that the victory at Cynocephalæ was chiefly due to their prowess, made
a combination against the Romans, and engaged Antiochus to take their
part. This monarch had occupied Asia Minor previously, and would have
passed into Greece but for Flamininus. This was while Hannibal was at
the court of Antiochus. The Romans declared war, and sent an army into
Thessaly, which overcame the Syrians at the celebrated pass of
Thermopylæ, on the spot where Leonidas and his brave three hundred had
been slaughtered by the Persians two hundred and eighty-nine years
before (B.C. 191). Lucius Cornelius Scipio, brother of Africanus,
closed the war by defeating Antiochus at Magnesia, in Asia Minor, at
the foot of Mount Sipylus (B.C. 190). The Syrian monarch is said to
have lost fifty-three thousand men, while but four hundred of the
Romans fell. Antiochus resigned to the Romans all of Asia west of the
Taurus mountains, agreed to pay them fifteen thousand talents, and to
surrender Hannibal. The great Carthaginian, however, escaped to the
court of Prusias, King of Bithynia, where, as we have already seen, he
took his own life. Scipio carried immense booty to Rome, where he
celebrated a splendid triumph, and, in imitation of his brother
Africanus, added the name Asiaticus to his others.
The succeeding year, the Ætolians were severely punished, their land
was ravaged, and they were required to accept peace upon humiliating
terms. Never again were they to make war without the consent of Rome,
whose supremacy they acknowledged, and to which they paid an indemnity
of five hundred talents. At this time the most famous hero of later
Grecian history comes before us indirectly, just as the greatness of
his country was sinking from sight forever. Philopoemen, who was born
at Megalopolis in Arcadia (not far from the spot from which old Evander
started for Italy), during the first Punic war, just before Hamilcar
appeared upon the scene, raised himself to fame, first by improving the
armor and drill of the Achæan soldiers, when he became chief of the
ancient league, and then by his prowess at the battle of Mantinea, in
the year 207, when Sparta was defeated. He revived the ancient league,
which had been dormant during the Macedonian supremacy; but in 188, he
took fierce revenge upon Sparta, for which he was called to account by
the Romans; and five years later, in 183, he fell into the hands of the
Messenians, who had broken from the league, and was put to death by
poison. It was in the same year that both Hannibal and Scipio, the two
other great soldiers of the day died. [Footnote: See the Student's
Merivale, ch. xxv., for remarks about these three warriors.]
Philip V. of Macedon followed these warriors to the grave five years
later, after having begun to prepare to renew the war with Rome. His
son Perseus continued these preparations, but war did not actually
break out until 171, and then it was continued for three years without
decisive result. In 168 the Romans met the army of Perseus at Pydna, in
Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus, on the 22d June, [Footnote: This
date is proved by an eclipse of the sun which occurred at the time. It
had been foretold by a scientific Roman so that the army should not see
in it a bad omen.] and utterly defeated it. Perseus was afterward taken
prisoner and died at Alba. From the battle of Pydna the great historian
Polybius, who was a native of Megalopolis, dates the complete
establishment of the universal empire of Rome, since after that no
civilized state ever confronted her on an equal footing, and all the
struggles in which she engaged were rebellions or wars with
"barbarians" outside of the influence of Greek or Roman civilization,
and since all the world recognized the senate as the tribunal of last
resort in differences between nations; the acquisition of Roman
language and manners being henceforth among the necessary
accomplishments of princes. Rome had never before seen so grand a
triumph as that celebrated by Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of
Macedonia, after his return. Plutarch gives an elaborate account of it.
In pursuance of its policy of conquest a thousand of the noblest
citizens of Achæa were sent to Italy to meet charges preferred against
them. Among them was the historian Polybius, who became well acquainted
with Scipio Æmilianus, son by adoption of a son of the conqueror of
Hannibal. For seventeen years these exiles were detained, their numbers
constantly decreasing, until at last even the severe Cato was led to
intercede for them and they were returned to their homes. Exasperated
by their treatment they were ready for any desperate enterprise against
their conquerors, but Polybius endeavored to restrain them. The
historian went to Carthage, however, and while he was away disputes
were stirred up which gave Rome an excuse for interfering. Corinth was
taken with circumstances of barbarous cruelty, and plundered of its
priceless works of art, the rough and ignorant Roman commander sending
them to Italy, after making the contractors agree to replace any that
might be lost with others of equal value! With Corinth fell the
liberties of Greece; a Roman province took the place of the state that
for six centuries had been the home of art and eloquence, the
intellectual sovereign of antiquity; but though overcome and despoiled
she became the guide and teacher of her conqueror.
