putting down of the rebellion of Saturninus, were followed by a season
of precarious tranquillity in which no thinking man could indeed have
been blind to the real state of Rome, though the common herd might
have felt as if all was going on right. Yet the symptoms of its being
necessary to bring the great questions of the age to a definitive
decision, showed themselves more and more. Things had come to that
pass, that no one seems to have thought of a reform which could have
given relief, though many changes were made; and it is one of the
signs of the times, that those who wanted to rise in the world, had to
begin by making themselves popular, after which they went over to the
opposite side. Thus it was that Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus transferred
the nomination to the pontificate and the other priestly offices, from
the colleges, which used to fill up their own numbers, to the tribes;
and this was indeed so managed that the smaller half of the tribes was
chosen by lot to be the electors. In the earliest times, the right of
choice undoubtedly belonged to the patricians alone; when, however, the
patricians and plebeians shared these offices between them, plebeians
also were added to the voters; but afterwards, when the curies were
no longer assembled, but were become altogether changed, it was quite
natural, that the election should be left to the colleges themselves.
The clause that the lesser half of the tribes was to elect, seems to
have been based on an old form of expression, the patricians, when they
were still in existence, having been called (perhaps in the twelve
tables) _minor pars populi_; a different meaning was now given to it.
This was the last trace which remained of the old constitution.
The two questions which filled the minds of every one, were the courts
of justice and the citizenship of the allies. The want of a change in
the former, was strongly felt by the best men as well as the worst.
People like Mucius Scævola, whose behaviour in the provinces had been
quite exemplary--he came to the Asiatics like an angel from heaven,
his conduct was really most touching--ran the greatest risk of being
condemned though altogether guiltless; the worst men, from quite
opposite motives, had the same wish for a reform of the courts, as
they would then be acquitted by the senators. The question of the
citizenship of the Italians bore the closest analogy with that of the
emancipation of the Roman Catholics in Ireland. Every one was well
inclined to it: but then things would take an unfavourable turn; a
great many interests came in the way, and people again would have
nothing to do with it. This is one of the most melancholy conditions
in which a free state can be, when there is no knowing how to heal an
evil which is manifest to every one. The allies had, even from the
days of the tribuneship of Tib. Gracchus, been taught to ask for the
Roman citizenship, which was their “emancipation.” Thirty years had
now passed since then; they had often had great hopes, which had been
blighted over and over again. Whereas in former times, the relations of
Rome towards her allies had been more friendly than those of any ruling
city, the most bitter hatred now arose. The very people who sometimes
had held out hopes to the Italians, inveighed against it, when those
allies put forth their claims too insolently. As far as we can judge
of all the facts, nothing had been done for them with the exception of
one law, by which the tithe from the _ager publicus_ was abolished;
this, however, we only know from Appian. They now urged their demands
more strongly than ever, and the right of Roman citizenship was even
becoming more valuable in their eyes; for they were getting more and
more like the Romans, they had learned to speak the same language,
and yet in war and in peace they were to be subject to the sway of
Roman masters. In this fermentation, the rulers at Rome were greatly
terrified; but whenever they came to a decision, they only increased
the irritation. Thus some Italians had quietly taken to themselves the
right of citizenship; one of them, M. Peperna,[87] had even attained
to the consulate and the censorship, and now it was found out that he
was not lawfully a citizen. In the general breaking up, everything
at Rome fell into confusion: the calendar was in the time of Cæsar,
owing to arbitrary intercalations, more than eighty days behindhand;
and in a like manner, the census had been disturbed by the admission of
allies, as they had assumed the character of citizens, and the censors
had classed them in the tribes. Now in the _lex Mucia Licinia_, the mad
resolution was suddenly come to, of making strict inquiries into this
matter, and striking off all those who were not citizens in the fullest
sense of the word. This could not but have exasperated an immense
number of people: but the infatuation which then prevailed everywhere
was inconceivable.
By degrees however, a considerable party in the senate became convinced
that a reform must take place; and these were the sons of the very
men who had baffled the plans of the Gracchi. They wanted to make an
attempt to remedy the evil, the reform most urgently called for being a
change in the judicial system. But this was opposed by all the immense
influence of the _equites_, which was so great as to make even Polybius
say that, in his times, few people only had nothing to do with them.
