina.
Their infamous and terrible ascendancy.
Murder of the emperor.
Advent of Nero.
The wife of Claudius was "Valeria Messalina, the daughter of
his cousin Barbatus Messala, a woman whose name has become
proverbial for infamy. His most distinguished freedmen were
the eunuch Posidus; Felix, whom he made governor of Judæa, and
who had the fortune to be the husband of three queens; and
Callistus, who retained the power which he had acquired under
Caius. But far superior in point of influence to these were
the three secretaries (as we may term them), Polybius,
Narcissus, and Pallas. … The two last were in strict league
with Messalina; she only sought to gratify her lusts; they
longed for honours, power, and wealth. … Their plan, when they
would have anyone put to death, was to terrify Claudius … by
tales of plots against his life. … Slaves and freedmen were
admitted as witnesses against their masters; and, though
Claudius had sworn, at his accession, that no freeman should
be put to the torture, knights and senators, citizens and
strangers, were tortured alike. … Messalina now set no bounds
to her vicious courses. Not content with being infamous
herself, she would have others so; and she actually used to
compel ladies to prostitute themselves even in the palace, and
before the eyes of their husbands, whom she rewarded with
honours and commands, while she contrived to destroy those who
would not acquiesce in their wives' dishonour." At length (A.
D. 48) she carried her audacity so far as to go publicly
through a ceremony of marriage with one of her lovers. This
nerved even the weak Claudius to resolution, and she was put
to death. The emperor then married his niece, Julia Agrippina,
the daughter of Germanicus. "The woman who had now obtained
the government of Claudius and the Roman empire was of a very
different character from the abandoned Messalina. The latter
had nothing noble about her; she was the mere bond-slave of
lust, and cruel and avaricious only for its gratification; but
Agrippina was a woman of superior mind, though utterly devoid
of principle. In her, lust was subservient to ambition; it was
the desire of power, or the fear of death, and not wantonness,
that made her submit to the incestuous embraces of her brutal
brother Caius, and to be prostituted to the companions of his
vices. It was ambition and parental love that made her now
form an incestuous union with her uncle. … The great object of
Agrippina was to exclude Britannicus [the son of Claudius by
Messalina], and obtain the succession for her own son, Nero
Domitius, now a boy of twelve years of age. She therefore
caused Octavia [daughter of Claudius] to be betrothed to him,
and she had the philosopher Seneca recalled from Corsica,
whither he had been exiled by the arts of Messalina, and
committed to him the education of her son, that he might be
fitted for empire. In the following year (51) Claudius,
yielding to her influence, adopted him." But, although
Britannicus was thrust into the background and treated with
neglect, his feeble father began after a time to show signs of
affection for him, and Agrippina, weary of waiting and fearful
of discomfiture, caused poison to be administered to the old
emperor in his food (A. D. 54). "The death of Claudius was
concealed till all the preparations for the succession of Nero
should be made, and the fortunate hour marked by the
astrologers be arrived. He then (October 13) issued from the
palace, … and, being cheered by the cohort which was on guard,
he mounted a litter and proceeded to the camp. He addressed the
soldiers, promising them a donative, and was saluted emperor.
The senate and provinces acquiesced without a murmur in the
will of the guards. Claudius was in his 64th year when he was
poisoned."
T. Keightley,
History of the Roman Empire,
part 1, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapter 50 (volume 5).
Tacitus,
Annals,
books 11-12.
{2706}
ROME: A. D. 54-64.
The atrocities of Nero.
The murder of his mother.
The burning of the city.
"Nero … was but a variety of the same species [as Caligula].
He also was an amateur, and an enthusiastic amateur, of
murder. But as this taste, in the most ingenious hands, is
limited and monotonous in its modes of manifestation, it would
be tedious to run through the long Suetonian roll-call of his
peccadilloes in this way. One only we shall cite, to
illustrate the amorous delight with which he pursued any
murder which happened to be seasoned highly to his taste by
enormous atrocity, and by almost unconquerable difficulty. …
For certain reasons of state, as Nero attempted to persuade
himself, but in reality because no other crime had the same
attractions of unnatural horror about it, he resolved to
murder his mother Agrippina. This being settled, the next
thing was to arrange the mode and the tools. Naturally enough,
according to the custom then prevalent in Rome, he first
attempted the thing by poison. The poison failed: for
Agrippina, anticipating tricks of this kind, had armed her
constitution against them, like Mithridates; and daily took
potent antidotes and prophylactics. Or else (which is more
probable) the emperor's agent in such purposes, fearing his
sudden repentance and remorse, … had composed a poison of
inferior strength. This had certainly occurred in the case of
Britannicus, who had thrown off with ease the first dose
administered to him by Nero," but who was killed by a second
more powerful potion. "On Agrippina, however, no changes in
the poison, whether of kind or strength, had any effect; so
that, after various trials, this mode of murder was abandoned,
and the emperor addressed himself to other plans. The first of
these was some curious mechanical device, by which a false
ceiling was to have been suspended by bolts above her bed; and
in the middle of the night, the bolt being suddenly drawn, a
vast weight would have descended with a ruinous destruction to
all below. This scheme, however, taking air from the
indiscretion of some amongst the accomplices, reached the ears
of Agrippina. … Next, he conceived the idea of an artificial
ship, which, at the touch of a few springs, might fall to
pieces in deep water. Such a ship was prepared, and stationed
at a suitable point. But the main difficulty remained, which
was to persuade the old lady to go on board." By complicated
stratagems this was brought about. "The emperor accompanied
her to the place of embarkation, took a most tender leave of
her, and saw her set sail. It was necessary that the vessel
should get into deep water before the experiment could be
made; and with the utmost agitation this pious son awaited
news of the result. Suddenly a messenger rushed breathless
into his presence, and horrified him by the joyful information
that his august mother had met with an alarming accident; but,
by the blessing of Heaven, had escaped safe and sound, and was
now on her road to mingle congratulations with her
affectionate son. The ship, it seems, had done its office; the
mechanism had played admirably; but who can provide for
everything? The old lady, it turned out, could swim like a
duck; and the whole result had been to refresh her with a
little sea-bathing. Here was worshipful intelligence. Could
any man's temper be expected to stand such continued sieges? …
Of a man like Nero it could not be expected that he should any
longer dissemble his disgust, or put up with such repeated
affronts. He rushed upon his simple congratulating friend,
swore that he had come to murder him, and as nobody could have
suborned him but Agrippina, he ordered her off to instant
execution. And, unquestionably, if people will not be murdered
quietly and in a civil way, they must expect that such
forbearance is not to continue for ever; and obviously have
themselves only to blame for any harshness or violence which
they may have rendered necessary. It is singular, and shocking
at the same time, to mention, that, for this atrocity, Nero
did absolutely receive solemn congratulations from all orders
of men. With such evidences of base servility in the public
mind, and of the utter corruption which they had sustained in
their elementary feelings, it is the less astonishing that he
should have made other experiments upon the public patience,
which seem expressly designed to try how much it would
support. Whether he were really the author of the desolating
fire which consumed Rome for six days and seven nights [A. D.
64], and drove the mass of the people into the tombs and
sepulchres for shelter, is yet a matter of some doubt. But one
great presumption against it, founded on its desperate
imprudence, as attacking the people in their primary comforts,
is considerably weakened by the enormous servility of the
Romans in the case just stated: they who could volunteer
congratulations to a son for butchering his mother (no matter
on what pretended suspicions), might reasonably be supposed
incapable of any resistance which required courage, even in a
case of self-defence or of just revenge. … The great loss on
this memorable occasion was in the heraldic and ancestral
honours of the city. Historic Rome then went to wreck for
ever. Then perished the 'domus priscorum ducum hostilibus
ad-huc spoliis adornatæ'; the 'rostral' palace; the mansion of
the Pompeys; the Blenheims and the Strathfieldsayes of the
Scipios, the Marcelli, the Paulli, and the Cæsars; then
perished the aged trophies from Carthage and from Gaul; and,
in short, as the historian sums up the lamentable desolation,
'quidquid visendum atque memorabile ex antiquitate duraverat.'
And this of itself might lead one to suspect the emperor's
hand as the original agent; for by no one act was it possible
so entirely and so suddenly to wean the people from their old
republican recollections. … In any other sense, whether for
health or for the conveniences of polished life, or for
architectural magnificence, there never was a doubt that the
Roman people gained infinitely by this conflagration. For,
like London, it arose from its ashes with a splendour
proportioned to its vast expansion of wealth and population;
and marble took the place of wood. For the moment, however,
this event must have been felt by the people as an
overwhelming calamity.
{2707}
And it serves to illustrate the passive endurance and timidity
of the popular temper, and to what extent it might be provoked
with impunity, that in this state of general irritation and
effervescence Nero absolutely forbade them to meddle with the
ruins of their own dwellings—taking that charge upon himself,
with a view to the vast wealth which he anticipated from
sifting the rubbish."
T. De Quincey,
The Cæsars
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
Suetonius,
Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Nero.
Tacitus,
Annals,
books 13-16.
S. Baring-Gould,
The Tragedy of the Cæsars,
volume 2.
ROME: A. D. 61.
Campaigns of Suetonius Paulinus in Britain.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 61.
ROME: A. D. 64-68.
The first persecution of Christians.
The fitting end of Nero.