When Carthage had regained some of its lost riches and population, Rome
again became jealous of her former rival, and Cato gave voice to the
feeling that she ought to be destroyed. One day in the senate he drew
from his toga a bunch of early figs, and, throwing them on the floor,
exclaimed: "Those figs were gathered but three days ago in Carthage; so
close is our enemy to our walls!" After that, whenever he expressed
himself on this subject, or any other, in the senate, he closed with
the words "_Delenda est Carthago_,"--"Carthage ought to be destroyed!"
Internal struggles gave Rome at last an opportunity to interfere, and
in 149 a third Punic war was begun, which closed in 146 with the utter
destruction of Carthage. The city was taken by assault, the inhabitants
fighting with desperation from street to street. Scipio Æmilianus, who
commanded in this war, was now called also Africanus, like his ancestor
by adoption.
For years the tranquillity of Spain, which lasted from 179 to 153, had
been disturbed by wars, and it was not until Scipio was sent thither
that peace was restored. That warrior first put his forces into an
effective condition, and then laid siege to the city of Numantia,
situated on an elevation and well fortified. The citizens defended
themselves with the greatest bravery, and showed wonderful endurance,
but were at last obliged to surrender, and the town was levelled to the
ground, most of the inhabitants being sold as slaves.
The great increase in slaves, and the devastation caused by long and
exhaustive wars, had brought about in Sicily a servile insurrection,
before the Numantians had been conquered. It is said that the number of
those combined against their Roman masters reached the sum of two
hundred thousand. In 132, the strongholds of the insurgents were
captured by a consular army, and peace restored. The barbarism of Roman
slavery had nowhere reached such extremes as in Sicily. Freedmen who
had cultivated the fields were there replaced by slaves, who were ill-
fed and poorly cared for. Some worked in chains, and all were treated
with indescribable brutality. They finally became bandits in despair,
and efforts at repression of their disorders led to the open and
fearful war. The same year that this war ended, the last king of
Pergamos died, leaving his kingdom and treasures to the Roman people,
as he had no children, and Pergamos became the "province" of Asia.
Besides this, Rome had the provinces of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica,
Spain, Gallia Cisalpina, Macedonia, Illyricum, Southern Greece (Achæa),
and Africa, to which was soon to be added the southern portion of Gaul
over the Alps, between those mountains and the Pyrenees called
_Provincia Gallia_ (Provence).
XII.
A FUTILE EFFORT AT REFORM.
One day when the conqueror of Carthage, Scipio Africanus, was feasting
with other senators at the Capitol, the veteran patrician was asked by
the friends about him to give his daughter Cornelia to a young man of
the plebeian family of Sempronia, Tiberius Gracchus by name. This young
man was then about twenty-five years old; he had travelled and fought
in different parts of the world, and had obtained a high reputation for
manliness. Just at this time he had put Africanus under obligations to
him by defending him from attacks in public life, and the old commander
readily agreed to the request of his friends. When he returned to his
home and told his wife that he had given away their daughter, she
upbraided him for his rashness; but when she heard the name of the
fortunate man, she said that Gracchus was the only person worthy of the
gift. The mother's opinion proved to be correct. The young people lived
together in happiness, and Cornelia became the mother of three
children, who carried down the good traits of their parents. One of
these was a daughter named, like her mother, Cornelia, who became the
wife of Scipio Africanus the younger, and the others were her two
brothers. Tiberius and Caius, who are known as _the_ Gracchi. Tiberius
Gracchus lived to be over fifty years old, and won still greater
laurels in war and peace at home and in foreign lands. Cicero says that
he did a great service to the state by gathering together on the
Esquiline the freedmen who had spread themselves throughout the
tribes, and restricting their franchise (B.C. 169). Thus, Cicero
thought, he succeeded for a time in checking the ruin of the republic.
