No More Learning

e. the mountains from the Rauhe Alp to the Bohmer- wald. " The circumstance that Caesar transplants them " beyond the Rhine (B. G. by no means inconsistent with this, for, as he there speaks from the Helvetian point of view, he may very well mean the country to the north-east of the lake of Constance which quite accords with the fact, that Strabo (vii. 393) describes the former Boian country as bordering on the lake of Constance, except 'hat he not quite accurate in naming along with them the Vindelici as dwelling by the lake of Cob-
The tribes *xthe
the Rhine Danube.
Helvetii.
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Kuganel, Venetl
ality of the latter ; but they appear under the name of the Raeti in the mountains of East Switzerland and the Tyrol, and under that of the Euganei and Veneti about Padua and Venice ; so that at this last point the two great Celtic streams almost touched each other, and only a narrow belt of native population separated the Celtic Cenomani about Brescia from the Celtic Carnians in Friuli. The Euganei and Veneti had long been peaceful subjects of the Romans ; whereas the peoples of the Alps proper were not only still
free, but made regular forays down from their mountains into the plain between the Alps and the Po, where they
itance, for the latter only established themselves there after the Boii had evacuated these districts. From these seats of theirs the Boii were dis possessed by the Marcomani and other Germanic tribes even before the
424
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH BOOK IV
the south-east of these we meet with another Celtic stock,
which made its appearance in Styria and Carinthia under Taurisd. the name of the Taurisci and afterwards of the Norici, in Carni. Friuli, Carniola, and Istria under that of the Cami. Their
city Noreia (not far from St Veit to the north of Klagenfurt) was flourishing and widely known from the iron mines that were even at that time zealously worked in those regions ; still more were the Italians at this very period allured thither by the rich seams of gold brought to light, till the natives excluded them and took this California of that day wholly into their own hands. These Celtic hordes streaming along on both sides of the Alps had after their fashion occupied chiefly the flat and hill country; the Alpine regions proper and likewise the districts along the Adige and the Lower Po were not occupied by them, and remained in the hands of the earlier indigenous population.
Raeti, Nothing certain has yet been ascertained as to the nation
100. time of Posidonius, consequently before 650 ; detached portions of them in Caesar's time roamed about in Carinthia (B. G. i. 5), and came thence to the Helvetii and into western Gaul ; another swarm found new settle ments on the Plattensee, where it was annihilated by the Getae ; but the district — the " Boian desert," as it was called — preserved the name of this the most harassed of all the Celtic peoples (comp. 373, note).
ii.
chap, v
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
425
were not content with levying contributions, but conducted themselves with fearful cruelty in the townships which they captured, not unfrequently slaughtering the whole male population down to the infant in the cradle — the practical answer, it may be presumed, to the Roman razzias in the Alpine valleys. How dangerous these Raetian inroads were, appears from the fact that one of them about 660 94. destroyed the considerable township of Comum.
If these Celtic and non-Celtic tribes having their settle- iiiyrian
ments upon and beyond the Alpine chain were already
P"*1**
there was, as may easily be con ceived, a still more comprehensive intermixture of peoples in the countries on the Lower Danube, where there were no high mountain ranges, as in the more western regions,
variously intermingled,
to serve as natural walls of partition. The original Iiiyrian population, of which the modern Albanians seem to be the
last pure survivors, was throughout, at least in the interior,
largely mixed with Celtic elements, and the Celtic armour
and Celtic method of warfare were probably everywhere introduced in that quarter. Next to the Taurisci came the
Japydes, who had their settlements on the Julian Alps in
the modern Croatia as far down as Fiume and Zeng, — a
tribe originally doubtless Iiiyrian, but largely mixed with
Celts. Bordering with these along the coast were the already-mentioned Dalmatians, into whose rugged mountains
the Celts do not seem to have penetrated ; whereas in the
interior the Celtic Scordisci, to whom the tribe of the Scordbd. Triballi formerly especially powerful in that quarter had succumbed, and who had played a principal part in the
Celtic expeditions to Delphi, were about this time the leading nation along the Lower Save as far as the Morava in the modern Bosnia and Servia. They roamed far and wide towards Moesia, Thrace, and Macedonia, and fearful tales were told of their savage valour and cruel customs. Their chief place of arms was the strong Segestica or Siscia
Japydes.
Conflicts frontier
in the Alps, 118. 95.
at the point where the Kulpa falls into the Save. The peoples who were at that time settled in Hungary, Transylvania, Roumania, and Bulgaria still remained for the present beyond the horizon of the Romans ; the latter came into contact only with the Thracians on the eastern frontier of Macedonia in the Rhodope mountains.
It would have been no easy task for a government more energetic than was the Roman government of that day to establish an organized and adequate defence of the frontier against these wide domains of barbarism ; what was done for this important object under the auspices of the govern ment of the restoration, did not come up to even the most moderate requirements. There seems to have been no want of expeditions against the inhabitants of the Alps : in 636 there was a triumph over the Stoeni, who were probably settled in the mountains above Verona ; in 659 the consul Lucius Crassus caused the Alpine valleys far and wide to De ransacked and the inhabitants to be put to death, and
yet he did not succeed in killing enough of them to enable him to celebrate a village triumph and to couple the laurels of the victor with his oratorical fame. But as the Romans remained satisfied with razzias of this sort which merely ex asperated the natives without rendering them harmless, and, apparently, withdrew the troops again after every such inroad, the state of matters in the region beyond the Po remained substantially the same as before.
On the opposite Thracian frontier they appear to have given themselves little concern about their neighbours ; except that there is mention made in 651 of conflicts with the Thracians, and in 65 7 of others with the Maedi in the border mountains between Macedonia and Thrace.
More serious conflicts took place in the Illyrian land, where complaints were constantly made as to the turbulent Dalmatians by their neighbours and those who navigated the Adriatic ; and along the wholly exposed northern frontier
4a6
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH BOOK it
in Thrace,
108. 97.
In iiijrria.
chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
4*7
of Macedonia, which, according to the significant expression
of a Roman, extended as far as the Roman swords and spears reached, the conflicts with the barbarians never ceased.
In 619 an expedition was undertaken against the Ardyaei 181k or Vardaei and the Pleraei or Paralii, a Dalmatian tribe on
the coast to the north of the mouth of the Narenta, which was incessantly perpetrating outrages on the sea and on the op posite coast : by order of the Romans they removed from
the coast and settled in the interior, the modern Herzegovina, where they began to cultivate the soil, but, unused to their
new calling, pined away in that inclement region. At the same time an attack was directed from Macedonia against
the Scordisci, who had, it may be presumed, made common cause with the assailed inhabitants of the coast. Soon afterwards (625) the consul Tuditanus in connection with 129. the able Decimus Brutus, the conqueror of the Spanish Callaeci, humbled the Japydes, and, after sustaining a defeat at the outset, at length carried the Roman arms into
the heart of Dalmatia as far as the river Kerka, 115 miles distant from Aquileia; the Japydes thenceforth appear
as a nation at peace and on friendly terms with Rome.
