No More Learning

The brave and sagacious Quintus
Silo, already mentioned, was here the soul of the move
ment. The Marsians were the first formally to declare
against the Romans, whence the war retained afterwards
the name of the Marsian war. The example thus given Central was followed by the Samnite communities, and generally Siv— by the mass of the communities from the Liris and the Italy. Abruzzi down to Calabria and Apulia ; so that all Central
and Southern Italy was soon in arms against Rome.
The Etruscans and Umbrians on the other hand held Italian*
by Rome, as they had already taken part with the equites against Drusus 487). significant fact, that in these regions the landed and moneyed aristocracy had from ancient times preponderated and the middle class had totally disappeared, whereas among and near the Abruzzi the farmer-class had preserved its purity and vigour better than anywhere else in Italy: was from the farmers accordingly and the middle class in general that the revolt substantially proceeded, whereas the municipal aristocracy still went hand in hand with the government of the capital. This also readily explains the fact, that there were the insurgent districts isolated communities, and in the in surgent communities minorities, adhering to the Roman alliance the Vestinian town Pinna, for instance, sustained
^md,y t0
;
in
it
is a
(p.
It
Impression
J^lz? don in Rom*'
5« THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
a severe siege for Rome, and a corps of loyalists that was formed in the Hirpinian country under Minatius Magius of
Aeclanum supported the Roman operations in Campania. Lastly, there adhered to Rome the allied communities of best legal position —in Campania Nola and Nuceria and the Greek maritime towns Neapolis and Rhegium, and in like manner at least most of the Latin colonies, such as Alba and Aesernia — just as in the Hannibalic war the Latin and Greek towns on the whole had taken part with, and the Sabellian towns against, Rome. The forefathers of the city had based their dominion over Italy on an aristocratic classification, and with skilful adjustment of the degrees of dependence had kept in subjection the less
communities by means of those with better rights, and the burgesses within each community by means of the municipal aristocracy. It was only now, under the incomparably wretched government of the oligarchy, that the solidity and strength with which the statesmen of the fourth and fifth centuries had joined together the stones of their structure were thoroughly put to the test ; the building, though shaken in various ways, still held out against this storm. When we say, however, that the towns of better position did not at the first shock abandon Rome, we by no means affirm that they would now, as in the Hannibalic
war, hold out for a length of time and after severe defeats, without wavering in their allegiance to Rome; that fiery trial had not yet been endured.
The first blood was thus shed, and Italy was divided into two great military camps. It is true, as we have seen, that the insurrection was still very far from being a general rising of the Italian allies ; but it had already acquired an extent exceeding perhaps the hopes of the leaders them selves, and the insurgents might without arrogance think of offering to the Roman government a fair accommodation. They sent envoys to Rome, and bound themselves to lay
privileged
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
503
down their arms in return for admission to citizenship ; it
was in vain. The public spirit, which had been so long
wanting in Rome, seemed suddenly to have returned, when
the question was one of obstructing with stubborn narrow- mindedness a demand of the subjects just in itself and now supported by a considerable force. The immediate effect Commit. of the Italian insurrection was, just as was the case after b°X
the defeats which the policy of the government had treason, suffered in Africa and Gaul (pp. 396, 439), the commence
ment of a warfare of prosecutions, by means of which the aristocracy of judges took vengeance on those men of the government whom they, rightly or wrongly, looked upon as
the primary cause of this mischief. On the proposal of the tribune Quintus Varius, in spite of the resistance of the Optimates and in spite of tribunician interference, a special commission of high treason — formed, of course, from the equestrian order which contended for the proposal with open violence—was appointed for the investigation of the conspiracy instigated by Drusus and widely ramified in Italy as well as in Rome, out of which the insurrection had originated, and which now, when the half of Italy was under arms, appeared to the whole of the indignant and alarmed burgesses as undoubted treason. The sentences of this commission largely thinned the ranks of the senatorial party favourable to mediation : among other men of note Drusus' intimate friend, the young and talented Gaius Cotta, was sent into banishment, and with difficulty the grey-haired Marcus Scaurus escaped the same fate. Suspicion went so far against the senators favourable to the reforms of Drusus, that soon afterwards the consul Lupus reported from the camp to the senate regarding the communications that were constantly maintained between the Optimates in his camp and the enemy ; a suspicion which, it is true, was soon shown to be unfounded by the arrest of Marsian spies. So far king Mithradates might
Rejection
J^U? "*'
"^^^ for an
Energetic
504 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
not without reason assert, that the mutual enmities of the factions were more destructive to the Roman state than the Social War itself.
In the first instance, however, the outbreak of the insur rection, and the terrorism which the commission of high treason exercised, produced at least a semblance of unity and vigour. Party feuds were silent; able officers of all shades — democrats like Gaius Marius, aristocrats like Lucius Sulla, friends of Drusus like Publius Sulpicius Rufus —placed themselves at the disposal of the government The largesses of corn were, apparently about this time, materially abridged by decree of the people with a view to husband the financial resources of the state for the war ; which was the more necessary, as, owing to the threatening attitude of king Mithradates, the province of Asia might at any moment fall into the hand of the enemy and thus one of the chief sources of the Roman revenue be dried up. The courts, with the exception of the commission of high treason, in accordance with a decree of the senate tempo rarily suspended their action ; all business stood still, and nothing was attended to but the levying of soldiers and the manufacture of arms.
While the leading state thus collected its energies in the prospect of the severe war impending, the insurgents had to solve the more difficult task of acquiring political organization during the struggle. In the territory of the Paeligni situated in the centre of the Marsian, Samnite, Marrucinian, and Vestinian cantons and consequently in the heart of the insurgent districts, in the beautiful plain on the river Pescara, the town of Corfinium was selected as the Opposition-Rome or city of Italia, whose citizenship was conferred on the burgesses of all the insurgent com munities ; there a Forum and a senate-house were staked off on a suitable scale. A senate of five hundred members was charged with the settlement of the constitution and
Political organiza tion of the insurrec tion.
Opposi tion-Rome,
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
505
the superintendence of the war. In accordance with its directions the burgesses selected from the men of senatorial rank two consuls and twelve praetors, who, just like the two consuls and six praetors of Rome, were invested with the supreme authority in war and peace. The Latin language, which was even then the prevailing language among the Marsians and Picentes, continued in official use, but the Samnite language which predominated in Southern Italy was placed side by side with it on a footing of equality ; and the two were made use of alternately on the silver pieces which the new Italian state began to coin in its own name after Roman models and after the Roman standard, thus appropriating likewise the monopoly of coinage which Rome had exercised for two centuries. It is evident from these arrangements—and was, indeed a matter of course— that the Italians now no longer thought of wresting equality of rights from the Romans, but purposed to annihilate or subdue them and to form a new state. But it is also obvious that their constitution was nothing but a pure copy of that of Rome or, in other words, was the ancient polity handed down by tradition among the Italian nations from time immemorial :—the organization of a city instead of the constitution of a state, with primary assemblies as unwieldy and useless as the Roman comitia, with a govern ing corporation which contained within it the same elements of oligarchy as the Roman senate, with an executive admini stered in like manner by a plurality of coordinate supreme
This imitation descended to the minutest details ; for instance, the title of consul or praetor held by
the magistrate in chief command was after a exchanged by the general of the Italians also for the title of Imperator. Nothing in fact was changed but the name ; on the coins of the insurgents the same image of the gods appears, the inscription only being changed from Roma to Italia. This Rome of the insurgents was distinguished —
magistrates.
victory
So6 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book r»
not to its advantage — from the original Rome merely by the circumstance, that, while the latter had at any rate an urban development, and its unnatural position intermediate between a city and a state had formed itself at least in a natural way, the new Italia was nothing at all but a place of congress for the insurgents, and it was by a pure fiction of law that the inhabitants of the peninsula were stamped as burgesses of this new capital. But it is significant that in this case, where the sudden amalgamation of a number of isolated cantons into a new political unity might have so naturally suggested the idea of a representative constitution in the modern sense, no trace of any such idea occurs ; in fact the very opposite course was followed,1 and the com munal organization was simply reproduced in a far more absurd manner than before. Nowhere perhaps is it so clearly apparent as in this instance, that in the view of antiquity a free constitution was inseparable from the appearance of the sovereign people in person in the primary assemblies, or from a city ; and that the great fundamental idea of the modern republican-constitutional state, viz. the expression of the sovereignty of the people by a representa tive assembly — an idea without which a free state would be a chaos—is wholly modern. Even the Italian although in its somewhat representative senates and in the diminished importance of the comitia it approximated to a free state, never was able in the case either of Rome or of Italia to cross the boundary-line.
