In the case of the demagogue Carbo, we find him, after a violent career as a popular tribune, selling his influence and services to the senatorial party, of which he was henceforth the most servient tool. He was rewarded for his services to this party by an election as consul, and it was during his consulship (120 B.C.) that the indictment was brought against Opimius. Carbo's influence, coupled with the fear which the murderers of the Gracchi and their followers had left in the minds of the people, was sufficient to secure the acquittal of Opimius. The triumph of Carbo, however, was short-lived. He was himself indicted by L. Licinius Crassus, brother-in-law of Gaius Gracchus, and the manifestation of the feeling against him became so bitter that Carbo was driven to take his own life by poison.
The Roman politicians of the next few years, the Metelli, Æmilius Scaurus, and others, left little impress upon the course of Roman history, and their lives and triumphs are of little interest to us. Their aims were of a strictly personal character, their civic work was of a routine character; if they did little harm to the state, they conferred no benefit upon it.
The most important event of the closing years of the second century before Christ was the famous, or rather infamous, Jugurthine War. The story of this war furnishes the final evidence as to the corruption and degradation of Roman politics and officials at this time. This war arose out of a disputed succession to the throne of Numidia. Jugurtha, at first the friend and ally of Rome, after he had secured possession of the whole country through the murder of his two rivals, his cousins, found himself at last at war with Rome. The fortune of war going against him, he secured an advantageous peace by bribing the Roman general. The facts relative to this peace becoming known at Rome, Jugurtha was summoned to appear at Rome to give his account of the proceedings. His history, during this famous visit to Rome, is thus related by the Roman historian Sallust:
"During the course of these proceedings at Rome, those whom Bestia had left in Numidia in command of the army, following the example of their general, had been guilty of many scandalous transactions. Some, seduced by gold, had restored Jugurtha his elephants; others had sold him his deserters; others had ravaged the lands of those at peace with us; so strong a spirit of rapacity, like the contagion of a pestilence, had pervaded the breasts of all.
"Cassius, when the measure proposed by Memmius had been carried, and whilst all the nobility were in consternation, set out on his mission to Jugurtha, whom, alarmed as he was, and despairing of his fortune, from a sense of guilt, he admonished 'that, since he had surrendered himself to the Romans, he had better make trial of their mercy than their power.' He also pledged his own word, which Jugurtha valued not less than that of the public, for his safety. Such, at that period, was the reputation of Cassius.
"Jugurtha, accordingly, accompanied Cassius to Rome, but without any mark of royalty, and in the garb, as much as possible, of a suppliant; and, though he felt great confidence on his own part, and was supported by all those through whose power or villainy he had accomplished his projects, he purchased, by a vast bribe, the aid of Caius Bæbius, a tribune of the people, by whose audacity he hoped to be protected against the law, and against all harm.
"An assembly of the people being convoked, Memmius, although they were violently exasperated against Jugurtha (some demanding that he should be cast into prison, others that, unless he should name his accomplices in guilt, he should be put to death, according to the usage of their ancestors, as a public enemy) yet, regarding rather their character than their resentment, endeavoured to calm their turbulence and mitigate their rage; and assured them that, as far as depended on him, the public faith should not be broken. At length, when silence was obtained, he brought forward Jugurtha, and addressed them. He detailed the misdeeds of Jugurtha at Rome and in Numidia, and set forth his crimes towards his father and brothers; and admonished the prince 'that the Roman people, though they were well aware by whose support and agency he had acted, yet desired further testimony from himself; that, if he disclosed the truth, there was great hope for him in the honour and clemency of the Romans; but if he concealed it, he would certainly not save his accomplices, but ruin himself and his hopes forever.'
"But when Memmius had concluded his speech, and Jugurtha was expected to give his answer, Caius Bæbius, the tribune of the people, whom I have just noticed as having been bribed, enjoined the prince to hold his peace; and though the multitude who formed the assembly were desperately enraged, and endeavoured to terrify the tribune by outcries, by angry looks, by violent gestures, and by every other act to which anger prompts, his audacity was at last triumphant. The people, mocked and set at naught, withdrew from the place of assembly, and the confidence of Jugurtha, Bestia, and the others whom this investigation had alarmed, was greatly augmented.
"There was at this period in Rome, a certain Numidian named Massiva, a son of Gulussa and grandson of Masinissa, who, from having been, in the dissensions among princes, opposed to Jugurtha, had been obliged, after the surrender of Cirta and the murder of Adherbal, to make his escape out of Africa. Spurius Albinus, who was consul with Quintus Minucius Rufus the year after Bestia, prevailed upon this man, as he was of the family of Masinissa, and as odium and terror hung over Jugurtha for his crimes, to petition the senate for the kingdom of Numidia. Albinus, being eager for the conduct of a war, was desirous that affairs should be disturbed, rather than sink into tranquillity; especially as, in the division of the provinces, Numidia had fallen to himself, and Macedonia to Minucius.
