none but Italian troops, yet they now carried on the war with
soldiers raised from whatever country they could get them, with Gauls,
Mauritanians, Numidians, Asiatics: not a place was spared in the levy.
Thus by degrees the preponderance of the Italians was balanced by the
Latins, and outweighed at last by the foreigners. Moreover, Rome had
an immense advantage from her central position, and her colonies which
were scattered all over Italy. By her position, she cut off the North
from the South; by her colonies, which it was everywhere necessary to
beset with troops, the resources of the allies were frittered away.
The history of the war is chiefly to be found in Diodorus and Appian. I
have been at much pains about it, and have tried to put the materials
in order; yet I have only just barely succeeded in getting anything
like a clear notion of it. The scene of the war was in three different
districts: there was an army of the south, a central, and a northern
army. The southern army of the allies was in Campania as far as the
Liris; that of the centre, was from the Liris, all through the country
of the Sabines, to the neighbourhood of Picenum; that of the north,
in Picenum: here was the utmost boundary of the operations, whilst
the Greek towns in the rear of the Italians kept neutral. Nothing
whatever is now said of the Bruttians; so much had that unfortunate
nation suffered in the war of Hannibal: nor is there any mention of the
Messapians, who may already have been entirely hellenized. The Roman
colony of Venusia, as we remarked above, took the side of the allies,
its population having at length almost become Apulian and Lucanian, so
that indeed the Latin language was scarcely any longer the one most
in use. In the army of the South, C. Papius Mutilus held the command
against the Roman consul L. Julius Cæsar. Mutilus conquered Nola,
Muceria, Pompeii, and Stabiæ, and carried the war into Campania. Capua
was kept by the Romans; Naples and the Greek cities remained faithful,
acting as if the war was no concern of theirs. The struggle was very
sharp around Acerræ: at the end of the year, the allies had the best of
it.
With the army of the centre, Pompædius, or Poppædius, Silo opposed
P. Rutilius Lupus: the former showed himself to have been a great
general, and the Roman commander, who was no match for him, lost his
life in the battle. But Sylla and Marius were with the army there,
which was the main one, as lieutenant-generals; and Rome owed it
to these, that limits were put to the success of the enemy. The
Latin colony of Æsernia in the midst of Samnium, was conquered by
the Samnites. Here was seen the hatred of the colonies against the
Italians; for the people of Æsernia, who seem to have had faith in
the lucky star of Rome, held out until they were reduced by hunger:
the Samnites in the beginning of the siege had certainly offered them
a free retreat. The first who had any brilliant success, was Cn.
Pompeius Strabo, the father of him who afterwards was called _Magnus_,
a _prætor proconsulari potestate_: he had all the profligacy of his
age, notwithstanding which he was a distinguished man. He defeated the
Picentines in a battle near Asculum, where there were 75,000 Italians
against 65,000 Romans: the Romans gained a decisive victory, and a
terrible chastisement was inflicted upon Asculum. The Picentines,
on the whole, had to suffer most grievously for their conduct. Cn.
Pompeius now advanced from the north: the Italian peoples lost their
feeling of confidence in victory, and owing to the want of hearty union
among themselves, were no longer able to stand their ground. First of
all, the Vestinians separated from the rest; and now the Romans held
out allurements to the nations singly, granting them peace and the
franchise. What the conditions were we know not, though there must have
been more than the _civitas sine suffragio_: the Romans, however, must
have taken care not to lay down a distinct rule; for afterwards there
is a dispute about the meaning of the grant. Velleius Paterculus, a
very ingenious writer who was perfectly master of his subject, whatever
objections one may have to the man himself, tells us that nearly three
hundred thousand Italians who were able to bear arms, perished in
this war; and that the Romans had not yielded the citizenship to the
Italians, until they had spent the last drop of blood which they had to
shed. We may, therefore, take it for granted, that half of the whole
number of men engaged on both sides were killed, and that therefore
the struggle was carried on with the greatest fury, as in a civil war:
hence Appian also places it in his work as such.