[Footnote: The freedmen had been confined to the four city tribes in
220 B.C.]
There was sad need of some movement to correct abuses that had grown up
in Rome, and the men destined to stand forth as reformers were the two
Gracchi, sons of Cornelia and Tiberius. Their father did not live to
complete their education, but their mother, though courted by great
men, and by at least one king, refused to marry again, and gave up her
time to educating her sons, whom she proudly called her "jewels" when
the Roman matrons, relieved from the restrictions of the Oppian law,
boastfully showed her the rich ornaments of gold and precious stones
that they adorned themselves with. The brothers had eminent Greeks to
give them instruction, and grew up wise, able and eloquent, though each
exhibited his wisdom and ability in a different way.
Tiberius, who was nine years older than his brother, came first into
public life. He went to Africa with his brother-in-law, when the
younger Africanus completed the destruction of Carthage, and afterward
he took part in the wars in Spain. It is said that, as he went through
Etruria on his way to Spain, he noticed that the fields were cultivated
by foreign slaves, working in clanking chains, instead of by freemen;
and that because the rich had taken possession of great ranges of
territory, the poor Romans had not even a clod to call their own,
though they had fought the battles by which the land had been made
secure. The sight of so much distress in a fertile country lying waste
affected Tiberius very deeply, and when he returned to Rome, he
bethought himself that it was in opposition to law that the rich
controlled such vast estates. He remembered that the Licinian Rogation,
which became a law more than two hundred years before this time,
forbade any man having such large tracts in his possession, and thought
that so beneficent a law should continue to be respected. He told the
people of Rome that the wild beasts had their dens and caves, while the
men who had fought and exposed their lives for Italy enjoyed in it
nothing more than light and air, and were obliged to wander about with
their wives and little ones, their commanders mocking them by calling
upon them to fight "for their tombs and the temples of their gods,"--
things that they never possessed nor could hope to have any interest
in. "Not one among many, many Romans," said he, "has a family altar or
an ancestral tomb. They have fought to maintain the luxury of the
great, and they are called in bitter irony the 'masters of the world'
while they do not possess a clod of earth that they may call their
own!"
It was a noble patriotism that filled the heart of Tiberius, but it was
not easy to carry out a reform like the one he contemplated. It may not
have appeared difficult to re-enact the old law, but we must remember
that, during two centuries of its neglect, generations of men had
peaceably possessed the great estates, of which its enforcement would
deprive them all at once. Was it to be supposed that they would quietly
permit this to be done? Was it just to deprive men of possessions that
they had received from their parents and grandparents without protest
on the part of the nation? Cornelia urged Tiberius to do some great
work for the state, telling him that she was called the "daughter of
Scipio," while she wished to be known as the "mother of the Gracchi."
The war in Sicily emphasized the troubles that Tiberius wished to put
an end to, and in the midst of it he was elected one of the tribunes,
the people hoping something from him, and putting up placards all over
the city calling upon him to take their part.
The people seemed to feel sure that Gracchus was intending to do
something for them, and they eagerly came together and voted for him,
and when he was elected, they crowded into the city from all the
regions about to vote in favor of the re-establishment of the Licinian
laws, with some alterations. They were successful; much to the disgust
of the aristocrats, [Footnote: Aristocrat is a word of Greek origin,
and means one of a governing body composed of the best men
(_aristos_, best) in the state. The aristocrats came to be called
also _optimatos_, from _optimus_, the corresponding Latin word for
best.] who hated Gracchus, and thenceforth plotted to overthrow him and
his power. For a while, the lands that had been wrongfully occupied by
the rich were taken by a commission and returned to the government.
When Attalus, the erratic king of Pergamus, left his estates to Rome,
Gracchus had an opportunity to perform an act of justice, by refunding
to the rich the outlays they had made on the lands of which they had
been deprived. This would have been politic as well as just, but
Gracchus did not see his opportunity. He proposed, on the other hand,
to divide the new wealth among the plebeians, to enable them to buy
implements and cattle for the estates they had acquired.