But ten years later (635) the Dalmatians rose afresh, once 119. more in concert with the Scordisci. While the consul Lucius Cotta fought against the latter and in doing so advanced apparently as far as Segestica, his colleague Lucius Metellus afterwards named Dalmaticus, the elder brother of
the conqueror of Numidia, marched against the Dalmatians, conquered them and passed the winter in Salona (Spalato), which town henceforth appears as the chief stronghold of the Romans in that region. It is not improbable that the construction of the Via Gabinia, which led from Salona in an easterly direction to Andetrium
(near Much) and thence farther into the interior, falls within this
period.
The expedition of the consul of 639, Marcus AemUius llfc
Th» RomaAnSsS
lib* ^*
Scaurus, against the Taurisci 1 presented more the character Qt a war Qc conquest. jje was the first of the Romans to cross the chain of the eastern Alps where it falls lowest between Trieste and Laybach, and contracted hospitable relations with the Taurisci ; which secured a not unim
118.
4*8
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book it
commercial intercourse without involving the Romans, as a formal subjugation would have involved them, in the movements of the peoples to the north of the Alps. Of the conflicts with the Scordisci, which have
almost wholly into oblivion, a page, which speaks clearly even in its isolation, has recently been brought to light through a memorial stone from the year 636 lately discovered in the neighbourhood of Thessalonica. Accord ing to in this year the governor of Macedonia Sextus Pompeius fell near Argos (not far from Stobi on the upper Axius or Vardar) in battle fought with these Celts and, after his quaestor Marcus Annius had come up with his troops and in some measure mastered the enemy, these same Celts connection with Tipas the king of the Maedi (on the upper Strymon) soon made fresh irruption in still larger masses, and was with difficulty that the Romans defended themselves against the onset of the barbarians. 1 Things soon assumed so threatening shape that became necessary to despatch consular armies to
portant
passed
114. Macedonia. * few years afterwards the consul of 640
They are called in the Triumphal Fasti Galli Kami and in Victor Ligurcs Taurisci (for such should be the reading instead of the received
Ligures et Caurisci).
The quaestor of Macedonia M. Annius P. to whom the town of
Lete (Aivati four leagues to the north-west of Thessalonica) erected in the 118. year 29 of the province and 636 of the city this memorial stone (Ditten-
1Mb
If Quintus Fabius Maximus Eburnus consul in 638 went to Mac©
berger, Syll. 247), not otherwise known the praetor Sex. Pompeius whose fall mentioned in can be no other than the grandfather of the Pompeius with whom Caesar fought and the brother-in-law of the poet Lucilius. The enemy are designated as rnXarflr tSvot. brought into prominence that Annius in order to spare the provincials omitted to call out their contingents and repelled the barbarians with the Roman troops alone. To all appearance Macedonia even at that time required a 4* facto standing Roman garrison.
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;
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;
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chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
429
Gaius Porcius Cato was surprised in the Servian mountains
by the same Scordisci, and his army completely destroyed,
while he himself with a few attendants disgracefully fled ; and reach with difficulty the praetor Marcus Didius protected the ^V. Roman frontier. His successors fought with better fortune,
Gaius Metellus Caprarius (641-642), Marcus Livius Drusus 11j. 112. (642—643), the first Roman general to reach the Danube, 112-111. and Quintus Minucius Rufus (644-647) who carried his 110. 107. arms along the Morava1 and thoroughly defeated the
Scordisci. Nevertheless they soon afterwards in league with
the Maedi and the Dardani invaded the Roman
territory and plundered even the sanctuary at Delphi ; it was not till then that Lucius Scipio put an end to the thirty-two years' warfare with the Scordisci and drove the remnant over to the left bank of the Danube. 2 Thenceforth in their stead the just-named Dardani (in Servia) begin to
play the first part in the territory between the northern frontier of Macedonia and the Danube.
donia (C. I. Gr. 1534 ; Zumpt, Comm. Epigr. 167), he too
have suffered misfortune there, since Cicero. In Pison. 16, 38, says at (Macedonia) aliquot praetario imperie, consular* quidem nemo rediit, qui incolumit futrit, quin triumphant for the triumphal 1st, which complete for this epoch, knows only the three Macedonian iriumphs of Metellus in 643, of Drusus in 644, and of Minucius in 648.
111. 110. As, according to Frontinus (ii. 43), Velleius and Eutropius, . he tribe 106.
conquered by Minucius was the Scordisci, can only be through an error on the part of Floras that he mentions the Hebrus (the Maritza) instead of
the Margus (Morava).
This annihilation of the Scordisci, while the Maedi and Dardani were
admitted to treaty, reported by Appian (Illyr. 5), and in fact thence
forth the Scordisci disappear from this region. If the final subjugation
took place in the 32nd year irb TTJt x/xinjt Kt\roii irefpas, would
seem that this must be understood of a thirty-two years' war between the
Romans and the Scordisci, the commencement of which presumably falls
not long after the constituting of the province of Macedonia (608) and of 146. which the incidents in arms above recorded, 636-647, are a part It 118-107. obvious from Appian's narrative that the conquest ensued shortly before the
outbreak of the Italian civil wars, and so probably at the latest in 663. 91. falls between 650 and 656, a triumph followed for the triumphal list before and after complete possible however that for some reason there was no triumph. The victor not further known perhaps was no other than the consul of the year 671 since the latter may well have been 8S. late in attaining the consulate in consequence of the Cinnan-Marian troubles.
is is ;
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But these victories had an effect which the victors did not anticipate. For a considerable period an "unsettled people " had been wandering along the northern verge of the country occupied by the Celts on both sides of the Danube. They called themselves the Cimbri, that the Chempho, the champions or, as their enemies translated the robbers; designation, however, which to all appear ance had become the name of the people even before their
migration. They came from the north, and the first Celtic people with whom they came in contact were, so far as known, the Boii, probably in Bohemia. More exact details as to the cause and the direction of their migration have not been recorded by contemporaries,1 and cannot be supplied by conjecture, since the state of things in those times to the north of Bohemia and the Main and to the east of the Lower Rhine lies wholly beyond our knowledge.
But the hypothesis that the Cimbri, as well as the similar horde of the Teutones which afterwards joined them, belonged essentially not to the Celtic nation, to which the Romans at first assigned them, but to the Germanic, supported by the most definite facts viz. , by the appear ance of two small tribes of the same name — remnants apparently left behind in their primitive seats—the Cimbri
the modern Denmark, the Teutones in the north-east of Germany the neighbourhood of the Baltic, where
430
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book it
of Alexander the Great, makes mention of them thus early in connection with the amber trade by the insertion of the Cimbri and Teutones in the
list of the Germanic peoples among the Ingaevones along side of the Chauci by the judgment of Caesar, who first made the Romans acquainted with the distinction between
The account that large tracts on the coasts of the North Sea had been torn away by inundations, and that this had occasioned the migration of the Cimbri in body (Strabo, vii. 893), does not indeed appear to us fabulous, as seemed to those who recorded but whether was based on tradition or on conjecture, cannot be decided.