"Nero was so secure in his absolutism, he had hitherto found
it so impossible to shock the feelings of the people or to
exhaust the terrified adulation of the Senate, that he was
usually indifferent to the pasquinades which were constantly
holding up his name to execration and contempt. But now [after
the burning of Rome] he felt that he had gone too far, and
that his power would be seriously imperilled if he did not
succeed in diverting the suspicions of the populace. He was
perfectly aware that when the people in the streets cursed
those who set fire to the city, they meant to curse him. If he
did not take some immediate step he felt that he might perish,
as Gaius [Caligula], had perished before him, by the dagger of
the assassin. It is at this point of his career that Nero
becomes a prominent figure in the history of the Church. It
was this phase of cruelty which seemed to throw a blood-red
light over his whole character, and led men to look on him as
the very incarnation of the world-power in its most demoniac
aspect—as worse than the Antiochus Epiphanes of Daniel's
Apocalypse—as the Man of Sin whom (in language figurative,
indeed, yet awfully true) the Lord should slay with the breath
of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
For Nero endeavoured to fix the odious crime of having
destroyed the capital of the world upon the most innocent and
faithful of his subjects—upon the only subjects who offered
heartfelt prayers on his behalf—the Roman Christians. … Why he
should have thought of singling out the Christians, has always
been a curious problem, for at this point St. Luke ends the
Acts of the Apostles, perhaps purposely dropping the curtain,
because it would have been perilous and useless to narrate the
horrors in which the hitherto neutral or friendly Roman
Government began to play so disgraceful a part. Neither
Tacitus, nor Suetonius, nor the Apocalypse, help us to solve
this particular problem. The Christians had filled no large
space in the eye of the world. Until the days of Domitian we
do not hear of a single noble or distinguished person who had
joined their ranks. … The slaves and artisans, Jewish and
Gentile, who formed the Christian community at Rome, had never
in any way come into collision with the Roman Government. …
That the Christians were entirely innocent of the crime
charged against them was well known both at the time and
afterwards. But how was it that Nero sought popularity and
partly averted the deep rage which was rankling in many hearts
against himself, by torturing men and women, on whose agonies
he thought that the populace would gaze not only with a stolid
indifference, but even with fierce satisfaction? Gibbon has
conjectured that the Christians were confounded with the Jews,
and that the detestation universally felt for the latter fell
with double force upon the former. Christians suffered even
more than the Jews because of the calumnies so assiduously
circulated against them, and from what appeared to the
ancients to be the revolting absurdity of their peculiar
tenets. 'Nero,' says Tacitus, 'exposed to accusation, and
tortured with the most exquisite penalties, a set of men
detested for their enormities, whom the common people called
Christians. Christus, the founder of this sect, was executed
during the reign of Tiberius by the Procurator Pontius Pilate,
and the deadly superstition, suppressed for a time, began to
burst out once more, not only throughout Judaea, where the
evil had its root, but even in the City, whither from every
quarter all things horrible or shameful are drifted, and find
their votaries.' The lordly disdain which prevented Tacitus
from making any inquiry into the real views and character of
the Christians, is shown by the fact that he catches up the
most baseless allegations against them. … The masses, he says,
called them 'Christians;' and while he almost apologises for
staining his page with so vulgar an appellation, he merely
mentions in passing, that, though innocent of the charge of
being turbulent incendiaries, on which they were tortured to

death, they were yet a set of guilty and infamous sectaries,
to be classed with the lowest dregs of Roman criminals. But
the haughty historian throws no light on one difficulty,
namely, the circumstances which led to the Christians being
thus singled out. The Jews were in no way involved in Nero's
persecution. … The Jews were by far the deadliest enemies of
the Christians; and two persons of Jewish proclivities were at
this time in close proximity to the person of the Emperor. One
was the pantomimist Aliturus, the other was Poppaea, the
harlot Empress. … If, as seems certain, the Jews had it in
their power during the reign of Nero more or less to shape the
whisper of the throne, does not historical induction drive us
to conclude with some confidence that the suggestion of the
Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them? … Tacitus
tells us that 'those who confessed were first seized, and then
on their evidence a huge multitude were convicted, not so much
on the charge of incendiarism as for their hatred to mankind.'
Compressed and obscure as the sentence is, Tacitus clearly
means to imply by the 'confession' to which he alludes the
confession of Christianity; and though he is not sufficiently
generous to acquit the Christians absolutely of all complicity
in the great crime, he distinctly says that they were made the
scapegoats of a general indignation. The phrase—'a huge
multitude'—is one of the few existing indications of the
number of martyrs in the first persecution, and of the number
of Christians in the Roman Church. When the historian says
that they were convicted on the charge of 'hatred against
mankind' he shows how completely he confounds them with the
Jews, against whom he elsewhere brings the accusation of
'hostile feelings towards all except themselves.' Then the
historian adds one casual but frightful sentence—a sentence
which flings a dreadful light on the cruelty of Nero and the
Roman mob.
{2708}
He adds, 'And various forms of mockery were added to enhance
their dying agonies. Covered with the skins of wild beasts,
they were doomed to die by the mangling of dogs, or by being
nailed to crosses; or to be set on fire and burnt after
twilight by way of nightly illumination. Nero offered his own
gardens for this show, and gave a chariot race, mingling with
the mob in the dress of a charioteer, or actually driving
about among them. Hence, guilty as the victims were, and
deserving of the worst punishments, a feeling of compassion
towards them began to rise, as men felt that they were being
immolated not for any advantage to the commonwealth, but to
glut the savagery of a single man.' Imagine that awful scene,
once witnessed by the silent obelisk in the square before St.
Peter's at Rome! … Retribution did not linger, and the
vengeance fell at once on the guilty Emperor and the guilty
city. The air was full of prodigies. There were terrible
storms; the plague wrought fearful ravages. Rumours spread
from lip to lip. Men spoke of monstrous births; of deaths by
lightning under strange circumstances; of a brazen statue of
Nero melted by the flash; of places struck by the brand of
heaven in fourteen regions of the city; of sudden darkenings
of the sun. A hurricane devastated Campania; comets blazed in
the heavens; earthquakes shook the ground. On all sides were
the traces of deep uneasiness and superstitious terror. To all
these portents, which were accepted as true by Christians as
well as by Pagans, the Christians would give a specially
terrible significance.… In spite of the shocking servility
with which alike the Senate and the people had welcomed him
back to the city with shouts of triumph, Nero felt that the
air of Rome was heavy with curses against his name. He
withdrew to Naples, and was at supper there on March 19, A. D.
68, the anniversary of his mother's murder, when he heard that
the first note of revolt had been sounded by the brave C.
Julius Vindex, Præfect of Farther Gaul. He was so far from
being disturbed by the news, that he showed a secret joy at
the thought that he could now order Gaul to be plundered. For
eight days he took no notice of the matter. … At last, when he
heard that Virginius Rufus had also rebelled in Germany, and
Galba in Spain, he became aware of the desperate nature of his
position. On receiving this intelligence he fainted away, and
remained for some time unconscious. He continued, indeed, his
grossness and frivolity, but the wildest and fiercest schemes
chased each other through his melodramatic brain. … Meanwhile
he found that the palace had been deserted by his guards, and
that his attendants had robbed his chamber even of the golden
box in which he had stored his poison. Rushing out, as though
to drown himself in the Tiber, he changed his mind, and begged
for some quiet hiding-place in which to collect his thoughts.
The freedman Phaon offered him a lowly villa about four miles
from the city. Barefooted, and with a faded coat thrown over
his tunic, he hid his head and face in a kerchief, and rode
away with only four attendants. … There is no need to dwell on
the miserable spectacle of his end, perhaps the meanest and
most pusillanimous which has ever been recorded. The poor
wretch who, without a pang, had caused so many brave Romans
and so many innocent Christians to be murdered, could not
summon up resolution to die. … Meanwhile a courier arrived for
Phaon. Nero snatched his despatches out of his hand, and read
that the Senate had decided that he should be punished in the
ancestral fashion as a public enemy. Asking what the ancestral
fashion was, he was informed that he would be stripped naked
and scourged to death with rods, with his head thrust into a
fork. Horrified at this, he seized two daggers, and after
theatrically trying their edges, sheathed them again, with the
excuse that the fatal moment had not yet arrived! Then he bade
Sporus begin to sing his funeral song, and begged some one to
show him how to die. … The sound of horses' hoofs then broke
on his ears, and, venting one more Greek quotation, he held
the dagger to his throat. It was driven home by Epaphroditus,
one of his literary slaves. … So died the last of the Cæsars!
And as Robespierre was lamented by his landlady, so even Nero
was tenderly buried by two nurses who had known him in the
exquisite beauty of his engaging childhood, and by Acte, who
had inspired his youth with a genuine love."
F. W. Farrar,
The Early Days of Christianity,
book 1, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
T. W. Allies,
The Formation of Christendom,
chapter 10 (volume 2).
ROME: A. D. 68-96.
End of the Julian line.
The "Twelve Cæsars" and their successors.
A logical classification.
"In the sixth Caesar [Nero] terminated the Julian line. The
three next princes in the succession were personally
uninteresting; and, with a slight reserve in favor of Otho, …
were even brutal in the tenor of their lives and monstrous;
besides that the extreme brevity of their several reigns (all
three, taken conjunctly, having held the supreme power for no
more than twelve months and twenty days) dismisses them from
all effectual station or right to a separate notice in the
line of Caesars. Coming to the tenth in the succession,
Vespasian, and his two sons, Titus and Domitian, who make up
the list of the twelve Caesars, as they are usually called, we
find matter for deeper political meditation and subjects of
curious research. But these emperors would be more properly
classed with the five who succeed them—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian,
and the two Antonines; after whom comes the young ruffian,
Commodus, another Caligula or Nero, from whose short and
infamous reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the decline of the
empire. And this classification would probably have prevailed,
had not the very curious work of Suetonius, whose own life and
period of observation determined the series and cycle of his
subjects, led to a different distribution. But as it is
evident that, in the succession of the first twelve Caesars,
the six latter have no connection whatever by descent,
collaterally, or otherwise, with the six first, it would be a
more logical distribution to combine them according to the
fortunes of the state itself, and the succession of its
prosperity through the several stages of splendour,
declension, revival, and final decay. Under this arrangement,
the first seventeen would belong to the first stage; Commodus
would open the second; Aurelian down to Constantine or Julian
would fill the third; and Jovian to Agustulus would bring up
the melancholy rear."
T. De Quincey,
The Cæsars,
chapter 3.
ROME: A. D. 69.
Revolt of the Batavians under Civilis.
See BATAVIANS: A. D. 69.
{2709}
ROME: A. D. 69.
Galba, Otho, Vitellius.
Vespasian.
The Vitellian conflict.
On the overthrow and death of Nero, June, A. D. 68, the
veteran soldier Galba, proclaimed imperator by his legions in
Spain, and accepted by the Roman senate, mounted the imperial
throne. His brief reign was terminated in January of the
following year by a sudden revolt of the prætorian guard,
instigated by Salvius Otho, one of the profligate favorites of
Nero, who had betrayed his former patron and was disappointed
in the results. Galba was slain and Otho made emperor, to
reign, in his turn, for a brief term of three months. Revolt
against Otho was quick to show itself in the provinces, east
and west. The legions on the Rhine set up a rival emperor, in
the person of their commander, Aulus Vitellius, whose single
talent was in gluttony, and who had earned by his vices the
favor of four beastly rulers, from Tiberius to Nero, in
succession. Gaul having declared in his favor, Vitellius sent
forward two armies by different routes into Italy. Otho met
them, with such forces as he could gather, at Bedriacum,
between Verona and Cremona, and suffered there a defeat which
he accepted as decisive. He slew himself, and Vitellius made
his way to Rome without further opposition, permitting his
soldiers to plunder the country as they advanced. But the
armies of the east were not disposed to accept an emperor by
the election of the armies of the west, and they, too, put
forward a candidate for the purple. Their choice was better
guided, for it fell on the sturdy soldier, Titus Flavius
Vespasianus, then commanding in Judea. The advance corps of
the forces supporting Vespasian (called "Flavians," or
"Flavianites") entered Cisalpine Gaul from Illyricum in the
autumn of 69, and encountered the Vitellians at Bedriacum, on
the same field where the latter had defeated the Othonians a
few weeks before. The Vitellians were defeated. Cremona, a
flourishing Roman colony, which capitulated to the conquerors,
was perfidiously given up to a merciless soldiery and totally
destroyed,—one temple, alone, escaping. Vitellius, in despair,
showed an eagerness to resign the throne, and negotiated his
resignation with a brother of Vespasian, residing in Rome. But
the mob of fugitive Vitellian soldiers which had collected in
the capital interposed violently to prevent this abdication.
