He is one of those characters which people are very apt to see in
a wrong light:--a noble-hearted man, he cannot be called without
qualification; he was, though a plebeian, fully imbued with the
prejudices and jealousies of the nobility. From a child, he had come
to the conviction that the government ought to be honestly carried
on: he was the patron of men of low degree who were making their
way upwards; for he loved merit, so long as it kept within bounds,
and did not aspire to the very highest place. This accounts for his
behaviour to Marius, to whom at first he showed kindness; for as soon
as Marius stood for the consulship, he was so blinded by his rage
that he became his enemy. To this very day, one meets among the high
English nobility with men like Metellus, who look upon the privileges
of their order as the first inviolable rights, and whenever offences
committed by any of their own body come to light, will step in with
their protection to prevent an exposure. Thus the remarkable character
of Metellus becomes quite clear: he was estimable for the integrity of
his motives, but utterly incapable of being just. He spurned all the
offers of Jugurtha against whom he used his own Punic arts, so that
that prince was obliged to disarm entirely as the price of hopes which
were never fulfilled; and when Jugurtha wished actually to buy himself
off from the ruin which he clearly saw before his eyes, Metellus put
forth conditions which would have rendered him quite defenceless. At
last, Metellus demanded, that he should appear in person; this Jugurtha
refused to do, and the war broke out afresh. Metellus carried it on
for two years; and though he was sometimes worsted, he deserves very
great praise for the manner in which he overcame the difficulties which
he had to encounter: several of his undertakings are some of the most
brilliant in history. Jugurtha, on the whole, avoided pitched battles;
he risked an engagement only once, and then he was beaten. We now again
see that mixture of cowardice and boldness which there was in him, and
his inability to meet his fate. He wanted to surrender to Metellus,
and had already given up all his arms, all his elephants, and two
hundred thousand pounds of silver; but when he was to yield up his own
person, he withdrew into the wilds of mount Atlas, having now stripped
himself of all his resources. Thus the war was protracted in spite of
the efforts of Metellus, and the opinion gained ground in Rome, that
he had purposely allowed it to drag on: yet there was no reason for
doubting his disinterestedness and incorruptibility. He was a great
general and statesman, and his personal character stood high; but his
pretensions were unbearable. They may indeed have been the ruin of the
country: that fearful irritability which we afterwards find in Marius,
would never have been roused, had not the _optimates_ done everything
in their power to crush him.
On the subject of Marius’ birth, even the ancients were not agreed.
Some of them make him out to have been of a very low origin; others
(Velleius Paterculus) place him somewhat higher: certain it is that his
ancestors were clients of a municipal family in Arpinum, from which,
however, it does not follow that they were serfs. The name is Oscan,
and it is likely that his family had come from Campania to Arpinum,
where it had entered into the clientship of the Herennii. At all
events, he was poor, and had served as a private soldier, and before
that, even as a day labourer. His extraordinary qualities must have
displayed themselves very soon: at an early age, he was known at Rome
as an able centurion; and when he applied for the military tribuneship,
he was elected with great applause. Otherwise, it was very seldom
indeed--particularly in those later times--that any one who had been
in the ranks, was ever raised to the higher military commands. Marius
rose without the help of any connexions or relations; yet he must
have made some money, or he could not have stood for the ædileship,
on which occasion he failed. Notwithstanding this repulse, he got the
prætorship, which office he discharged very creditably; and though the
oligarchs even then gave him trouble by charging him with _ambitus_, he
kept his ground against them. In was in those days already most common
for candidates to spend money; and yet every one would try and fix this
charge upon his opponents, that he might drive them out of the field.
He was now with the army of Metellus as a _legatus_: for the higher
employments were by no means permanent. For a _homo novus_ to become
a prætor, was at that time not at all a thing unheard of; but that he
should have risen to the consular dignity, was, according to Sallust’s
description, all but an impossibility. Of the six prætors moreover,
four, as a matter of course, could not become consuls: the children of
a prætor, however, were not _homines novi_.