Pytheas, contemporary
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chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
431
the Germans and the Celts, and who includes the Cimbri, many of whom he must himself have seen, among the Germans ; and lastly, by the very names of the peoples and the statements as to their physical appearance and habits in other respects, which, while applying to the men of the north generally, are especially applicable to the Germans. On the other hand it is conceivable enough that such a horde, after having been engaged in wandering perhaps for many years and having in its movements near to or within the land of the Celts doubtless welcomed every brother-in arms who joined would include certain amount of Celtic elements; so that not surprising that men of Celtic name should be at the head of the Cimbri, or that the Romans should employ spies speaking the Celtic tongue to gain information among them. It was marvellous movement, the like of which the Romans had not yet seen not predatory expedition of men equipped for the purpose, nor " ver sacrum " of young men migrating to foreign land, but migratory people that had set out with their women and children, with their goods and chattels, to seek new home. The waggon, which had everywhere among the still not fully settled peoples of the north different importance from what had among the Hellenes and the Italians, and which universally accompanied the Celts also in their encampments, was among the Cimbri as
were their house, where, beneath the leather covering stretched over place was found for the wife and children and even for the house-dog as well as for the furniture. The men of the south beheld with astonish ment those tall lank figures with the fair locks and bright- blue eyes, the hardy and stately women who were little inferior in size and strength to the men, and the children with old men's hair, as the amazed Italians called the flaxen-haired youths of the north. Their system of warfare was substantially that of the Celts of this period, who no
it, a
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43a
THE PEOPLES OP THE NORTH book iv
longer fought, as the Italian Celts had formerly done, bare headed and with merely sword and dagger, but with copper helmets often richly adorned and with a peculiar missile weapon, the materis ; the large sword was retained and the long narrow shield, along with which they probably wore also a coat of maiL They were not destitute of cavalry ; but the Romans were superior to them in that arm. Their order of battle was as formerly a rude phalanx professedly drawn up with just as many ranks in depth as in breadth, the first rank of which in dangerous combats not unfre- quently tied together their metallic girdles with cords. Their manners were rude. Flesh was frequently devoured raw. The bravest and, if possible, the tallest man was king of the host. Not unfrequently, after the manner of the Celts and of barbarians generally, the time and place of the combat were previously arranged with the enemy, and sometimes also, before the battle began, an individual opponent was challenged to single combat The conflict was ushered in by their insulting the enemy with unseemly gestures, and by a horrible noise—the men raising their battle-shout, and the women and children increasing the
din by drumming on the leathern covers of the waggons. The Cimbrian fought bravely—death on the bed of honour was deemed by him the only death worthy of a free man— but after the victory he indemnified himself by the most
and sometimes promised beforehand to present to the gods of battle whatever victory should place in the power of the victor. The effects of the enemy were
broken in pieces, the horses were killed, the prisoners were hanged or preserved only to be sacrificed to the gods. It was the priestesses — grey -haired women in white linen dresses and unshod —who, like Iphigenia in Scythia, offered these sacrifices, and prophesied the future from the stream ing blood of the prisoner of war or the criminal who formed the victim. How much in these customs was the universal
savage brutality,
chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
433
usage of the northern barbarians, how much was borrowed from the Celts, and how much was peculiar to the Germans, cannot be ascertained; but the practice of having the army accompanied and directed not by priests, but by priestesses, may be pronounced an undoubtedly Germanic custom. Thus marched the Cimbri into the unknown land — an immense multitude of various origin which had congregated round a nucleus of Germanic emigrants from the Baltic— not without resemblance to the great bodies of emigrants, that in our own times cross the ocean similarly burdened and similarly mingled, and with aims not much less vague ; carrying their lumbering waggon-castle, with the dexterity which a long migratory life imparts, over streams and mountains; dangerous to more civilized nations like the sea-wave and the hurricane, and like these capricious and unaccountable, now rapidly advancing, now suddenly paus ing, turning aside, or receding. They came and struck like lightning ; like lightning they vanished ; and un happily, in the dull age in which they appeared, there was no observer who deemed it worth while accurately to describe the marvellous meteor. When men afterwards began to trace the chain, of which this emigration, the first Germanic movement which touched the orbit of ancient civilization, was a link, the direct and living knowledge of it had long passed away.
This homeless people of the Cimbri, which hitherto had Cimbrian been prevented from advancing to the south by the Celts TM°Jrenl
on the Danube, more especially by the Boii, broke through conflict*, that barrier in consequence of the attacks directed by the
Romans against the Danubian Celts; either bec se the
latter invoked the aid of their Cimbrian antagonists against
the advancing legions, or because the Roman attack pre
vented them from protecting as hitherto their northern
frontiers. Advancing through the territory of the Scordisci Defeat of into the Tauriscan country, they approached in 641 the m,
vol. in
93
Defeat of Si
100.
434
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book IT
passes of the Carnian Alps, to protect which the consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo took up a position on the heights not far from Aquileia. Here, seventy years before, Celtic tribes had attempted to settle on the south of the Alps, but at the bidding of the Romans had evacuated without resist
ance the ground which they had already occupied
even now the dread of the Transalpine peoples at the Roman name showed itself strongly. The Cimbri did not attack indeed, when Carbo ordered them to evacuate the territory of the Taurisci who were in relations of hospitality with Rome — an order which the treaty with the latter by no means bound him to make—they complied and followed the guides whom Carbo had assigned to them to escort them over the frontier. But these guides were in fact instructed to lure the Cimbri into an ambush, where the consul awaited them. Accordingly an engagement took place not far from Noreia in the modern Carinthia, in which the betrayed gained the victory over the betrayer and inflicted on him considerable loss storm, which separated the combatants, alone prevented the complete annihilation of the Roman army. The Cimbri might have
immediately directed their attack towards Italy; they pre ferred to turn to the westward. By treaty with the Helvetii and the Sequani rather than force of arms they made their way to the left bank of the Rhine and over the Jura, and there some years after the defeat of Carbo once more threatened the Roman territory by their immediate vicinity.
With view to cover the frontier of ene Rhine and the immediately threatened territory of the Allobroges, Roman army under Marcus Junius Silanus appeared in 645 in Southen Gaul. The Cimbri requested that land might be assigned to them where they might peacefully settle—
which certainly could not be granted. The consul instead of replying attacked them he was utterly defeated and the Roman camp was taken. The new levies
request
371)
;
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a
a
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a
by
;
CHAP, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
43S
which were occasioned by this misfortune were already at tended with so much difficulty, that the senate procured the abolition of the laws —presumably proceeding from Gaius Gracchus —which limited the obligation to military service in point of time (p. 347). But the Cimbri, instead of following up their victory over the Romans, sent to the senate at Rome to repeat their request for the assignment of land, and meanwhile employed themselves, apparently, in the subjugation of the surrounding Celtic cantons.