1 Even from our scanty information, the best part of which is given by Diodorns, p. 538 and Strabo, v. 4, 2, this is very distinctly apparent ; for example, the latter expressly says that the burgess-body chose the magi strates. That the senate of Italia was meant to be formed in another manner and to have different powers from that of Rome, has been asserted, but has not been proved. Of course in its first composition care would be taken to have a representation in some degree uniform of the insurgent cities ; but that the senators were to be regularly deputed by the communi ties, Is nowhere stated. As little does the commission given to the senate to draw up a constitution exclude its promulgation by the magistrates and ratification by the assembly of the people.
polity,
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
507
Thus began, a few months after the death of Drusus, in Warlike the winter of 663—4, the struggle—as one of the coins of J^JjJjJ'*"
the insurgents represents it — of the Sabellian ox against the Roman she-wolf. Both sides made zealous preparations: in Italia great stores of arms, provisions, and money were accumulated ; in Rome the requisite supplies were drawn from the provinces and particularly from Sicily, and the long-neglected walls were put in a state of defence against any contingency. The forces were in some measure equally balanced. The Romans filled up the blanks in their Italian contingents partly by increased levies from the burgesses and from the inhabitants —already almost wholly Romanized —of the Celtic districts on the south of the Alps, of whom 10,000 served in the Campanian army alone,1 partly by the contingents of the Numidians and other transmarine nations ; and with the aid of the free cities in Greece and Asia Minor they collected a war fleet. 2 On both sides, without reckoning garrisons, as many as
100,000 soldiers were brought into the field,8 and in the ability of their men, in military tactics and armament, the Italians were nowise inferior to the Romans.
91-90.
The conduct of the war was very difficult both for the Subdivi- insurgents and for the Romans, because the territory in j^^f^ revolt was very extensive and a great number of fortresses either adhering to Rome were scattered up and down in it : so
that on the one hand the insurgents found themselves com
pelled to combine a siege-warfare, which broke up their
1 The bullets found at Asculum show that the Gauls were very numerous also in the army of Strabo.
' We still have a decree of the Roman senate of 22 May 676, which 78 grants honours and advantages on their discharge to three Greek ship-cap
tains of Carystus, Clazomenae, and Miletus for faithful services rendered since the commencement of the Italian war (664). Of the same nature is 90. the account of Memnon, that two triremes were summoned from Heraclea
on the Black Sea for the Italian war, and that they returned in the eleventh year with rich honorary gifts.
* That this statement of Appian is not exaggerated, is shown by the bullets found at Asculum which name among others the fifteenth legion.
5o8 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book it
forces and consumed their time, with the protection of an extended frontier; and on the other hand the Romans could not well do otherwise than combat the insurrection, which had no proper centre, simultaneously in all the insur gent districts. In a military point of view the insurgent
fell into two divisions ; in the northern, which reached from Picenum and the Abruzzi to the northern border of Campania and embraced the districts speaking Latin, the chief command was held on the Italian side by the Marsian Quintus Silo, on the Roman side by Publius Rutilius Lupus, both as consuls; in the southern, which included Campania, Samnium, and generally the regions speaking Sabellian, the Samnite Gaius Papius Mutilus com manded as consul of the insurgents, and Lucius Julius Caesar as the Roman consul. With each of the two commanders-in-chief there were associated on the Italian side six, on the Roman side five, lieutenant-commanders, each of whom conducted the attack or defence in a definite district, while the consular armies were destined to act more freely and to strike the decisive blow. The most esteemed
Roman officers, such as Gaius Marius, Quintus Catulus, and the two consulars of experience in the Spanish war, Titus Didius and Publius Crassus, placed themselves at the disposal of the consuls for these posts ; and though the Italians had not names so celebrated to oppose to them, yet the result showed that their leaders were in a military point of view nowise inferior to the Romans.
The offensive in this thoroughly desultory war was on the whole on the side of the Romans, but was nowhere decisively assumed even on their part It is surprising that the Romans did not collect their troops for the purpose of attacking the insurgents with a superior force, and that the insurgents made no attempt to advance into Latium and to throw themselves on the hostile capital. We are how ever too little acquainted with their respective circumstances
country
chap, vil AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
509
to judge whether or how they could have acted otherwise, or to what extent the remissness of the Roman government on the one hand and the looseness of the connection among the federate communities on the other contributed to this want of unity in the conduct of the war. It is easy to see that with such a system there would doubtless be victories and defeats, but the final settlement might be very long delayed ; and it is no less plain that a clear and vivid picture of such a war—which resolved itself into a series of engagements on the part of individual corps operating at the same time, sometimes separately, sometimes in com bination — cannot be prepared out of the remarkably fragmentary accounts which have come down to us.
The first assault, as a matter of course, fell on the for- Com- tresses adhering to Rome in the insurgent districts, which JJ'StaTwir in all haste closed their gates and carried in their moveable
property from the country. Silo threw himself on the for-
tress designed to hold in check the Marsians, the strong
Alba, Mutilus on the Latin town of Aesernia established in
the heart of Samnium : in both cases they encountered the
most resolute resistance. Similar conflicts probably raged
in the north around Firmum, Atria, Pinna, in the south
around Luceria, Beneventum, Nola, Paestum, before and
while the Roman armies gathered on the borders of the insurgent country. After the southern army under Caesar
had assembled in the spring of 664 in Campania which for
the most part held by Rome, and had provided Capua — Saninlnm with its domain so important for the Roman finances — as
well as the more important allied cities with garrisons, it attempted to assume the offensive and to come to the aid
of the smaller divisions sent on before it to Samnium and
Lucania under Marcus Marcellus and Publius Crassus.
But Caesar was repulsed by the Samnites and Marsians
under Publius Vettius Scato with severe loss, and important town of Venafrum thereupon passed over to the
the
The
*" *"*''
Caesar in ^ p*£jJ
Sio THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
insurgents, into whose hands it delivered its Roman garrison. By the defection of this town, which lay on the military road from Campania to Samnium, Aesernia was isolated, and that fortress already vigorously assailed found itself now exclusively dependent on the courage and per severance of its defenders and their commandant Marcellus. It is true that an incursion, which Sulla happily carried out with the same artful audacity as formerly his expedition
to Bocchus, relieved the hard-pressed Aesernians for a moment ; nevertheless they were after an obstinate resistance
Aesemia
taken by
the
Insurgents, compelled by the extremity of famine to capitulate towards
A
as also Nola.
Campania for the most part lost to the Romans.
the end of the year. In Lucania too Publius Crassus was defeated by Marcus Lamponius, and compelled to shut himself up in Grumentum, which fell after a long and obstinate siege. With these exceptions, they had been obliged to leave Apulia and the southern districts totally to themselves. The insurrection spread; when Mutilus advanced into Campania at the head of the Samnite army, the citizens of Nola surrendered to him their city and delivered up the Roman garrison, whose commander was executed by the orders of Mutilus, while the men were
distributed through the victorious army. With the single exception of Nuceria, which adhered firmly to Rome, all Campania as far as Vesuvius was lost to the Romans ; Salernum, Stabiae, Pompeii, Herculaneum declared for the insurgents ; Mutilus was able to advance into the region to the north of Vesuvius, and to besiege Acerrae with his Samnito-Lucanian army. The Numidians, who were in great numbers in Caesar's army, began to pass over in troops to Mutilus or rather to Oxyntas, the son of Jugurtha, who on the surrender of Venusia had fallen into the hands of the Samnites and now appeared among their ranks in regal purple; so that Caesar found himsel. ' compelled to send home the whole African corps. Mutilus ventured even to attack the Roman camp; but he was repulsed,
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
511
and the Samnites, who while retreating were assailed in the rear by the Roman cavalry, left nearly 6000 dead on the field of battle. It was the first notable success which the Romans gained in this war; the army proclaimed the general impcrator, and the sunken courage of the capital began to revive. It is true that not long afterwards the victorious army was attacked in crossing a river by Marius Egnatius, and so emphatically defeated that it had to retreat as far as Teanum and to be reorganized there; but the exertions of the active consul succeeded in restoring his army to a serviceable condition even before the arrival of winter, and he reoccupied his old position under the walls of Acerrae, which the Samnite main army under Mutilus continued to besiege.
