1 While these things are done at Rome, (if they were truly transacted in this year,) both the consuls were employed in the war with the Ligurians. This enemy seemed born for the purpose of preserving military discipline among the Romans, during the intervals between important wars; nor was any province better calculated to form a soldier to active valour. For Asia, from the enticing pleasures of its cities, the abundance of every production both of land and sea, the unwarlike temper of the enemy, and the wealth of its princes, made Roman armies rich, rather than brave. Under the command of Cneius Manlius, particularly, the troops were kept in a state of idleness and licentiousness. Therefore, in Thrace, a passage somewhat more difficult, and a more vigorous enemy, checked them with severe loss. Whereas in Liguria there was every circumstance that could invigorate the courage of soldiers; the country mountainous and rugged, so that even the taking possession of unoccupied posts, and much more the dislodging of an enemy from those already in possession, was attended with much labour; the roads hilly, narrow, and exposed to ambuscades; the enemy light, active, and energetic in their motions, so as to allow no season or place to be quiet or secure; the necessary attack on the strong forts with much toil and danger; and the country so poor as to constrain the soldier to a sparing mode of living, while it afforded but a small share of booty. Accordingly, no sutler followed the army, no long train of baggage horses extended its line of march, nothing was to be seen but arms, and men having all their hopes in their arms. Nor was either subject or cause for hostilities with them ever wanting; because on account of their poverty at home they made frequent incursions on the territories of their neighbours; they did not. however, fight a battle which could decide the entire war.
2 The consul, Caius Flaminius, after several successful battles against the Frinian Ligurians in their own country, received the submission of that tribe, and ordered them to deliver up their arms; as they did not give them up honourably, and were reproved for their behaviour, who abandoned their villages, and fled to the mountain called Auginus, whither the consul immediately followed them. A part of the enemy again betook themselves to flight; and, running with precipitate haste, the greatest part without arms, over pathless tracts and rocky precipices, they escaped to places where an enemy could not follow them. Thus they got away beyond the Apennine; the rest, who remained in the camp, were surrounded and reduced by assault. The legions were then led over the Apennine; then the enemy, assisted by the height of the mountain, which they had occupied at first, stood on their defence; but, in a little time, submitted. Their arms were then sought for with greater care and all taken from them. The war was then transferred to the Apuan tribe of Ligurians, who had made so many incursions into the territory of Pisa and Bononia, that it could not be cultivated. These being entirely subdued, the consul restored peace to the neighbourhood. And, as he had effected the security of the province from the war, he made a road from Bononia to Anetium, that he might not keep the soldiers in a state of idleness. The other consul, Marcus Æmilius, ravaged with fire and sword the lands of the Ligurians, together with their villages that stood in the plains, while the inhabitants remained posted on two mountains, Ballista and Suismontium. He then attacked those who were on the mountains, harassed them for some time in skirmishes, and, at last, compelled them to come to an engagement, and utterly defeated them in a regular battle: in which he vowed a temple to Diana. Having now reduced all on this side of the Apennine, he marched against those on the other side of that mountain; among whom were the Brinian tribe, which had not been attacked by Flaminius: Æmilius subdued them all, stripped them of their arms, and obliged the multitude to come down from the mountains into the plains. The Ligurians being brought to a state of peace, he led his army into the Gallic territory, and drew a road from Placentia to Ariminum, to meet that made by Flaminius. During the last engagement, when he fought a pitched battle with the Ligurians, he vowed a temple to Imperial Juno. Such were the transactions of this year in Liguria.
3 In Gaul, the prætor, Marcus Furius, seeking a pretext for war in the midst of peace, deprived, the unoffending Cænomanians of their arms. The Cænomanians complained of this to the senate at Rome, and were by them referred to the consul Æmilius, whom the senate authorized to examine into and determine the cause; after a warm contest with the prætor they gained their cause. The prætor was ordered to restore their arms to the Cænomanians, and quit the province.