Thus the Roman province and the new Roman army were left for the moment undisturbed by the Germans; but a new enemy arose in Gaul itself. The Helvetii, who had suffered much in the constant conflicts with their north-eastern neighbours, felt themselves stimulated by the example of the Cimbri to seek in their turn for more quiet and fertile settlements in western Gaul, and had perhaps, even when the Cimbrian hosts inarched through their land, formed an alliance with them for that purpose. Now under the leadership of Divico the forces of the Tougeni
unknown) and of the Tigorini (on the lake of Murten) crossed the Jura,1 and reached the territory of the Nitiobroges (about Agen on the Garonne). The Roman army under the consul Lucius Cassius Longinus, which they here encountered, allowed itself to be decoyed by the Helvetii into an ambush, in which the general himself and his legate, the consular Lucius Piso, along with the greater portion of the soldiers met their death ; Gaius Popillius, the interim commander-in-chief of the force which had escaped to the camp, was allowed to withdraw under the yoke on condition of surrendering half the property which the
1 The usual hypothesis, that the Tougeni and Tigorini had advanced at the same time with the Cimbri into Gaul, cannot be supported by Strabo (viL 293), and is little in harmony with the separate part acted by the Helvetii. Our traditional accounts of this war are, besides, so fragmentary that, just as in the case of the Samnite wars, a connected historical narration can only lay claim to approximate accuracy.
Inroad
Hd4tii into
q^
(position
Defeat of ^"P1""'
436
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book iv
107. troops carried with them and furnishing hostages
So perilous was the state of things for the Romans, that one of the most important towns in their own province, Tolosa, rose against them and placed the Roman garrison in chains.
But, as the Cimbri continued to employ themselves elsewhere, and the Helvetii did not further molest for the moment the Roman province, the new Roman commander- in-chief, Quintus Servilius Caepio, had full time to recover possession of the town of Tolosa by treachery and to empty at leisure the immense treasures accumulated in the old and famous sanctuary of the Celtic Apollo. It was a desirable gain for the embarrassed exchequer, but unfor tunately the gold and silver vessels on the way from Tolosa to Massilia were taken from the weak escort by a band of robbers, and totally disappeared : the consul himself and his staff were, it was alleged, the instigators of this onset
Meanwhile they confined themselves to the strictest defensive as regarded the chief enemy, and guarded the Roman province with three strong armies, till it should please the Cimbri to repeat their attack.
105. They came in 649 under their king Boiorix, on this
Defeat of occasion seriously meditating an inroad into Italy. They
were opposed on the right bank of the Rhone by the pro consul Caepio, on the left by the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus and by his legate, the consular Marcus Aureliu* Scaurus, under him at the head of a detached corps. The first onset fell on the latter ; he was totally defeated and brought in person as a prisoner to the enemy's head-quarters, where the Cimbrian king, indignant at the proud warning given to him by the captive Roman not to venture with his army into Italy, put him to death. Maximus thereupon
ordered his colleague to bring his army over the Rhone : the latter complying with reluctance at length appeared at Arausio (Orange) on the left bank of the river, where the
Arausio.
106. (648).
(647).
CHAP, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
437
whole Roman force now stood confronting the Cimbrian army, and is alleged to have made such an impression by
its considerable numbers that the Cimbri began to negotiate.
But the two leaders lived in the most vehement discord. Maximus, an insignificant and incapable man, was as consul
the legal superior of his prouder and better born, but not better qualified, proconsular colleague Caepio; but the latter refused to occupy a common camp and to devise operations in concert with him, and still, as formerly, main tained his independent command. In vain deputies from
the Roman senate endeavoured to effect a reconciliation ;
a personal conference between the generals, on which the officers insisted, only widened the breach. When Caepio
saw Maximus negotiating with the envoys of the Cimbri,
he fancied that the latter wished to gain the sole credit of their subjugation, and threw himself with his portion of the army alone in all haste on the enemy. He was utterly annihilated, so that even his camp fell into the hands of the enemy (6 Oct. 649) ; and his destruction was followed by 106. the no less complete defeat of the second Roman army.
It is asserted that 80,000 Roman soldiers and half as many of the immense and helpless body of camp-followers perished, and that only ten men escaped: this much is certain, that only a few out of the two armies succeeded in escaping, for the Romans had fought with the river in their rear. It was a calamity which materially and morally far surpassed the day of Cannae. The defeats of Carbo, of Silanus, and of Longinus had passed without producing any permanent impression on the Italians. They were accustomed to open every war with disasters ; the invin- cibleness of the Roman arms was so firmly established, that it seemed superfluous to attend to the pretty numerous exceptions. Bnt the battle of Arausio, the alarming proxi mity of the victorious Cimbrian army to the undefended passes of the Alps, the insurrections breaking out afresh
The opposition.
and with increased force both in the Roman territory beyond the Alps and among the Lusitanians, the defence less condition of Italy, produced a sudden and fearful awakening from these dreams. Men recalled the never wholly forgotten Celtic inroads of the fourth century, the day on the Allia and the burning of Rome : with the double force at once of the oldest remembrance and of the freshest alarm the terror of the Gauls came upon Italy ; through all the west people seemed to be aware that the Roman empire was beginning to totter. As after the battle
of Cannae, the period of mourning was shortened by decree of the senate. 1 The new enlistments brought out the most painful scarcity of men. All Italians capable of bearing arms had to swear that they would not leave Italy; the captains of the vessels lying in the Italian ports were instructed not to take on board any man fit for service.
It is impossible to tell what might have happened, had the Cimbri immediately after their double victory advanced through the gates of the Alps into Italy. But they first overran the territory of the Arverni, who with difficulty defended themselves in their fortresses against the enemy ; and soon, weary of sieges, set out from thence, not to Italy,
but westward to the Pyrenees.