At the same time operations had also begun in Central Combat* Italy, where the revolt of the Abruzzi and the region of the Marri)l°t Fucine lake threatened the capital in dangerous proximity.
An independent corps under Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo was
sent into Picenum in order that, resting for support on Firmum and Falerio, it might threaten Asculum ; but the
main body of the Roman northern army took its position
under the consul Lupus on the borders of the Latin and
Marsian territories, where the Valerian and Salarian high
ways brought the enemy nearest to the capital ; the rivulet
Tolenus (Turano), which crosses the Valerian road between Tibur and Alba and falls into the Velino at Rieti, separated the two armies. The consul Lupus impatiently pressed for a decision, and did not listen to the disagreeable advice of Marius that he should exercise his men—unaccustomed to service — in the first instance in petty warfare. At the very outset the division of Gaius Perpenna, 10,000 strong,
was totally defeated. The commander-in-chief
the defeated general from his command and united the remnant of the corps with that which was under the orders of Marius, but did not allow himself to be deterred from
deposed
$12 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book it
assuming the offensive and crossing the Tolenus in two divisions, led partly by himself, partly by Marius, on two bridges constructed not far from each other. Publius Scato with the Marsians confronted them ; he had pitched his camp at the spot where Marius crossed the brook, but, before the passage took place, he had withdrawn thence, leaving behind the mere posts that guarded the camp, and had taken a position in ambush farther up the river. There he attacked the other Roman corps under Lupus unexpectedly during the crossing, and partly cut it down,
90. partly drove it into the river (nth June 664). The consul Defeat and in person and 8000 of his troops fell. It could scarcely
Lupus.
be called a compensation that Marius, becoming at length aware of Scato's departure, had crossed the river and not without loss to the enemy occupied their camp. Yet this passage of the river, and a victory at the same time obtained over the Paelignians by the general Servius Sulpicius, com pelled the Marsians to draw their line of defence somewhat back, and Marius, who by decree of the senate succeeded Lupus as commander-in-chief, at least prevented the enemy
from gaining further successes. But, when Quintus Caepio was soon afterwards associated in the command with equal powers, not so much on account of a conflict which he had successfully sustained, as because he had recommended himself to the equites then leading the politics of Rome by his vehement opposition to Drusus, he allowed himself to be lured into an ambush by Silo on the pretext that the latter wished to betray to him his army, and was cut to pieces with a great part of his force by the Marsians and Vestinians. Marius, after Caepio's fall once more sole commander-in-chief, through his tenacious resistance pre vented his antagonist from profiting by the advantages which he had gained, and gradually penetrated far into the Marsian territory. He long refused battle; when he at length gave he vanquished his impetuous opponent, who
it,
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
513
left on the battle-field among other dead Herius Asinius the chieftain of the Marrucini. In a second engagement the army of Marius and the corps of Sulla which belonged to the army of the south co-operated to inflict on the Marsians a still more considerable defeat, which cost them 6000 men ; but the glory of this day remained with the younger officer, for, while Marius had given and gained the battle, Sulla had intercepted the retreat of the fugitives and destroyed them.
While the conflict was proceeding thus warmly and with Piccnian varying success at the Fucine lake, the Picenian corps under war> Strabo had also fought with alternations of fortune. The insurgent chiefs, Gaius Iudacilius from Asculum, Publius
Vettius Scato, and Titus Lafrenius, had assailed it with their united forces, defeated and compelled to throw itself into Firmum, where Lafrenius kept Strabo besieged, while Iudacilius moved into Apulia and induced Canusium, Venusia, and the other towns still adhering to Rome in that quarter to join the insurgents. But on the Roman side Servius Sulpicius his victory over the Paeligni cleared the way for his advancing into Picenum and rendering aid to Strabo Lafrenius was attacked by Strabo in front and taken in rear by Sulpicius, and his camp was set on fire he himself fell, the remnant of his troops fled in disorder and threw themselves into Asculum. So completely had the state of affairs changed in Picenum, that the Italians now found themselves confined to Asculum as the Romans were previously to Firmum, and the war was thus once more converted into siege.
Lastly, there was added in the course of the year to the Umbro- two difficult and straggling wars in southern and central Et^^f Italy third in the north. The state of matters appar
ently so dangerous for Rome after the first months of the
war had induced great portion of the Umbrian, and iso
lated Etruscan, communities to declare for the insurrec-
VOL. Ill
98
a
by
a
a
;
;
it,
it
-
Dtadvan-
abrogate result of
year of the ■»
514 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
tion ; so that it became necessary to despatch against the Umbrians Aulus Plotius, and against the Etruscans Lucius Porcius Cato. Here however the Romans encountered a far less energetic resistance than in the Marsian and Samnite countries, and maintained a most decided superiority in the field.
Thus the severe first year of the war came to an end, leavmg behind both in military and political point of view, sorrowful memories and dubious prospects. In military point of view both armies of the Romans, the Marsian as well as the Campanian, had been weakened and discouraged by severe defeats the northern army had been compelled especially to attend to the protection of the capital, the southern army at Neapolis had been seriously threatened its communications, as the insurgents could without much difficulty break forth from the Marsian or Samnite territory and establish themselves between Rome and Naples for which reason was found necessary to draw at least chain of posts from Cumae to Rome. In
political point of view, the insurrection had gained ground on all sides during this first year of the war the secession of Nola, the rapid capitulation of the strong and large Latin colony of Venusia, and the Umbro-Etruscan revolt were suspicious signs that the Roman symmachy was tottering to its very base and was not in position to hold out against this last trial. They had already made the utmost demands on the burgesses they had already, with view to form that chain of posts along the Latino-Campanian coast, incorporated nearly 6000 freedmen in the burgess-militia they had already required the severest sacrifices from the allies that still remained faithful was not possible to draw the string of the bow any tighter without hazarding
everything.
The temper of the burgesses was singularly depressed.
Despond-
Roma^s! he After tne battle on the Tolenus, when the dead bodies 0/
; it
it
;
a
;
it,
a
a
a;
a
; a
in
;
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
515
the consul and the numerous citizens of note who had fallen with him were brought back from the neighbouring battle field to the capital and were buried there ; when the magi strates in token of public mourning laid aside their purple and insignia ; when the government issued orders to the inhabitants of the capital to arm en masse ; not a few had resigned themselves to despair and given up all as lost. It is true that the worst despondency had somewhat abated after the victories achieved by Caesar at Acerrae and by Strabo in Picenum : on the news of the former the war dress in the capital had been once more exchanged for the dress of the citizen, on the news of the second the signs of public mourning had been laid aside ; but it was not doubtful that on the whole the Romans had been worsted in this passage of arms : and above all the senate and the burgesses had lost the spirit, which had formerly borne them to victory through all the crises of the Hannibalic war. They still doubtless began war with the same defiant arrogance as then, but they knew not how to end it as they had then done ; rigid obstinacy, tenacious persistence had given place to a remiss and cowardly disposition. Already after the first year of war their outward and inward policy became suddenly changed, and betook itself to compromise. There is no doubt that in this they did the wisest thing which could be done ; not however because, compelled by the immediate force of arms, they could not avoid acqui escing in disadvantageous conditions, but because the subject-matter of dispute — the perpetuation of the political precedence of the Romans over the other Italians — was injurious rather than beneficial to the commonwealth itself. It sometimes happens in public life that one error com pensates another ; in this case cowardice in some measure remedied the mischief which obstinacy had incurred.