The senate afterwards gave audience to envoys of the Latin confederation, who had come, in great numbers, from all parts of Latium. On their complaint that a great multitude of their citizens had been removed to Rome, and had been assessed there in the survey; a commission was given to Quintus Terentius Culleo, the prætor, to make inquiry after such persons; and on the allies proving that those persons themselves, or their fathers, had been assessed in the surveys of their states in the censorship of Caius Claudius and Marcus Livius, or at some time subsequent to their censorship, he was ordered to compel all such to return to the several states wherein they had been so rated. In consequence of this inquiry, twelve thousand Latins returned home; as the multitude of foreigners even then burdened the city.
4 Before the consuls came home to Rome, Marcus Fulvius, the proconsul, returned from Ætolia. He, when he had as usual recited to the senate, in the temple of Apollo, the services which he had performed in Ætolia and Cephallenia, then requested of the fathers, that, in consideration of his having conducted the business of the public with good fortune and success, they would think proper to order public thanks to be offered to the immortal gods, and to decree a triumph to him. Marcus Abutius, a tribune of the commons, gave notice, that, if any thing were determined on that subject before the arrival of Marcus Æmilius, he would enter his protest: for “the consul intended to oppose that measure; and, at his setting out for his province, had given him a charge to keep the discussion of it open until he should come home. That Fulvius would suffer a loss of nothing but time; for, notwithstanding the presence of the consul, the senate would determine according to their own wishes.” Fulvius replied, that, “even if the quarrel subsisting between him and Marcus Æmilius was unknown to the world, or with what overbearing, and, in some measure, tyrannical rancour, that man prosecuted his enmity; yet it was insufferable, that the absence of the consul should both obstruct the worship of the immortal gods, and delay a triumph merited and due; that a commander, after performing signal services, and his victorious army with its booty and prisoners, should remain outside the gates, until a consul, who purposely delayed abroad, should be pleased to return to Rome. But, in the present case, when the animosity between him and the consul was most notorious, what fair dealing could any one expect from a man who procured clandestinely, in a thin house, and lodged in the treasury, a decree of the senate, that “it did not appear that Ambracia was taken by force:” a town which was attacked with mounds and engines; where, after the works were burned, others were constructed anew; where a fight was carried on around the walls for fifteen days, both above and under ground; where, from the first dawn, when the soldiers mounted the walls, a battle, for a long time doubtful, lasted until night; and where more than three thousand of the enemy were killed? Then, again, what a malicious misrepresentation did he make to the pontiffs, of the temples of the immortal gods being plundered in a captured city! If it were allowable that Rome should be decorated with the ornaments of Syracuse, and other conquered places, then the laws of war must lose their force in the case of Ambracia alone, among conquered towns. For his part, he besought the conscript fathers, and requested the tribunes, not to suffer him to become a subject of derision to a most haughty enemy.”
