A General History for Colleges and High Schools

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Now, it had happened that, in various ways, the greater part of the public
lands had fallen into the hands of the wealthy. They alone had the capital
necessary to stock and work them to advantage; hence the possessions of
the small proprietors were gradually absorbed by the large landholders.
These great proprietors, also, disregarding a law which forbade any person
to hold more than five hundred jugera of land, held many times that
amount. Almost all the lands of Italy, about the beginning of the first
century B.C., are said to have been held by not more than two thousand
persons; for the large proprietors, besides the lands they had secured by
purchase from the government, or had wrested from the smaller farmers,
claimed enormous tracts to which they had only a squatter's title. So long
had they been left in undisturbed possession of these government lands
that they had come to look upon them as absolutely their own. In many
cases, feeling secure through great lapse of time,--the lands having been
handed down through many generations,--the owners had expended large sums
in their improvement, and now resisted as very unjust every effort to
dispossess them of their hereditary estates. Money-lenders, too, had, in
many instances, made loans upon these lands, and they naturally sided with
the owners in their opposition to all efforts to disturb the titles.

These wealthy "possessors" employed slave rather than free labor, as they
found it more profitable; and so the poorer Romans, left without
employment, crowded into the cities, especially congregating at Rome,
where they lived in vicious indolence. The proprietors also found it to
their interest to raise stock rather than to cultivate the soil. All Italy
became a great sheep-pasture.

Thus, largely through the workings of the public land system, the Roman
people had become divided into two great classes, which are variously
designated as the Rich and the Poor, the Possessors and the Non-
Possessors, the Optimates (the "Best"), and the Populares (the "People").
We hear nothing more of patricians and plebeians. As one expresses it,
"Rome had become a commonwealth of millionaires and beggars."

For many years before and after the period at which we have now arrived, a
bitter struggle was carried on between these two classes; just such a
contest as we have seen waged between the nobility and the commonalty in
the earlier history of Rome. The most instructive portion of the story of
the Roman republic is found in the records of this later struggle. The
misery of the great masses naturally led to constant agitation at the
capital. Popular leaders introduced bill after bill into the Senate, and
brought measure after measure before the assemblies of the people, all
aiming at the redistribution of the public lands and the correction of
existing abuses.

THE REFORMS OF THE GRACCHI.--The most noted champions of the cause of the
poorer classes against the rich and powerful were Tiberius and Caius
Gracchus. These reformers are reckoned among the most popular orators that
Rome ever produced. They eloquently voiced the wrongs of the people. Said
Tiberius, "You are called 'lords of the earth' without possessing a single
clod to call your own." The people made him tribune; and in that position
he secured the passage of a law for the redistribution of the public
lands, which gave some relief. It took away from Possessors without sons
all the land they held over five hundred jugera; Possessors with one son
might hold seven hundred and fifty jugera, and those with two sons one
thousand.

At the end of his term of office, Tiberius stood a second time for the
tribunate. The nobles combined to defeat him. Foreseeing that he would not
be re-elected, Tiberius resolved to use force upon the day of voting. His
partisans were overpowered, and he and three hundred of his followers were
killed in the Forum, and their bodies thrown into the Tiber (133 B.C.).
This was the first time that the Roman Forum had witnessed such a scene of
violence and crime.

Caius Gracchus, the younger brother of Tiberius, now assumed the position
made vacant by the death of Tiberius. It is related that Caius had a dream
in which the spirit of his brother seemed to address him thus: "Caius, why
do you linger? There is no escape: one life for both of us, and one death
in defence of the people, is our fate." The dream came true. Caius was
chosen tribune in 123 B.C. He secured the passage of grain-laws which
provided that grain should be sold to the poor from public granaries, at
half its value or less. This was a very unwise and pernicious measure. It
was not long before grain was distributed free to all applicants; and a
considerable portion of the population of the capital were living in
vicious indolence and feeding at the public crib.

Caius proposed other measures in the interest of the people, which were
bitterly opposed by the Optimates; and the two orders at last came into
collision. Caius sought death by a friendly sword (121 B.C.), and three
thousand of his adherents were massacred. The consul offered for the head
of Caius its weight in gold. "This is the first instance in Roman history
of head-money being offered and paid, but it was not the last" (Long).

The people ever regarded the Gracchi as martyrs to their cause, and their
memory was preserved by statues in the public square. To Cornelia, their
mother, a monument was erected, simply bearing the inscription, "The
Mother of the Gracchi."