Marius distinguished himself in Numidia. He was then indeed an
elderly man already, even as I am now (1829), somewhat past fifty. He
was moreover superstitious. We here meet for the first time with a
superstition which is to be traced to the East; for he had with him a
Syrian (or perhaps a Jewish) fortune teller of the name of Martha, by
whose prophecies he allowed himself to be guided. As he was offering a
sacrifice, he beheld an _omen_ by which every thing that was highest
in the state was promised him; and this gave him courage to stand for
the consulship. Metellus advised him not to do it, tried to keep him
back, and thwarted him in an underhand way; nay, when Marius declared
that he would positively become a candidate, he forgot himself so far
as to tell him, that he need not forsooth be in such a hurry; and that
indeed it would be still time enough for him to be thrown out, when his
own son should stand. That son was then twenty years old, and by the
_leges annales_ no one could be a consul until he was about forty years
of age. Marius never forgot this: he felt bitterly offended, and caused
the people to be canvassed by his friends in Rome, on which Metellus
seemingly yielded, in the hope that he would be too late: for he gave
him leave of absence but twelve days before the elections. But Marius
by dint of wonderful exertions reached the coast; and the wind being
fair, he arrived in Rome, even making his appearance before the day of
the election, and was almost unanimously chosen consul.
Whilst C. Gracchus is unjustly called a demagogue, this name may
well be given to Marius, who was one in every sense of the word; for
he would fawn upon the lowest rabble as others would upon powerful
individuals, and delight in appearing to the common people as if he
were one of them. He was not suited to those times: for he had a
sensitive pride which was continually wounded, and thus he fell into
those unhappy ways which have disgraced him. Moreover, it was then
looked upon as indispensable for a man of rank to be well versed in
the manners, and literature, and language of the Greeks; just as those
of the French were deemed essential in Germany, even to the days of my
youth. Old Cato learned Greek only late; yet he learned it, and was
well read in the literature of his own country. Unlike him, Marius did
not cling to the old traditions which began already to vanish away, and
he disdained modern refinement, because he knew nothing of it: he spoke
Greek, it is true, which at that time was quite necessary in society,
but he despised it. His honesty was without a stain: for though his
great wealth must have been acquired in war, he was held to be a _vir
sanctus_, since he had not robbed the commonwealth as the greater part
of his contemporaries had done. From this we may judge of the state of
morals then. Fabricius, Curius, and others, who centuries before had
likewise been called _sancti_, were also poor. Marius was a first-rate
general, the consciousness of which carried him high: he was great in
drawing up an army, especially in the day of battle, unrivalled in
his mode of conducting a campaign, and just as skilful in encampment.
But he had few friends: the leading features of his character were
bitterness and hatred, and he was cruel and unamiable. Fate had raised
him up to save Rome, the degeneracy of which is to be charged upon
those who crushed and irritated so extraordinary, so distinguished
a man. Metellus was an ordinary general: had he ever had to face
Marius in the field, he would at once have been beaten. Marius, on
the contrary, was no common commander; besides the greatest foresight
in making his preparations, he was gifted with unbounded energy to
execute, and with a quickness of eye which could see everything
at a glance. It was his hatred against the so-called _optimates_,
which, perhaps without his being aware of it, led him into his many
unrighteous acts against them.
The tribunes of the people at Rome now moved that the province of
Numidia should, out of turn, be the first assigned; and as this was
unanimously agreed to by the people, Marius got the chief command.
Metellus again showed his littleness of mind. Not being able to brook
the sight of his successor, he stole away, leaving the army to his
legate Rutilius, an excellent man, who afterwards became a victim to
party spirit, as he went over to the other side: for, as hitherto the
oligarchical faction had shown itself malignant, so did the democrats
in their turn, now that they had got the upperhand. Marius ended
the war with Jugurtha in less than two years, having displayed the
greatest ability and boldness. Sallust particularly mentions, how in
the siege of Capsa, he put to flight the enemy’s cavalry, &c. The
Romans did not advance much beyond Cirta; Jugurtha went to Bocchus,
king of the Mauritanians, a connexion of his by marriage. This prince
at first had taken up arms on his side; but he soon listened to the
proposal of the Romans, to make his peace with them by betraying his
ally. This was done after a great deal of negotiation, Bocchus having
wavered for a long time, and even thought of arresting Sylla, by whom
this business was transacted: at length he gave up Jugurtha, who was
now led by Marius in his triumph. Part of Numidia was united with the
province of Africa; most of it, however, was left as an independent
kingdom, the kings of which in all likelihood--in what way, we do not
know--belonged to Masinissa’s house. Juba, in the time of Cæsar’s wars,
was descended from the nameless king who then succeeded. Bocchus was
acknowledged as an independent sovereign.