If the torpid organism of the Roman polity could still of
'tse^ reach a crisis of wholesome reaction, that reaction could not but set in now, when, by one of the marvellous pieces of good fortune, in which the history of Rome is so rich, the danger was sufficiently imminent to rouse all the energy and all the patriotism of the burgesses, and yet did not burst upon them so suddenly as to leave no space for the development of their resources. But the very same phenomena, which had occurred four years previously after the African defeats, presented themselves afresh. In fact the African and Gallic disasters were essentially of the same
1 To this, beyond doubt, the fragment of Diodorus ( Vat. p. laa) relates.
438
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book it
chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
439
kind. It may be that primarily the blame of the former
fell more on the oligarchy as a whole, that of the latter
more on individual magistrates ; but public opinion justly recognized in both, above all things, the bankruptcy of the government, which in its progressive development im
perilled first the honour and now the very existence of the
state. People just as little deceived themselves then as
now regarding the true seat of the evil, but as little now
as then did they make even an attempt to apply the
remedy at the proper point. They saw well that the system Wirfcw of was to blame ; but on this occasion also they adhered to {JJJJJ00" the method of calling individuals to account — only no
doubt this second storm discharged itself on the heads of the oligarchy so much the more heavily, as the calamity of 649 105. exceeded in extent and peril that of 645. The sure 109. instinctive feeling of the public, that there was no resource against the oligarchy except the tyrannis, was once more apparent in their readily entering into every attempt by officers of note to force the hand of the government and, under one form or another, to overturn the oligarchic rule
by a dictatorship.
It was against Quintus Caepio that their attacks were
first directed ; and justly, in so far as he had primarily occasioned the defeat of Arausio by his insubordination, even apart from the probably well-founded but not proved charge of embezzling the Tolosan booty; but the fury which the opposition displayed against him was essentially augmented by the fact, that he had as consul ventured on an attempt to wrest the posts of jurymen from the capitalists
On his account the old venerable principle, that the sacredness of the magistracy should be respected even in the person of its worst occupant, was violated; and, while the censure due to the author of the calamitous day of Cannae had been silently repressed within the breast, the author of the defeat of Arausio was decree of the people
376).
by
(p.
440
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH boor iv
unconstitutionally deprived of his proconsulship, and—what had not occurred since the crisis in which the monarchy had perished — his property was confiscated to the state-
105. chest (649 Not long afterwards he was second 104. decree of the burgesses expelled from the senate (650).
But this was not enough more victims were desired, and above all Caepio's blood. A number of tribunes of the people favourable to the opposition, with Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and Gaius Norbanus at their head, proposed in
Gaul; in spite of the de facto abolition of arrest investigation and of the punishment of death for political offences, Caepio was arrested and the intention of pro nouncing and executing in his case sentence of death was openly expressed. The government party attempted to get rid of the proposal by tribunician intervention but the interceding tribunes were violently driven from the assembly, and in the furious tumult the first men of the senate were assailed with stones. The investigation could not be prevented, and the warfare of prosecutions pursued its
108. course in 651 as had done six years before Caepio himself, his colleague in the supreme command Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, and numerous other men of note were condemned tribune of the people, who was friend of Caepio, with difficulty succeeded by the sacrifice of his own civic existence in saving at least the life of the chief persons accused. 1
The deposition from office of the proconsul Caepio, with which was combined the confiscation of his property (Li v. Ep. 67), was probably pronounced by the assembly of the people immediately after the battle of
105. Arausio (6th October 649). That some time elapsed between the deposition and his proper downfall, clearly shown by the proposal made 104. in 650, and aimed at Caepio, that deposition from office should involve the forfeiture of a seat in the senate (Asconius in Corntl, p. 78). The
to appoint an extraordinary judicial commission in
101. 651
reference to the embezzlement and treason perpetrated in
fragments of Licinianus (p. 10 Caepio L. Saturnini rogation* up the allusion in Cic. ie Or.
Cn. Manilius oh eandem causam quam et civitate est eito [? ] eiectus which clears a8, 125) now inform us that iaw
during
1
: a
? ).
it
e;; ii.
a
is
; a ; by ;a
chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
441
Of more importance than this measure of revenge was Marfai the question how the dangerous war beyond the Alps was eom'dm, to be further carried on, and first of all to whom the in-chiet supreme command in it was to be committed. With an
treatment of the matter it was not difficult to make a fitting choice. Rome was doubtless, in comparison
with earlier times, not rich in military notabilities; Quintus Maximus had commanded with distinction in Gaul, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus and Quintus Minucius in the regions of the Danube, Quintus Metellus, Publius Rutilius Rufus, Gaius Marius in Africa ; and the object proposed was not to defeat a Pyrrhus or a Hannibal, but again to make good the often-tried superiority of Roman arms and Roman tactics in opposition to the barbarians of the north —an object which required no genius, but merely a stern and capable soldier. But it was precisely a time when nothing was so difficult as the unprejudiced settlement of a question of administration. The government was, as it
unprejudiced
yet
proposed by Lucius Appuleius Saturninus brought about this catastrophe.
This is evidently no other than the Appuleian law as to the minuta maiestas of the Roman state (Cic. de Or. ii. 35, 107 ; 49, aoi), or, as its
tenor was already formerly explained (ii. p. 143 of the first edition [of the German]), the proposal of Saturninus for the appointment of an extra ordinary commission to investigate the treasons that had taken place during
the Cimbrian troubles. The commission of inquiry as to the gold of Tolosa
(Cic. de N. D. lii. 30, 74) arose in quite a similar way out of the Appuleian
law, as the special courts of inquiry —further mentioned in that passage—as
to a scandalous bribery of judges out of the Mucian law of 613, as to the 141. occurrences with the Vestals out of the Peducaean law of 641, and as to the 118. Jugurthinewarout oftheMamilianlawof644. — A comparison of these cases 110. also shows that in such special commissions different in this respect from
the ordinary ones —even punishments affecting life and limb might be and were inflicted. If elsewhere the tribune of the people, Gaius Norbanus, is named as the person who set agoing the proceedings against Caepio and was afterwards brought to trial for doing so (Cic. de Or. 410, 167 48,
49, aoo Or. Part. 30, 105, et al. ), this not inconsistent with the view given above for the proposal proceeded as usual from several tribunes
of the people {ad Herenn. 14, 34 Cic. de Or. 47, 197), and, as Saturninus was already dead when the aristocratic party was in a position
to think of retaliation, they fastened on his colleague. As to the period of this second and final condemnation of Caepio, the usual very inconsiderate hypothesis, which places in 659, ten years after the battle of Arausio, 95. has been already rejected. rests simply on the fact that Crassus when
199
it
i.
It
;
; ;
ii.
ii.
;
is
;
442
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book it
could not but be and as the Jugurthine war had already shown, so utterly bankrupt in public opinion, that its ablest generals had to retire in the full career of victory, whenever it occurred to an officer of mark to revile them before the people and to get himself as the candidate of the opposition appointed by the latter to the head of affairs. It was no wonder that what took place after the victories of Metellus was repeated on a greater scale after the defeats of Gnaeus Mallius and Quintus Caepio. Once more Gaius Marius came forward, in spite of the law which prohibited the holding of the consulship more than once, as a candidate for the supreme magistracy ; and not only was he nominated as consul and charged with the chief command in the Gallic war, while he was still in Africa at the head of the army there, but he was reinvested with the consulship for five
104-100. years in succession (650-654)— in a way, which looked like an intentional mockery of the exclusive spirit that the
95. consul, consequently in 659, spoke in favour of Caepio (Cic. Brut. 44, 162) ; which, however, he manifestly did not as his advocate, but on the occasion when Norbanus was brought to account by Publius Sulpicius
99. 104. Rufus for his conduct toward Caepio in 659. Formerly the year 650 was assumed for this second accusation ; now that we know that it originated
108. from a proposal of Saturninus, we can only hesitate between 651, when he was tribune of the people for the first time (Plutarch, Mar. 14 ; Oros.