Flavius Sabinus—the brother of Vespasian—took refuge, with his
supporters, in the Capitolium, or temple of Jupiter, on the
Capitoline Hill. But the sacred precincts were stormed by the
Vitellian mob, the Capitol—the august sanctuary of Rome—was
burned and Sabinus was slain. The army which had won the
victory for Vespasian at Bedriacum, commanded by Antonius
Primus, soon appeared at the gates of the city, to avenge this
outrage. The unorganized force which attempted opposition was
driven before it in worse disorder. Victors and vanquished
poured into Rome together, slaughtering and being slaughtered
in the streets. The rabble of the city joined in the bloody
hunt, and in the plundering that went with it. "Rome had seen
the conflicts of armed men in the streets under Sulla and
Cinna, but never before such a hideous mixture of levity and
ferocity." Vitellius was among the slain, his brief reign
ending on the 21st of December, A. D. 69. Vespasian was still
in the east, and did not enter Rome until the summer of the
following year.
Tacitus,
History,
book 1-3.
ALSO IN:
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapters 56-57.
ROME: A. D. 70.
Siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.
See JEWS: A. D. 66-70.
ROME: A. D. 70-96.
The Flavian family.
Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.
"Unfortunately Tacitus fails us … at this point, and this time
completely. Nothing has been saved of his 'Histories' from the
middle of the year 70, and we find ourselves reduced to the
mere biographies of Suetonius, to the fragments of Dion, to
the abridgments of Aurelius Victor and Eutropius. The majestic
stream from which we have drawn and which flowed with brimming
banks is now only a meagre thread of water. Of all the
emperors Vespasian is the one who loses the most by this, for
he was, says S. Augustine, a very good prince and very worthy
of being beloved. He came into power at an age when one is no
longer given to change, at 60 years. He had never been fond of
gaming or debauchery, and he maintained his health by a frugal
diet, even passing one day every month without eating. His
life was simple and laborious. … He had no higher aim than to
establish order in the state and in the finances; but he
accomplished this, and if his principate, like all the others,
made no preparations for the future, it did much for the
present. It was a restorative reign, the effects of which were
felt for several generations; this service is as valuable as
the most brilliant victories. Following the example of the
second Julius, the first of the Flavians resolved to seek in
the senate the support of his government. This assembly,
debased by so many years of tyranny, needed as much as it did
a century before to be submitted to a severe revision. …
Vespasian acted with resolution. Invested with the title of
censor in 73, with his son Titus for colleague, he struck from
the rolls of the two orders the members deemed unworthy,
replaced them by the most distinguished persons of the Empire,
and, by virtue of his powers as sovereign pontiff, raised
several of them to the patriciate. A thousand Italian or
provincial families came to be added to the 200 aristocratic
families which had survived, and constituted with these the
higher Roman society, from which the candidates for all civil,
military, and religious functions were taken. … This
aristocracy, borrowed by Vespasian from the provincial cities,
where it had been trained to public affairs, where it had
acquired a taste for economy, simplicity, and order, brought
into Rome pure morals. … It will furnish the great emperors of
the second century, the skilled lieutenants who will second
them, and senators who will hereafter conspire only at long
intervals. … To the senate, thus renewed and become the true
representation of the Empire, Vespasian submitted all
important matters. … Suetonius renders him this testimony,
that it would be difficult to cite a single individual
unjustly punished in his reign, at least unless it were in his
absence or without his knowledge. He loved to dispense justice
himself in the Forum. … The legions, who had made and unmade
five emperors in two years, were no longer attentive to the
ancient discipline. He brought them back to it. … The morals
of the times were bad; he did more than the laws to reform
them—he set good examples. …
{2710}
Augustus had raised two altars to Peace; Vespasian built a
temple to her, in which he deposited the most precious spoils
of Jerusalem; and … the old general closed, for the sixth
time, the doors of the temple of Janus. He built a forum
surrounded by colonnades, in addition to those already
existing, and commenced, in the midst of the city, the vast
amphitheatre, a mountain of stone, of which three-fourths
remain standing to-day. … A colossal statue raised near by for
Nero, but which Vespasian consecrated to the Sun, gave it its
name, the Coliseum. … We have no knowledge of the wars of
Vespasian, except that three times in the year 71 he assumed
the title of 'imperator,' and three times again the following
year. But when we see him making Cappadocia an imperial
proconsular province with numerous garrisons to check the
incursions which desolated it; and, towards the Danube,
extending his influence over the barbarians even beyond the
Borysthenes; when we read in Tacitus that Velleda, the
prophetess of the Bructeri, was at that time brought a captive
to Rome; that Cerialis vanquished the Brigantes and Frontinus
the Silures, we must believe that Vespasian made a vigorous
effort along the whole line of his outposts to impress upon
foreign nations respect for the Roman name. … Here is the
secret of that severe economy which appeared to the prodigal
and light-minded a shameful stinginess. … Vespasian … was 69
years old, and was at his little house in the territory of
Reate when he felt the approach of death. 'I feel that I am
becoming a god,' he said to those around him, laughing in
advance at his apotheosis. … 'An emperor,' he said, 'ought to
die standing.' He attempted to rise and expired in this
effort, on the 23rd of June, 79. The first plebeian emperor
has had no historian, but a few words of his biographer
suffice for his renown: 'rem publicam stabilivit et ornavit,'
'by him the State was strengthened and glorified.' … Vespasian
being dead, Titus assumed the title of Augustus. … His father
had prepared him for this by taking him as associate in the
Empire; he had given to him the title of Cæsar, the
censorship, the tribunitian power, the prefecture of the
prætorium, and seven consulates. Coming into power at the age
of maturity, rich in experience and satiated with pleasures by
his very excesses, he had henceforth but one passion, that of
the public welfare. At the outset he dismissed his boon
companions; in his father's lifetime he had already sacrificed
to Roman prejudices his tender sentiments for the Jewish queen
Berenice, whom he had sent back to the East. In taking
possession of the supreme pontificate he declared that he
would keep his hands pure from blood, and he kept his word: no
one under his reign perished by his orders." It was during the
short reign of Titus that Herculaneum and Pompeii were
overwhelmed by an eruption of Vesuvius (August 23, A. D. 79),
while other calamities afflicted Italy. "Pestilence carried
off thousands of people even in Rome [see PLAGUE: A. D.
78-266]; and at last a conflagration, which raged three days,
consumed once more the Capitol, the library of Augustus, and
Pompey's theatre. To Campania Titus sent men of consular rank
with large sums of money, and he devoted to the relief of the
survivors the property that had fallen to the treasury through
the death of those who had perished in the disaster without
leaving heirs. At Rome he took upon himself the work of
repairing everything, and to provide the requisite funds he
sold the furniture of the imperial palace. … This reign lasted
only 26 months, from the 23rd of June, A. D. 79, to the 13th
of September, A. D. 81. As Titus was about to visit his
paternal estate in the Sabine territory he was seized by a
violent fever, which soon left no hope of his recovery. There
is a report that he partly opened the curtains of his litter
and gazed at the sky with eyes full of tears and reproaches.
'Why,' he exclaimed, 'must I die so soon? In all my life I
have, however, but one thing to repent.' What was this? No one
knows." Titus was succeeded by his brother Domitian, then
thirty years old. "The youth of Domitian had been worthy of
the times of Nero, and he had wearied his father and brother
by his intrigues. Nevertheless he was sober, to the extent of
taking but one meal a day, and he had a taste for military
exercises, for study and poetry, especially since the
elevation of his family. Vespasian had granted him honours,
but no power, and, at the death of Titus, he had only the
titles of Cæsar and Prince of the Youth. In his hurry to seize
at last that Empire so long coveted, he abandoned his dying
brother to rush to Rome, to the camp of the prætorians. … On
the day of their coronation there are few bad princes. Almost
all begin well, but, in despotic monarchies, the majority end
badly, particularly when the reigns are of long duration. …
Domitian reigned 15 years, one year longer than Nero, and his
reign reproduced the same story: at first it wise government,
then every excess. Happily the excesses did not come till
late. … Fully as vain as the son of Agrippina, Domitian heaped
every title upon his own head and decreed deification to
himself. His edicts stated: 'Our lord and our god ordains … '
The new god did not scorn vulgar honours. … He was consul 17
times, and 22 times did he have himself proclaimed 'imperator'
for victories that had not always been gained. He recalled
Nero too by his fondness for shows and for building. … There
were several wars under Domitian, all defensive excepting the
expedition against the Catti [see CHATTI], which was only a
great civil measure to drive away the hostile marauders from
the frontier. If Pliny the Younger and Tacitus are to be
believed, these wars were like those which Caligula waged:
Domitian's victories were defeats; his captives, purchased
slaves; his triumphs, audacious falsehoods. Suetonius is not
so severe. … Domitian's cruelty appeared especially, and
perhaps we should say only, after the revolt of a person of
high rank, Antonius Saturninus, who pretended to be a
descendant of the triumvir. … He was in command of two legions
in Germany whom he incited to revolt, and he called the
Germans to his aid. An unexpected thaw stopped this tribe on
the right bank of the Rhine, while Appius Norbanus Maximus,
governor of Aquitania, crushed Antonius on the opposite shore.
… This revolt must belong to the year 93, which, as Pliny
says, is that in which Domitian's great cruelties began. …
Domitian lived in a state of constant alarm; every sound
terrified him, every man seemed to him an assassin, every
occurrence was an omen of evil." He endured this life of
gloomy terror for three years, when his dread forebodings were
realized, and he was murdered by his own attendants, September
18, A. D. 96.
V. Duruy,
History of Rome,
chapters 77-78 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
Suetonius,
Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Vespasian, Titus, Domitian.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 57-60 (volumes 6-7).
{2711}
ROME: A. D. 78-84.
Campaigns of Agricola in Britain.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 78-84.
ROME: A. D. 96-138.
Brief reign of Nerva.-
Adoption and succession of Trajan.
His persecution of Christians.
His conquests beyond the Danube and in the east.
Hadrian's relinquishment of them.
"On the same day on which Domitian was assassinated, M.