THE WAR WITH JUGURTHA (111-106 B.C.).--After the death of the Gracchi
there seemed no one left to resist the heartless oppressions and to
denounce the scandalous extravagances of the aristocratic party. Many of
the laws of the Gracchi respecting the public lands were annulled. Italy
fell again into the hands of a few over-rich land-owners. The provinces
were plundered by the Roman governors, who squandered their ill-gotten
wealth at the capital. The votes of senators and the decisions of judges,
the offices at Rome and the places in the provinces--everything pertaining
to the government had its price, and was bought and sold like merchandise.
Affairs in Africa at this time illustrate how Roman virtue and integrity
had declined since Fabricius indignantly refused the gold of Pyrrhus.

Jugurtha, king of Numidia, had seized all that country, having put to
death the rightful rulers of different provinces of the region, who had
been confirmed in their possessions by the Romans at the close of the
Punic wars. Commissioners sent from Rome to look into the matter were
bribed by Jugurtha. Even the consul Bestia, who had been sent into Africa
with an army to punish the insolent usurper, sold himself to the robber.
An investigation was ordered; but many prominent officials at Rome were
implicated in the offences, and the matter was hushed up with money. The
venality of the Romans disgusted even Jugurtha, who exclaimed, "O venal
city, thou wouldst sell thyself if thou couldst find a purchaser!"

In the year 106 B.C. the war against Jugurtha was brought to a close by
Caius Marius, a man who had risen to the consulship from the lowest ranks
of the people. Under him fought a young nobleman named Sulla, of whom we
shall hear much hereafter. Marius celebrated a grand triumph at Rome.
Jugurtha, after having graced the triumphal procession, was thrown into
the Mamertine dungeon, beneath the Capitoline, where he died of
starvation.

INVASION OF THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.--The war was not yet ended in Africa
before terrible tidings came to Rome from the north. Two mighty nations of
"horrible barbarians," three hundred thousand strong in fighting-men,
coming whence no one could tell, had invaded, and were now desolating, the
Roman provinces of Gaul, and might any moment cross the Alps and pour down
into Italy.

The mysterious invaders proved to be two Germanic tribes, the Teutones and
Cimbri, the vanguard of that great German migration which was destined to
change the face and history of Europe. These intruders were seeking new
homes. They carried with them, in rude wagons, all their property, their
wives, and their children. The Celtic tribes of Gaul were no match for the
newcomers, and fled before them as they advanced. Several Roman armies
beyond the Alps were cut to pieces. The terror at Rome was only equalled
by that occasioned by the invasion of the Gauls two centuries before. The
Gauls were terrible enough; but now the conquerors of the Gauls were
coming.

Marius, the conqueror of Jugurtha, was looked to by all as the only man
who could save the state in this crisis. Accompanied by Sulla as one of
his most skilful lieutenants, Marius hastened into Northern Italy. The
barbarians had divided into two bands. The Cimbri were to cross the
Eastern Alps, and join in the valley of the Po the Teutones, who were to
force the defiles of the Western, or Maritime Alps. Marius determined to
prevent the union of the barbarians, and to crush each band separately.

Anticipating the march of the Teutones, he hurried over the Alps into
Gaul, and falling upon them at a favorable moment (at Aquae Sextae, not far
from Marseilles, 102 B.C.), almost annihilated the entire host. Two
hundred thousand barbarians are said to have been slain. Marius now
recrossed the Alps, and, after visiting Rome, hastened to meet the Cimbri,
who were entering the northeastern corner of Italy. He was not a day too
soon. Already the barbarians had defeated the Roman army under the
nobleman Catulus, and were ravaging the rich plains of the Po. The Cimbri,
unconscious of the fate of the Teutones, sent an embassy to Marius, to
demand that they and their kinsmen should be given lands in Italy. Marius
sent back in reply, "The Teutones have got all the land they need on the
other side of the Alps." The devoted Cimbri were soon to have all they
needed on this side.

A terrible battle almost immediately followed at Vercellae (101 B.C.). The
barbarians were drawn up in an enormous hollow square, the men forming the
outer ranks being fastened together with chains, to prevent the lines
being broken. This proved their ruin. More than 100,000 were killed and
60,000 taken prisoners to be sold as slaves in the Roman markets. Marius
was hailed as the "Saviour of his Country."

