A Manual of Ancient History

by M. E. Thalheimer

Among the few who escaped was a youth named Viria´thus, who lived to become the leader and avenger of his people. The career of this guerrilla chief is full of stirring events. Issuing suddenly from a cleft in the mountains, he seven times defeated a Roman army with tremendous slaughter. In the last of these victories, the forces of Servilia´nus were entrapped in a narrow pass and completely surrounded. Absolute surrender was their only choice. Viriathus, however, preferring peace to vengeance, used his advantage with great moderation. He allowed his enemy to depart unhurt, on his solemn engagement to leave the Lusitanians henceforth unmolested in their own territories, and to recognize him, their chief, as a friend and ally of the Roman people.

119. The terms were ratified by the Senate, but only to be violated. On the renewal of the war, Viriathus sent three of his most trusted friends to remonstrate, and offer renewed terms of peace. The consul bribed these messengers, by promises of large rewards, to murder their chief. The crime was committed, and within a year Lusita´nia (Portugal) was added to the Roman dominions. Numantia, in the north, still held out against the besieging army of Qu. Pompe´ius. A severe winter caused great sickness and suffering in the legions, and Pompey offered peace on terms favorable to the Spaniards, but, according to Roman ideas, disgraceful to the besiegers. These were accepted, and the last payment but one had been made by the Numantines, when Pompey’s successor in the consulship arrived at the camp. Being thus relieved from command, he denied that he had ever made the treaty, and persisted in his falsehood before the Senate.

The war went on six years, with no credit and frequent disgrace to the Romans, until Scipio Æmilianus, the greatest general of his own time, starved the city at last into surrender. Many of the Numantines, rather than fall into the hands of an enemy whose perfidy they had too often proved, set fire to their houses and perished among the burning ruins. The whole peninsula, except its northern coast, was now subject to Rome. It was divided into three provinces—Hither and Farther Spain, and Lusitania—and became eventually the most prosperous and best governed part of the Roman foreign possessions. The Lusitanian mountains were still haunted by brigands, and isolated country houses in that region had to be built like fortresses; yet the country was rich in corn and cattle, and occupied by a thriving and industrious people.

RECAPITULATION.

Rome, supreme in the western Mediterranean, makes war upon Philip V., of Macedon, and Antiochus the Great, of Syria. The battle of Magnesia, B. C. 190, lays the foundation of her power in Asia, and the battle of Pydna makes her the head of the civilized world. In the meanwhile, Sardinia is conquered, and wars carried on in Spain and Liguria. The third and last Punic War ends, B. C. 146, with the destruction of Carthage. The same year, Corinth is destroyed by Mummius. Viriathus holds out nine years in western Spain; he is assassinated B. C. 140; Numantia is captured B. C. 133; and Spain divided into three Roman provinces.

Fourth Period, B. C. 133-30.

120. The possessions of Rome now extended from the Atlantic to the Ægean, and from the Atlas Mountains to the Pyrenees and Alps. But changes in the relations of rich and poor, governing and governed classes, in her own capital, now withdrew her attention for a while from foreign conquests, and led to important civil controversies. The old strife between patricians and plebeians was long ago at an end. Many plebeian houses had become noble through their members having held high offices in the state; and they had their clientage, their share in the public lands, their seat in the Senate, and their right of displaying waxen images of their ancestors in their houses or in funeral processions, equally with the oldest burghers of all. Freedmen were constantly admitted to the franchise.

121. The real cause of trouble was in the sufferings of the poor, who, since the formation of the last colony, in 177 B. C., had had no new allotment of lands. Rome was a “commonwealth of millionaires and beggars.” The Licinian laws ([see § 64]) were practically set aside. Many rich proprietors held four times the amount of public land to which they were entitled; and instead of employing the required proportion of free labor, preferred to cultivate by means of gangs of slaves. The foreign wars, which formerly so frightfully reduced[73] the numbers of the common people, had now ceased; the labor market became over-stocked, and a mass of paupers, hungry, helpless, and hopeless, began to threaten serious danger to the state. The multitude of slaves, chiefly taken in war, more or less trained for fighting, and conscious of their strength, were a not less dangerous class. The best and wisest of the Romans saw the danger, and sought means to avert it. But among those who most deeply deplored the miseries of the people, a large party believed that nothing could be done.

122. In 133 B. C., the tribune Tiberius Gracchus, a son of the conqueror of Sardinia, and grandson of Scipio Africanus, brought forward a bill for reviving the provisions of the Licinian laws. The great amount of state lands which would thus become vacant, he proposed to divide among the poor; and to compensate the former occupants for their losses, by making them absolute owners of the 500 jugera of land which they could legally retain. This movement, apparently so just, was violently opposed. The leased lands had been, in some instances, three hundred years in the same family. Buildings had been erected at great expense, and the property had been held or transferred as if in real ownership. The strong influence of the wealthy class was therefore made to bear against the bill; and when it was brought before the popular assembly, Octa´vius, a colleague of Gracchus in the tribuneship, interposed his veto and prevented the vote from being taken. But Gracchus moved the people to depose Octavius, and so carried the bill. Three commissioners, Tiberius Gracchus himself, his brother Caius, and his father-in-law, Appius Claudius, were appointed to examine into the extent of the abuse, and enforce the Agrarian laws.