The murder was generally imputed to the senatorial party, and especially to the consul Philippus. The magistrates omitted to make inquiry into the circumstances, while the murdered man’s opponents hastened to abrogate such of his measures as had already passed into laws; and his adherents were too stupefied to resist. Severe decrees were speedily issued against the Italians, and they were peremptorily forbidden to interfere in the affairs of the republic. An obscure tribune of foreign extraction, named Varius, was put forward by the knights to impeach some of the principal nobles, as reputed favourers of the movement. A Bestia, a Cotta, a Mummius, a Pompeius and a Memmius were condemned and banished. Among the accused was the illustrious Æmilius Scaurus. The only reply he deigned to make to the charge was this: “Varius the Iberian accuses Scaurus prince of the senate, of exciting the Italians to revolt. Scaurus denies it. Romans! which of the two do you believe?” The people absolved him with acclamations. But the knights still thirsted for vengeance upon their hereditary enemies, and the actual outbreak of the threatened insurrection alone prevented them from effecting a wider proscription of the most unpopular of the nobles.
The allies flew desperately to arms. The death of Drusus and the prostration of his adherents within the city reduced them to their own national resources; but their last scruples vanished with the loss of their Roman associates. The Marsians were summoned to take the lead, and their chief Pompædius Silo was the soul of the confederacy. Eight or more nations, the Picentines, the Vestines, the Marrucines, the Pelignians, the Samnites, the Lucanians and the Apulians, together with the Marsians, gave mutual hostages and concerted a simultaneous rising. Now for the first time they vowed to unite together in a permanent association. They proposed to constitute a great federal republic, organised on the model of Rome herself, with a senate of five hundred, two consuls, twelve prætors, and for their capital the central stronghold of Corfinium in the Apennines, to which they gave the name of Italia. They struck medals bearing the impress of the Sabellian bull trampling under foot the Roman she-wolf. This alliance indeed was confined for the most part to the nations of Sabellian origin, and its decrees were issued in the Oscan language, the common root of the idioms then in use among the central tribes of the peninsula. The Etruscans, the Latins, and the Umbrians held aloof from it, and together with Campania, which was already thoroughly Romanised, adhered to the fortunes of Rome. The Bruttians no longer existed as a nation, and the cities of Magna Græcia had ceased to have any political importance. The Gauls beyond the Rubicon, who had joined Hannibal against the Romans, long since exhausted by their struggles, made no effort now to recover their independence.
What was the relative strength of the combatants now arrayed against each other? Three centuries earlier, at the date of the great Gaulish invasion, the nations of Sabellia, together with the Apulians, could arm, it is said, 200,000 men, while the Etruscans, Latins, and Umbrians vaunted 120,000 warriors. Supposing, therefore, the proportions to remain the same at the later period, the allies alone who still remained to the republic may have balanced in numbers three-fifths of the whole force opposed to her. At the same time the census of Rome herself gave a total of at least four hundred thousand warriors; and she could draw vast numbers of auxiliaries from her provinces and dependencies beyond the limits of Italy. The forces, therefore, of Rome trebled or quadrupled those of her adversaries. She occupied, moreover, the chief places of strength throughout their territories, securely fortified against sudden attacks, and communicating with one another and the capital by the great military roads. But from this formidable enumeration of her resources great deductions have on the other hand to be made. It was necessary to maintain powerful garrisons at every point of her vast empire. Greece and Spain, Asia and Africa, drew off her life-blood from the heart to the extremities. The disposition of her allies was doubtful and precarious; her own citizens were capricious, and might easily be seduced by the arts of the demagogues, while her internal dissensions had made her suspicious of many of her ablest statesmen. The mass of the commons of Rome took no vital interest in the political question for which the Italians contended, and served in the legions with no other feeling than that of mercenaries.
THE SOCIAL WAR
[90 B.C.]
The Social or Marsic War commenced in the year 90. The republic was taken by surprise, while her adversaries had already completed their preparations and hastened to assume the offensive. The Italian consuls, the Marsian Pompædius and Papius Mutilus, a Samnite, commanded two different branches of the confederacy—the one acting in the north between the Adriatic and the frontiers of Etruria, whence he sought to penetrate by the valley of the Tiber to Rome; the other directing himself against Campania and Latium on the south. While such was the disposition of their principal armies, various detachments, led by Judacilius, Lamponius, Afranius, Præsenteius, Vettius Scato, Marius Egnatius, Herius Asinius, and others, were charged with the reduction of the strong places occupied by the Romans in the heart of their own country. The whole confederacy was in a moment in arms, and the final embassy which it despatched to Rome announced the defection of three-fourths of Italy. The senate boldly refused to listen to demands extorted by the sword, and required the allies to lay down their arms before presuming to ask a favour. The consuls summoned the citizens to their standards, and while Alba in the country of the Marsians, Æsernia in Samnium, and Pinna in the Vestinian territory, kept the confederates in check, they drafted a hundred thousand men into the legions, and went forth to confront the enemy. Lucius Julius Cæsar undertook the defence of Campania, Publius Rutilius placed himself on the line of the Liris and Tolenus, which cover Rome in the direction of the Marsians and Pelignians. Perperna, with a smaller detachment, maintained the communications between the consular armies, and guarded the approach to Latium through the frontier of the Volscians. The great Marius himself, of whose fidelity the senate might entertain suspicion, was entrusted with a small force on the flanks of Rutilius, while Cæpio and Pompeius, Sulpicius and Crassus were directed to harass the operation of the enemy by making incursions within their territories, and menacing their armies in the rear. A considerable reserve was kept at the same time in Rome itself, and the gates and walls duly repaired and guarded against a sudden attack. Since the flight of Hannibal the city had forgotten the possibility of being again exposed to a siege.
But the Romans had scarcely time to make these dispositions before the Italians rushed impetuously upon them, and broke their lines in various quarters. The consul Cæsar was routed by Vettius Scato in Samnium, and driven from the gates of Æsernia and Venafrum, which he was anxious to support. While the first of these places continued to hold out against a rigorous blockade, the other was surrendered by treachery and its garrison put to the sword. Mutilus defeated Perperna, turned to the left and threw himself into Campania. Disregarding or masking the fortresses on his flanks and rear, he traversed the country with his troops, received the submission of Nola, Pæstum, Stabiæ, Salernum, massacring some of their defenders, and pressing others into his own ranks. But the hearts of the Campanians were still with Rome. Naples, Nuceria, Capua, and Acerræ remained firm, even while their territories were overrun by the Samnite, their slaves liberated and enlisted by thousands among the soldiers of the confederacy.
Tribune in the Dress of a Warrior
The losses and disgraces of the Romans still crowded upon one another. Lamponius defeated Crassus and recovered Grumentum, the strongest place in Lucania; while Canusium and Venusia in the same quarter were taken by Judacilius. Cæsar sustained a second defeat from Egnatius in attempting to relieve Acerræ, Pompeius received a check on the frontiers of Umbria, and lastly the consul Rutilius, drawn into an ambuscade by Vettius Scato, was routed and slain on the Tolenus with a large part of his forces. Marius, who was posted lower down the stream, was advertised of his general’s disaster by the corpses wafted past him by the descending current. He promptly crossed the river, and took possession of the enemy’s camp in their rear, while they were still occupied in gathering the trophies of their victory. But the success of this brilliant manœuvre failed to compensate even one of the many discomfitures the arms of the republic had received.