WAR WITH THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.
The war in Africa had come to an end, and it was high time that it
should; for the republic had quite a different employment for Marius,
in comparison with which the war against Jugurtha was mere child’s
play. The Cimbri and Teutones were expected on the frontiers of Italy,
and they had already routed the armies of Manlius and Cæpio. Contrary
to all existing rules, Marius at the unanimous call of the nation was
made consul; for the laws both forbade the choice of a man who was
absent from the city, and required that ten years should elapse between
two consulships of the same person. Marius had his triumph the new
year’s day on which he entered upon his second consulate.
The Cimbri[83] were not, properly speaking, Gaels; but they were akin
to the Cymri, the inhabitants of the greater part of the western coast
of England, of Wales, and of Cumberland (which has its name from
them, and where even so late as a hundred years ago, traces of the
Cymric tongue were met with): the _Basbretons_ also belonged to the
same race. Whether any Cymri dwelt in Ulster, is problematical: the
Picts were likewise of the Cymric stock; and so were the Belgians: for
though these were not unmingled with Gaels, the Cymri must have been
predominant among them. On their great migration, they went in the
fourth or fifth century to the borders of the Ukraine, and ruled as
Celto-Scythians as far as the banks of the Dnieper, or even beyond:
there they were called Galatians. Owing to circumstances of which we
have no exact knowledge, very likely in consequence of the advance
of the Sarmatians or Sclavonians, they were driven out of their
settlements,--and they fell back upon their countrymen in Moldavia,
Wallachia, Hungary, and the neighbouring countries: they first of
all expelled the Bastarnians; then the Scordiscans and Tauriscans;
and in 639, before the outbreak of the war with Jugurtha, they threw
themselves upon the country of the Noricans in Carniola and Carinthia.
Here, on the frontier of Italy, were the abodes of the Carnians and
other Gallic tribes, which, though not subject to the Romans, were
of course in a state of dependence, as is always the case with small
nations when they are neighbours of great ones. The Cimbri made their
appearance on the banks of the middle Danube and in Bohemia, and
attacked the Boians; but they were repelled. It must have been while
they were on the middle Danube, that they fell upon every people which
they met with, and leagued themselves with the Teutones. These, as even
their name seems to show, were of German stock, quite as certainly
as the Cimbri were of Gallic race in the widest sense of the word
(thus many Gallic words are found in the Cymric language, and there
is a general affinity between them, although Gauls and Cymri did not
understand each other). The Teutones may, like the Cimbri, have been
chased out of the East by the advance of the Sarmatians: if what we
are told from the travels of Pytheas be true, and he fell in with the
Teutones on the eastern coast of Prussia, it is likely that they were
pushed on from northern Poland by the Sarmatians. In Gaul they clearly
appear as the allies of the Cimbrians, and the names of the leaders
betoken a Gallic and a German people. When now they rushed forth
from Noricum, either together or in separate hosts, the Romans came
to the help of the Carnians, and the consul Cn. Papirius Carbo, in
all likelihood a son of him who had been driven by Crassus to commit
suicide, was defeated and killed near Noreia by the Cimbrians, and his
whole army perished with him. But the barbarians did not follow up
their victory, nor did they penetrate into Italy; but, what is very
strange, they overran the bleak provinces of Austria and Bavaria north
of the Alps, which were then inhabited by Celts, and thus went on to
Gaul. At the general break up which ensued, they were also joined
by the Tigurini, who were Gauls from Helvetia, and by the Ambrones:
whence these last came, is more than we can say; most likely, they were
Ligurians from the Alps. All of these moved into Gaul, bringing with
them a countless number of waggons with women, children, and booty;
and now the four peoples, sometimes in one huge host, at other times
apart, burst upon the civilized world. It is difficult to say where
they defeated either Silanus or Scaurus; for our accounts are scanty
beyond belief, as Livy fails us here, and the seventeen books of Dio
Cassius which we have not, were also no longer to be found by Zonaras.