"The forlorn-hope of the German migration had performed its duty; the
homeless people of the Cimbri and their comrades were no more" (Mommsen).
Their kinsmen yet behind the Danube and the Rhine were destined to exact a
terrible revenge for their slaughter.

THE SOCIAL, OR MARSIC WAR (91-89 B.C.).--Scarcely was the danger of the
barbarian invasion past, before Rome was threatened by another and greater
evil arising within her own borders. At this time all the free inhabitants
of Italy were embraced in three classes,--_Roman citizens_, _Latins,_
and _Italian allies_. The Roman citizens included the inhabitants of
the capital and of the various Roman colonies planted in different parts
of the peninsula (see p. 246, note), besides the people of a number of
towns called _municipia;_ the Latins were the inhabitants of the Latin
colonies (see p. 246, note); the Italian allies (_socii_) included the
various subjugated races of Italy.

The Social, or Marsic War (as it is often called on account of the
prominent part taken in the insurrection by the warlike Marsians) was a
struggle that arose from the demands of the Italian allies for the
privileges of Roman citizenship, from which they were wholly excluded.
Their demands were stubbornly resisted by both the aristocratic and the
popular party at Rome. Some, however, recognized the justice of these
claims of the Italians. The tribune Livius Drusus championed their cause,
but he was killed by an assassin. The Italians now flew to arms. They
determined upon the establishment of a rival state. A town called
Corfinium, among the Apennines, was chosen as the capital of the new
republic, and its name changed to Italica. Thus, in a single day, almost
all Italy south of the Rubicon was lost to Rome. The Etrurians, the
Umbrians, the Campanians, the Latins, and some of the Greek cities were
the only states that remained faithful.

[Illustration: COIN OF THE ITALIAN CONFEDERACY. (The Sabellian Bull goring
the Roman Wolf.)]

The greatness of the danger aroused all the old Roman courage and
patriotism. Aristocrats and democrats hushed their quarrels, and fought
bravely side by side for the endangered life of the republic. The war
lasted three years. Finally Rome prudently extended the right of suffrage
to the Latins, Etruscans, and Umbrians, who had so far remained true to
her, but now began to show signs of wavering in their loyalty. Shortly
afterwards she offered the same to all Italians who should lay down their
arms within sixty days. This tardy concession to the just demands of the
Italians virtually ended the war. It had been extremely disastrous to the
republic. Hundreds of thousands of lives had been lost, many towns had
been depopulated, and vast tracts of the country made desolate by those
ravages that never fail to characterize civil contentions.

In after-years, under the empire, the rights of Roman citizenship, which
the most of the Italians had now so hardly won, were extended to all the
free inhabitants of the various provinces, beyond the confines of Italy
(see p. 327).

THE CIVIL WAR OF MARIUS AND SULLA.--The Social War was not yet ended when
a formidable enemy appeared in the East. Mithridates the Great, king of
Pontus (see p. 170, note), taking advantage of the distracted condition of
the republic, had encroached upon the Roman provinces in Asia Minor, and
had caused a general massacre of the Italian traders and residents in that
country. The number of victims of this wholesale slaughter has been
variously estimated at from 80,000 to 150,000. The Roman Senate instantly
declared war.

A contest straightway arose between Marius and Sulla for the command of
the forces. The sword settled the dispute. Sulla, at the head of the
legions he commanded, marched upon Rome, entered the gates, and "for the
first time in the annals of the city a Roman army encamped within the
walls." The party of Marius was defeated, and he and ten of his companions
were proscribed. Marius escaped and fled to Africa; Sulla embarked with
the legions to meet Mithridates in the East (87 B.C.).

[Illustration: MARIUS.]

THE WANDERINGS OF MARIUS: HIS RETURN TO ITALY.--Leaving Sulla to carry on
the Mithridatic War, we must first follow the fortunes of the outlawed
Marius. The ship in which he embarked for Africa was driven back upon the
Italian coast at Circeii, and he was captured. A Cimbrian slave was sent
to despatch him in prison. The cell where Marius lay was dark, and the
eyes of the old soldier "seemed to flash fire." As the slave advanced,
Marius shouted, "Man, do you dare to kill Caius Marius?" The frightened
slave dropped his sword, and fled from the chamber, half dead with fear.