The year 664 had begun with a most abrupt rejection Ml of the compromise offered by the insurgents and with the
516 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS bock rf
RsvohttSoa opening of a war of prosecutions, in which the most passion- In political 'ate defenders of patriotic selfishness, the capitalists, took vengeance on all those who were suspected of having counselled moderation and seasonable concession. On the other hand the tribune Marcus Plautius Silvanus, who entered on his office on the ioth of December of the same year, carried a law which took the commission of high
Bestowal of the franchise on the Italians who remained faithful or submitted.
treason out of the hands of the capitalist jurymen, and entrusted it to other jurymen who were nominated by the free choice of the tribes without class - qual i fication ; the effect of which was, that this commission was converted from a scourge of the moderate party into a scourge of the ultras, and sent into exile among others its own author, Quintus Varius, who was blamed by the public voice for the worst democratic outrages — the poisoning of Quintus Metellus and the murder of Drusus.
Of greater importance than this singularly candid politi cal recantation, was the change in the course of their policy toward the Italians. Exactly three hundred years had passed since Rome had last been obliged to submit to the dictation of peace ; Rome was now worsted once more, and the peace which she desired could only be got by yielding in part at least to the terms of her antagonists. With the communities, doubtless, which had already risen in arms to subdue and to destroy Rome, the feud had become too bitter for the Romans to prevail on themselves to make the required concessions ; and, had they done so, these terms would now perhaps have been rejected by the other side. But, if the original demands were conceded under certain
limitations to the communities that had hitherto remained faithful, such a course would on the one hand preserve the semblance of voluntary concession, while on the other hand it would prevent the otherwise inevitable consolidation of the confederacy and thereby pave the way for its subjuga tion. Accordingly the gates of Roman citizenship, which
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
517
had so long remained closed against entreaty, now suddenly opened when the sword knocked at them ; yet even now not fully and wholly, but in a manner reluctant and annoy ing even for those admitted. A law carried by the consul Lucius Caesar1 conferred the Roman franchise on the burgesses of all those communities of Italian allies which had not up to that time openly declared against Rome ; a second, emanating from the tribunes of the people Marcus Plautius Silvanus and Gaius Papirius Carbo, laid down for every man who had citizenship and domicile in Italy a term of two months, within which he was to be allowed to acquire the Roman franchise by presenting himself before a Roman magistrate. But these new burgesses were to be restricted as to the right of voting in a way similar to the freedmen, inasmuch as they could only be enrolled in eight, as the freedmen only in four, of the thirty-five tribes ; whether the restriction was personal or, as it would seem, hereditary, cannot be determined with certainty.
This measure related primarily to Italy proper, which at Bestowal that time extended northward little beyond Ancona and rights"" Florence. In Cisalpine Gaul, which was in the eye of the °n toe law a foreign country, but in administration and colonization
had long passed as part of Italy, all the Latin colonies were
treated like the Italian communities. Otherwise on the
south side of the Po the greatest portion of the soil was,
after the dissolution of the old Celtic tribal communities,
not organized according to the municipal system, but re
mained withal in the ownership of Roman burgesses mostly dwelling together in market - villages (ford). The not numerous allied townships to the south of the Po, particu
larly Ravenna, as well as the whole country between the Po
1 The Julian law must have been passed in the last months of 664, for 90. during the good season of the year Caesar was in the field ; the Plautian
was probably passed, as was ordinarily the rule with tribunician proposals, immediately after the tribunes entered on office, consequently in Dec. 664 90. or Jan. 665. M,
q,^
518 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book it
and the Alps was, in consequence of a law brought in by the consul Strabo in 665, organized after the Italian urban constitution, so that the communities not adapted for this, more especially the townships in the Alpine valleys, were assigned to particular towns as dependent and tributary villages. These new town-communities, however, were not presented with the Roman franchise, but, by means of the legal fiction that they were Latin colonies, were invested with those rights which had hitherto belonged to the Latin towns of inferior legal position. Thus Italy at that time
ended practically at the Po, while the Transpadane country was treated as an outlying dependency. Here to the north of the Po, with the exception of Cremona, Eporedia and Aquileia, there were no burgess or Latin colonies, and even the native tribes here had been by no means dislodged as they were to the south of the Po. The abolition of the Celtic cantonal, and the introduction of the Italian urban, constitution paved the way for the Romanizing of the rich and important territory ; this was the first step in the long and momentous trans formation of the Gallic stock — which once stood contrasted with Italy, and the assaults of which Italy had rallied to repel — into comrades of their Italian masters.
Considerable as these concessions were, if we compare them with the rigid exclusiveness which the Roman burgess- body had retained for more than a hundred and fifty years, they were far from involving a capitulation with the actual insurgents ; they were on the contrary intended partly to retain the communities that were wavering and threatening to revolt, partly to draw over as many deserters as possible from the ranks of the enemy. To what extent these laws and especially the most important of them—that of Caesar —were applied, cannot be accurately stated, as we are only able to specify in general terms the extent of the insurrec tion at the time when the law was issued. The main matter
chap, vil AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
519
at any rate was that the communities hitherto Latin—not only the survivors of the old Latin confederacy, such as Tibur and Praeneste, but more especially the Latin colonies, with the exception of the few that passed over to the insurgents —were thereby admitted to Roman citizenship. Besides, the law was applied to the allied cities that remained faithful in Etruria and especially in Southern Italy, such as Nuceria and Neapolis. It was natural that individual communities, hitherto specially privileged, should hesitate as to the acceptance of the franchise; that Neapolis, for example, should scruple to give up its former treaty with Rome— which guaranteed to its citizens exemption from land-service and their Greek constitution, and perhaps domanial advantages besides—for the restricted rights of new bur
It was probably in virtue of conventions concluded on account of these scruples that this city, as well as Rhegium and perhaps other Greek communities in Italy, even after their admission to Roman citizenship retained unchanged their former communal constitution and Greek as their official language. At all events, as a consequence of these laws, the circle of Roman burgesses was extraordinarily enlarged by the merging into it of numerous and important urban communities scattered from the Sicilian Straits to the Po ; and, further, the country between the Po and the Alps was, by the bestowal of the best rights of allies, as it were invested with the legal expectancy of full citizenship.
On the strength of these concessions to the wavering second communities, the Romans resumed with fresh courage the year of the conflict against the insurgent districts. They had pulled
down as much of the existing political institutions as seemed
necessary to arrest the extension of the conflagration ; the insurrection thenceforth at least spread no farther. In
Etruria and Umbria especially, where it was just beginning, Etruria and it was subdued with singular rapidity, still more, probably, J^J^. by means of the Julian law than through the success of the Used.
gesses.
Picenum
89.
5*5 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
Roman arms. In the former Latin colonies, and in the thickly-peopled region of the Po, there were opened up copious and now trustworthy sources of aid : with these, and with the resources of the burgesses themselves, they could proceed to subdue the now isolated conflagration. The two former commanders-in-chief returned to Rome, Caesar as censor elect, Marius because his conduct of the war was blamed as vacillating and slow, and the man of sixty-six was declared to be in his dotage. This objection was very probably groundless; Marius showed at least his bodily vigour by appearing daily in the circus at Rome, and even as commander-in-chief he seems to have displayed on the whole his old ability in the last campaign ; but he had not achieved the brilliant successes by which alone after his political bankruptcy he could have rehabilitated himself in public opinion, and so the celebrated champion was to his bitter vexation now, even as an officer, unceremoniously laid aside as useless. The place of Marius in the Marsian army was taken by the consul of this year, Lucius Porcius Cato, who had fought with distinction in Etruria, and that of Caesar in the Campanian army by his lieutenant, Lucius Sulla, to whom were due some of the most material successes of the previous campaign ; Gnaeus Strabo retained—now as consul — the command which he had held so successfully in the Picenian territory.