It might be inferred from one statement, that the Romans advanced as
far as the neighbourhood of Rochelle, between Poitou and the Garonne.
They had to suffer another defeat under the consul L. Cassius Longinus,
near the lake of Geneva, and they purchased their retreat with the loss
of half their baggage. Although they wished to protect the Transalpine
Gauls, all their efforts were unsuccessful. The devastation of Gaul
by these wars was one of the most dreadful calamities ever known: the
whole of the country bounded by the Rhone, even from the Rhine to the
Pyrenees, was ravaged, which may account for its weakened state in the
days of Cæsar; the towns were taken and laid waste, and the inhabitants
cruelly treated. Of all the Gallic tribes, the Belgians alone could
stand their ground. The worst defeat which the Romans sustained, was on
the banks of the Rhone, the year after the consulship of Marius, under
the consul Cn. Mallius and the proconsul Cæpio. That eighty thousand
Romans and Italians were killed, does not look at all historical;--if
that number be correct, many Gallic auxiliaries must have been with
them;--but the statement, according to Orosius, seems to rest merely
on the authority of Valerius Antias. At all events, both of the Roman
armies were completely routed. But most providentially for Rome, when
Gaul had everywhere been ransacked, the Cimbri and Teutones, either
deterred by the Alps, or perhaps because they also feared the Romans
more than they did any other people, turned towards Spain, which
country they overran, as the Romans were utterly unable to protect it.
Even those places which surrendered to them were horribly treated;
and this led the Celtiberians to stand sieges in which they were at
last driven to feed on dead bodies, rather than fall into the hands of
barbarians. This resolute spirit made the invaders give up all thoughts
of conquering Spain, and they retreated back again into Gaul.
The devastation of Gaul took place at the time when Metellus was
conducting the war against Jugurtha; the expedition into Spain happened
during Marius’ second and third consulships. For the reverses which had
befallen the Roman arms, had now caused Marius to be made consul for
the third time; even his enemies wished him to be chosen, as they saw
that no one else could save the state. Every army but that of Numidia
had been annihilated; and to train the new soldiers, was the great task
which Marius alone was able to achieve, he being himself as thoroughly
practised a soldier as he desired every one to be. Marius is beyond all
doubt the author of the great change in the Roman tactics, as may be
known from Cæsar: this supposition is already to be found in those who
have written before us, Colonel Guichard in particular. And moreover
this change could only have been the work of a man who always adapted
his system to the wants of his age. Down to Marius’ days, even during
the Numidian wars, we read of _principes_, _triarii_, and _hastati_;
of Marius’ time itself we have indeed no history of any note, written
in Latin, though we have an exact knowledge of Cæsar’s legion, in
which there are neither _hastati_, nor _principes_, nor _triarii_, but
only _pilani_; the lance is done away with, and the _pilum_ and sword
alone are used; the men are no more drawn up in maniples, the legion
being now formed in a line which was ten deep, with a proportionate
reserve; and when there are several lines of battle, these do not
affect the disposition, as they likewise were not placed in maniples,
_en échelons_, but in parallels, one behind the other. The legion
is divided into sixty centuries (not as in the earliest times, into
five cohorts, each having thirty centuries of thirty men); and its
strength besides is raised from 4,500 to 6,000 men. The light troops
are detached, the legion being no longer a brigade, but a very strong
regiment, all of the same arm; and the cavalry is not a part of the
legion. Another, and very essential difference, is, that Marius--and
he was very much blamed for it--in levying the troops did not now
follow the old system by which all who had less than 12,500 _asses_,
and more than 4,500, were set aside for the reserve; nor yet the later
plan by which every one who had even 1,000 sesterces (400 _denarii_),
was enlisted in the line, and those who were below that standard could
only serve in the fleet; but he took every able-bodied man, although he
might not be above beggary. This was indeed very bad according to the
notions of the old times, when there were good reasons for employing
in the defence of the country none but those who might be deemed to
have an interest in upholding the constitution. But in those days,
there were no standing armies; whereas, when once these began to be
kept, it was less hard for a man who had nothing to remain for years
in the provinces, than it was for an only son who possessed property:
thus what had formerly been quite right, had ceased to be so, now
that circumstances were changed. On the whole, though I am by no means
blind to the grievous faults of Marius,--nay, if you will, to his
vices,--it certainly shows a want of sense, to speak of him as if it
had been better for the republic that he had never been born. That he
was worthy of his high renown, is undeniable; and though his cruelties
are not to be excused, he was indeed a great man, and one ought to try
to understand and account for his failings. Two such different men, as
Cicero and Cæsar, had a great fondness for Marius: Cæsar, when a boy,
loved with all his soul the husband of his aunt Julia; and Cicero,
even in spite of his party, felt proud of being, as an Arpinate, the
countryman of Marius.