It was easy at that excited time to make false accusations against
public men, and to cause the populace to act upon them, and,
accordingly, the aristocrats now stirred up the people to believe that
Gracchus was aspiring to the power of king, which, they were reminded,
had been forever abolished ages before. No opportunity was given him to
explain his intentions. A great mob was raised and a street fight
precipitated, in the midst of which three hundred persons were killed
with sticks and stones and pieces of benches. Among them was Gracchus
himself, who thus died a martyr to his patriotic plans for the Roman
republic. [Footnote: The course of Gracchus was not understood at the
time by all good citizens; and even for ages after he was considered a
designing demagogue. It was not until the great Niebuhr, to whom we owe
so much in Roman history, explained fully the nature of the agrarian
laws which Gracchus passed, that the world accepted him for the hero
and honest patriot that he was.]
Caius Gracchus was in Spain at the time of his brother's murder, and
Scipio, his brother-in-law, was there also. So little did Scipio
understand Tiberius, that when he heard of his death he quoted the
words of Minerva to Mercury, which he remembered to have read in his
Homer, "So perish he who doth the same again!" The next year brother
and brother-in-law returned from Spain, but Caius did not seem to care
to enter political life, and as he lived in quiet for some years, it
was thought that he disapproved his brother's laws. Little did the
public dream of what was to come.
Meantime Scipio became the acknowledged leader of the optimates, and in
order to keep the obnoxious law from being enforced, proposed to take
it out of the hands of the commission and give it to the senate. His
proposition was vigorously opposed in the forum, and when he retired to
his home to prepare a speech to be delivered on the subject, a number
of friends thought it necessary to accompany him as protectors. The
next morning the city was startled by the news that he was dead. His
speech was never even composed. No effort was made to discover his
murderer, though one Caius Papirius Carbo, a tribune, leader of the
opposing party, was generally thought to have been the guilty one.
The eloquence of young Gracchus proved greater than that of any other
citizen, and by it he ingratiated himself with the people to such an
extent, that in the year 123 B.C. they elected him one of their
tribunes. Though the aristocrats managed to have his name placed fourth
on the list, his force and eloquence made him really first in all
public labors, and he proceeded to use his influence to further his
brother's favorite projects. He was impetuous in his oratory. As he
spoke, he walked from side to side of the rostra, and pulled his toga
from his shoulder as he became warm in his delivery. His powerful voice
filled the forum, and stirred the hearts of his hearers, who felt that
his persuasive words came from an honest heart.
[Illustration: A ROMAN MILE-STONE.]
The optimates were of course offended by the acts of the new tribune,
who abridged the power of the senate, and in all ways showed an
intention of working for the people. He was exceedingly active in works
of public benefit, building roads and bridges, erecting mile-stones
along the principal routes, extending to the Italians the right to
vote, and alleviating the distressing poverty of the lower orders by
directing that grain should be sold to them at low rates. The laws
under which he accomplished these beneficent changes are known, from
the family to which the Gracchi belonged, as the Sempronian Laws. In
carrying out the necessary legislation and in executing the laws, Caius
labored himself with great assiduity, and his activity afforded his
enemies the opportunity to say falsely that he made some private gain
from them.
The optimates soon saw that the labors of Gracchus had drawn the people
close to him, and they determined to weaken his influence by indirect
means, rather than venture to make any immediate display of opposition.
They according adopted the sagacious policy of making it appear that
they wished to do more for the people than their own champion proposed.
They allowed a rich and eloquent demagogue, Marcus Livius Drusus, to
act for them, and he deceived the people by proposing measures that
appeared more democratic than those of Gracchus, whose power over the
people was thus somewhat undermined. The next step was then taken. In
the midst of an election a tumult was excited, and Gracchus was obliged
to flee, over the wooden bridge, to the Grove of the Furies. Death was
his only deliverance. The optimates tried to make it out that he had
been an infamous man, but the common people afterward loved both the
brothers and esteemed them as great benefactors who had died for them,
The fall of the Gracchi left the people without a leader, and the
optimates easily kept possession of the government, though they did not
yet feel disposed to proceed at once to carry out their own wishes
fully, for fear that they might sting the _populares_ beyond
endurance. They stopped the assignments of lands, however, allowing
those who had occupied large tracts to keep them, and thus the
desolation and retrogression which had so deeply moved Gracchus
continued and increased even more rapidly than it had in his time. The
state fell into a condition of corruption in every department, and
office was looked upon simply as a means of acquiring wealth, not as
something to be held as a trust for the good of the governed. The
nation suffered also from servile insurrections; the seas were overrun
with pirates; the rich plunged into vice; the poor were pushed down to
deeper depths of poverty; judicial decisions were sold for money; the
inhabitants of the provinces were looked upon by the nobles as fit
subjects for plunder, and the governors obtained their positions by
purchase; everywhere ruin stared the commonwealth in the face, though
there seems to have been no one with perceptions clear enough to
perceive the trend of affairs.