In the second year, the war is still less to be made out than in the
first: thus much only is certain, that the northern Sabellian peoples
also, the Marsians, Marrucinians, and Pelignians, had now a separate
peace, even as early perhaps as the end of the first year. These new
citizens were not distributed among the old tribes, but others were
formed out of them: this was quite in keeping with the system of the
ancients, as otherwise the old citizens would have been outnumbered in
the assemblies of the people, and in the elections, by the new ones. It
is not known for certain how many fresh tribes were created: according
to a passage in Velleius, there were eight of them. Another statement
in Appian[97] is evidently written wrong: there we find δεκατεύοντες
ὰπέφηναν ἑτέρας (viz. φυλάς), from which δέκα φυλάς, has been gathered,
though perhaps it would then have been better to read δέκα ἐξ αὐτῶν.
Yet, from Appian’s usual way of speaking, it seems to have been
δεκαπέντε. My reasons for this, are from a feeling of symmetry: if we
add 15 to 35, we have 50; 35 is quite an awkward number, which had
grown up by degrees, and at which one would not wish to stop; 15 is to
35 as 3 to 7, and is therefore somewhat less than half of the original
number, which was now of necessity to be changed. That Velleius has
eight, I account for by the circumstance that the Latins had eight
tribes given them, and afterwards the Etruscans and Umbrians got seven.
The number of battles fought in this war, is even beyond belief.
Corfinium took again its old name, and the seat of government was
transferred to Æsernia; the Samnites now formed the real centre of the
war, and they carried it on with the same perseverance as they had done
in former times: this was at least the case with the three cantons of
the Hirpinians, the Caudines, and the Pentrians. The Romans marched
into Apulia, and entirely surrounded the Samnites; so that already by
the end of the year 663, the war was well nigh decided. The Samnites
indeed still held out; yet there were none in arms besides them, but a
part of the Apulians and Lucanians. These peoples went on with the war
from despair alone: they either reckoned on the movement in Asia caused
by the war of Mithridates, or they had made up their minds to perish.
In this second year of the war, there was also a rising of the
Etruscans and the Umbrians: but they soon made their peace with the
Romans. Their rebellion took quite a different character from that
of the Italians:--a prætor conquers the Etruscans, and they get the
franchise at once. The Etruscans had formerly furnished no troops
for the Roman army: yet now they were ready to take up arms for an
honour to which they had not hitherto attached any value. The Roman of
rank had in the Marsian a very dangerous rival for all the offices;
whereas, on the other hand, the Etruscan, being as a foreigner quite
distinct from the Roman, had far less chance of getting these places.
The Marsians were to the Romans very much like what the Germans of the
North are to those of the South; and therefore they readily blended
with the Romans, whilst the Etruscans were to these, as the French, or
the Slavonians are to the Germans. The Samnites, as in olden times,
wished for the destruction of Rome.
The Italian war had raised the glory of Sylla to its highest point, and
now his aversion and enmity against Marius showed itself conspicuously.
In the year 664, Sylla had been elected consul at the age of
forty-nine, while Marius was already past seventy: Sylla therefore
decidedly belonged to a later generation. This utterly widened the
breach which in everything had existed between them. Sylla (_Sulla_)
is a most original character, and it is difficult to give a cut and
dry opinion about him. He was a great general, and also a favourite
of fortune, a circumstance on which he himself laid great stress,
and which also drew the attention of the crowd upon him; nor is it a
delusion, that some men are favoured by luck, either always, or for a
long run. When still a very young man, being much under forty, he had
distinguished himself in the war of Jugurtha, serving as quæstor under
Marius; and he had had the good fortune to carry on the negotiations
with Bocchus, so that he looked upon the ending of it as his own work.