5 All around were in his favour; and some entreated the tribune to desist, while others sharply reproved his conduct. The speech of his colleague, Tiberius Gracchus, moved him most, that, “for a man in office to prosecute even his own quarrels, was an example of no good tendency; but, that a tribune of the people should take upon himself to be a solicitor in the quarrel of another, was infamous, and highly unworthy of the power and sacred laws of the order to which he belonged. That men ought to love or hate others, approve or disapprove of measures, according to the dictates of their own judgment; but that a tribune ought not to depend on the look or nod of another man, veer about at the movements of another’s will, and make himself a tool to his displeasure; nor remember a private charge, committed to him by Marcus Æmilius, and forget that the tribuneship was a public charge, intrusted to him by the Roman people, for the protection and liberty of private citizens, not to aggrandize the arbitrary power of a consul. His colleague did not seem to consider that this circumstance would be committed to record and posterity: that, of two plebeian tribunes of the same college, one sacrificed his own resentment to the public good, the other prosecuted the resentment of another man which was merely intrusted to him.” When the tribune, overcome by these severe rebukes, had withdrawn from the meeting, a triumph was voted to Marcus Fulvius, on the motion of Servius Sulpicius, the prætor. When he returned thanks to the conscript fathers, he then mentioned, that, “on the day of his taking Ambracia, he had vowed to celebrate the great games in honour of Jupiter the supremely good and great; that a contribution for that purpose had been made to him by the several states, amounting to one hundred and ten pounds’ weight of gold; and he requested them to order that sum to be set apart, out of the money which he was to deposit in the treasury, after being borne in triumph.” The senate ordered the college of pontiffs to be consulted, whether it were necessary that the whole of that sum should be expended on the games: when the pontiffs had answered, that it mattered little to religion what was the expense of the games, the senate gave permission to Fulvius to expend as much as he thought proper, provided he did not exceed eighty thousand sesterces.[40] He, at first, intended to celebrate his triumph in the month of January; but, hearing that the consul Æmilius, in consequence of a letter from the tribune Abutius, concerning his waving his protest, was coming in person to Rome, to hinder his triumph, but had been obliged, by sickness to halt on the road, he hastened the time of the celebration, lest he should have more contests about it than he had met in the war. He triumphed over the Ætolians and Cephallenia on the tenth day before the calends of January. There were carried before his chariot, golden crowns to the amount of one hundred and twelve pounds’ weight; of silver, eighty-three thousand pounds; of gold, two hundred and forty-three thousand; of Attic tetradrachms, one hundred and eighteen thousand;[41] of the coin called Philippeans, twelve thousand four hundred and twenty-two;[42] brazen statues, two hundred and eighty-five; marble statues, two hundred and thirty; arms, weapons, and other spoils in great quantities: besides these, catapultas, ballistas, and engines of every kind; and in the procession were led twenty-seven commanders, either Ætolian and Cephallenian, or belonging to king Antiochus, and left with them. Before he rode into the city, in the Flaminian circus, he presented great numbers of tribunes, præfects, horsemen, centurions, both Romans and allies, with military gifts; to each of the soldiers he distributed out of the booty twenty-five denariuses,[43] double to a centurion, triple to a horseman.
6 The time of the election of consuls now approached; and as Marcus Æmilius, to whose lot that business had fallen, could not attend, Caius Flaminius came home to Rome. Spurius Posthumius Albinus and Quintus Marcus Philippus were elected consuls by him. Then were chosen as prætors,—Titus Mænius, Publius Cornelius Sulla, Caius Calpurnius Piso, Marcus Licinius Lucullus, Caius Aurelius Scaurus, and Lucius Quintius Crispinus. At the close of the year, after the magistrates were appointed, on the third day before the nones of March, Cneius Manlius Vulso triumphed over the Gauls inhabiting Asia. The reason of his deferring his triumph so long was, to avoid standing a trial under the Petillian law, during the prætorship of Quintus Terentius Culleo; and the being involved in the ill consequences of the sentence passed on another, that by which Lucius Scipio was condemned; especially as the judges would be more disposed to severity against him than against Scipio, for this reason, because fame had reported, that he, Scipio’s successor, had, by tolerating every description of licentiousness, ruined military discipline, so strictly preserved by his predecessor. Nor were the facts, which were reported to have happened in the province far from the eyes of spectators, the only things that disgraced his character; but still more so, those circumstances which were every day beheld in his soldiers; for by this army returning from Asia was the origin of foreign luxury imported into the city. These men first brought to Rome gilded couches, rich tapestry, with hangings and other works of the loom; and, what were then deemed magnificent furniture, single-footed tables and buffets. At entertainments, likewise, were introduced female players on the harp and timbrel, with buffoons for the diversion of the guests. Their meats also began to be prepared with greater care and cost; while the cook, whom the ancients considered as the meanest of their slaves both in estimation and use, became highly valuable, and what was considered as a servile office began to be considered an art. Nevertheless, those introductions which were then looked on as remarkable were scarcely even the seeds of the future luxury.