Cocceius Nerva was proclaimed Emperor by the Prætorians, and
confirmed by the people. He owed his elevation principally to
Petronius, Prefect of the Prætorians, and Parthenius,
chamberlain to the late Emperor. He was of Cretan origin, and
a native of Narni in Umbria, and consequently the first
Emperor who was not of Italian descent. … He was prudent,
upright, generous, and of a gentle temper; but a feeble frame
and weak constitution, added to the burden of 64 years,
rendered him too reserved, timid, and irresolute for the
arduous duties of a sovereign prince. … The tolerant and
reforming administration of the new Emperor soon became
popular. Rome breathed again after the bloody tyranny under
which she had been trampled to the dust. The perjured
'delator' was threatened with the severest penalties. The
treacherous slave who had denounced his master was put to
death. Exiles returned to their native cities, and again
enjoyed their confiscated possessions. … Determined to
administer the government for the benefit of the Roman people,
he (Nerva) turned his attention to the question of finance,
and to the burdensome taxation which was the fruit of the
extravagance of his predecessors. … He diminished the enormous
sums which were lavished upon shows and spectacles, and
reduced, as far as was possible, his personal and household
expenses. … It was not probable that an Emperor of so weak and
yielding a character, notwithstanding his good qualities as a
prince and a statesman, would be acceptable to a licentious
and dominant soldiery. But a few months had elapsed when a
conspiracy was organized against him by Calpurnius Crassus. It
was, however, discovered; and the ringleader, having confessed
his crime, experienced the Emperor's usual generosity, being
only punished by banishment to Tarentum. … Meanwhile the
Prætorians, led on by Ælianus Carperius, who had been their
Prefect under Domitian, besieged Nerva in his palace, with
cries of vengeance upon the assassins of his predecessor,
murdered Petronius and Parthenius, and compelled the timid
Emperor publicly to express his approbation of the deed, and
to testify his obligation to them for wreaking vengeance on
the guilty. … Nerva was in declining years, and, taught by
circumstances that he was unequal to curb or cope with the
insolence of the soldiery, adopted Trojan as his son and
successor [A. D. 97]. Soon after, he conferred upon him in the
Senate the rank of Cæsar, and the name of Germanicus, and
added the tribuneship and the title of Emperor. This act
calmed the tumult, and was welcomed with the unanimous consent
of the Senate and the people. … Soon after the adoption of
Trajan he died of a fit of ague which brought on fever, at the
gardens of Sallust, after a reign of sixteen months, in the
sixty-sixth year of his age [A. D. 98]. … The choice which
Nerva had made proved a fortunate one. M. Ulpius Nerva
Trajanus was a Spaniard, a native of Italica, near Seville. …
He was of an ancient and distinguished family, and his father
had filled the office of consul. Although a foreigner, he was
a Roman in habits, sympathies, and language; for the south of
Spain had become so completely Roman that the inhabitants
generally spoke Latin. When a young man he had distinguished
himself in a war against the Parthians. … At the time of his
adoption by Nerva he was in command of a powerful army in
Lower Germany, his head-quarters being at Cologne. He was in
the prime of life, possessed of a robust constitution, a
commanding figure, and a majestic countenance. He was a
perfect soldier, by taste and education, and was endowed with
all the qualities of a general. … He was a strict
disciplinarian, but he knew all his veterans, spoke to them by
their names, and never let a gallant action pass unrewarded. …
The news of Nerva's death was conveyed to him at Cologne by
his cousin Hadrian, where he immediately received the imperial
power. During the first year of his reign he remained with the
army in Germany, engaged in establishing the discipline of the
troops and in inspiring them with a love of their duty. … The
ensuing year he made his entry into Rome on foot, together
with his empress, Pompeia Plotina, whose amiability and
estimable character contributed much to the popularity of her
husband. Her conduct, together with that of his sister,
Marciana, exercised a most beneficial influence upon Roman
society. They were the first ladies of the imperial court who
by their example checked the shameless licentiousness which
had long prevailed amongst women of the higher classes. … The
tastes and habits of his former life led to a change in the
peaceful policy which had so long prevailed. The first war in
which he was engaged was with the Dacians, who inhabited the
country beyond the Danube. …
See DACIA: A. D. 102-106.
A few years of peace ensued, which Trajan endured with patient
reluctance; and many great public works undertaken during the
interval show his genius for civil as well as for military
administration. … But his presence was soon required in the
East, and he joyfully hailed the opportunity thus offered him
for gaining fresh laurels. The real object of this expedition
was ambition—the pretext, that Exedarius, or Exodares, king of
Armenia, had received the crown from the king of Parthia,
instead of from the Emperor of Rome, as Tiridates had from the
hands of Nero. For this insult he demanded satisfaction.
Chosroes, the king of Parthia, at first treated his message
with contempt; but afterwards, seeing that war was imminent,
he sent ambassadors with presents to meet Trajan at Athens,
and to announce to him the deposition of Exedarius, and to
entreat him to confer the crown of Armenia upon Parthamasiris,
or Parthamaspes. Trajan received the ambassadors coldly, told
them that he was on his march to Syria, and would there act as
he thought fit. Accordingly he crossed into Asia, and marched
by way of Cilicia, Syria, and Seleucia to Antioch.
{2712}
The condemnation of the martyr bishop St. Ignatius marked his
stay in that city [A. D. 115]. It seems strange that the
persecution of the Christians should have met with countenance
and support from an emperor like Trajan; but the fact is, the
Roman mind could not separate the Christian from the Jew. The
religious distinction was beneath their notice; they
contemplated the former merely as a sect of the latter. The
Roman party in Asia were persuaded that the Jews were
meditating and preparing for insurrection; and the rebellions
of this and the ensuing reign proved that their apprehensions
were not unreasonable. Hence, at Antioch, the imperial
influence was on the side of persecution; and hence when
Pliny, the gentle governor of Pontus and Bithynia, wrote to
Trajan for instructions respecting the Christians in his
province, his 'rescript' spoke of Christianity as a dangerous
superstition, and enjoined the punishment of its professors if
discovered, although he would not have them sought for. Having
received the voluntary sub·mission of Abgarns, prince of
Osrhoene in Mesopotamia, he marched against Armenia.
Parthamasiris, who had assumed the royal state, laid his
diadem at his feet, in the hopes that he would return it to
him as Nero had to Tiridates. Trajan claimed his kingdom as a
province of the Roman people, and the unfortunate monarch lost
his life in a useless struggle for his crown. This was the
commencement of his triumphs: he received the voluntary
submission of the kings of Iberia, Sarmatia, the Bosphorus,
Colchis, Albania; and he assigned kings to most of the
barbarous tribes that inhabited the coast of the Euxine. Still
he proceeded on his career of conquest. He chastised the king
of Adiabene, who had behaved to him with treachery, and took
possession of his dominions, subjugated the rest of
Mesopotamia, constructed a bridge of boats over the Tigris,
and commenced a canal to unite the two great rivers of
Assyria. His course of conquest was resistless; he captured
Seleucia, earned the title of Parthicus by taking Ctesiphon,
the capital of Parthia [A. D. 116], imposed a tribute on
Mesopotamia, and reduced Assyria to the condition of a Roman
province. He returned to winter at Antioch, which was in the
same winter almost destroyed by an earthquake. Trajan escaped
through a window, not without personal injury. … The river
Tigris bore the victorious Emperor from the scene of his
conquest down to the Persian Gulf; he subjugated Arabia Felix,
and, like a second Alexander, was meditating and even making
preparations for an invasion of India by sea; but his
ambitious designs were frustrated by troubles nearer at hand.
Some of the conquered nations revolted, and his garrisons were
either expelled or put to the sword. He sent his generals to
crush the rebels; one of them, Maximus, was conquered and
slain; the other, Lusius Quietus, gained considerable
advantages and was made governor of Palestine, which had begun
to be in a state of insurrection.
See JEWS: A. D. 116.
He himself marched to punish the revolted Hagareni (Saracens),
whose city was called Atra, in Mesopotamia. … Trajan laid
siege to it, but was obliged to raise the siege with great
loss. Soon after this he was seized with illness. … Leaving
his army therefore to the care of Hadrian, whom he had made
governor of Syria, he embarked for Rome at the earnest
solicitation of the Senate. On arriving at Selinus in Cilicia
(afterwards named Trajanopolis), he was seized with diarrhœa,
and expired in the twentieth year of his reign [August, A. D.
117]. … He died childless, and it is said had not intended to
nominate a successor, following in this the example of
Alexander. Hadrian owed his adoption to Plotina. … Dio
positively asserts that she concealed her husband's death for
some days, and that the letter informing the Senate of his
last intentions was signed by her, and not by Trajan. Hadrian
received the despatches declaring his adoption on the 9th of
August, and those announcing Trajan's death two days
afterwards. … As soon as he was proclaimed Emperor at Antioch,
he sent an apologetic despatch to the Senate requesting their
assent to his election; the army, he said, had chosen him
without waiting for their sanction, lest the Republic should
remain without a prince. The confirmation which he asked for
was immediately granted. … The state of Roman affairs was at
this moment a very critical one, and did not permit the new
Emperor to leave the East. Emboldened by the news of Trajan's
illness, the conquered Parthians had revolted and achieved
some great successes; Sarmatia on the north, Mauritania,
Egypt, and Syria on the south, were already in a state of
insurrection. The far-sighted prudence of Hadrian led him to
fear that the empire was not unlikely to fall to pieces by its
own weight, and that the Euphrates was its best boundary. It
was doubtless a great sacrifice to surrender all the rich and
populous provinces beyond that river which had been gained by
the arms of his predecessor. It was no coward fear or mean
envy of Trajan which prompted Hadrian, but he wisely felt that
it was worth any price to purchase peace and security.
Accordingly he withdrew the Roman armies from Armenia, Assyria
and Mesopotamia, constituted the former of these an
independent kingdom, surrendered the two latter to the
Parthians, and restored their deposed king Chosroes to his
throne. … After taking these measures for establishing peace
in the East, he left Catilius Severus governor of Syria, and
returned by way of Illyria to Rome, where he arrived the
following year. … A restless curiosity, which was one of the
principal features in his character, would not permit him to
remain inactive at Rome; he determined to make a personal
survey of every province throughout his vast dominions, and
for this reason he is so frequently represented on medals as
the Roman Hercules. He commenced his travels with Gaul, thence
he proceeded to Germany, where he established order and
discipline amongst the Roman forces, and then crossed over to
Britain. … It would be uninteresting to give a mere catalogue
of the countries which he visited during the ensuing ten years
of his reign. In the fifteenth winter of it he arrived in
Egypt, and rebuilt the tomb of Pompey the Great at Pelusium.
Thence he proceeded to Alexandria which was at that period the
university of the world. … He had scarcely passed through
Syria when the Jews revolted, and continued in arms for three
years. …
See JEWS: A. D. 130-134.
{2713}
Hadrian spent the winter at Athens, where he gratified his
architectural taste by completing the temple of Jupiter
Olympius. … Conscious … of the infirmities of disease and of
advancing years, he adopted L. Aurelius Verus, a man of
pleasure and of weak and delicate health, totally unfit for
his new position. … Age and disease had now so altered his
[Hadrian's] character that he became luxurious,
self-indulgent, suspicious, and even cruel: Verus did not live
two years, and the Emperor then adopted Titus Antoninus, on
condition that he should in his turn adopt M. Annius Verus,
afterwards called M. Aurelius, and the son of Aurelius Verus."
Hadrian's malady "now became insupportably painful, his temper
savage even to madness, and many lives of senators and others
were sacrificed to his fury. His sufferings were so
excruciating that he was always begging his attendants to put
him to death. At last he went to Baiæ, where, setting at
defiance the prescriptions of his physicians, he ate and drank
what he pleased. Death, therefore, soon put a period to his
sufferings, in the sixty-third year of his age and the
twenty-first of his restless reign [A. D. 138]. Antoninus was
present at his death, his corpse was burnt at Puteoli
(Pozzuoli), and his ashes deposited in the mausoleum (moles
Hadriani) which he had himself built, and which is now the
Castle of St. Angelo."
R. W. Browne,
History of Rome from A. D. 96,
chapters 1-2.
ALSO IN:
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 63-66 (volume 7).
T. Arnold and others,
History of the Roman Empire
(Encyclopædia Metropolitana).
chapters 4-6.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT ITS GREATEST EXTENT UNDER TRAJAN (116)
SHOWING ACQUISITIONS OF TERRITORY FROM THE ACCESSION OR AUGUSTUS.
ROMAN TERRITORY AT THE ACCESSION OF AUGUSTUS.
TERRITORY ACQUIRED TO THE ACCESSION or TRAJAN.
THE TEMPORARY CONQUESTS OF TRAJAN ARE SHOWN BY THE BORDER COLOR.
