But Q. Servilius Cæpio, brother by blood of Servilianus, was little satisfied by the prospect of an inactive command. By importunity he wrung from the senate permission to break the peace so lately concluded by his brother, and ratified by themselves—a permission basely given and more basely used. Cæpio assailed Viriathus, when he little expected an attack, with so much vigour that the chief was fain to seek refuge in Gallæcia, and sent envoys to ask Cæpio on what ground the late treaty was no longer observed. Cæpio sent back the messengers with fair words, but privily bribed them to assassinate their master. They were too successful in their purpose, and returned to claim their blood-money from the consul. But he, with double treachery, disowned the act, and referred them to the senate for their reward.
The death of Viriathus was the real end of the Lusitanian War. He was (as even the Roman writers allow) brave, generous, active, vigilant, patient, faithful to his word; and the manner in which he baffled all fair and open assault of the disciplined armies of Rome gives a high conception of his qualities as a guerilla chief. His countrymen, sensible of their loss, honoured him with a splendid military funeral. The senate, with a wise moderation which might have been adopted years before, assigned lands to a portion of the mountaineers within the province, thus at length making good the broken promises of Galba. Such was the discreditable termination of the Lusitanian War. We must now return to Mancinus and his treaty.
[140-138 B.C.]
He returned to defend his conduct before the senate. He pleaded that the army was so demoralised that no man could wield it with effect, and admitted that he had concluded a treaty with Numantia without the authority of the senate and the people; as that treaty was not approved, he declared himself ready to support a bill for delivering up the persons of himself and all who had signed it to the Numantians. Such a bill was accordingly brought before the tribes. But young Gracchus upheld the treaty, and Scipio, his brother-in-law, made an eloquent speech in his behalf. But the people, always jealous of defeat, voted for delivering up Mancinus alone as an expiatory offering. Accordingly a person, consecrated for this special purpose, carried him to Numantia. But the Spaniards, like the Samnites of old, refused to accept such a compensation; one man’s body, they said was no equivalent for the advantage they had lost. Mancinus, therefore, returned to Rome. But when he took his place in the senate, the tribune Rutilius ordered him to leave the curia, because, he said, one who had been delivered over to the enemy with religious ceremony was no longer a citizen of Rome, and could not recover his rights by simply returning to his country. A special law was introduced to restore Mancinus to his former position.
Dec. Junius Brutus, consul for 138, an able officer, was entrusted with the pacification of Lusitania; the town of Valentia owes its origin to a colony of this people planted there by him. After finishing this business, he carried his arms northward across the Tagus, the Douro, and the Minho, and received homage from the tribes of the western Pyrenees. He was the first Roman who reached the shores of the Bay of Biscay, and saw the sun set in the waters of the Atlantic; and he was not unjustly honoured with the name of Callaicus for his successes.
But Numantia still defied the arms of Rome. Men began to clamour for a consul fit to command; and all eyes fell upon Scipio. His qualities as a general had been tested by success at Carthage, and circumstances had since occurred which raised him to great popularity.
After his triumph in 146 B.C., Scipio had continued to lead the simple life in which he had been bred, and which not all the wealth he inherited from his adoptive father induced him to abandon. He affected an austerity of manners which almost emulated that of Cato, though he was free from the censorious dogmatism and rude eccentricities of that celebrated man. In 142 B.C. he was elected censor in conjunction with Mummius, who so thwarted all the efforts of his colleague to promote reforms that the latter publicly exclaimed, “I should have been able to do my duty, either with a colleague or without one.” Scipio had gained a clear conception of the unsound state of things, which long-continued wars and senatorial government had produced. In the prayer, which he offered on entering upon the censor’s office, he altered the usual form; and instead of asking that “the gods would increase and magnify the power of Rome,” he said, “I pray that they may preserve it; it is great enough already.”
[138-133 B.C.]
His frugal life carried with it a guarantee of honesty and devotion to public interests, which would alone have secured him public favour. But several acts gained him more direct popularity. The son of his kinsman Nasica, nicknamed Serapio, had joined the high oligarchical party. But the son of Æmilius Paulus, on the few occasions on which he appeared in public, took the popular side. In 137 the tribune Cassius proposed the first law for taking votes by secret ballot,[63] with the intention of neutralising the undue influence of the senators. Scipio came forward and addressed the people in favour of this law. As his popularity was increased, his favour with the senate proportionately fell. Six years before, when he was canvassing for the censorship, App. Claudius, seeing the motley crowd which followed him, exclaimed: “Ah, Æmilius, it would trouble thy spirit to see thy son followed by such a crew.”
Yet he courted not popularity; he seldom even visited the Forum, though he spoke with force and eloquence when he chose. When the same Appius boasted that he knew all who frequented the Forum by name, Scipio replied: “True, I do not know many of my fellow-citizens by name, but I have taken care that all should know me.” Popularity came unasked, and the people cast their eyes upon him to retrieve the dishonour of the Roman arms in Spain. Legally he could not hold the consulship, for a law had been lately passed forbidding a second election in any case. But Scipio received the votes of every century, though he was not a candidate.