He had likewise won renown in the Cimbric, and still more so in the
Italian war, in the which he far outshone Marius, as he was the only
Roman who played a brilliant part in it. He was of the illustrious
_gens_ of the Cornelii, and was descended in the sixth generation from
that P. Cornelius Rufinus who is honourably mentioned in the war with
Pyrrhus; yet the family to which he belonged was undistinguished. The
name of _Sulla_ has been rightly derived by Gronovius from _Sura_
(_Surula_, by contraction _Sulla_); consequently it is an apparent
diminutive which has the same meaning as the root itself. _Sura_ was
a surname of the Lentuli and others. He was in every respect the
opposite of Marius. The latter had risen from the ranks, and was a
soldier of fortune; Sylla, on the contrary, was a refined man of the
world: for his chief delight was in Greek literature; he was quite
a master of the Greek language, and a writer of elegant taste. His
family being poor, he rose from under as great difficulties as if he
had been of humble parentage: the patrician ties were broken, and the
Scipios and Lentuli were of no help to him. Marius had all the unhappy
feelings of an old man against a younger one who is making his way:
this rising sun troubled him, and made him ill at ease; and by treating
that extraordinary man with envy and jealousy, he provoked him to an
opposition, which--certainly from Marius’ own fault at first--gave
birth to their mutual dislike. Ever since the time of the war with
Jugurtha, Marius had done his best to keep his rival down; and Sylla
must also have said to himself, “had I been in Marius’ place, I should
have done just as he did.” Notwithstanding his old age, Marius was
insatiable of ruling and commanding, and demanded for himself the
conduct of the war against Mithridates, which had been given to Sylla
as the consul of that year.
The motive for this war was the very justest on the side of
Mithridates, the wrong done by the Romans being too glaring.
Mithridates had sprung from a Persian family, which even as early
as under the Persian kings had its satrapy in Pontus: the first
whom we know of it, in all likelihood was Ariobarzanes, governor of
those countries under Ochus. Perhaps it was one of the seven noble
families which alone had freedom, being in some sort _sacrosancti_,
and invested with the hereditary dignity of governors of those parts.
The nation consisted of Syrians and Assyrians; that is to say, the
great mass may originally have been Armenian, but as early as in the
times of the Assyrian rule over Asia, a colony of Assyrians may have
settled here, who called themselves Leuco-Syrians. It was their good
fortune, that Alexander did not devastate their country; it was only
under his successors, that they got involved in the Macedonian wars:
Mithridates the son of the then governor, who arrogated to himself the
dignity of a tributary prince, escaped by the friendship of Demetrius
Poliorcetes from the jealousy of Antiochus the One-eyed, the father of
Demetrius. These countries afterwards established their power on so
firm a footing, that even in the fifth century of Rome, their governors
already took the title of kings. During the long wars of the successors
of Alexander, particularly those of the Syrian kings with Egypt,
their strength was completely consolidated; but they were divided by
inheritance into two kingdoms, Cappadocia and Pontus proper: they
were either under the same dynasty, or at least both of them subject
to Persian families. This separation still continued in the beginning
of the seventh century (about the year 620), when a Mithridates ruled
over Pontus proper and part of Paphlagonia: he gave help to the Romans
against Aristonicus, and had before that sent galleys against Carthage;
and as a reward they yielded up to him Great Phrygia, which until then
had belonged to the kingdom of Pergamus. From a fragment of a speech
of C. Gracchus, we find, however, that he had bought this grant from
those, who were in power at Rome. Thus then his kingdom was of great
extent, and its strength and its revenues were considerable, on quite
a different scale from that of our poor Europe. At that time, Lesser
Asia was divided into the kingdoms of Pontus and Bithynia, of which the
former was the largest; into the Roman province; and into Cappadocia
and the southern coast, where Cilicia, Caria, Pamphylia, and a number
of small independent states, were then in a chaotic confusion.
Mithridates, justly called the Great, had at the death of his
father--the Mithridates mentioned above--been left an infant, and
had come to the throne after hard trials. Though he had given no
provocation, he had very early been injured by the Romans, who, we know
not why, took back from him that highly important possession of Great
Phrygia which his father had gained. This treachery awakened in him
an implacable feeling of revenge. Besides his many other remarkable
qualities, Mithridates had an extraordinary talent for dissimulation;
and thus while he seemed to be altogether quiet, but was silently
making his preparations, he sought to widen his dominions without
doing any mischief to the Romans. He conquered the Cimmerian Bosporus,
the Crimea, and the south of the Ukraine as far as the Dnieper; which
gave him a great accession of strength. Soon afterwards he found an
opportunity of gaining Cappadocia, where there were quarrels about the
succession, the reigning king having been declared supposititious: he
now placed his own son or brother on that throne. This aroused the
jealousy of the Romans, and they set up against him another pretender.