To carry this out, men now thought of giving the full franchise to
the Latins and allies; and this ought to have been done at any rate.
Under these circumstances, M. Livius Drusus, the son of him who during
the tribuneship of Gracchus had gotten an unhappy celebrity, a man of
uncommon talent, whose hands were clean, became tribune, and thought
upon remedies: all sensible people and the chief persons in the state
joined with him to hinder a revolution by means of a reform. Here
again much is obscure; for in what belongs to these later ages, we are
sometimes much more under the necessity of guessing, than with regard
to the earlier times: then the form was a reality, being based upon
numbers; now, it had wholly lost its meaning. What is most likely, is
that a statement of Appian after all is correct, according to which it
was the chief aim of Drusus to bring in a mixed system, and not to give
back the administration of justice to the senators alone, which would
have caused a revolution. By the _lex Servilia_, the rule had already
been laid down, that the judges in the courts should be divided between
the knights and the senators; but this did not last long. The senate
consisted of three hundred men, and to these, it is said, he meant to
add three hundred knights; from both of them combined, the jury was to
be chosen by lot: for ever since the days of C. Gracchus, there was
really a system like that of trial by jury. The English antiquaries
have wanted to find it even at an earlier period; but they were wrong:
in civil cases there were still single _arbitri_; but for political
offences, and also for felony, there were _quæstiones perpetuæ_ which
were analogous to the modern jury courts. It is probable that by this
measure of reform, one half of the jury must have been made up of
senators, and the other of knights. Thus M. Livius offered to these
last an advantage which they might have as a compensation, instead
of the exclusive exercise of the judicial power. To this another law
was tacked, by which _quæstiones_ were to be appointed, to inflict
punishment on any one who should be convicted of having given wrong
judgment for the sake of a bribe, or from favour. What was to be
the form of these _quæstiones_, is more than we can tell; in all
likelihood they were to be held by the tribes. But there were very many
knights, who had no wish whatever to be in the senate: it was much
more agreeable to them to stand highest among those who did not belong
to that body, and instead of sharing its moral responsibility, to be
always able to find fault and to judge. It seems moreover that the
law of Drusus did not enact that the three hundred of each class were
to be kept distinct for ever; it is more likely that this filling up
of the senate was only thought of as a transitory measure, and that
eventually the judicial power was to rest again with the senate. The
knights now said that this was neither more nor less than a scheme to
outwit them; that they would afterwards have a senate of six hundred,
into which more knights were admitted than there used to be, but that
the courts of justice would be taken out of their hands. Yet the plan
of Drusus seems after all to have been the best thing that could have
been done at that time; as he also meant to give the citizenship to
the Italians, thus renewing the strength of the higher classes by
bringing in a fresh aristocracy, and enlarging the Roman state into a
nation. He likewise aimed at restoring the middle classes, and carrying
through a new agrarian law in favour of the Romans and Italians: but
about this we know very little indeed. Yet as the Italians were more
closely connected with the Romans, than with the Umbrians and Etruscans
from whom they were politically severed; the same split showed itself
between these two masses, which there had been in the time of C.
Gracchus between the Romans, on the one hand, and the Latins and
Italians, on the other. The Latins were in the colonies scattered all
over Italy from Valentia in Bruttium to the foot of the Alps, and in
the few old Latin towns which had not yet got the right of citizenship,
as Tibur and Præneste; by Italians were meant the Sabellian peoples,
the Sabines, the Marsians and their confederates, the Picentines,
Samnites, and perhaps also the Lucanians, unless the condition of these
had been made worse by the war of Hannibal. Very likely the boon was
not intended to be given to Apulians and Sallentines, where the Greek
element was paramount. All the rest were looked upon as foreigners;
and therefore nothing was said in this matter about the Umbrians,
Etruscans, Bruttians, and the Greek maritime towns. Yet we may learn
from the history of every free state, how the growth of such claims
will keep spreading wider and wider. At Geneva, there had long been a
struggle between the _citoyens_ and _bourgeois_,[88] and the latter of
these won for themselves the same rights as the former. Then started
up the claims of the _natifs_, who had been born in Geneva of foreign
parents, and had sided with the _representants_ in their quarrel with
the _negatifs_; and in the revolution of 1789 they were granted the
full franchise. But then came also the _habitants_, the strangers, and
demanded the same rights. Such a succession of claimants is to be found
in all republics, whenever there is any stagnation in them. The history
of Drusus is the _crux historicorum_, unless one speculates on the
state of things in a thoroughly practical spirit. Freinsheim, who lived
entirely among his books, and who never thought of looking at what
had happened in his own city of Strasburg, was not able to understand
those relations; he was quite bewildered by them. Without this kind of
knowledge, the tribuneship of Drusus is a riddle: he is said to have
been an aristocrat, and still to have been popular.