100. v. 17 ; App. i. 28 ; Diodor. p. 608, 631), and 654, when he held that office a second time. There are not materials for deciding the point with entire certainty, but the great preponderance of probability is in favour of the former year ; partly because it was nearer to the disastrous events in Gaul, partly because in the tolerably full accounts of the second tribunate of Saturninus there is no mention of Quintus Caepio the father and the acts of violence directed against him. The circumstance, that the sums paid back to the treasury in consequence of the verdicts as to the embezzlement of the Tolosan booty were claimed by Saturninus in his second tribunate for his schemes of colonization (De Viris III. 73, 5, and thereon Orelli, Ind. Legg. p. 137), is not in itself decisive, and may, more over, have been easily transferred by mistake from the first African to the second general agrarian law of Saturninus.
The fact that afterwards, when Norbanus was impeached, his Impeach ment proceeded on the very ground of the law which he had taken part in suggesting, was an ironical incident common in the Roman political procedure of this period (Cic. Brut. 89, 305) and should not mislead us into the belief that the Appuleian law was, like the later Cornelian, a general law of high treason.
chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
443
nobility had exhibited in reference to this very man in all its folly and shortsightedness, but was also unparalleled in the
annals of the republic, and in fact absolutely incompatible with the spirit of the free constitution of Rome. In the Roman military system in particular —the transformation of which from a burgess-militia into a body of mercenaries, begun in the African war, was continued and completed by Marius during his five years of a supreme command un limited through the exigencies of the time still more than through the terms of his appointment —the profound traces of this unconstitutional commandership-in-chief of the first democratic general remained visible for all time.
The new commander-in-chief, Gaius Marius, appeared in 650 beyond the Alps, followed by a number of experi- enced officers—among whom the bold captor of Jugurtha, Lucius Sulla, soon acquired fresh distinction —and by a numerous host of Italian and allied soldiers. At first he did not find the enemy against whom he was sent. The singular people, who had conquered at Arausio, had in the meantime (as we have already mentioned), after
the country to the west of the Rhone, crossed the Pyrenees and were carrying on a desultory warfare in Spain with the brave inhabitants of the northern coast and of the interior; it seemed as if the Germans wished at their very first appearance in the field of history to display their lack of persistent grasp. So Marius found ample time on the one hand to reduce the revolted Tectosages to obedience, to confirm afresh the wavering fidelity of the subject Gallic and Ligurian cantons, and to obtain support and contingents within and without the Roman province from the allies who were equally with the Romans placed in peril by the Cimbri, such as the Mas- siliots, the Allobroges, and the Sequani ; and on the other hand, to discipline the army entrusted to him by strict training and impartial justice towards all whether high or
Roman jS? TM*
plundering
108.
Gmbri Teatones,
Helvetll
humble, and to prepare the soldiers for the more serious labours of war by marches and extensive works of entrench ing—particularly the construction of a canal of the Rhone, afterwards handed over to the Massiliots, for facilitating the transit of the supplies sent from Italy to the army. He maintained a strictly defensive attitude, and did not cross the bounds of the Roman province.
At length, apparently in the course of 651, the wave of tne Cimbri, after having broken itself in Spain on the brave resistance of the native tribes and especially of the Celtibe- rians, flowed back again over the Pyrenees and thence, as it appears, passed along the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, where everything from the Pyrenees to the Seine submitted to the terrible invaders. There, on the confines of the brave confederacy of the Belgae, they first encountered serious resistance ; but there also, while they were in the territory of the Vellocassi (near Rouen), considerable rein forcements reached them. Not only three cantons of the Helvetii, including the Tigorini and Tougeni who had formerly fought against the Romans at the Garonne, associated themselves, apparently about this period, with the Cimbri, but these were also joined by the kindred Teutones under their king Teutobod, who had been driven by events which tradition has not recorded from their home on the Baltic sea to appear now on the Seine. 1 But even the united hordes were unable to overcome the brave
444
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book it
Expedition resistance of the Belgae. The leaders accordingly resolved,
resolved on.
now tnat tne'r numbers were tnus swelled, to enter in all
1 The view here presented rests in the main on the comparatively trust worthy account in the Epitome of Livy (where we should read reversi in Galliam in Vellocassii u Teutonit coniunxerunt) and in Obsequens ; to the disregard of authorities of lesser weight, which make the Teutones appear by the side of the Cimbri at an earlier date, some of them, such as Appian, Celt 13, even as early as the battle of Noreia. With these we connect the notices in Caesar (B. G. i. 33 ; 4, 29) as the invasion of the Roman province and of Italy by the Cimbri can only mean the
108. expedition of 65a.
ii. ;
cha*. v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
445
earnest on the expedition to Italy which they had several times contemplated. In order not to encumber themselves
with the spoil which they had heretofore collected, they
left it behind under the protection of a division of 6000 men, which after many wanderings subsequently gave rise
to the tribe of the Aduatuci on the Sambre. But, whether from the difficulty of finding supplies on the Alpine routes
or from other reasons, the mass again broke up into two hosts, one of which, composed of the Cimbri and Tigorini,
was to recross the Rhine and to invade Italy through the passes of the eastern Alps already reconnoitred in 641, and 113. the other, composed of the newly-arrived Teutones, the Tougeni, and the Ambrones —the flower of the Cimbrian
host already tried in the battle of Arausio—was to invade
Italy through Roman Gaul and the western passes. It Teutones was this second division,» which in the summer of 6? -j 2 once TM „i,£i? ? i
province of more crossed the Rhone without hindrance, and on its left Gaul,
bank resumed, after a pause of nearly three years, the struggle with the Romans. Marius awaited them in a well- chosen and well-provisioned camp at the confluence of the Isere with the Rhone, in which position he intercepted the passage of the barbarians by either of the only two military routes to Italy then practicable, that over the Little St Bernard, and that along the coast The Teutones attacked the camp which obstructed their passage; for three con secutive days the assault of the barbarians raged around the Roman entrenchments, but their wild courage was thwarted by the superiority of the Romans in fortress-warfare and by the prudence of the general. After severe loss the bold associates resolved to give up the assault, and to march onward to Italy past the camp. For six successive days they continued to defile—a proof of the cumbrousness of their baggage still more than of the immensity of their numbers. The general permitted the march to proceed without attacking them. We can easily understand
why
Battle of g^uae.
he did not allow himself to be led astray by the insulting inquiries of the enemy whether the Romans had no com missions for their wives at home ; but the fact, that he did not take advantage of this audacious defiling of the hostile columns in front of the concentrated Roman troops for the purpose of attack, shows how little he trusted his unpractised soldiers.