Thus began the second campaign in 665. The insur- gents opened even before winter was over, the bold attempt —recalling the grand passages of the Samnite wars — to send Marsian army of 15,000 men to Etruria with view to aid the insurrection brewing in Northern Italy. But Strabo, through whose district had to pass, intercepted and totally defeated only few got back to their far distant home. When at length the season allowed the Roman armies to assume the offensive, Cato entered the Marsian territory and advanced, successfully encountering
it ;
a
it
a
it,
a
by
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
521
the enemy there ; but he fell in the region of the Fucine
lake during an attack on the enemy's camp, so that the exclusive superintendence of the operations in Central Italy devolved on Strabo. The latter employed himself partly
in continuing the siege of Asculum, partly in the subjugation
of the Marsian, Sabellian, and Apulian districts. To relieve
his hard-pressed native town, Iudacilius appeared before Asculum with the Picentine levy and attacked the besieg
ing army, while at the same time the garrison sallied forth
and threw itself on the Roman lines. It is said that 75,000 Romans fought on this day against 60,000 Italians. Victory remained with the Romans, but Iudacilius succeeded in throwing himself with a part of the relieving army into the
town. The siege resumed its course ; it was protracted x by
the strength of the place and the desperate defence of the inhabitants, who fought with a recollection of the terrible declaration of war within its walls. When Iudacilius at
length after a brave defence of several months saw the day
of capitulation approach, he ordered the chiefs of that section
of the citizens which was favourable to Rome to be put to
death under torture, and then died by his own hand. So and
the gates were opened, and Roman executions were sub- conquer stituted for Italian ; all officers and all the respectable
citizens were executed, the rest were driven forth to beggary,
and all their property was confiscated on account of the
state. During the siege and after the fall of Asculum
numerous Roman corps marched through the adjacent rebel
districts, and induced one after another to submit. The Subjugm. Marrucini yielded, after Servius Sulpicius had defeated them gabeiiiani
decidedly at Teate (Chieti). The praetor Gaius Cosconius
and penetrated into Apulia, took Salapia and Cannae, and
1 Leaden bullets with the name of the legion which threw them, and sometimes with curses against the "runaway slaves" —and accordingly Roman —or with the inscription ' ' hit the Picentes " or " hit Pompeius "— the former Roman, the latter Italian—are even now sometimes found, belonging to that period, in the region of Ascoli.
Asculum esieg '
>
88.
Subjuga tion of Campania as far as Nola.
Saa THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
besieged Canusium. A Samnite corps under Marius Eg- natius came to the help of the unwarlike region and actually drove back the Romans, but the Roman general succeeded in defeating it at the passage of the Aufidus ; Egnatius fell, and the rest of the army had to seek shelter behind the walls of Canusium. The Romans again advanced as far as Venusia and Rubi, and became masters of all Apulia. Along the Fucine lake also and at the Majella mountains — the chief seats of the insurrection — the Romans re-established their mastery ; the Marsians succumbed to Strabo's lieu tenants, Quintus Metellus Pius and Gaius Cinna, the Vestinians and Paelignians in the following year (666) to Strabo himself; Italia the capital of the insurgents became once more the modest Paelignian country-town of Corfinium ; the remnant of the Italian senate fled to the Samnite territory.
The Roman southern army, which was now under the command of Lucius Sulla, had at the same time assumed the offensive and had penetrated into southern Campania which was occupied by the enemy. Stabiae was taken and
89. destroyed by Sulla in person (30 April 665) and Hercu- laneum by Titus- Didius, who however fell himself (1 1 June) apparently at the assault on that city. Pompeii resisted longer. The Samnite general Lucius Cluentius came up to bring relief to the town, but he was repulsed by Sulla ; and when, reinforced by bands of Celts, he renewed his attempt, he was, chiefly owing to the wavering of these untrustworthy
associates, so totally defeated that his camp was taken and he himself was cut down with the greater part of his troops on their flight towards Nola. The grateful Roman army conferred on its general the grass-wreath—the homely badge with which the usage of the camp decorated the soldier who had by his capacity saved a division of his comrades. With out pausing to undertake the siege of Nola and of the other Campanian towns still occupied by the Samnites, Sulla at
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
513
once advanced into the interior, which was the head-quarters Sulla In of the insurrection. The speedy capture and fearful
of Aeclanum spread terror throughout the Hirpinian country ; it submitted even before the arrival of the Lucanian contingent which had set itself in motion to render help, and Sulla was able to advance unhindered as far as the territory of the Samnite confederacy. The pass, where the Samnite militia under Mutilus awaited him, was turned, the Samnite army was attacked in rear, and defeated ; the camp was lost, the general escaped wounded to Aesernia. Sulla advanced to Bovianum, the capital of the Samnite country, and compelled it to surrender by a second victory achieved beneath its walls. The advanced season alone put an end to the campaign there.
The position of affairs had undergone a most complete change. Powerful, victorious, aggressive as was the insur- rection when it began the campaign of 665, it emerged from it deeply humbled, everywhere beaten, and utterly hopeless. All northern Italy was pacified. In central Italy both coasts were wholly in the Roman power, and the Abruzzi almost entirely ; Apulia as far as Venusia, and Campania as far as Nola, were in the hands of the Romans ; and by the occupation of the Hirpinian territory the com munication was broken off between the only two regions still persevering in open resistance, the Samnite and the Lucano-Bruttian. The field of the insurrection resembled the scene of an immense conflagration dying out ; every where the eye fell on ashes and ruins and smouldering brands; here and there the flame still blazed up among the ruins, but the fire was everywhere mastered, and there was no further threatening of danger. It is to be regretted that we no longer sufficiently discern in the superficial accounts handed down to us the causes of this sudden revolution. While undoubtedly the dexterous leadership of Strabo and still more of Sulla, and especially the more
punishment
The insur-
?
J Powered-
rgn whole over-
Persever-
524 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book r»
energetic concentration of the Roman forces, and their more rapid offensive contributed materially to that result,
causes may have been at work along with the military in producing the singularly rapid fall of the power of the insurgents ; the law of Silvanus and Carbo may have fulfilled its design in carrying defection and treason to the common cause into the ranks of the enemy ; and mis fortune, as has so frequently happened, may have fallen as an apple of discord among the loosely-connected insurgent communities.
political
We see only —and this fact points to an internal breaking •nee of the Up 0f Italia, that must certainly have been attended by violent convulsions —that the Samnites, perhaps under the
leadership of the Marsian Quintus Silo who had been from the first the soul of the insurrection and after the capitula tion of the Marsians had gone as a fugitive to the neigh bouring people, now assumed another organization purely confined to their own land, and, after "Italia" was vanquished, undertook to continue the struggle as " Safini " or Samnites. 1 The strong Aesernia was converted from the fortress that had curbed, into the last retreat that sheltered, Samnite freedom ; an army assembled consisting, it was said, of 30,000 infantry and 1000 cavalry, and was strengthened by the manumission and incorporation of 20,000 slaves ; five generals were placed at its head, among whom Silo was the first and Mutilus next to him. With astonishment men saw the Samnite wars beginning anew after a pause of two hundred years, and the resolute nation of farmers making a fresh attempt, just as in the fifth century, after the Italian confederation was shattered, to force Rome with their own hand to recognize their country's independence. But this resolution of the bravest despair
1 The rare denarii with Safinim and G. Mutt! in Oscan characters must belong to this period ; for, as long as the designation Italia was retained by the insurgents, no single canton could, as a sovereign power, coin money with its own name.
cha? . vil AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
525
made not much change in the main result ; although the mountain-war in Samnium and Lucania might still require some time and some sacrifices, the insurrection was never theless already substantially at an end.
In the meanwhile, certainly, there had occurred a fresh Outbreak complication, for the Asiatic difficulties had rendered it im- ^^^ peratively necessary to declare war against Mithradates king war.
of Pontus, and for next year (666) to destine the one consul 88.
and a consular army to Asia Minor. Had this war broken out a year earlier, the contemporary revolt of the half of
Italy and of the most important of the provinces would have formed an immense peril to the Roman state. Now that the marvellous good fortune of Rome had once more been evinced in the rapid collapse of the Italian insurrec tion, this Asiatic war just beginning was, notwithstanding its being mixed up with the expiring Italian struggle, not of a really dangerous character; and the less so, because Mithradates in his arrogance refused the invitation of the Italians that he should afford them direct assistance. Still it was in a high degree inconvenient. The times had gone by, when they without hesitation carried on simultaneously an Italian and a transmarine war, the state-chest was already after two years of warfare utterly exhausted, and the formation of a new army in addition to that already in the field seemed scarcely practicable. But they resorted to such expedients as they could. The sale of the sites that had from ancient times 137) remained unoccupied on and near the citadel to persons desirous of building, which yielded 9000 pounds of gold (,£360,000), furnished the requisite pecuniary means. No new army was formed, but that which was under Sulla in Campania was destined to embark for Asia, as soon as the state of things in southern Italy should allow its departure which might be expected, from the progress of the army operating in the north under Strabo, to happen soon.