7 Cneius Manlius carried in the triumph two hundred golden crowns of twelve pounds’ weight; two hundred and twenty thousand pounds’ weight of silver; two thousand two hundred and three of gold; one hundred and twenty-seven thousand Attic tetradrachms;[44] two hundred and fifty thousand cistophoruses;[45] sixteen thousand three hundred and twenty golden Philippeans;[46] together with abundance of Gallic arms and spoils in chariots. Fifty-two generals of the enemy were led before his car. He distributed to each of his soldiers forty-two denariuses,[47] and double that sum to a centurion; to the foot-soldiers double pay, to the horsemen triple. Great numbers of all ranks, whom he had distinguished by gifts, accompanied him. The verses thrown out by the soldiers were of such a kind, that it was quite evident that they were sung to a commander who had been indulgent to them, and courted their affections. It was indeed evident that the triumph was celebrated with a greater degree of favour by the troops, than by the citizens. The friends of Manlius, however, were able to acquire for him the regard of the people also; through whose efforts a decree of the senate was passed, ordering, that “such part of the soldiers’ pay, contributed to the public funds by the people, as was not yet repaid, should be discharged out of that which had been carried in the procession to the treasury.” Accordingly the city prætors, with care and fidelity, paid twenty-five denariuses and a half[48] instead of each thousand asses.[49] About this time two military tribunes arrived from the two Spains with letters from Caius Atinius and Lucius Manlius, who governed those provinces. From these letters it appeared, that the Celtiberians and Lusitanians were in arms, and ravaging the territories of the allies; the senate, however, deferred all consideration of that business until the new magistrates should come into office. This year, during the celebration of the Roman games which Publius Cornelius Cethegus and Aulus Postumius Albinus exhibited, a pole in the circus, being loosely set in the ground, fell on the statue of Pollentia, and threw it down. The senate moved by such a religious circumstance, voted that one day should be added to the celebration of the games, that two statues should be set up instead of the one, and that one of them, a new statue, should be gilded. The plebeian games were likewise repeated for one day, by the ædiles Caius Sempronius Blæsus and Marcus Furius Luscus.
8 The following year diverted Spurius Postumius Albinus and Quintus Marcius Philippus, from the care of armies, and wars, and provinces, to the punishing of an intestine conpiracy. The prætors cast lots for their provinces, Titus Mænius obtained the city jurisdiction; Marcus Licinius Lucullus, that between citizens and foreigners; Caius Aurelius Scaurus, Sardinia; Publius Cornelius Sulla, Sicily; Lucius Quintius Crispinus, Hither Spain; Caius Calpurnius Piso, Farther Spain. The making inquisition concerning clandestine meetings was decreed to both the consuls. A Greek of mean condition came, first, into Etruria, not with one of the many trades which his nation, of all others the most skilful in the cultivation of the mind and body, has introduced among us, but a low operator in sacrifices, and a soothsayer; nor was he one who, by open religious rites, and by publicly professing his calling and teaching, imbued the minds of his followers with terror, but a priest of secret and nocturnal rites. These mysterious rites were, at first, imparted to a few, but afterwards communicated to great numbers, both men and women. To their religious performances were added the pleasures of wine and feasting, to allure a greater number of proselytes. When wine, lascivious discourse, night, and the intercourse of the sexes had extinguished every sentiment of modesty, then debaucheries of every kind began to be practised, as every person found at hand that sort of enjoyment to which he was disposed by the passion predominant in his nature. Nor were they confined to one species of vice—the promiscuous intercourse of free-born men and women; but from this store-house of villany proceeded false witnesses, counterfeit seals, false evidences, and pretended discoveries. From the same place, too, proceeded poison and secret murders, so that in some cases, even the bodies could not be found for burial. Many of their audacious deeds were brought about by treachery, but most of them by force; it served to conceal the violence, that, on account of the loud shouting, and the noise of drums and cymbals, none of the cries uttered by the persons suffering violation or murder could be heard abroad.