When the march was over, he broke up his encampment and followed in the steps of the enemy, preserving rigorous order and carefully entrenching himself night after night. The Teutones, who were striving to gain the coast road, marching down the banks of the Rhone reached the district of Aquae Sextiae, followed by the Romans. The light Ligurian troops of the Romans, as they were drawing water, here came into collision with the Celtic rear-guard, the Ambrones ; the conflict soon became general ; after a hot struggle the Romans conquered and pursued the retreating enemy up to their waggon-stronghold. This first successful collision elevated the spirits of the general as well as of the soldiers ; on the third day after it Marius drew up his array for a decisive battle on the hill, the summit of which bore the Roman camp. The Teutones, long impatient to measure themselves against their antagonists, immediately rushed up the hill and began the conflict. It was severe and protracted : up to midday the Germans stood like walls; but the unwonted heat of the Provencal sun relaxed their energies, and a false alarm in their rear, where a band of Roman camp-boys ran forth from a wooded ambuscade with loud shouts, utterly decided the breaking up of the wavering ranks. The whole horde was scattered, and, as was to be expected in a foreign land, either put to death or taken prisoners. Among the captives was king
Teutobod ; among the killed a multitude of women, who, not unacquainted with the treatment which awaited them as slaves, had caused themselves to be slain in desperate
446
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book iv
chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
447
resistance at their waggons, or had put themselves to death in captivity, after having vainly requested to be dedicated to the service of the gods and of the sacred virgins of Vesta
time, for their brothers-in-arms were already on the south side of the Alps. In alliance with the Helvetii, the Cimbri had without difficulty passed from the Seine to the upper valley of the Rhine, had crossed the chain of the Alps by the Brenner pass, and had descended thence through the valleys of the Eisach and Adige into the Italian plain. Here the consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus was to guard the passes ; but not fully acquainted with the country and afraid of having his flank turned, he had not ventured to advance into the Alps themselves, but had posted himself below Trent on the left bank of the Adige, and had secured in any event his retreat to the right bank by the construc tion of a bridge. When the Cimbri, however, pushed forward in dense masses from the mountains, a panic seized the Roman army, and legionaries and horsemen ran off, the latter straight for the capital, the former to the nearest height which seemed to afford security. With great difficulty Catulus brought at least the greater portion of his army by a stratagem back to the river and over the bridge, before the enemy, who commanded the upper course of the Adige and were already floating down trees and beams against the bridge, succeeded in destroying it and thereby cutting off the retreat of the army. But the general had to leave behind a legion on the other bank, and the cowardly tribune who led it was already disposed to capitulate, when the centurion Gnaeus Petreius of Atina struck him down and cut his way through the midst of the enemy to the main army on the right bank of the Adige. Thus the army, and in some degree even the honour of their arms, was saved ; but the consequences of the neglect
(summer of 652).
102. Thus Gaul was relieved from the Germans ; and it was Cimbriani
448
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book it
to occupy the passes and of the too hasty retreat were yet very seriously felt. Catulus was obliged to withdraw to the right bank of the Po and to leave the whole plain between the Po and the Alps in the power of the Cimbri, so that communication was maintained with Aquileia only
102. by sea. This took place in the summer of 652, about the same time when the decisive battle between the Teutones and the Romans occurred at Aquae Sextiae. Had the Cimbri continued their attack without interruption, Rome might have been greatly embarrassed ; but on this occasion also they remained faithful to their custom of resting in winter, and all the more, because the rich country, the unwonted quarters under the shelter of a roof, the warm baths, and the new and abundant supplies for eating and drinking invited them to make themselves comfortable for
the moment. Thereby the Romans gained time to en counter them with united forces in Italy. It was no season to resume—as the democratic general would perhaps other wise have done — the interrupted scheme of conquest in Gaul, such as Gaius Gracchus had probably projected.
From the battle-field of Aix the victorious army was con ducted to the Po; and after a brief stay in the capital, where Marius refused the triumph offered to him until he had utterly subdued the barbarians, he arrived in person
101. at the united armies. In the spring of 653 they again crossed the Po, 50,000 strong, under the consul Marius and the proconsul Catulus, and marched against the Cimbri, who on their part seem to have marched up the river with a view to cross the mighty stream at its source.
Battle on Raudine
The two armies met below Vercellae not far from the confluence of the Sesia with the Po,1 just at the spot where
1 It is injudicious to deviate from the traditional account and to transfer the field of battle to Verona : in so doing the fact is overlooked that a whole winter and various movements of troops intervened between the conflicts on the Adige and the decisive engagement, and that Catulus, ac cording to express statement (Plut. Mar. 34), had retreated as far as the
chap, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
449
Hannibal had fought his first battle on Italian soil. The Cimbri desired battle, and according to their custom sent
to the Romans to settle the time and place for it ; Marius gratified them and named the next day — it was the 30th
July 653 — and the Raudine plain, a wide level space, 10L which the superior Roman cavalry found advantageous for their movements. Here they fell upon the enemy expect
ing them and yet taken by surprise ; for in the dense morning mist the Cimbrian cavalry found itself in hand-to- hand conflict with the stronger cavalry of the Romans before it anticipated attack, and was thereby thrown back upon the infantry which was just making its dispositions for battle. A complete victory was gained with slight loss, and the Cimbri were annihilated. Those might be deemed fortunate who met death in the battle, as most did, includ ing the brave king Boiorix; more fortunate at least than those who afterwards in despair laid hands on themselves, or were obliged to seek in the slave -market of Rome the master who might retaliate on the individual Northman for the audacity of having coveted the beauteous south before it was time. The Tigorini, who had remained behind in the passes of the Alps with the view of subsequently following the Cimbri, ran off on the news of the defeat to their native land. The human avalanche, which for thirteen years had alarmed the nations from the Danube to the
Ebro, from the Seine to the Po, rested beneath the sod or toiled under the yoke of slavery ; the forlorn hope of the German migrations had performed its duty ; the homeless people of the Cimbri and their comrades were no more.
The political parties of Rome continued their pitiful The quarrels over the carcase, without troubling themselves ^j°2, about the great chapter in the world's history the first page partiea,
right bank of the Po. The statements that the Cimbri were defeated on the Po (Hier. Chron. ), and that they were defeated where Stilicho after wards defeated the Getae, i. e. at Cberasco on the Tanaro, although both inaccurate, point at least to Vercellae much rather than to Verona.