THE ACQUISITIONS OF THE DIFFERENT EMPERORS ARE INDICATED
BY THE LETTERING.
ROME: A. D. 138-180.
The Antonines.
Antoninus Pius.
Marcus Aurelius.
"On the death of Hadrian in A. D. 138, Antoninus Pius
succeeded to the throne, and, in accordance with the late
Emperor's conditions, adopted Marcus Aurelius and Lucius
Commodus. Marcus had been betrothed at the age of 15 to the
sister of Lucius Commodus, but the new Emperor broke off the
engagement, and betrothed him instead to his daughter
Faustina. The marriage, however, was not celebrated till seven
years afterwards, A. D. 146. The long reign of Antoninus Pius
is one of those happy periods that have no history. An almost
unbroken peace reigned at home and abroad. Taxes were
lightened, calamities relieved, informers discouraged;
confiscations were rare, plots and executions were almost
unknown. Throughout the whole extent of his vast domain the
people loved and valued their Emperor, and the Emperor's one
aim was to further the happiness of his people. He, too, like
Aurelius, had learnt that what was good for the bee was good
for the hive. … He disliked war, did not value the military
title of Imperator, and never deigned to accept a triumph.
With this wise and eminent prince, who was as amiable in his
private relations as he was admirable in the discharge of his
public duties, Marcus Aurelius spent the next 23 years of his
life. … There was not a shade of jealousy between them; each
was the friend and adviser of the other, and, so far from
regarding his destined heir with suspicion, the Emperor gave
him the designation 'Cæsar,' and heaped upon him all the
honours of the Roman commonwealth. It was in vain that the
whisper of malignant tongues attempted to shake this mutual
confidence. … In the year 161, when Marcus was now 40 years
old. Antoninus Pius, who had reached the age of 75, caught a
fever at Lorium. Feeling that his end was near, he summoned
his friends and the chief men of Rome to his bedside, and
there (without saying a word about his other adopted son, who
is generally known by the name of Lucius Verus) solemnly
recommended Marcus to them as his successor; and then, giving
to the captain of the guard the watchword of 'Equanimity,' as
though his earthly task was over he ordered to be transferred
to the bedroom of Marcus the little golden statue of Fortune,
which was kept in the private chamber of the Emperors as an
omen of public prosperity. The very first act of the new
Emperor was one of splendid generosity, namely, the admission
of his adoptive brother Lucius Verus into the fullest
participation of imperial honours. … The admission of Lucius
Verus to a share of the Empire was due to the innate modesty
of Marcus. As he was a devoted student, and cared less for
manly exercises, in which Verus excelled, he thought that his
adoptive brother would be a better and more useful general
than himself, and that he could best serve the State by
retaining the civil administration, and entrusting to his
brother the management of war. Verus, however, as soon as he
got away from the immediate influence and ennobling society of
Marcus, broke loose from all decency, and showed himself to be
a weak and worthless personage. … Two things only can be said
in his favour; the one, that, though depraved, he was wholly
free from cruelty; and the other, that he had the good sense
to submit himself entirely to his brother. … Marcus had a
large family by Faustina, and in the first year of his reign
his wife bore twins, of whom the one who survived became the
wicked and detested Emperor Commodus. As though the birth of
such a child were in itself an omen of ruin, a storm of
calamity began at once to burst over the long tranquil State.
An inundation of the Tiber … caused a distress which ended in
wide-spread famine. Men's minds were terrified by earthquakes,
by the burning of cities, and by plagues of noxious insects.
To these miseries, which the Emperors did their best to
alleviate, was added the horror of wars and rumours of wars.
The Parthians, under their king Vologeses, defeated and all
but destroyed a Roman army, and devastated with impunity the
Roman province of Syria. The wild tribes of the Catti burst
over Germany with fire and sword; and the news from Britain
was full of insurrection and tumult. Such were the elements of
trouble and discord which overshadowed the reign of Marcus
Aurelius from its very beginning down to its weary close. As
the Parthian war was the most important of the three, Verus
was sent to quell it, and but for the ability of his
generals—the greatest of whom was Avidius Cassius—would have
ruined irretrievably the fortunes of the Empire. These
generals, however, vindicated the majesty of the Roman name
[A. D. 165-166 —see PARTHIA], and Verus returned in triumph,
bringing back with him from the East the seeds, of a terrible
pestilence which devastated the whole Empire [see PLAGUE: A.
D. 78-266] and by which, on the outbreak of fresh wars, Verus
himself was carried off at Aquileia. … Marcus was now the
undisputed lord of the Roman world. … But this imperial
elevation kindled no glow of pride or self-satisfaction in his
meek and chastened nature. He regarded himself as being in
fact the servant of all. … He was one of those who held that
nothing should be done hastily, and that few crimes were worse
than the waste of time.
{2714}
It is to such views and such habits that we owe the
composition of his works. His 'Meditations' were written amid
the painful self-denial and distracting anxieties of his wars
with the Quadi and the Marcomanni [A. D. 168-180,—see
SARMATIAN AND MARCOMANNIAN WARS OF MARCUS AURELIUS], and he
was the author of other works which unhappily have perished.
Perhaps of all the lost treasures of antiquity there are few
which we should feel a greater wish to recover than the lost
autobiography of this wisest of Emperors and holiest of Pagan
men. … The Court was to Marcus a burden; he tells us himself
that Philosophy was his mother, Empire only his stepmother; it
was only his repose in the one that rendered even tolerable to
him the burdens of the other. … The most celebrated event of
the war [with the Quadi] took place in a great victory … which
he won in A. D. 174, and which was attributed by the
Christians to what is known as the 'Miracle of the Thundering
Legion.' …
See THUNDERING LEGION.
To the gentle heart of Marcus all war, even when accompanied
with victories, was eminently distasteful; and in such painful
and ungenial occupations no small part of his life was passed.
… It was his unhappy destiny not to have trodden out the
embers of this [the Sarmatian] war before he was burdened with
another far more painful and formidable. This was the revolt
of Avidius Cassius, a general of the old blunt Roman type,
whom, in spite of some ominous warnings, Marcus both loved and
trusted. The ingratitude displayed by such a man caused Marcus
the deepest anguish; but he was saved from all dangerous
consequences by the wide-spread affection which he had
inspired by his virtuous reign. The very soldiers of the
rebellious general fell away from him, and, after he had been
a nominal Emperor for only three months and six days, he was
assassinated by some of his own officers. … Marcus travelled
through the provinces which had favoured the cause of Avidius
Cassius, and treated them all with the most complete and
indulgent forbearance. … During this journey of pacification,
he lost his wife Faustina, who died suddenly in one of the
valleys of Mount Taurus. History … has assigned to Faustina a
character of the darkest infamy, and it has even been made a
charge against Aurelius that he overlooked or condoned her
offences. … No doubt Faustina was unworthy of her husband; but
surely it is the glory and not the shame of a noble nature to
be averse from jealousy and suspicion. … 'Marcus Aurelius
cruelly persecuted the Christians.' Let us briefly consider
this charge. … Marcus in his 'Meditations' alludes to the
Christians once only, and then it is to make a passing
complaint of the indifference to death, which appeared to him,
as it appeared to Epictetus, to arise, not from any noble
principles, but from mere obstinacy and perversity. That he
shared the profound dislike with which Christians were
regarded is very probable. That he was a cold-blooded and
virulent persecutor is utterly unlike his whole character. …
The true state of the case seems to have been this: The deep
calamities in which during the whole reign of Marcus the
Empire was involved, caused wide-spread distress, and roused
into peculiar fury the feelings of the provincials against men
whose atheism (for such they considered it to be) had kindled
the anger of the gods. … Marcus, when appealed to, simply let
the existing law take its course. … The martyrdoms took place
in Gaul and Asia Minor, not in Rome. … The persecution of the
churches in Lyons and Vienne happened in A. D. 177. Shortly
after this period fresh wars recalled the Emperor to the
North. … He was worn out with the toils, trials and travels of
his long and weary life. He sunk under mental anxieties and
bodily fatigues, and after a brief illness died in Pannonia,
either at Vienna or at Sirmium, on March 17, A. D. 180, in the
59th year of his age and the 20th of his reign."
F. W. Farrar,
Seekers after God: Marcus Aurelius.
"One moment, thanks to him, the world was governed by the best
and greatest man of his age. Frightful decadences followed;
but the little casket which contained the 'Thoughts' on the
banks of the Granicus was saved. From it came forth that
incomparable book in which Epictetus was surpassed, that
Evangel of those who believe not in the supernatural, which
has not been comprehended until our day. Veritable, eternal
Evangel, the book of 'Thoughts,' which will never grow old,
because it asserts no dogma."
E. Renan,
English Conferences: Marcus Aurelius.
ALSO IN:
W. W. Capes,
The Age of the Antonines.
C. Merivale,
History of the Romans under the Empire,
chapters 67-68 (volume 7).
P. B. Watson,
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
G. Long,
Thoughts of the Emperor M. Aurelius Antoninus,
introduction.
ROME: A. D. 180-192.
The reign of Commodus.
"If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the
world during which the condition of the human race was most
happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that
which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of
Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by
absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The
armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four
successive emperors whose characters and authority commanded
involuntary respect. … It has been objected to Marcus, that he
sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for
a worthless boy; and that he chose a successor in his own
family rather than in the republic. Nothing, however, was
neglected by the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and
learning whom he summoned to his assistance, to expand the
narrow mind of young Commodus, to correct his growing vices,
and to render him worthy of the throne for which he was
designed. … The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to his father,
amidst the acclamations of the senate and armies; and when he
ascended the throne, the happy youth saw round him neither
competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish. In this calm
elevated station it was surely natural that he should prefer
the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories of
his five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and
Domitian. Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a
tiger born with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and
capable, from his infancy, of the most inhuman actions. Nature
had formed him of a weak, rather than a wicked disposition.
His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his
attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty,
which at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into
habit, and at length became the ruling passion of his soul. …
{2715}
During the three first years of his reign, the forms, and even
the spirit, of the old administration were maintained by those
faithful counsellors to whom Marcus had recommended his son,
and for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus still entertained
a reluctant esteem. The young prince and his profligate
favorites revelled in all the license of sovereign power; but
his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had even
displayed a generosity of sentiment, which might perhaps have
ripened into solid virtue. A fatal incident decided his
fluctuating character. One evening, as the emperor was
returning to the palace through a dark and narrow portico in
the amphitheatre, an assassin, who waited his passage, rushed
upon him with a drawn sword, loudly exclaiming, 'The senate
sends you this.' The menace prevented the deed; the assassin
was seized by the guards, and immediately revealed the authors
of the conspiracy. It had been formed, not in the State, but
within the walls of the palace. … But the words of the
assassin sunk deep into the mind of Commodus, and left an
indelible impression of fear and hatred against the whole body
of the senate. Those whom he had dreaded as importunate
ministers he now suspected as secret enemies. The Delators, a
race of men discouraged, and almost extinguished, under the
former reigns, again became formidable as soon as they
discovered that the emperor was desirous of finding
disaffection and treason in the senate. … Suspicion was
equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a
considerable senator was attended with the death of all who
might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once
tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse. …
Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of
the calamities of Rome. … His cruelty proved at last fatal to
himself. He had shed with impunity the noblest blood of Rome:
he perished as soon as he was dreaded by his own domestics.