Marius now employed his second and third consulships in forming a new
army. Happily for Rome, the Cimbri were all this while in Spain. Eleven
years had now passed since their first appearance; so that we see how
quickly the tide of emigration which no bounds could hitherto stay, set
in towards the west: had they succeeded in Spain, it is very possible
that they would have gone to Africa. Marius had to find soldiers
as he best could: what was left of the old army, was shattered and
demoralized, all but the troops which had returned from Numidia; he was
therefore obliged to train his raw levies for the field, by mingling
them with the few veterans who had won many a battle: in his fourth
consulship, his army was formed. In the third already, he had been
in the south of France near the Rhone, probably on the frontiers of
Provence and Dauphiné, between Arles and Avignon; and that part of the
country, which was as near the enemy as could be, he had chosen as his
exercising ground, that he might force his men to keep with all their
might on the alert: those who were not able to stand the work, sank
under it; the rest were so much the better soldiers. As the Rhone, like
all the rivers of the Mediterranean, has its mouth choked up with silt,
he dug in all haste a canal to open a free communication with the sea.
During his fourth consulship he advanced towards the spot where the
Isere and the Rhone meet, expecting that the Cimbri and Teutones would
return from Spain: it was thought that they would cross the Alps, and
follow the same road which Hannibal had once chosen. All feelings of
hatred in the Gauls, had of course died away. If it be true that Marius
was obliged to use intrigues to get this consulship, it is a very bad
case, and a proof of the blind infatuation of the oligarchy.
The barbarians had no wish to attack Marius, and so they separated:
the Cimbri went round the northern range of the Alps, that they might
invade Italy from the other side, where it was more easily entered;
the Teutones remained in Gaul. For what reason Marius should have
now retreated from Valence to Aquæ Sextiæ, our scanty sources do not
tell us: probably it was for the purpose of getting provisions. The
Cimbrians passed with jeers by the camp of Marius, and went round
Switzerland: for between the Pennine and the Tridentine Alps, there was
not yet at that time any practicable road for such hosts of men with
their waggons and baggage: the only way was that across the little St.
Bernard, which they could not take on account of the Romans; single
troops may have gone by the St. Gotthard and the Splügen. The Romans
had opposed to them, near Trent in Italian Tyrol, another army under
the command of the consul Q. Lutatius Catulus, a man who was the very
opposite of Marius, as he was one of those persons of high rank in that
day who had had a Greek education: according to Cicero, he was even a
fair author, and he left behind him memoirs in Greek, as was then much
the fashion among people of refinement at Rome, Latin prose not being
yet cultivated by great writers; just as Frederic the Great wrote his
memoirs in French. Incalculable is the loss to us of the books of Livy
which treat of this period, as we do not know any thing more about it
than we do of earlier centuries; in fact, we know less of the gigantic
struggles against the Cimbri and Teutones, than we do of the national
emigrations and the wars against the barbarians in the beginning of
the fifth century. Here we find Orosius on the whole an unadulterated
source, and now and then we have to make shift with Florus; all the
epitomizers, however, as Orosius, Eutropius, Florus, are full of
discrepancies when compared together, though they every one of them
drew from Livy. Quite independent of these is the account of Plutarch,
which is the most detailed narrative we have of the Cimbric war.