Ever since he had become of age, he had done his utmost to collect a
fleet and a large army, evidently against Rome; and in the meanwhile he
reckoned on the war which was raging in Italy, nor is there any doubt
of his being connected with the allies. Yet he had not completed his
preparations at the right moment; and this circumstance, as in so many
other cases, saved Rome, this time also, from the impending danger. Had
he engaged in this undertaking two years earlier, at the beginning of
the Social War, things might indeed have taken a different turn; but he
made too sure of the success of the Italians, and he believed that they
would render his conquests only still more easy.
Rome in the meanwhile recovered herself from the Marsian war, which
lingered on but feebly. In the second year of the struggle, she had
sent commissioners to Asia to prescribe laws to Mithridates; and
this may have overawed him: for, much as they had fallen off, their
political weight was still the same, and threatened as they were by
the greatest dangers in Italy, they did not yet lose sight of Asia.
Moreover Mithridates then abetted the designs of a brother of king
Nicomedes of Bithynia, in whose worthless race parricide and fratricide
were quite common occurrences. Nicomedes was expelled, and Mithridates
became the ally of the new king; yet he allowed himself to be so far
daunted by the Romans as to put up with the restoration of Nicomedes
in Bithynia, and of Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia, though he did not
indeed give up his plan of revenge. The Romans, however, might if
they had wished it, have still kept off the war much longer, and the
government would perhaps have liked to have done it; but individuals
who governed the provinces, and hoped to gain booty, would not hear
of peace, but forced Nicomedes into hostilities against Mithridates,
that they might have an opportunity of coming to his assistance.
Cappadocia was not allied to the Romans, and Nicomedes foreboded ill
of the result. Mithridates, of course, revenged himself by invading
Bithynia; and there, when he had defeated the king, he again set up
against him his brother as a pretender: the Roman senate now thought
it high time to interfere. Treating him as if he were the aggressor,
they demanded that he should abstain from all hostilities against
Bithynia, and acknowledge as king of Cappadocia the man of their own
choice. Mithridates bitterly complained of this injustice, saying
that the Romans had indeed already taken away Great Phrygia from
him. In the meanwhile, the war in Italy was all but decided, as the
Samnites only and the men of Nola were still in arms, all the rest
having obtained the citizenship; but the Romans were so exhausted,
that they could hardly make war. They opposed to him three armies, in
which very few could have been Romans, chiefly consisting of Asiatic
troops. The result of this undertaking was just what it deserved. After
having utterly routed two armies, Mithridates overran the neighbouring
countries, conquered Bithynia, placed his son again on the throne of
Cappadocia, and took the whole of the Roman province, the inhabitants
of which, to a man, welcomed him with enthusiasm as their liberator.
The rage against the Romans was here so great, that the people in
all the towns in Asia Minor, which were quite hellenized, looking
upon the war as finished, slew on one and the same day, as a proof of
their fidelity to Mithridates, all the Romans and Italians who were
among them. The number of these is said to have been seventy thousand,
which is almost beyond belief, as after all none but those who were
well off, and men of business, could have resided there: the massacre
was carried out with the greatest cruelty. Thus the many usurers and
bloodsuckers perished, who after the hard wars of Aristonicus had wrung
the highest rates of interest from the people which was in need of
money; and who, backed by the cohort and the protection of the Roman
præfect, had ventured upon every sort of outrage, and had raised the
tolls and taxes in a most arbitrary and overbearing way. Mithridates
met with scarcely any opposition on the peninsula; some maritime towns
also surrendered to him. And thus, as he was brought up entirely in the
Greek manner,--there are no traces of the Magian doctrines to be found
in him, except on his coins on which the sun and the moon are to be
seen,--the Greeks looked upon him as a fellow countryman in spite of
his Persian descent, and he was received with rapture even in Greece
itself. Athens unhappily allowed herself to be beguiled by a sophist
of the name of Aristion, to open her gates to him, and this fellow
set himself up as tyrant. The Peloponnesus and Bœotia went over to
Mithridates; the whole of Greece, with the exception of a few places,
and likewise the isles of Mitylene and Chios, began to waver. Cyzicus
and Rhodes remained true to the Romans: the latter in its wisdom
foresaw the issue of the war, and by unshaken fidelity made amends for
the faults of which, in the opinion of the Romans, it had been guilty
in the war of Perseus. Mithridates occupied all the Roman province
but Magnesia, and laid siege to Rhodes. In Rome, these events called
forth unbounded rage, and stirred men up to go on with the war in right
earnest; but the debate to whom the command in it should be entrusted,
gave rise to the first civil war.