;
(i.
88. TUrd
526 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book tv
So the third campaign in 666 began amidst favourable
prospects for Rome. Strabo put down the last resistance rrr
which was still offered in the Abruzzi. In Apulia the successor of Cosconius, Quintus Metellus Pius, son of the conqueror of Numidia and not unlike his father in his strongly conservative views as well as in military endow ments, put an end to the resistance by the capture of Venusia, at which 3000 armed men were taken prisoners. In Samnium Silo no doubt succeeded in retaking Bovianum ; but in a battle, in which he engaged the Roman general Mamercus Aemilius, the Romans conquered, and—what was more important than the victory itself —Silo was among the 6000 dead whom the Samnites left on the field. In Campania the smaller townships, which the Samnites still occupied, were wrested from them by Sulla, and Nola was invested. The Roman general Aulus Gabinius penetrated also into Lucania and gained no small advantages ; but, after he had fallen in an attack on the enemy's camp,
, campaign.
Capture of
Fan of Silo.
Ferment in Rome.
the insurgent leader and his followers once more held almost undisturbed command over the wide and desolate Lucano-Bruttian country. He even made an attempt to seize Rhegium, which was frustrated, however, by the Sicilian governor Gaius Norbanus. Notwithstanding isolated mischances the Romans were constantly drawing nearer to the attainment of their end ; the fall of Nola, the submission of Samnium, the possibility of rendering con siderable forces available for Asia appeared no
distant, when the turn taken by affairs in the capital un expectedly gave fresh life to the well-nigh extinguished insurrection.
Rome was in a fearful ferment. The attack of Drusus upon the equestrian courts and his sudden downfall brought about by the equestrian party, followed by the two-edged Varian warfare of prosecutions, had sown the bitterest discord between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie as weL'
Lamponius
longer
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
527
as between the moderates and the ultras. Events had com
the party of concession; what it had proposed voluntarily to bestow, men had been more than half compelled to concede; but the mode in which the
pletely justified
concession was made bore, just like the earlier refusal, the stamp of obstinate and shortsighted envy. Instead of granting equality of rights to all Italian communities, they had only expressed the inferiority in another form. They had received a great number of Italian communities into Roman citizenship, but had attached to what they thus conferred an offensive stigma, by placing the new burgesses alongside of the old on nearly the same footing as the freedmen occupied alongside of the freeborn. They had irritated rather than pacified the communities between the Po and the Alps by the concession of Latin rights. Lastly, they had withheld the franchise from a considerable, and that not the worst, portion of the Italians —the whole of the insurgent communities which had again submitted; and not only so, but, instead of legally re-establishing the former treaties annulled by the insurrection, they had at most renewed them as a matter of favour and subject to revo cation at pleasure. 1 The disability as regarded the right of
The
of ^ franchise
limitation*,
1 Licinianus (p. 15) under the year 667 says : dediticiis omnibus
87.
[«]v*7a[j] data ; qui polliciti mult[a\ milia militum vix XV
. . . cohortes miserunt; a statement in which Livy's account (Epit. 80) : Italicis populis a senatu civitas data est reappears in a somewhat more precise shape. The dediticii were according to Roman state-law those peregrini liberi (Gaius i. 13-15, 35, Ulp. xx. 14, xxii. 3) who had become subject to the Romans and had not been admitted to alliance. They not
merely retain life, liberty, and property, but may be formed into com munities with a constitution of their own. 'Air6\iocs, nullius ceriat civitatis cives (Ulp. xx. 14 ; comp. Dig. xlviii. 19, 17, 1), were only the freedmen placed by legal fiction on the same footing with the dediticii (ii qui dediticiorum numcro sunt, only by erroneous usage and rarely by the better authors called directly dediticii; Gai. i. 12, Ulp. i. 14, Paul. iv. 12, 6) as well as the kindred libtrti Latini luniani. But the dediticii nevertheless were destitute of rights as respected the Roman state, in so far as by Roman state-law every deditio was necessarily unconditional (Polyb. xxi. 1 ; comp. xx. 9, 10, xxxvi. 3) and all the privileges expressly or tacitly conceded to them were conceded only precario and therefore revocable at pleasure (Appian, Hisp. 44) ; so that the Roman state, what-
Secondary
Doiitical prosecu-
528 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book it
Toting gave the deeper offence, that it was — as the comitia were then constituted —politically absurd, and the hypo critical care of the government for the unstained purity of the electors appeared to every unprejudiced person ridicu lous ; but all these restrictions were dangerous, inasmuch as they invited every demagogue to carry his ulterior objects by taking up the more or less just demands of the new burgesses and of the Italians excluded from the franchise. While accordingly the more clear-seeing of the aristocracy cou'd not but find these partial and grudging concessions as inadequate as did the new burgesses and the excluded themselves, they further painfully felt the absence from their ranks of the numerous and excellent men whom the Varian commission of high treason had exiled, and whom it was the more difficult to recall because they had been condemned by the verdict not of the people but of the jury- courts ; for, while there was little hesitation as to cancelling a decree of the people even of a judicial character by means of a second, the cancelling of a verdict of jurymen by the people appeared to the better portion of the
ever it might immediately or afterwards decree regarding its dediticii, could never perpetrate as respected them a violation of rights. This destitution of rights only ceased on the conclusion of a treaty of alliance (Liv. xxxiv. 57). Accordingly dcditio and foedus appear in constitutional law as contrasted terms excluding each other (Liv. iv. 30, xxviii. 34 ; Cod. Theod. vii. 13, 16 and Gothofr. thereon), and of precisely the same nature is the distinction current among the jurists between the quasi- dedilicii and the quasi latini, for the Latins are just thefotderati In an eminent sense (Cic. pro Balb. 24, 54).
According to the older constitutional law there were, with the exception of the not numerous communities that were declared to have forfeited their treaties in consequence of the Hannibalic war (p. 24), no Italian dediticii: in
90-89. the Plautian law of 664-5 the description : qui foederatis civitatibus ad- scripti fuerunt (Cic. pro Arch. 4, 7) still included in substance all Italians.
87. But as the dediticii who received the franchise supplementary in 667 cannot reasonably be understood as embracing merely the Bruttii and Picentes, we may assume that all the insurgents, so far as they had laid down their arms and had not acquired the franchise under the Plautio- Papirian law, were treated as dediticii, or — which is the same thing —that their treaties cancelled as a matter of course by the insurrection (hence qui fotderati fuerunt in the passage of Cicero cited) were not legally renewed to them on their surrender.
chap, vn AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
529
aristocracy as a very dangerous precedent. Thus neither
the ultras nor the moderates were content with the issue of
the Italian crisis. But still deeper indignation swelled the Mariui. heart of the old man, who had gone forth to the Italian
war with freshened hopes and had come back from it reluctantly, with the consciousness of having rendered new services and of having received in return new and most
severe mortifications, with the bitter feeling of being no
longer dreaded but despised by his enemies, with that gnawing spirit of vengeance in his heart, which feeds on its
own poison. It was true of him also, as of the new burgesses and the excluded ; incapable and awkward as he
had shown himself to be, his popular name was still a formidable weapon in the hand of a demagogue.
With these elements of political convulsion was com-
bined the rapidly spreading decay of decorous soldierly ^T^? habits and of military discipline. The seeds, which were
sown by the enrolment of the proletariate in the army, developed themselves with alarming rapidity during the demoralizing insurrectionary war, which compelled Rome
to admit to the service every man capable of bearing arms without distinction, and which above all carried political partisanship directly into the headquarters and into the soldiers' tent. The effects soon appeared in the slackening
of all the bonds of the military hierarchy. During the
siege of Pompeii the commander of the Sullan besieging
corps the consular Aulus Postumius Albinus, was put to
death with stones and bludgeons by his soldiers, who believed themselves betrayed by their general to the enemy ; and Sulla the commander-in-chief contented him
self with exhorting the troops to efface the memory of that occurrence by their brave conduct in presence of the
enemy. The authors of that deed were the marines, from
of old the least respectable of the troops. A division of legionaries raised chiefly from the city populace soon
VOL. Ill
99
Decay of
Economic crisis.