A better feeling now took possession of the captors of Marius, and they
resolved that the blood of the "Saviour of Italy" should not be upon their
hands. They put him aboard a vessel, which bore him and his friends to an
island just off the coast of Africa. When he attempted to set foot upon
the mainland near Carthage, Sextius, the Roman governor of the province,
sent a messenger to forbid him to land. The legend says that the old
general, almost choking with indignation, only answered, "Go, tell your
master, that you have seen Marius a fugitive sitting amidst the ruins of
Carthage."

A successful move of his friends at Rome brought Marius back to the
capital. He now took a terrible revenge upon his enemies. The consul
Octavius was assassinated, and his head set up in front of the Rostrum.
Never before had such a thing been seen at Rome--a consul's head exposed
to the public gaze. The senators, equestrians, and leaders of the Optimate
party fled from the capital. For five days and nights a merciless
slaughter was kept up. The life of every man in the capital was in the
hands of the revengeful Marius. If he refused to return the greeting of
any citizen, that sealed his fate: he was instantly despatched by the
soldiers who awaited the dictator's nod. The bodies of the victims lay
unburied in the streets. Sulla's house was torn down, and he himself
declared a public enemy.

Rumors were now spread that Sulla, having overthrown Mithridates, was
about to set out on his return with his victorious legions. He would
surely exact speedy and terrible vengeance. Marius, old and enfeebled by
the hardships of many campaigns, seemed to shrink from again facing his
hated rival. He plunged into dissipation to drown his remorse and gloomy
forebodings, and died in his seventy-first year (86 B.C.).

SULLA AND THE MITHRIDATIC WAR.--When Sulla left Italy with his legions for
the East, he knew very well that his enemies would have their own way in
Italy during his absence; but he also knew that, if successful in his
campaign against Mithridates, he could easily regain Italy, and wrest the
government from the hands of the Marian party.

We can here take space to give simply the results of Sulla's campaigns in
the East. After driving the army of Mithridates out of Greece, Sulla
crossed the Hellespont, and forced the king to sue for peace. He gave up
his conquered territory, surrendered his war ships, and paid a large
indemnity to cover the expenses of the war.

[Illustration: SULLA.]

With the Mithridatic War ended, Sulla wrote to the Senate, saying that he
was now coming to take vengeance upon the Marian party,--his own and the
republic's foes.

The terror and consternation produced at Rome by this letter were
increased by the accidental burning of the Capitol. The Sibylline books,
which held the secrets of the fate of Rome, were consumed. Such an event,
it was believed, could only foreshadow the most direful calamities to the
state.

THE PROSCRIPTIONS OF SULLA.--The returning army from the East landed in
Italy. With his veteran legions at his back, Sulla marched into Rome with
all the powers of a dictator. The leaders of the Marian party were
proscribed, rewards were offered for their heads, and their property was
confiscated. Sulla was implored to make out a list of those he designed to
put to death, that those he intended to spare might be relieved of the
terrible suspense in which all were now held. He made out a list of
eighty, which was attached to the Rostrum. The people murmured at the
length of the roll. In a few days it was extended to over three hundred,
and grew rapidly, until it included the names of thousands of the best
citizens of Italy. Hundreds were murdered, not for any offence, but
because some favorites of Sulla coveted their estates. A wealthy noble
coming into the Forum, and reading his own name in the list of the
proscribed, exclaimed, "Alas! my villa has proved my ruin." The infamous
Catiline, by having the name of a brother placed upon the fatal roll,
secured his property. Julius Caesar, at this time a mere boy of eighteen,
was proscribed on account of his relationship to Marius; but, upon the
intercession of friends, Sulla spared him: as he did so, however, he said
warningly, and, as the event proved, prophetically, "There is in that boy
many a Marius."

Senators, knights, and wealthy land-owners fell by hundreds and by
thousands; but the poor Italians who had sided with the Marian party were
simply slaughtered by tens of thousands. Nor did the provinces escape. In
Sicily, Spain, and Africa the enemies of the dictator were hunted and
exterminated like noxious animals. It is estimated that the civil war of
Marius and Sulla cost the republic over one hundred and fifty thousand
lives.