By the Sempronian law, the decision lay with the senate, and it
appointed Sylla. But Marius, who could not have kept up his great name
by distinguishing himself in peace, wanted likewise to have the command
in this war. Twelve years had elapsed since his triumph, and he had
lost ground in the public opinion: besides which, he had grown old. He
might perhaps have been still an able general, although, in the Social
War, he distinguished himself but once. The older indeed he grew, the
lower he sank in moral worth: he had no more those great qualities
which in former days had thrown his faults into the background; but he
had still a party, and was the man whom the foes of the aristocracy put
forward. Yet all the commotions of that time are not to be accounted
for by the feelings of the contending factions, as everything was soon
resolved into a mere question of persons.
When Sylla entered upon his consulship, no one seems to have had a
foreboding of any danger threatening the republic from a civil war;
and before he marched against Mithridates, he wished to put an end to
the struggle in Italy. Nola then held out, we know not by what means:
this part of the Social War is called _bellum Nolanum_, even as its
beginning is called _bellum Marsicum_. This _bellum Nolanum_, however,
was chiefly kept up by the Samnites who were still in arms; it was
more of an insurrection in which there were no large armies. It was
one of Sylla’s great qualities, not for any consideration to leave any
undertaking unfinished, in which he had once embarked; and the war with
Mithridates which was now impending, did not make him withdraw from
Nola. While Sylla was still staying there, P. Sulpicius was tribune of
the people at Rome: it is he who in Cicero’s books _de Oratore_, as a
youth, takes a share in the conversation. Whatever may now have led
this young man of high family thus unhappily astray,--personal hatred
perhaps against Sylla,--it was with him that the calamities of Rome
originated. He brought forward a motion that the command in the war
against Mithridates should be transferred to Marius; for according
to precedent (since the Hortensian law), the people had the right of
settling the matter, even though the senate had already assigned the
provinces. At the same time, he proposed that instead of forming the
new citizens (by whom are meant the Latins, Etruscans and Umbrians)
into fresh tribes, as had been intended, they should be distributed
among the old ones. The new tribes were in fact to have voted after the
others, as the _urbanæ_ did after the _rusticæ_, owing to which, as the
_prærogativa_ had great weight, their rights were much curtailed. The
new citizens might indeed have a vote in their turn; but they deemed it
a mockery, that a right was granted them by which, nine times out of
ten (the Roman tribes being almost always unanimous), they would not
be called upon at all: for as soon as there was a clear majority, the
votes were no longer taken. That eighteen polled against seventeen,
was what very seldom happened. Sulpicius’ motion therefore was in one
respect an injustice to the old citizens; yet Velleius Paterculus
takes too harsh a view of the case: for, as most of those who were in
the _tribus rusticæ_ lived far from Rome, and did not come to town at
all, whilst, on the other hand, the _libertini_, who dwelt in the city
itself, had got themselves enrolled among the _tribus rusticæ_, the
measure must after all be termed a substantial improvement. A great
deal therefore might have been said for and against it.
P. Sulpicius is very badly spoken of by Plutarch and Appian. That
his conduct towards Sylla was unjustifiable, needs no further proof,
and it is also possible that he did not act from pure motives; yet
I cannot believe that he deserved to be so disparaged. The man of
whom Cicero,--even though it be only from the recollections of his
youth,--quite contrary to his usual feelings towards democrats, speaks
with so much reverence, cannot have sunk so low. Sulpicius must,
according to Cicero, have been a man of great refinement, and of the
most brilliant genius; and though he may have allowed himself to be
beguiled into acts of wickedness, Cicero could not indeed have looked
upon the matter in such a bad light as the Greeks did. Cicero admires
him also for his talents as a speaker: he had still heard him in his
youth. Plutarch’s hatred of Sulpicius is not to be wondered at, as he
followed the memoirs of Sylla who was most justly exasperated against
him: yet for this very reason such statements are suspicious.