530 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book iv
followed the example thus given. Instigated by Gaius Titius, one of the heroes of the market-place, it laid hands on the consul Cato. By an accident he escaped death on this occasion ; Titius was arrested, but was not punished. When Cato soon afterwards actually perished in a combat, his own officers, and particularly the younger Gaius Marius, were —whether justly or unjustly, cannot be ascertained — designated as the authors of his death.
To the political and military crisis thus beginning fell to be added the economic crisis—perhaps still more terrible —which set in upon the Roman capitalists in consequence of the Social war and the Asiatic troubles. The debtors, unable even to raise the interest due and yet inexorably pressed by their creditors, had on the one hand entreated from the proper judicial authority, the urban praetor Asellio, a respite to enable them to dispose of their possessions, and on the other hand had searched out once more the old obsolete laws as to usury 389) and, according to the rule established in olden times, had sued their creditors for fourfold the amount of the interest paid to them contrary to the law. Asellio lent himself to bend the actually existing law into conformity with the letter, and put into shape in the usual way the desired actions for interest whereupon the offended creditors assembled in the Forum under the leadership of the tribune of the people Lucius
Murder of Cassius, and attacked and killed the praetor in front of the
Asellio.
temple of Concord, just as in his priestly robes he was
presenting sacrifice — an outrage which was not even 89 made subject of investigation (665). On the other hand was said in the circles of the debtors, that the suffering multitude could not be relieved otherwise than by "new
account-books," that by legally cancelling the claims
all creditors against all debtors. Matters stood again exactly as they had stood during the strife of the orders once more the capitalists in league with the prejudiced
is,
it
a
a
;of ;
(i.
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
531
aristocracy made war against, and prosecuted, the oppressed multitude and the middle party which advised a modifica tion of the rigour of the law ; once more Rome stood on the verge of that abyss into which the despairing debtor drags his creditor along with him. Only, since that time the simple civil and moral organization of a great agricultural city had been succeeded by the social antagonisms of a
of many nations, and by that demoralization in which the prince and the beggar meet; now all incon gruities had come to be on a broader, more abrupt, and fearfully grander scale. When the Social war brought all the political and social elements fermenting among the citizens into lollision with each other, it laid the foundation for a new resolution. An accident led to its outbreak.
It was the tribune of the people Publius Sulpicius Rufus The
who in 666 proposed to the burgesses to declare that every
senator, who owed more than 2000 denarii (^82), should
forfeit his seat in the senate ; to grant to the burgesses condemned by non-free jury courts liberty to return home ;
to distribute the new burgesses among all the tribes, and
likewise to allow the right of voting in all tribes to the freedmen. They were proposals which from the mouth of
such a man were at least somewhat surprising. Publius Sulptcius Sulpicius Rufus (born in 630) owed his political importance fnl0*" not so much to his noble birth, his important connections,
and his hereditary wealth, as to his remarkable oratorical talent, in which none of his contemporaries equalled him. His powerful voice, his lively gestures sometimes bordering
on theatrical display, the luxuriant copiousness of his flow
of words arrested, even if they did not convince, his hearers.
As a partisan he was from the outset on the side of the senate, and his first public appearance (659) had been the K. impeachment of Norbanus who was mortally hated by the government party (p. 478). Among the conservatives he belonged to the section of Crassus and Drusus. We do
capital
SulP1C1^"
53a THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book rt
not know what primarily gave occasion to his soliciting the 88. tribuneship of the people for 666, and on its account
renouncing his patrician nobility; but he seems to have been by no means rendered a revolutionist through the fact that he, like the whole middle party, had been persecuted as revolutionary by the conservatives, and to have by no means intended an overthrow of the constitution in the sense of Gaius Gracchus. It would rather seem that, as the only man of note belonging to the party of Crassus and Drusus who had come forth uninjured from the storm of the Varian prosecutions, he felt himself called on to complete the work . of Drusus and finally to set aside the still subsisting disabilities of the new burgesses— for which purpose he needed the tribunate. Several acts of his even during his tribuneship are mentioned, which betray the very opposite of demagogic designs. For instance, he prevented by his veto one of his colleagues from cancelling through a decree of the people the sentences of jurymen issued under the Varian law; and when the late aedile Gaius Caesar, passing over the praetorship, unconstitutionally
87. became a candidate for the consulship for 667, with the design, it was alleged, of getting the charge of the Asiatic war afterwards entrusted to him, Sulpicius opposed him more resolutely and sharply than any one else. Entirely in the spirit of Drusus, he thus demanded from himself as from others primarily and especially the maintenance of the constitution. But in fact he was as little able as was Drusus to reconcile things that were incompatible, and to carry out in strict form of law the change of the constitution which he had in view—a change judicious in itself, but never to be obtained from the great majority of the old burgesses by amicable means. His breach with the powerful family of the Julii — among whom in particular the consular Lucius Caesar, the brother of Gaius, was very influential in the senate —and with the section of the
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
533
aristocracy adhering to beyond doubt materially co operated and carried the irascible man through personal exasperation beyond his original design.
Yet the proposals brought in by him were of such
nature as to be by no means out of keeping with the ofthes# personal character and the previous party-position of their
author. The equalization of the new burgesses with the
old was simply partial resumption of the proposals drawn
up by Drusus in favour of the Italians and, like these, only
carried out the requirements of sound policy. The recall
of those condemned the Varian jurymen no doubt sacrificed the principle of the inviolability of such
sentence, in defence of which Sulpicius himself had just practically interposed but mainly benefited in the first instance the members of the proposer's own party, the moderate conservatives, and may be very well conceived
that so impetuous man might when first coming forward decidedly combat such measure and then, indignant at
the resistance which he encountered, propose himself.
The measure against the insolvency of senators was doubt
less called forth by the exposure of the economic condition
of the ruling families — so deeply embarrassed notwith
standing all their outward splendour —on occasion of the last financial crisis. was painful doubtless, but yet of itself conducive to the rightly understood interest of the aristocracy, as could not but be the effect of the Sulpician proposal, all individuals should withdraw from the senate who were unable speedily to meet their liabilities, and the coterie-system, which found its main support in the insolvency of many senators and their consequent dependence on their wealthy colleagues, should be checked by the removal of the notoriously venal pack of the senators. At the same time, of course, we do not mean to deny that such purification of the senate-house so abruptly and invidiously exposing the senate, as Rufus proposed, would
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534 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book n
certainly never have been proposed without his personal quarrels with the ruling coterie-heads. Lastly, the regula tion in favour of the freedmen had undoubtedly for its primary object to make its proposer master of the street ; but in itself it was neither unwarranted nor incompatible with the aristocratic constitution. Since the freedmen had begun to be drawn upon for military service, their demand for the right of voting was so far justified, as the right of voting and the obligation of service had always gone hand in hand. Moreover, looking to the nullity of the comitia, it was politically of very little moment whether one sewer more emptied itself into that slough. The difficulty which the oligarchy felt in governing with the comitia was lessened rather than increased by the unlimited admission of the freedmen, who were to a very great extent personally and financially dependent on the ruling families and, if rightly used, might quite furnish the government with a means of controlling the elections more thoroughly than before. This measure certainly, like every other political favour
shown to the proletariate, ran counter to the tendencies of the aristocracy friendly to reform ; but it was for Rufus hardly anything else than what the corn-law had been for Drusus—a means of drawing the proletariate over to his side and of breaking down with its aid the opposition against the truly beneficial reforms which he meditated. It was easy to foresee that this opposition would not be slight ; that the narrow-minded aristocracy and the narrow- minded bourgeoisie would display the same stupid jealousy after the subduing of the insurrection as they had displayed before its outbreak; that the great majority of all parties would secretly or even openly characterize the partial con cessions made at the moment of the most formidable danger as unseasonable compliances, and would passion ately resist every attempt to extend them. The example of
Drusus had shown what came of undertaking to carry
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
535
conservative reforms solely in reliance on the majority of the senate ; it was a course quite intelligible, that his friend who shared his views should attempt to carry out kindred designs in opposition to that majority and under the forms of demagogism. Rufus accordingly gave himself no trouble to gain the senate over to his views by the bait of the jury courts. He found a better support in the freedmen and above all in the armed retinue—consisting, according to the report of his opponents, of 3000 hired men and an "opposition -senate" of 600 young men from the better class—with which he appeared in the streets and in the Forum.