Marcia, his favorite concubine, Eclectus, his chamberlain, and
Lætus, his Prætorian præfect, alarmed by the fate of their
companions and predecessors, resolved to prevent the
destruction which every hour hung over their heads, either
from the mad caprice of the tyrant, or the sudden indignation
of the people. Marcia seized the occasion of presenting a
draught of wine to her lover, after he had fatigued himself
with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired to sleep; but
whilst he was laboring with the effects of poison and
drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler, entered
his chamber, and strangled him without resistance"
(December 31, A. D. 192).
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 3-4.
ALSO IN:
J. B. L. Crevier,
History of the Roman Emperors,
book 21 (volume 7).
ROME: A. D. 192-284.
From Commodus to Diocletian.
Twenty-three Emperors in the Century.
Thirteen murdered by their own soldiers or servants.
Successful wars of Severus, Aurelian, and Probus.
On the murder of Commodus, "Helvius Pertinax, the prefect of
the city, a man of virtue, was placed on the throne by the
conspirators, who would fain justify their deed in the eyes of
the world, and their choice was confirmed by the senate. But
the Prætorians had not forgotten their own power on a similar
occasion; and they liked not the virtue and regularity of the
new monarch. Pertinax was, therefore, speedily deprived of
throne and life. Prætorian insolence now attained its height.
Regardless of the dignity and honour of the empire, they set
it up to auction. The highest bidder was a senator, named
Didius Julianus [March, 193]. … The legions disdained to
receive an emperor from the life-guards. Those of Britain
proclaimed their general Clodius Albinus; those of Asia,
Pescennius Niger: the Pannonian legions, Septimius Severus.
This last was a man of bravery and conduct: by valour and
stratagem he successively vanquished his rivals [defeating
Albinus in an obstinate battle at Lyons, A. D: 197, and
finishing the subjugation of his rivals in the east by
reducing Byzantium after a siege of three years]. He
maintained the superiority of the Roman arms against the
Parthians and Caledonians.
See Britain; A. D. 208-211].
His reign was vigorous and advantageous to the state; but he
wanted either the courage or the power to fully repress the
license and insubordination of the soldiery. Severus left the
empire [A. D. 211] to his two sons. Caracalla, the elder, a
prince of violent and untamable passions, disdained to share
empire with any. He murdered his brother and colleague, the
more gentle Geta, and put to death all who ventured to
disapprove of the deed. A restless ferocity distinguished the
character of Caracalla; he was ever at war, now on the banks
of the Rhine, now on those of the Euphrates. His martial
impetuosity daunted his enemies; his reckless cruelty
terrified his subjects. … During a Parthian war Caracalla gave
offence to Macrinus, the commander of his body-guard, who
murdered him [A. D. 217). Macrinus seized the empire, but had
not power to hold it. He and his son Diadumenianus [after
defeat in battle at Immæ, near Antioch] … were put to death by
the army, who proclaimed a supposed son [and actually a second
cousin] of their beloved Caracalla. This youth was named
Elagabalus, and was priest of the Sun in the temple of Emesa,
in Syria. Every vice stained the character of this licentious
effeminate youth, whose name is become proverbial for sensual
indulgence: he possessed no redeeming quality, had no friend,
and was put to death by his own guards, who, vicious as they
were themselves, detested vice in him. Alexander Severus,
cousin to Elagabalus, but of a totally opposite character,
succeeded that vicious prince [A. D. 222]. All estimable
qualities were united in the noble and accomplished Alexander.
… The love of learning and virtue did not in him smother
military skill and valour; he checked the martial hordes of
Germany, and led the Roman eagles to victory against the
Sassanides, who had displaced the Arsacides in the dominion
over Persia, and revived the claims of the house of Cyrus over
Anterior Asia. Alexander, victorious in war, beloved by his
subjects, deemed he might venture on introducing more regular
discipline into the army. The attempt was fatal, and the
amiable monarch lost his life in the mutiny that resulted [A.
D. 235]. Maximin, a soldier, originally a Thracian shepherd,
distinguished by his prodigious size, strength and appetite, a
stranger to all civic virtues and all civic rules, rude,
brutal, cruel, and ferocious, seated himself on the throne of
the noble and virtuous prince, in whose murder he had been the
chief agent. At Rome, the senate conferred the vacant dignity
on Gordian, a noble, wealthy and virtuous senator, and on his
son of the same name, a valiant and spirited youth.
{2716}
But scarcely were they recognized when the son fell in an
engagement, and the father slew himself [A. D. 237]. Maximin
was now rapidly marching towards Rome, full of rage and fury.
Despair gave courage to the senate; they nominated Balbinus
and Pupienus [Maximus Pupienus], one to direct the internal,
the other the external affairs. Maximin had advanced as far as
Aquileia [which he besieged without success], when his
horrible cruelties caused an insurrection against him, and he
and his son, an amiable youth, were murdered [A. D. 238]. The
army was not, however, willing to acquiesce in the claim of
the senate to appoint an emperor. Civil war was on the point
of breaking out [and Balbinus and Pupienus were massacred by
the Prætorians], when the conflicting parties agreed in the
person of the third Gordian, a boy of but thirteen years of
age [A. D. 238]. Gordian III. was … chiefly guided by his
father-in-law, Misitheus, who induced him to engage in war
against the Persians. In the war, Gordian displayed a courage
worthy of any of his predecessors; but he shared what was now
become the usual fate of a Roman emperor. He was murdered by
Philip, the captain of his guard [A. D. 244]. Philip, an
Arabian by birth, originally a captain of freebooters, seized
on the purple of his murdered sovereign. Two rivals arose and
contended with him for the prize, but accomplished nothing. A
third competitor, Decius, the commander of the army of the
Danube, defeated and slew him near Verona [A. D. 249]. During
the reign of Philip, Rome attained her thousandth year."
T. Keightley,
Outlines of History
(Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopœdia),
part 1, chapter 9.
"Decius is memorable as the first emperor who attempted to
extirpate the Christian religion by a general persecution of
its professors. His edicts are lost; but the records of the
time exhibit a departure from the system which had been
usually observed by enemies of the church since the days of
Trajan. The authorities now sought out Christians; the legal
order as to accusations was neglected; accusers ran no risk;
and popular clamour was admitted instead of formal
information. The long enjoyment of peace had told unfavourably
on the church. … When, as Origen had foretold, a new season of
trial came, the effects of the general relaxation were sadly
displayed. On being summoned, in obedience to the emperor's
edict, to appear and offer sacrifice, multitudes of Christians
in every city rushed to the forum. … It seemed, says St.
Cyprian, as if they had long been eager to find an opportunity
for disowning their faith. The persecution was especially
directed against the bishops and clergy. Among its victims
were Fabian of Rome, Babylas of Antioch, and Alexander of
Jerusalem; while in the lines of other eminent men (as
Cyprian, Origen, Gregory Thaumaturgus, and Dionysius of
Alexandria) the period is marked by exile or other sufferings.
The chief object, however, was not to inflict death on the
Christians, but to force them to recantation. With this view
they were subjected to tortures, imprisonment and want of
food; and under such trials the constancy of many gave way.
Many withdrew into voluntary banishment; among these was Paul,
a young man of Alexandria, who took up his abode in the desert
of the Thebaid, and is celebrated as the first Christian
hermit."
J. C. Robertson,
History of the Christian Church,
book 1, chapter 6 (volume 1).
"This persecution [of Decius] was interrupted by an invasion
of the Goths, who, for the first time, crossed the Danube in
considerable numbers, and devastated Mœsia.
See GOTHS: A. D. 244-251.
Decius marched against them, and gained some important
advantages; but in his last battle, charging into the midst of
the enemy to avenge the death of his son, he was overpowered
and slain (A. D. 251). A great number of the Romans, thus
deprived of their leader, fell victims to the barbarians; the
survivors, grateful for the protection afforded them by the
legions of Gallus, who commanded in the neighbourhood,
proclaimed that general emperor. Gallus concluded a
dishonourable peace with the Goths, and renewed the
persecutions of the Christians. His dastardly conduct provoked
general resentment; the provincial armies revolted, but the
most dangerous insurrection was that headed by Æmilianus, who
was proclaimed emperor in Mœsia. He led his forces into Italy,
and the hostile armies met at Interamna (Terni); but just as
an engagement was about to commence, Gallus was murdered by
his own soldiers (A. D. 253), and Æmilianus proclaimed
emperor. In three months Æmilianus himself met a similar fate,
the army having chosen Valerian, the governor of Gaul, to the
sovereignty. Valerian, though now sixty years of age,
possessed powers that might have revived the sinking fortunes
of the empire, which was now invaded on all sides. The Goths,
who had formed a powerful monarchy on the lower Danube and the
northern coasts of the Black Sea, extended their territories
to the Borysthenes (Dneiper) and Tanais (Don): they ravaged
Mœsia, Thrace and Macedon; while their fleets … devastated the
coasts both of the European and Asiatic provinces.
See GOTHS: A. D. 258-267.
The great confederation of the Franks became formidable on the
lower Rhine, and not less dangerous was that of the Allemanni
on the upper part of that river.
See FRANKS: A. D. 253.
The Carpians and Sarmatians laid Mœsia waste; while the
Persians plundered Syria, Cappadocia, and Cilicia. Gallienus,
the emperor's son, whom Valerian had chosen for his colleague,
and Aurelian, destined to succeed him in the empire, gained
several victories over the Germanic tribes; while Valerian
marched in person against the Scythians and Persians, who had
invaded Asia. He gained a victory over the former in Anatolia,
but, imprudently passing the Euphrates, he was surrounded by
Sapor's army near Edessa … and was forced to surrender at
discretion (A. D. 259).
See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.
During nine years Valerian languished in hopeless captivity,
the object of scorn and insult to his brutal conqueror, while
no effort was made for his liberation by his unnatural son.
Gallienus succeeded to the throne. … At the moment of his
accession, the barbarians, encouraged by the captivity of
Valerian, invaded the empire on all sides. Italy itself was
invaded by the Germans, who advanced to Ravenna, but they were
forced to retire by the emperor.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 259.
{2717}
Gallienus, after this exertion, sunk into complete inactivity:
his indolence roused a host of competitors for the empire in
the different provinces, commonly called 'the thirty tyrants,'
though the number of pretenders did not exceed 19. … Far the
most remarkable of them was Odenatus, who assumed the purple
at Palmyra, gained several great victories over the Persians,
and besieged Sapor in Ctesiphon. … But this great man was
murdered by some of his own family; he was succeeded by his
wife, the celebrated Zenobia, who took the title of Queen of
the East. Gallienus did not long survive him; he was murdered
while besieging Aureolus, one of his rivals, in Mediolanum
(Milan); but before his death he transmitted his rights to
Claudius, a general of great reputation (A. D. 268). Most of
the other tyrants had previously fallen in battle or by
assassination. Marcus Aurelius Claudius, having conquered his
only rival, Aureolus, marched against the Germans and Goths,
whom he routed with great slaughter
See GOTHS: A. D. 268-270.