The knights opposed the two laws with the utmost fury; notwithstanding
which they were carried, as the Italians came in crowds to Rome,
ready to take up arms, if need be. As this had therefore been brought
about by the most unlawful means, the majority of the senate, with
an infatuation which is beyond belief, resolved, when the Italians
were gone, that the promise to the allies should not be kept; and on
Drusus’ urging it, he met with a refusal. This gave rise to the most
deadly hatred between him and the faithless senate, which accounts for
Cicero’s words, _tribunatus Drusi pro senatus auctoritate susceptus
infringi jam debilitarique videbatur_.[89] He appeared either in the
light of a liar, or a dupe. And even as the knights were displeased
with Drusus, so likewise, on the other hand, was the stupid party of
the oligarchs then uppermost. They said, “Shall we then for ever place
on the same footing with ourselves those three hundred knights who are
thorns in our side?” Such people are blind to the inevitable necessity
of making some concessions: by merely saying “no!” they think that they
can keep everything in its old place. Thus there now happened what,
from the nature of the human heart must have come to pass: Drusus, who
until then had been a zealous partisan of the government, henceforth
began an opposition against the senate which was quite at variance
with his former ways. The ruling faction in the senate, as well as the
_equites_, wished for the death of Drusus; the consul Philippus was his
sworn foe. It was this man who first uttered that terrible saying, that
there were not more than two thousand families in Rome which possessed
unimpaired property. The unhappy Drusus at once saw himself forsaken.
He was a man of a violent temper, and yet he had undertaken that most
perilous task of negotiating as a mediator with the Italians; (the
Latin colonies were quiet; for as they were sure of being the first
enfranchised, they let the others urge their claims, and but few of
them had entered into the interests of the Italians.) That curious
fragment from the Vatican, which the editor did not understand, and
entitled Ὅρκος φιλίππου,[90] gives us the oath which the Italians
took. It betokens an association of a very peculiar kind; they bound
themselves to obey his orders unconditionally, and to enrol in their
districts partisans who would stand by him, as was done thirty years
ago in Ireland. Drusus was in such a state, that he could hardly be
said any longer to have a will of his own; he was in a perfect fever:
had he been fairly supported by those who were in power, he might
still have found a way out of his difficulties. But he was already
goaded into frenzy; and his behaviour towards Philippus, in which he
did things that he ought never to have ventured on, strongly shows
in what a fever he must have been. When on the eve of a great debate,
he was now walking up and down with his friends in the lobby of his
house,--in these corridors which had no windows, and were lit up with
candelabras, the men of rank would move about among a throng of people
who were assembled there, and give audience,--he was stabbed in the
side by an assassin. The man who did it was never discovered, and it is
even uncertain by whom he was hired. He had scarcely been dead a few
hours, when all his laws, with the exception of those which related to
the courts of justice, were annulled; and in doing this, the senate
arrogated to itself a power hitherto unheard of.