When Sulla had sated his revenge, he celebrated a splendid triumph at
Rome, and the Senate enacted a law declaring all that he had done legal
and right, caused to be erected in the Forum a gilded equestrian statue of
the dictator, which bore the legend, "To Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the
Commander Beloved by Fortune," and made him dictator for life. Sulla used
his position and influence in recasting the constitution in the interest
of the aristocratic party. After enjoying the unlimited power of an
Asiatic despot for three years, he suddenly resigned the dictatorship, and
retired to his villa at Puteoli, where he gave himself up to the grossest
dissipations. He died the year following his abdication (78 B.C.).

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (_concluded_). (133-31 B.C.)

POMPEY THE GREAT IN SPAIN.--The fires of the Civil War, though quenched in
Italy, were still smouldering in Spain. Sertorius, an adherent of Marius,
had there stirred up the martial tribes of Lusitania, and incited a
general revolt against the power of the aristocratic government at Rome.
Cnaeus Pompey, a rising young leader of the oligarchy, upon whom the title
of Great had already been conferred as a reward for crushing the Marian
party in Sicily and Africa, was sent into Spain to perform a similar
service there.

For several years the war was carried on with varying fortunes. At times
the power of Rome in the peninsula seemed on the verge of utter
extinction. Finally, the brave Sertorius was assassinated, and then the
whole of Spain was quickly regained. Pompey boasted of having forced the
gates of more than eight hundred cities in Spain and Southern Gaul.
Throughout all the conquered regions he established military colonies, and
reorganized the local governments, putting in power those who would be,
not only friends and allies of the Roman state, but also his own personal
adherents. How he used these men as instruments of his ambition, we shall
learn a little later.

SPARTACUS: WAR OF THE GLADIATORS.--While Pompey was subduing the Marian
faction in Spain, a new danger broke out in the midst of Italy.
Gladiatorial combats had become, at this time, the favorite sport of the
amphitheatre. At Capua was a sort of training-school, from which skilled
fighters were hired out for public or private entertainments. In this
seminary was a Thracian slave, known by the name of Spartacus, who incited
his companions to revolt. The insurgents fled to the crater of Vesuvius,
and made that their stronghold. There they were joined by gladiators from
other schools, and by slaves and discontented men from every quarter. Some
slight successes enabled them to arm themselves with the weapons of their
enemies. Their number at length increased to one hundred thousand men. For
three years they defied the power of Rome, and even gained control of the
larger part of Southern Italy. Four Roman armies sent against them were
cut to pieces. But at length Spartacus himself was slain, and the
insurgents were crushed.

The rebellion was punished with Roman severity. The slaves that had taken
part in the revolt were hunted through the mountains and forests, and
exterminated like dangerous beasts. The Appian Way was lined with six
thousand crosses, bearing aloft as many bodies--a terrible warning of the
fate awaiting slaves that should dare to strike for freedom.

THE ABUSES OF VERRES.--Terrible as was the state of society in Italy,
still worse was the condition of affairs outside the peninsula. At first
the rule of the Roman governors in the provinces, though severe, was
honest and prudent. But during the period of profligacy and corruption
upon which we have now entered, the administration of these foreign
possessions was shamefully dishonest and incredibly cruel and rapacious.
The prosecution of Verres, the propraetor of Sicily, exposed the scandalous
rule of the oligarchy, into whose hands the government had fallen. For
three years Verres plundered and ravaged that island with impunity. He
sold all the offices, and all his decisions as judge. He demanded of the
farmers the greater part of their crops, which he sold, to swell his
already enormous fortune. Agriculture was thus ruined, and the farms were
abandoned. Verres had a taste for art, and when on his tours through the
island confiscated gems, vases, statues, paintings, and other things that
struck his fancy, whether in temples or private dwellings. He even caused
a Roman trader, for a slight offence, to be crucified, "the cross being
set on the beach within sight of Italy, that he might address to his
native shores the ineffectual cry 'I am a Roman citizen.'"

Verres could not be called to account while in office; and it was doubtful
whether, after the end of his term, he could be convicted, so corrupt and
venal had become the members of the Senate, before whom all such offenders
must be tried. Indeed, Verres himself openly boasted that he intended two
thirds of his gains for his judges and lawyers, while the remaining one
third would satisfy himself.

At length, after Sicily had come to look as though it had been ravaged by
barbarian conquerors, the infamous robber was impeached. The prosecutor
was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the brilliant orator, who was at this time just
rising into prominence at Rome. The storm of indignation raised by the
developments of the trial caused Verres to flee into exile to Massilia,
whither he took with him much of his ill-gotten wealth.

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