He then prepared to march against Zenobia, who had conquered
Egypt; but a pestilence broke out in his army, and the emperor
himself was one of its victims (A. D. 270). … His brother was
elected emperor by acclamation; but in 17 days he so
displeased the army, by attempting to revive the ancient
discipline, that he was deposed and murdered. Aurelian, a
native of Sirmium in Pannonia, was chosen emperor by the army;
and the senate, well acquainted with his merits, joyfully
confirmed the election. He made peace with the Goths, and led
his army against the Germans, who had once more invaded Italy.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 270.
Aurelian was at first defeated; but he soon retrieved his
loss, and cut the whole of the barbarian army to pieces. His
next victory was obtained over the Vandals, a new horde that
had passed the Danube; and having thus secured the tranquility
of Europe, he marched to rescue the eastern provinces from
Zenobia," whom he vanquished and brought captive to Rome.
See PALMYRA.
This accomplished, the vigorous emperor proceeded to the
suppression of a formidable revolt in Egypt, and then to the
recovery of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, "which had now for
thirteen years been the prey of different tyrants. A single
campaign restored these provinces to the empire; and Aurelian,
returning to Rome, was honoured with the most magnificent
triumph that the city had ever beheld. … But he abandoned the
province of Dacia to the barbarians, withdrawing all the Roman
garrisons that had been stationed beyond the Danube.
Aurelian's virtues were sullied by the sternness and severity
that naturally belongs to a peasant and a soldier. His
officers dreaded his inflexibility," and he was murdered, A.
D. 275, by some of them who had been detected in peculations
and who dreaded his wrath. The senate elected as his successor
Marcus Claudius Tacitus, who died after a reign of seven
months. Florian, a brother of Tacitus, was then chosen by the
senate; but the Syrian army put forward a competitor in the
person of its commander, Marcus Aurelius Probus, and Florian
was presently slain by his own troops. "Probus, now undisputed
master of the Empire, led his troops from Asia to Gaul, which
was again devastated by the German tribes; he not only
defeated the barbarians, but pursued them into their own
country, where he gained greater advantages than any of his
predecessors.
See GAUL: A. D. 277
and GERMANY: A. D. 277.
Thence he passed into Thrace, where he humbled the Goths; and,
returning to Asia, he completely subdued the insurgent
Isaurians, whose lands he divided among his veterans," and
commanded peace on his own terms from the king of Persia. But
even the power with which Probus wielded his army could not
protect him from its licentiousness, and in a sudden mutiny
(A. D. 282) he was slain. Carus, captain of the prætorian
guards, was then raised to the throne by the army, the senate
assenting. He repelled the Sarmatians and defeated the
Persians, who had renewed hostilities; but he died, A. D. 283,
while besieging Ctesiphon. His son Numerianus was chosen his
successor; "but after a few months' reign, he was assassinated
by Aper, his father-in-law and captain of his guards. The
crime, however, was discovered, and the murderer put to death
by the army. Dioclesian, said to have been originally a slave,
was unanimously saluted Emperor by the army. He was proclaimed
at Chalcedon, on the 17th of December, A. D. 284; an epoch
that deserves to be remembered, as it marks the beginning of a
new era, called 'the Era of Dioclesian,' or 'the Era of
Martyrs,' which long prevailed in the church, and is still
used by the Copts, the Abyssinians, and other African
nations."
W. C. Taylor,
Student's Manual of Ancient History,
chapter 17, sections 6-7.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapters 5-12 (volume 1).
ROME: A. D. 213.
First collision with the Alemanni.
See ALEMANNI: A. D. 213.
ROME: A. D. 238.
Siege of Aquileia by Maximin.
See ROME: A. D. 192-284.
ROME: A. D. 238-267.
Naval incursions and ravages of the Goths
in Greece and Asia Minor.
See GOTHS: A. D. 258-267.
ROME: A. D. 284-305.
Reconstitution of the Empire by Diocletian.
Its division and subdivision between
two Augusti and two Cæsars.
Abdication of Diocletian.
"The accession of Diocletian to power marks a new epoch in the
history of the Roman empire. From this time the old names of
the republic, the consuls, the tribunes, and the Senate
itself, cease, even if still existing, to have any political
significance. The government becomes avowedly a monarchical
autocracy, and the officers by whom it is administered are
simply the nominees of the despot on the throne. The empire of
Rome is henceforth an Oriental sovereignty. Aurelian had
already introduced the use of the Oriental diadem. The
nobility of the empire derive their positions from the favor
of the sovereign; the commons of the empire, who have long
lost their political power, cease to enjoy even the name of
citizens. The provinces are still administered under the
imperial prefects by the magistrates and the assemblies of an
earlier date, but the functions of both the one and the other
are confined more strictly than ever to matters of police and
finance. Hitherto, indeed, the Senate, however intrinsically
weak, had found opportunities for putting forth its claims to
authority. … The chosen of the legions had been for some time
past the commander of an army, rather than the sovereign of
the state. He had seldom quitted the camp, rarely or never
presented himself in the capital. … The whole realm might
split asunder at any moment into as many kingdoms as there
were armies, unless the chiefs of the legions felt themselves
controlled by the strength or genius of one more eminent than
the rest. …
{2718}
The danger of disruption, thus far averted mainly by the awe
which the name of Rome inspired, was becoming yearly more
imminent, when Diocletian arose to re-establish the organic
connection of the parts, and breathe a new life into the heart
of the body politic. The jealous edict of Gallienus … had
forbidden the senators to take service in the army, or to quit
the limits of Italy. The degradation of that once illustrious
order, which was thus rendered incapable of furnishing a
candidate for the diadem, was completed by its indolent
acquiescence in this disqualifying ordinance. The nobles of
Rome relinquished all interest in affairs which they could no
longer aspire to conduct. The emperors, on their part, ceased
to regard them as a substantive power in the state; and in
constructing his new imperial constitution Diocletian wholly
overlooked their existence. … While he disregarded the
possibility of opposition at Rome, he contrived a new check
upon the rivalry of his distant lieutenants, by associating
with himself three other chiefs, welded together by strict
alliance into one imperial family, each of whom should take up
his residence in a separate quarter of the empire, and combine
with all the others in maintaining their common interest. His
first step was to choose a single colleague in the person of a
brave soldier of obscure origin, an Illyrian peasant, by name
Maximianus, whom he invested with the title of Augustus in the
year 286. The associated rulers assumed at the same time the
fanciful epithets of Jovius and Herculius, auspicious names,
which made them perhaps popular in the camps, where the
commanding genius of the one and the laborious fortitude of
the other were fully recognized. Maximianus was deputed to
control the legions in Gaul, to make head against domestic
sedition, as well as against the revolt of Carausius, a
pretender to the purple in Britain, while Diocletian
encountered the enemies or rivals who were now rising up in
various quarters in the East.
See BRITAIN: A. D. 288-297.
His dangers still multiplied, and again the powers of the
state were subdivided to meet them. In the year 292 Diocletian
created two Cæsars; the one, Galerius, to act subordinately to
himself in the East; the other, Constantius Chlorus, to divide
the government of the western provinces with Maximian. The
Cæsars were bound more closely to the Augusti by receiving
their daughters in marriage; but though they acknowledged each
a superior in his own half of the empire, and admitted a
certain supremacy of Diocletian over all, yet each enjoyed
kingly rule in his own territories, and each established a
court and capital, as well as an army and a camp. Diocletian
retained the wealthiest and most tranquil portion of the
realm, and reigned in Nicomedia [see NICOMEDIA] over Asia
Minor, Syria, and Egypt; while he intrusted to the Cæsar
Galerius, established at Sirmium, the more exposed provinces
on the Danube. Maximian occupied Italy, the adjacent islands,
and Africa, stationing himself, however, not in Rome, but at
Milan. Constantius was required to defend the Rhenish
frontier; and the martial provinces of Gaul, Spain, and
Britain were given him to furnish the forces necessary for
maintaining that important trust. The capital of the Western
Cæsar was fixed at Treves. Inspired with a common interest,
and controlled by the ascendency of Diocletian himself, all
the emperors acted with vigor in their several provinces.
Diocletian recovered Alexandria and quieted the revolt of
Egypt.
See ALEXANDRIA: A. D. 296.
Maximian routed the unruly hordes of Maurentia, and overthrew
a pretender to sovereignty in that distant quarter.
Constantius discomfited an invading host of Alemanni, kept in
check Carausius, who for a moment had seized upon Britain, and
again wrested that province from Allectus, who had murdered
and succeeded to him. Galerius brought the legions of Illyria
to the defence of Syria against the Persians, and though once
defeated on the plains of Carrhæ, at last reduced the enemy to
submission.
See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627].
Thus victorious in every quarter, Diocletian celebrated the
commencement of his twentieth year of power with a triumph at
the ancient capital, and again taking leave of the imperial
city, returned to his customary residence at Nicomedia. The
illness with which he was attacked on his journey suggested or
fixed his resolution to relieve himself from his cares, and on
May 1, in the year 305, being then fifty-nine years of age, he
performed the solemn act of abdication at Morgus, in Mæsia,
the spot where he had first assumed the purple at the bidding
of his soldiers. Strange to say, he did not renounce the
object of his ambition alone. On the same day a similar scene
was enacted by his colleague Maximian at Milan; but the
abdication of Maximian was not, it is said, a spontaneous
sacrifice, but imposed upon him by the influence or authority
of his elder and greater colleague. Diocletian had established
the principle of succession by which the supreme power was to
descend. Having seen the completion of all his arrangements,
and congratulated himself on the success, thus far, of his
great political experiments, he crowned his career of
moderation and self-restraint by strictly confining himself
during the remainder of his life to the tranquil enjoyment of
a private station. Retiring to the residence he had prepared
for himself at Salona, he found occupation and amusement in
the cultivation of his garden."
C. Merivale,
General History of Rome,
chapter 70.
ALSO IN:
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 13.
W. T. Arnold,
The Roman System of Provincial Administration,
chapter 4.
See, also, DIOCLETIAN.
ROME: A. D. 287.
Insurrection of the Bagauds in Gaul.
See BAGAUDS;
also, DEDITITIUS.
ROME: A. D. 303-305.
The persecution of Christians under Diocletian.
"Dreams concerning the overthrow of the Empire had long been
cast into the forms of prophecies amongst the Christians. …
There were some to repeat the predictions and to count the
proofs of overthrow impending upon the Empire. But there were
more, far more, to desire its preservation. Many even laboured
for it. The number of those holding offices of distinction at
the courts and in the armies implies the activity of a still
larger number in inferior stations. … Never, on the other
hand, had the generality of Christians been the objects of
deeper or more bitter suspicions. … By the lower orders, they
would be hated as conspiring against the customs of their
province or the glories of their race. By men of position and
of education, they would be despised as opposing every
interest of learning, of property, and of rank. Darker still
were the sentiments of the sovereigns.