Drusus’ death fell out at a most unfortunate moment. The Italians were
excited to the highest pitch, and yet there was no one to take their
part: public opinion at Rome was against them, as if they were rebels;
just as perhaps in England the great body of the people were hostile to
the emancipation of the Irish Roman Catholics, or, when the American
war broke out, to the North Americans. The party of Drusus, which now
showed itself again in the senate, was entirely without a head: Crassus
had just died; the two Scævolas, M. Antonius, and the wisest men, knew
no longer what to advise, and were intimidated. Instead of allaying the
storm, people rashly dared it, the knights charging the senate with
treason. The former had at their beck a tribune, Q. Varius,--whose
right of citizenship was not even certain, as he was born in Spain of a
Spanish mother, though his father was a Roman: this was a brutal man,
_vastus homo et fœdus_, as Cicero calls him, whose impudence served
him instead of talent. He moved that a court should be established to
discover the traitors who had negotiated with the Italians about their
emancipation; and the bill was carried against the strongest opposition
of the first men in the senate, the knights joining for this purpose
with the rabble, who indeed were most furious. They appeared in the
forum in arms when the question was put to the vote. There sprang up
now a vast number of impeachments; several of the very noblest were
convicted of having given traitorous encouragement to the Italians. A
very remarkable state of feeling had at this time arisen in Rome: the
senate acted the part of democrats; the people, headed by the knights,
that of the aristocrats; and whereas the former wished to emancipate
the Italians, the latter would not do it.
THE SOCIAL WAR. MITHRIDATES. CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE PARTIES OF MARIUS
AND SYLLA. L. CORNELIUS CINNA.
The Social War is one of those periods of Roman history in which the
scantiness of our information is particularly annoying. Livy had
described the events of those two years in four books; but the only
connected narrative which we have, is the scanty one of Appian, and
besides this there are some exceedingly brief notices.[91] And yet the
Social War is one of the very greatest, not only on account of the
passions which were displayed in it on both sides, but also because of
the changes in its fortunes, and the excellent generalship which was to
be found in both armies.
The first symptoms of a tendency of the allies to separate themselves,
are met with even as early as the second Punic war, when the allies
in the camp of Scipio mutinied, and chose two consuls from among
themselves;[92] the insurrection of Fregellæ followed soon afterwards.
The war was not begun by those who had originally planned it, but by
the peoples which lived farther off. Which of these was the first to
resolve upon it, is more than we know; but it is stated that in the
year 662, during the tribuneship of M. Livius Drusus, there was a
plot to kill the Roman consuls (Philippus especially) and the senate
at the Latin Feast. At that solemnity indeed, the whole of the Roman
magistracy (συναρχία), consuls, prætors, and even tribunes of the
people, were present; so that there remained behind but a _præfectus
urbi Latinarum causa_, who was a young man of rank. Now as the Latins
mustered there in strong numbers, it is very probable that it was
they who had entertained that design, especially the men of Tibur and
Præneste; at the same time, it may have happened that so many Italians
came thither, that they on their part, deemed the thing feasible.
Drusus heard of this atrocious project, and denounced it: for, even if
he had not been a man of honour, he was still a Roman, and he did what
he wanted to do, just as much for the advantage of his own country, as
from any love which he bore to the allies. After the death of Drusus,
the Italians, making no secret of their unmitigated rage, sent round
ambassadors, and gave each other hostages for mutual security. The
Roman government, on the other hand, appointed commissioners with
proconsular power for Picenum, where the commotion was fiercest, to
remind the allies of their duty. There being what we would call a
diet of the Picentines at Asculum, the proconsul Q. Servilius Cæpio,
accompanied by M. or C. Fonteius (I do not exactly remember his
_prænomen_[93]), came forward, and ventured to address the people, so
as to induce them, either by exhortation or by threats, to desist from
their intention. But their minds were so exasperated, that a rash word
made them break out; and he and his companion were murdered in the
theatre at Asculum. The Italians now wished no longer for the Roman
franchise; but they wanted to form a sovereign Italian people, in which
all who got out of the grasp of the Romans were to be received. All
the Romans who were at Asculum were seized, and most of them slain. In
the fragments of Diodorus, among the _excerpta de sententiis_, there
is a little story of a harlequin, who was a great favourite with the
Romans, and who just then made his appearance in the games at Asculum;
the people, believing him to be a Roman, were going to kill him,
when he only saved himself by proving that he was a Latin. (In this
passage, instead of Σαυνίων, we are to read Σαννίων, the old name for
Pulcinella; and this is the first mention of that mask.[94])
The insurrection now broke out everywhere; but the same atrocities
do not seem to have been perpetrated among the other peoples as
were done by the Picentines at Asculum, who were a cowardly abject
race; the Marsians and other nations were quite equal to the Romans
in refinement. The Italian peoples who at that time revolted, are
mentioned in the Epitome of Livy, and by Orosius: they are the
Picentines, Marsians, Marrucinians, Vestinians and Pelignians, the
Samnites and Lucanians. Appian speaks also of the Apulians, who indeed
were in arms; but it is very likely that they had no share in the
Italian state. Those peoples in fact were all of them Sabellians, or
Sabine colonies; the others, as well as the Apulians who were Oscans,
may have joined them merely as being their dependents. Some of the
towns also round the bay of Naples were among those which rebelled; of
the Latin colonies, Venusia sided with them. Afterwards, the Umbrians
likewise took up arms, and for a short time, the Etruscans as well; but
they too did not belong to the republic.