His proposals accordingly met with the most decided Resbtanc* resistance from the majority of the senate, which first, to „„„. gain time, induced the consuls Lucius Cornelius Sulla and meat.
Pompeius Rufus, both declared opponents of demagogism, to enjoin extraordinary religious observances,
during which the popular assemblies were suspended.
Sulpicius replied by a violent tumult, in which among
other victims the young Quintus Pompeius, son of the one
and son-in-law of the other consul, met his death and the
lives of both consuls themselves were seriously threatened
—Sulla is said even to have escaped only by Marius
opening to him his house. They were obliged to yield;
Sulla agreed to countermand the announced solemnities,
and the Sulpician proposals now passed without further
difficulty. But this was far from determining their fate.
Though the aristocracy in the capital might own its defeat,
there was now —for the first time since the commencement
of the revolution —yet another power in Italy which could
not be overlooked, viz. the two strong and victorious armies
of the proconsul Strabo and the consul Sulla. The Position of political position of Strabo might be ambiguous, but Sulla,
although he had given way to open violence for the
moment, was on the best terms with the majority of the
Quintus
Riot*.
A
Marias nominated com mander-in- chief in Sulla's stead.
536 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book it
senate; and not only so, but he had, immediately after countermanding the solemnities, departed for Campania to join his army. To terrify the unarmed consul by bludgeon- men or the defenceless capital by the swords of the legions, amounted to the same thing in the end : Sulpicius assumed that his opponent, now when he could, would requite violence with violence and return to the capital at the head of his legions to overthrow the conservative demagogue and his laws along with him. Perhaps he was mistaken. Sulla was just as eager for the war against Mithradates as he was probably averse to the political exhalations of the capital ; considering his original spirit of indifference and his unrivalled political nonchalance, there is great proba bility that he by no means intended the coup d'etat which Sulpicius expected, and that, if he had been let alone, he would have embarked without delay with his troops for Asia so soon as he had captured Nola, with the siege of which he was still occupied.
But, be this as it might, Sulpicius, with a view to parry the presumed blow, conceived the scheme of taking the supreme command from Sulla ; and for this purpose joined with Marius, whose name was still sufficiently popular to make a proposal to transfer to him the chief command in the Asiatic war appear plausible to the multitude, and whose military position and ability might prove a support in the event of a rupture with Sulla. Sulpicius probably did not overlook the danger involved in placing that old man—not less incapable than vengeful and ambitious —at the head of the Campanian army, and as little the scandalous irregularity of entrusting an extraordinary supreme command by decree of the people to a private man ; but the very tried incapacity of Marius as a statesman gave a sort of guarantee that he would not be able seriously to endanger the constitution, and above all the personal position of Sulpicius, if he formed a correct estimate of Sulla's designs,
chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
537
was one of so imminent peril that such considerations could hardly be longer heeded. That the worn-out hero himself readily met the wishes of any one who would employ him as a condottiere, was a matter of course ; his heart had now for many years longed for the command in an Asiatic war, and not less perhaps for an opportunity of once settling accounts thoroughly with the majority of the senate. Accordingly on the proposal of Sulpicius Gaius Marius was by decree of the people invested with extra ordinary supreme, or as it was called proconsular, power, and obtained the command of the Campanian army and the superintendence of the war against Mithradates ; and two tribunes of the people were despatched to the camp at Nola, to take over the army from Sulla.
Sulla was not the man to yield to such a summons. If Sulla's any one had a vocation to the chief command in the Asiatic recaU- war, it was Sulla. He had a few years before commanded
with the greatest success in the same theatre of war; he
had contributed more than any other man to the subjuga
tion of the dangerous Italian insurrection ; as consul of the
year in which the Asiatic war broke out, he had been invested with the command in it after the customary way
and with the full consent of his colleague, who was on friendly terms with him and related to him by marriage.
It was expecting a great deal to suppose that he would, in accordance with a decree of the sovereign burgesses of Rome, give up a command undertaken in such circum
stances to an old military and political antagonist, in whose hands the army might be turned to none could tell what violent and preposterous proceedings. Sulla was neither good-natured enough to comply voluntarily with such an
order, nor dependent enough to need to do so. His army was—partly in consequence of the alterations of the military
system which originated with Marius, partly from the
moral laxity and the military strictness of its discipline in
Sulla's march OQ Rom*.
538 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS book it
the hands of Sulla —little more than a body of mercenaries absolutely devoted to their leader and indifferent to political affairs. Sulla himself was a hardened, cool, and clear headed man, in whose eyes the sovereign Roman burgesses were a rabble, the hero of Aquae Sextiae a bankrupt swindler, formal legality a phrase, Rome itself a city with out a garrison and with its walls half in ruins, which could be far more easily captured than Nola.
On these views he acted. He assembled his soldiers — there were six legions, or about 35,000 men — and explained to them the summons that had arrived from Rome, not forgetting to hint that the new commander-in-chief would un doubtedly lead to Asia Minor not the army as it stood, but another formed of fresh troops. The superior officers, who still had more of the citizen than the soldier, kept aloof, and only one of them followed the general towards the capital ; but the soldiers, who in accordance with earlier experiences 42) hoped to find in Asia an easy war and
endless booty, were furious in moment the two tribunes that had come from Rome were torn in pieces, and from all sides the cry arose that the general should lead them to Rome. Without delay the consul started, and forming junction with his like-minded colleague by the way, he arrived by quick marches — little troubling himself about the deputies who hastened from Rome to meet and attempted to detain him —beneath the walls of the capital. Suddenly the Romans beheld columns of Sulla's army take their station at the bridge over the Tiber and at the Colline and Esquiline gates and then two legions in battle array, with their standards at their head, passed the sacred ring-wall within which the law had forbidden war to enter. Many worse quarrel, many an important feud had been brought to settlement within those walls, without any need
for Roman army breaking the sacred peace of the city that step was now taken, primarily for the sake of the
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chap, vii AND THE SULPICIAN REVOLUTION
539
miserable question whether this or that officer was called to command in the east
The entering legions advanced as far as the height of Rome
the Esquiline ; when the missiles and stones descending in showers from the roofs made the soldiers waver and they began to give way, Sulla himself brandished a blazing torch, and with firebrands and threats of setting the houses on fire the legions cleared their way to the Esquiline market-place (not far from S. Maria Maggiore). There the force hastily collected by Marius and Sulpicius awaited them, and by its superior numbers repelled the first invading columns. But reinforcements came up from the gates ; another division of the Sullans made preparations for turning the defenders by the street of the Subura; the latter were obliged to retire. At the temple of Tellus, where the Esquiline begins to slope towards the great Forum, Marius attempted once more to make a stand ; he adjured the senate and equites and all the citizens to throw themselves across the path of the legions. But he himself had transformed them from citizens to mercenaries; his own work turned against him : they obeyed not the government, but their general. Even when the slaves were summoned to arm under the promise of freedom, not more than three of them appeared. Nothing remained for the leaders but to escape in all haste through the still unoccupied gates ; after a few hours Sulla was absolute master of Rome. That night the watchfires of the legions blazed in the great market-place of the capital.
occup
The first military intervention in civil feuds had made First
it quite evident, not only that the political struggles had r<^torat;OB reached the point at which nothing save open and direct
force proves decisive, but also that the power of the
bludgeon was of no avail against the power of the sword.
It was the conservative party which first drew the sword,
and which accordingly in due time experienced the truth of
540 THE REVOLT OF THE ITALIAN SUBJECTS boo* tv
the ominous words of the Gospel as to those who first have recourse to it. For the present it triumphed completely and might put the victory into formal shape at its pleasure. As a matter of course, the Sulpician laws were characterized as legally null. Their author and his most notable adher ents had fled; they were, twelve in number, proscribed by the senate for arrest and execution as enemies of their country.
Death of Publius Sulpicius was accordingly seized at Laurentum
Sulpicius.
Flight of Marius.