In this degenerate time there arose two men of the most diverse traits
and descent, whose lives, running parallel for many years, furnish at
once instructive studies and involve graphic pictures of public
affairs. The elder of them was with Scipio when Numantia fell into his
hands, and with Jugurtha, a Numidian prince, won distinction by his
valor on that occasion. Caius Marius was the name of this man, and he
belonged to the commons. He was twenty-three years of age, and had
risen from the low condition of a peasant to one of prominence in
public affairs. Fifteen years after the fall of Numantia we find him a
tribune of the people, standing for purity in the elections, against
the opposition of the optimates. Rough, haughty, and undaunted, he
carried his measures and waited for the gathering storm to furnish him
more enlarged opportunities for the exercise of his strength and
ambition.
The opponent and final conqueror of this commoner was but four years of
age when Numantia fell, and came into public life later than Marius.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla was an optimate of illustrious ancestry and
hereditary wealth, a student of the literature and art of Greece and
his native land, and he united in his person all the vices as well as
accomplishments that Cato had been accustomed to denounce with the
utmost vigor.
Marius and Sulla, the plebeian and the optimate, the man without
education of the schools, and the master of classic culture, were
brought together in Africa in the year 107. Numidia had long been an
ally of Rome, but upon the death of one of its kings, Jugurtha, who had
gained confidence in himself during the Numantian campaign, attempted
to gain control of the government. Rome interfered, but so accessible
were public men to bribes, that Jugurtha obtained from the senate a
decree dividing the country between him and the rightful claimant of
the throne. Not contented with this, he attempted to conquer his rival
and obtain the undivided sway. This action aroused the Roman people,
who were less corrupt than their senate, and they forced their rulers
to interfere. War was declared, but the first commander was corrupted
by African gold, and the struggle was intermitted. Jugurtha was called
to Rome, with promise of safety, to testify against the officer who had
been bribed, and remained there awhile, until he grew bold enough to
assassinate one of his enemies, when he was ordered to leave Italy. As
he left, he is said to have exclaimed [Footnote: "_Urbem venalem, et
mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit_"--Sallust's "Jugurtha,"
chapter 35.]: "A city for sale, ready to fall into the hands of the
first bidder!" These memorable words, whether really uttered by the
Numidian or not, well characterize the state of affairs at this corrupt
period.
[Illustration: IN A ROMAN STUDY.]
One general and another were sent to oppose Jugurtha, but he proved too
much for them, either corrupting them by bribes or overcoming them by
skill of arms. The spirit of the Roman people was at last fully
aroused, and an investigation was made, which resulted in convicting
some of the optimates, one of them being Opimius, the consul, who had
been cruelly opposed to Caius Gracchus. A general of integrity was
chosen to go to Africa. He was Cæcilius Metellus, member of a family
which had come into prominence during the first Punic war. Marius was
with him, and when Jugurtha saw that men of this high character were
opposed to him, he began to despair. While the struggle progressed,
Marius remembered that a witch whom he had had with him in a former war
had prophesied that the gods would help him in advancing himself, and
resolved to go to Rome to try to gain the consulship. Metellus at first
opposed this scheme, but was finally persuaded to allow Marius to
leave. Though but few days elapsed before the election, after Marius
announced himself as a candidate, he was chosen consul, and then he
began to exult over the optimates who had so long striven to keep him
down. He vaunted his lowly birth, declared that his election was a
victory over the pusillanimity and license of the rich, and boldly
compared his warlike prowess with the effeminacy of the nobility, whom
he determined to persecute as vigorously as they had pursued him.
[Illustration: THE ROMAN CAMP]