The Italian peoples, according to Appian,[95] who alone has recorded
this fact, had established a senate of five hundred persons, and chosen
two consuls and twelve prætors, thus altogether adopting the forms
of the Roman republic. One consul was Pompædius Silo, the soul of the
undertaking, who was a Marsian and the guest-friend of Drusus, with
whom he had formerly negotiated; the second was C. Papius Mutilus, a
Sabine. And not to speak of this constitution, the nations were very
widely distinct from each other: they had been parted for centuries,
each standing by itself; so that when they now made themselves
independent of Rome, there could not but have been a great temptation
to be independent of each other, their principles and pursuits being
different. The Samnites, whom afterwards C. Pontius Telesinus led
against Rome, that he might, as he said, destroy the den of the wolf,
had from of old entertained an implacable hatred against Rome; and
indeed Pontius Telesinus himself, who in this war with Sylla showed
such undaunted resolution, and whose thoughts were ever bent on Rome’s
annihilation, may have sprung from the _Gens Pontia_ of that C. Pontius
who had so terribly humbled the Romans at Caudium. The Marsians, on
the other hand, had never had a fierce and protracted war with the
Romans, as the latter had always faithfully fulfilled their honourable
conditions with them. These therefore were quite a heterogeneous
element of the league. The seat of the government was Corfinium, in the
country of the Pelignians, a small but valiant people, and the town now
assumed the name of Italica: denarii are not unseldom found, which have
the inscription _Italia_ and _Viteliu_. The latter, which is the Oscan
way of writing, belongs to the Samnites; the former, the Latin one,
to the Marsians, who had a language of their own, but Latin letters:
from this we see that those nations differed also in their languages.
Among the Samnites, the Oscan was indeed the prevailing language; the
Marsians and their allies were of far purer race than the Sabines,
although in a wider sense of the word they were all of them Sabines.
There are also coins still existing with the likeness of C. Papius
Mutilus.
At the outbreak of the war, the allies had decidedly the advantage. The
only thing which saved the Romans, was that the Latin colonies remained
true to them; as there is no doubt but that as soon as ever the
struggle began, the Romans granted the full franchise to the Latins by
the _lex Julia_, which was so called from the consul L. Julius Cæsar.
It is a common, but yet an incorrect way of speaking, to say that the
Italians had got the rights of citizenship through the _lex Julia_; for
they did not get these all at once by one law, but by several distinct
enactments which were successively enlarged. Unhappily we know of none
of their details. The _lex Julia_ applied to the forty or fifty Latin
colonies; and not only to those in Italy, but also to Narbo and Aquæ
Sextiæ (the former is mentioned at a later period as _colonia civium
Romanorum_), and without doubt to Tibur and Præneste as well, besides
those other old Latin towns which had not received all the rights
of citizenship in the year 417.[96] To this last class the Hernican
towns especially belonged; and perhaps also Venafrum, Atina, and some
others, in which at that time there was a _præfectura_. This gave a
great increase to the strength of the Romans, who even in the war with
Hannibal had thus brought into the field eighty thousand men able to
bear arms, all of whom spoke Latin, Roman citizens likewise being
mingled with them. It was now seen how foolish it was in the Romans to
have let things go so far; for had they turned a deaf ear to the Latins
also, Rome would have been lost. This grant of the franchise dates from
the beginning of the year.