"When Massiva proceeded to carry these suggestions into execution, Jugurtha, finding that he had no sufficient support in his friends, as a sense of guilt deterred some and evil report or timidity, others from coming forward in his behalf, directed Bomilcar, his most attached and faithful adherent, to procure by the aid of money, by which he had already effected so much, assassins to kill Massiva; and to do it secretly if he could, but if secrecy should be impossible, to cut him off in any way whatsoever. This commission Bomilcar soon found means to execute; and, by the agency of men versed in such service, ascertained the direction of his journeys, his hours of leaving home, and the times at which he resorted to particular places, and, when all was ready, placed his assassins in ambush. One of their number sprang upon Massiva, though with too little caution, and killed him; but, being himself caught, he made at the instigation of many, and especially of Albinus the consul, a full confession. Bomilcar was accordingly committed for trial, though rather on the principles of reason and justice than in accordance with the law of nations, as he was in the retinue of one who had come to Rome on a pledge of the public faith for his safety. But Jugurtha, though clearly guilty of the crime, did not cease to struggle against the truth, until he perceived that the infamy of the deed was too strong for his interest or his money. For that reason, although at the commencement of the proceedings, he had given fifty of his friends as bail for Bomilcar, yet thinking more of his kingdom than of the sureties, he sent him off privately into Numidia, for he feared that if such a man should be executed, his other subjects would be deterred from obeying him. A few days after, he himself departed, having been ordered by the senate to quit Italy. But, as he was going from Rome, he is said, after frequently looking back on it in silence, to have at last exclaimed that 'it was a venal city, and would soon perish, if it could but find a purchaser.'"
Upon the resumption of the war with Jugurtha the Romans at first met with a great disaster, the army under Spurius Albinus being defeated and compelled to pass under the yoke and withdraw from Numidia. The result of this defeat was a sweeping investigation of the wholesale bribery of Roman officials by Jugurtha. Many, though not all, of those guilty in this respect were punished by banishment. The conduct of the war was now delegated to Q. Cæcilius Metellus, by whom it was soon after brought to a successful termination. This result, however, was due less to the military genius of Metellus than to that of his lieutenant Gaius Marius, who immediately afterwards became the central figure in the political arena at Rome.
Marius was born near Arpinum about 157 B.C. of peasant parents. Abandoning agriculture for the army, at a very early age he had won distinction not only for personal strength and courage but also for military ability. As early as the year 132 B.C. Scipio Africanus, once being asked by a flatterer where a general could be found to fill his place, touched the arm of Marius, who happened to be present on the occasion, and answered, "Perhaps here." It was not only in the field of war but also in that of politics that Marius had won a reputation before the time that he served under Metellus against Jugurtha. Being elected tribune in 119 B.C., his actions, upon some unimportant controversies which arose during the year, had been such as to show the determination and ferocity of his disposition, and to win the favor of the populace and the distrust of the senatorial party. Through the influence of the aristocracy Marius was defeated for both the ædileships, but was finally elected prætor in 115 B.C.
It was while he was serving under Metellus in Africa that Marius became a candidate for the consulship. The idea of Marius as consul was very distasteful to Metellus, who permitted Marius to leave the camp for Rome only twelve days before the day set for the election. Marius, by almost superhuman exertions, succeeded in making the journey to Rome in the first six of these days, and in the remaining six conducted a successful campaign for the consulship.
The election of Marius to the consulship marks the beginning of the last age of the Roman republic. With Marius began the habitual rule of might rather than of right; rule by armies, instead of rule by majorities. For something over half a century power at Rome was to be shuffled backward and forward between different military commanders, until finally a military despot arose strong enough both to overthrow the oligarchy and to put down the mob. The manner in which the Romans had abstained from internal violence for centuries, during all the heat of so many bitter political and class contests, is one of the wonders of ancient history. The aristocracy first broke this rule by resorting to force to block the reforms of the Gracchi. Such a procedure must always be a two-edged weapon, and Marius was the man fated to turn the sword against those who first drew it in Roman politics. The very election of Marius as consul (107 B.C.) was the occasion of much disquietude to the oligarchy.
Although the consulship had at this time, in theory, been for two hundred sixty years open to all Roman citizens, nevertheless, in practice, it had, with occasional exceptions, been confined to the members of the few great families. In fact, so general had this become that a man who was the first of his family to be elected to this office was known as a "new man." Not only was Marius a "new man," but his immediate ancestors, in all probability, were men lower in the social and economic scale than had been the father and grandfather of any previous Roman consul. If the rise of Marius was a source of danger to the senatorial party, the qualities which had rendered his success possible were a source of danger to the whole community. Marius was and had been a soldier, and a soldier only. There is nothing in his whole life to indicate that he combined with the attributes of the general any of those of the statesman, as did Cæsar and Napoleon. The same fighting qualities which brought to him success in war likewise produced success in politics, and the same ferocity of disposition was manifested in both fields.
The military ability of Marius, in connection with the peculiar circumstances of the times, soon secured to this general a more absolute control of the Roman community than had previously been possessed by any consul of Rome. The military ability of Marius has never been disputed either by his contemporaries or by later historians. His military successes after his election to the consulship were rapid and decisive. Where his predecessors had failed, Marius succeeded in the Jugurthine War, and the year 104 B.C. witnessed at Rome the triumph of Marius, with the craftiest, ablest, and most unscrupulous of African kings walking in chains as a captive in his train.