{2719}
By them the Christians were scorned as unruly subjects,
building temples without authority, appointing priests without
license, while they lived and died for principles the most
adverse to the laws and to the rulers of the Empire. …
Everywhere they were advancing. Everywhere they met with
reviving foes. At the head of these stood the Cæsar,
afterwards the Emperor Galerius. He who had been a herdsman of
Dacia was of the stamp to become a wanton ruler. He showed his
temper in his treatment of the Heathen. He showed it still
more clearly in his hostility towards the Christians. … He
turned to Diocletian. The elder Emperor was in the mood to
hear his vindictive son-in-law. Already had Diocletian
fulminated his edicts against the Christians. Once it was
because his priests declared them to be denounced in an oracle
from Apollo, as opposing the worship of that deity. At another
time, it was because his soothsayers complained of the
presence of his Christian attendants as interfering with the
omens on which the Heathen depended. Diocletian was
superstitious. But he yielded less to his superstition as a
man than to his imperiousness as a sovereign, when he ordered
that all employed in the imperial service should take part in
the public sacrifices under pain of scourging and dismissal. …
At this crisis he was accosted by Galerius. Imperious as he
was, Diocletian was still circumspect. … Galerius urged
instant suppression. 'The world,' replied his father-in-law,
'will be thrown into confusion, if we attack the Christians.'
But Galerius insisted. Not all the caution of the elder
Emperor was proof against the passions thus excited by his
son-in-law. The wives of Diocletian and Galerius, both said to
have been Christians, interceded in vain. Without consulting
the other sovereigns, it was determined between Diocletian and
Galerius to sound the alarum of persecution throughout their
realms. Never had persecution begun more fearfully. Without a
note of warning, the Christians of Nicomedia were startled,
one morning, by the sack and demolition of their church. … Not
until the next day, however, was there any formal declaration
of hostilities. An edict then appeared commanding instant and
terrible proceedings against the Christians. Their churches
were to be razed. Their Scriptures were to be destroyed. They
themselves were to be deprived of their estates and offices. …
Some days or weeks, crowded with resistance as well as
suffering, went by. Suddenly a fire broke out in the palace at
Nicomedia. It was of course laid at the charge of the
Christians. … Some movements occurring in the eastern
provinces were also ascribed to Christian machinations. … The
Empresses, suspected of sharing the faith of the sufferers,
were compelled to offer public sacrifice. Fiercer assaults
ensued. A second edict from the palace ordered the arrest of
the Christian priests. A third commanded that the prisoners
should be forced to sacrifice according to the Heathen ritual
under pain of torture. When the dungeons were filled, and the
racks within them were busy with their horrid work, a fourth
edict, more searching and more pitiless than any, was
published. By this the proper officers were directed to arrest
every Christian whom they could discover, and bring him to one
of the Heathen temples. … Letters were despatched to demand
the co-operation of the Emperor Maximian and the Cæsar
Constantius. The latter, it is said, refused; yet there were
no limits that could be set to the persecution by any one of
the sovereigns. … None suffered more than the Christians in
Britain. … The intensity of the persecution was in no degree
diminished by the extent over which it spread. … Some were
thrown into dungeons to renounce their faith or to die amidst
the agonies of which they had no fear. Long trains of those
who survived imprisonment were sent across the country or
beyond the sea to labour like brutes in the public mines. In
many cities the streets must have been literally blocked up
with the stakes and scaffolds where death was dealt alike to
men and women and little children. It mattered nothing of what
rank the victims were. The poorest slave and the first officer
of the imperial treasury were massacred with equal savageness.
… The memory of man embraces no such strife, if that can be
called a strife in which there was but one side armed, but one
side slain."
S. Eliot,
History of the Early Christians,
book 3, chapter 10 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
A. Carr,
The Church and the Roman Empire,
chapter 2.
G. Uhlhorn,
The Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism,
book 3, chapter 1.
ROME: A. D. 305-323.
The wars of Constantine and his rivals.
His triumph.
His reunion of the Empire.
On the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, Constantius and
Galerius, who had previously held the subordinate rank of
Cæsars, succeeded to the superior throne, as Augusti. A nephew
of Galerius, named Maximin, and one Severus, who was his
favorite, were then appointed Cæsars, to the exclusion of
Constantine, son of Constantius, and Maxentius, son of
Maximian, who might have naturally expected the elevation.
Little more than a year afterwards, Constantius died, in
Britain, and Constantine was proclaimed Augustus and Emperor,
in his place, by the armies of the West. Galerius had not
courage to oppose this military election, except so far as to
withhold from Constantine the supreme rank of Augustus, which
he conferred on his creature, Severus. Constantine acquiesced,
for the moment, and contented himself with the name of Cæsar,
while events and his own prudence were preparing for him a far
greater elevation. In October, 306, there was a successful
rising at Rome against Severus, Maxentius was raised to the
throne by the voice of the feeble senate and the people, and
his father, Maximian, the abdicated monarch, came out of his
retirement to resume the purple, in association at first, but
afterwards in rivalry with his son. Severus was besieged at
Ravenna and, having surrendered, was condemned to death.
Galerius undertook to avenge his death by invading Italy, but
retreated ignominiously. Thereupon he invested his friend
Licinius with the emblems and the rank of the deceased
Severus. The Roman world had then six emperors—each claiming
the great title of "Augustus": Galerius, Licinius, and Maximin
in the East (including Africa), making common cause against
Maximian, Maxentius and Constantine in the West. The first, in
these combinations, to fall out, were the father and son,
Maximian and Maxentius, both claiming authority in Italy. The
old emperor appealed to his former army and it declared
against him.
{2720}
He fled, taking shelter, first, with his enemy Galerius, but
soon repairing to the court of Constantine, who had married
his daughter Fausta. A little later, the dissatisfied and
restless old man conspired to dethrone his son-in-law and was
put to death. The next year (May, A. D. 311) Galerius died at
Nicomedia, and his dominions were divided between Licinius and
Maximin. The combinations were now changed, and Constantine
and Licinius entered into an alliance against Maxentius and
Maximin. Rome and Italy had wearied by this time of Maxentius,
who was both vicious and tyrannical, and invited Constantine
to deliver them. He responded by a bold invasion of Italy,
with a small army of but 40,000 men; defeated the greater army
of Maxentius at Turin; occupied the imperial city of Milan;
took Verona, after a siege and a desperate battle fought
outside its walls, and finished his antagonist in a third
encounter (October 28, A. D. 312), at Saxa Rubra, within nine
miles of Rome. Maxentius perished in the flight from this
decisive field and Constantine possessed his dominions. In the
next year, Maximin, rashly venturing to attack Licinius, was
defeated near Heraclea, on the Propontis, and died soon
afterwards. The six emperors of the year 308 were now (A. D.
313) reduced to two, and the friendship between them was
ostentatious. But it endured little longer than a single year.
Licinius was accused of conspiring against Constantine, and
the latter declared war. The first battle was fought near
Cibalis, in Pannonia, the second on the plain of Mardia, in
Thrace, and Constantine was the victor in both. Licinius sued
for peace and obtained it (December, A. D. 315) by the cession
of all his dominion in Europe, except Thrace. For eight years,
Constantine was contented with the great empire he then
possessed. In 323 he determined to grasp the entire Roman
world. Licinius opposed him with a vigor unexpected and the
war was prepared for on a mighty scale. It was practically
decided by the first great battle, at Hadrianople, on the 3d
of July, 323. Licinius, defeated, took refuge in Byzantium,
which Constantine besieged. Escaping from Byzantium into Asia,
Licinius fought once more at Chrysopolis and then yielded to
his fate. He died soon after. The Roman empire was again
united and Constantine was its single lord.
E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 14.
ALSO IN:
E. L. Cutts,
Constantine the Great,
chapters 7-22.
ROME: A. D. 306.
Constantine's defeat of the Franks.
See FRANKS: A. D. 306.
ROME: A. D. 313.
Constantine's Edict of Milan.
Declared toleration of Christianity.
After the extension of the sovereignty of Constantine over the
Italian provinces as well as Gaul and the West, he went, in
January, A. D. 313, to Milan, and there held a conference with
Licinius, his eastern colleague in the empire. One of the
results of that conference was the famous Edict of Milan,
which recognized Christianity and admitted it to a footing of
equal toleration with the paganisms of the empire—in terms as
follows: "Wherefore, as I, Constantine Augustus, and I,
Licinius Augustus, came under favourable auspices to Milan,
and took under consideration all affairs that pertained to the
public benefit and welfare, these things among the rest
appeared to us to be most advantageous and profitable to all.
We have resolved among the first things to ordain, those
matters by which reverence and worship to the Deity might be
exhibited. That is, how we may grant likewise to the
Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow that mode of
worship which they may wish. That whatsoever divinity and
celestial power may exist may be propitious to us, and to all
that live under our government. Therefore, we have decreed the
following ordinance as our will, with a salutary and most
correct intention, that no freedom at all shall be refused to
Christians, to follow or to keep their observances or worship.
But that to each one power be granted to devote his mind to
that worship which he may think adapted to himself. That the
Deity may in all things exhibit to us His accustomed favour
and kindness. … And this we further decree, with respect to
the Christians, that the places in which they were formerly
accustomed to assemble, concerning which also we formerly
wrote to your fidelity, in a different form, that if any
persons have purchased these, either from our treasurer, or
from any other one, these shall restore them to the
Christians, without money and without demanding any price. …
They who as we have said restore them without valuation and
price may expect their indemnity from our munificence and
liberality."
Eusebius,
Ecclesiastical History,
book 10, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
P. Schaff,
Progress of Religious Freedom,
chapter 2.
ROME: A. D. 318-325.
The Arian Controversy and the Council of Nicæa.
See ARIANISM;
and NICÆA: A. D. 325.
ROME: A. D. 323.
The conversion of Constantine.
His Christianity.
His character.
"The alleged supernatural conversion of Constantine has
afforded a subject of doubt and debate from that age to the
present. Up to the date of his war against Maxentius, the
Emperor believed, like his father, in one god, whom he
represented to himself, not with the attributes of Jupiter,
best and greatest, father of gods and men, but under the form
of Apollo, with the attributes of the glorified youth of
manhood, the god of light and life. … His conversion to
Christianity took place at the period of the war with
Maxentius. The chief contemporary authorities on the subject
are Lactantius and Eusebius. Lactantius, an African by birth,
was a rhetorician (or, as we should call him, professor) at
Nicomedia, of such eminence that Constantine entrusted to him
the education of his eldest son, Crispus. Writing before the
death of Licinius, i. e. before the year 314 A. D., or within
two, or at most three, years of the event, Lactantius says,
'Constantine was admonished in his sleep to mark the celestial
sign of God on the shields, and so to engage in the battle. He
did as he was commanded and marked the name of Christ on the
shields by the letter X drawn across them, with the top
circumflexed. Armed with this sign his troops proceed,' etc.
Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, the historian of the early
Church, the most learned Christian of his time, was, after
Constantine's conquest of the East, much about the court, in
the confidence of the Emperor, and one of his chief advisers
in ecclesiastical matters. In his 'Life of Constantine',
published twenty-six years after the Emperor's death, he gives
us an interesting account of the moral process of the
Emperor's conversion.
{2721}
Reflecting on the approaching contest with Maxentius, and
hearing of the extraordinary rites by which he was
endeavouring to win the favour of the gods, 'being convinced
that he needed some more powerful aid than his military forces
could afford him, on account of the wicked and magical
enchantments which were so diligently practised by the tyrant,
he began to seek for divine assistance. … And while he was
thus praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvellous sign