VOL. Ill
94
450
THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH book iv
of which was thus opened, without even giving way to the pure feeling that on this day Rome's aristocrats as well as Rome's democrats had done their duty. The rivalry of the two generals — who were not only political antagonists, but were also set at variance in a military point of view by the so different results of the two campaigns of the previous year — broke out immediately after the battle in the most offensive form. Catulus might with justice assert that the centre division which he commanded had decided the victory, and that his troops had captured thirty-one standards, while those of Marius had brought in only two , his soldiers led even the deputies of the town of Parma through the heaps of the dead to show to them that Marius had slain his thousand, but Catulus his ten thousand. Nevertheless Marius was regarded as the real conqueror of the Cimbri, and justly ; not merely because by virtue of his higher rank he had held the chief command on the decisive day, and was in military gifts and experience beyond doubt far superior to his colleague, but especially because the second victory at Vercellae had in fact been rendered possible only by the first victory at Aquae Sextiae. But at that period it was considerations of political partisan ship rather than of military merit which attached the glory
of having saved Rome from the Cimbri and Teutones entirely to the name of Marius. Catulus was a polished and clever man, so graceful a speaker that his euphonious language sounded almost like eloquence, a tolerable writer of memoirs and occasional poems, and an excellent con noisseur and critic of art ; but he was anything but a man of the people, and his victory was a victory of the aristocracy. The battles of the rough farmer on the other hand, who had been raised to honour by the common people and had led the common people to victory, were not merely defeats of the Cimbri and Teutones, but also defeats of the govern ment : there were associated with them hopes far different
CHAP, v THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH
451
from that of being able once more to cany on mercantile transactions on the one side of the Alps or to cultivate the fields without molestation on the other. Twenty years had elapsed since the bloody corpse of Gaius Gracchus had been flung into the Tiber ; for twenty years the govern ment of the restored oligarchy had been endured and cursed ; still there had risen no avenger for Gracchus, no second master to prosecute the building which he had begun. There were many who hated and hoped, many of the worst and many of the best citizens of the state : was the man, who knew how to accomplish this vengeance and these wishes, found at last in the son of the day-labourer of Arpinum? Were they really on the threshold of the
new much-dreaded and much-desired second revolution ?
«5a
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION BOOK IV
CHAPTER VI
Mario*. 155.
THE ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION AND THE ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
Gaius Marius, the son of a poor day-labourer, was born in 599 at the village of Cereatae then belonging to Arpinum, which afterwards obtained municipal rights as Cereatae Marianae and still at the present day bears the name of " Marius' home " (Casamare). He was reared at the plough, in circumstances so humble that they seemed to preclude him from access even to the municipal offices of Arpinum : he learned early—what he practised afterwards even when a general—to bear hunger and thirst, the heat of summer
and the cold of winter, and to sleep on the hard ground. As soon as his age allowed him, he had entered the army and through service in the severe school of the Spanish wars had rapidly risen to be an officer. In Scipio's Numantine war he, at that time twenty-three years of age, attracted the notice of the stern general by the neatness with which he kept his horse and his accoutrements, as well as by his bravery in combat and his decorous demeanour in camp. He had returned home with honour able scars and warlike distinctions, and with the ardent wish to make himself a name in the career on which he had gloriously entered ; but, as matters then stood, a man of even the highest merit could not attain those political offices, which alone led to the higher military posts, without
chap, vi ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
453
wealth and without connections. The young officer acquired both by fortunate commercial speculations and by his union with a maiden of the ancient patrician clan of the
So by dint of great efforts and after various miscar
riages he succeeded, in 639, in attaining the praetorship, 111.
in which he found opportunity of displaying afresh his
military ability as governor of Further Spain. How he
thereafter in spite of the aristocracy received the consulship
in 647 and, as proconsul (648, 649), terminated the African 107. 104 war ; and how, called after the calamitous day of Arausio
to the superintendence of the war against the Germans, he
had his consulship renewed for four successive years from
650 to 653 (a thing unexampled in the annals of the 104-101. republic) and vanquished and annihilated the Cimbri in
Cisalpine, and the Teutones in Transalpine, Gaul—has
been already related. In his military position he had
shown himself a brave and upright man, who administered
justice impartially, disposed of the spoil with rare honesty and disinterestedness, and was thoroughly incorruptible ; a skilful organizer, who had brought the somewhat rusty machinery of the Roman military system once more into a state of efficiency ; an able general, who kept the soldier under discipline and withal in good humour and at the same time won his affections in comrade-like intercourse, but looked the enemy boldly in the face and joined issue with him at the proper time. He was not, as far as we can judge, a man of eminent military capacity; but the very respectable qualities which he possessed were quite sufficient under the existing circumstances to procure for him the reputation of such capacity, and by virtue of it he had taken his place in a fashion of unparalleled honour among the consulars and the triumphators. But he was none the better fitted on that account for the brilliant circle. His voice remained harsh and loud, and his look wild, as if he still saw before him Libyans or Cimbrians, and not well-
Julii.
Political
Marto"
4S4
ATTEMPT OF MARIUS AT REVOLUTION book iv
bred and perfumed colleagues. That he was superstitious like a genuine soldier of fortune ; that he was induced to become a candidate for his first consulship, not by the impulse of his talents, but primarily by the utterances of an Etruscan haruspex ; and that in the campaign with the Teutones a Syrian prophetess Martha lent the aid of her oracles to the council of war, —these things were not, in the strict sense, unaristocratic : in such matters, then as at all times, the highest and lowest strata of society met. But the want of political culture was unpardonable ; it was com mendable, no doubt, that he had the skill to defeat the barbarians, but what was to be thought of a consul who was so ignorant of constitutional etiquette as to appear in triumphal costume in the senate I In other respects too the plebeian character clung to him. He was not merely— according to aristocratic phraseology—a poor man, but, what was worse, frugal and a declared enemy of all bribery and corruption. After the manner of soldiers he was not nice, but was fond of his cups, especially in his later years ; he knew not the art of giving feasts, and kept a bad cook. It was likewise awkward that the consular understood nothing but Latin and had to decline conversing in Greek ; that he felt the Greek plays wearisome might pass—he was presumably not the only one who did so — but to confess to the feeling of weariness was naive. Thus he remained throughout life a countryman cast adrift among aristocrats, and annoyed by the keenly-felt sarcasms and still more keenly -felt commiseration of his colleagues, which he had not the self-command to despise as he despised them selves.
Marius stood aloof from the parties not much less than from society. The measures which he carried in his tribu- 119. nate of the people (635) —a better control over the delivery of the voting- tablets with a view to do away with the
scandalous frauds that were therein practised, and the pre
chap, vi ATTEMPT OF DRUSUS AT REFORM
455
vention of extravagant proposals for largesses to the people
(P- 375) —do not bear the stamp of a party, least of all that
of the democratic, but merely show that he hated what was unjust and irrational ; and how could a man like this, a farmer by birth and a soldier by inclination, have been
from the first a revolutionist ? The hostile attacks of the aristocracy had no doubt driven him subsequently into the camp of the opponents of the government ; and there he speedily found himself elevated in the first instance to be general of the opposition, and destined perhaps for still higher things hereafter.