made it his work to kill the party that opposed him, by laws. He wished
to have in Rome the silence and the autocracy of a camp. He put some
three hundred new members into the senate, and gave that body the power
to veto legislative enactments, while at the same time he restricted
the authority of the tribunes of the people and of the _comitia
tributa,_ the general convention of the tribes. On the other hand,
he reduced debts by one fourth, to conciliate the masses, and paid his
soldiers for their services in the civil strife with vast amounts of
booty and great numbers of slaves. The _pomoerium_ was extended to
embrace all Italy, and, as is supposed, the northern boundary of Roman
territory was extended to the Rubicon. New courts were established and
the judicial system was reorganized; the censors were practically
shelved, but sumptuary laws were passed to prevent extravagance and
luxury. All of the laws of Sulla were submitted to the people for
formal approval; but as no one was hardy enough to differ from the
dictator, it mattered little what the people thought.
By the beginning of the year 79, Sulla considered that his reforms were
complete, and bethought himself of retiring to see at a little distance
the effect of his regulations. He felt that no danger could overtake
him, for he had settled his old veterans (called Cornelians), to the
number of more than a hundred thousand, in colonies scattered
throughout Italy, on the estates and in the cities that he had
confiscated, and thought that they would prove his supporters in any
event. He boldly summoned the people and, announcing his purpose,
offered to render an account of his official conduct. He gave the crowd
a _congiarium_, as it was called--that is, he glutted them with
the costliest meats and the richest wines, and so great was his
profusion that vast quantities that the gorged multitude were unable to
eat were cast into the Tiber. He then discharged his armed attendants,
dismissed his lictors, descended from the rostra, and retired on foot
to his house, accompanied only by his friends, passing through the
midst of the populace which he had given every reason to desire to
wreak vengeance upon him. It was audacity of the supremest sort. Sulla
afterwards withdrew to his estate at Puteoli, where he spent the brief
remainder of his life in the most remarkable alternation of nocturnal
orgies and cultured enjoyment, sharing his time with male and female
debauchees and learned students of Greek literature, and concluding the
memoirs of his life and times, in which, through twenty-two books, he
recorded the story of his deeds, colored doubtless to a great extent by
his own magnificent self-love. In the last words of his "Memoirs" he
characterized himself, with a certain degree of truth from his own
point of view, as "fortunate and all-powerful to his last hour."
The senate voted Sulla a gorgeous funeral, in spite of opposition on
the part of the consul Lepidus, and his body was carried to the Campus
Martius, preceded by the magistrates, the senate, the equites, the
vestal virgins, and the veterans. There it was burned, that no future
tyrant could treat it as that of Marius had been, though up to that
time the Cornelian gens, to which Sulla belonged, had always buried
their dead.
Thus lived and thus died the man who, though he relieved Rome of the
last of her invaders, infused into her system a malady from which she
was to suffer in the future; for the pampered veterans whom he had
distributed throughout Italy in scenes of peace, all unwonted to such a
life, were to be the ones on which another oppressor was to depend in
his efforts to subvert the government.
XIV.
THE MASTER SPIRITS OF THIS AGE.
Rome was now ruled by an oligarchy,--that is, the control of public
affairs fell into the hands of a few persons. There was an evident
tendency, however, towards the union of all the functions of
governmental authority in the person of a single man, whenever one
should be found of sufficient strength to grasp them. The younger
Gracchus had exercised almost supreme control, and Marius, Cinna, and
Sulla had followed him; but their power had perished with them, leaving
no relics in the fundamental principles of the government, except as it
marked stages in the general progress. Now other strong men arise who
pursue the same course, and lead directly up to the concentration of
supreme authority in the hands of one man, and he not a consul, nor a
tribune, nor a dictator, but an emperor, a titled personage never
before known in Rome. With this culmination the life of the populus
Romanus was destined to end.
A dramatist endeavoring to depict public life at Rome during the period
following the death of Sulla, would find himself embarrassed by the
multitude of men of note crowding upon his attention. One of the eldest
of these was Quintus Sertorius, a soldier of chivalric bravery, who had
come into prominence during the Marian wars in Gaul. He had at that
time won distinction by boldly entering the camp of the Teutones
disguised as a spy, and bringing away valuable information, before the
battle at Aix. When Sulla was fighting Mithridates, Sertorius was on
the side of Cinna, and had to flee from the city with him. When the
battle was fought at the Colline gate, Sertorius served with his old
comrade Marius, whom he did not admire, and with Cinna, but we do not
know that he shared the guilt of the massacre that followed. Certainly
he punished the slaves that surrounded Marius for their cruel excesses.
When Sulla returned, Sertorius escaped to Spain, where he raised an
army, and achieved so much popularity that the Romans at home grew very
jealous of him. [Footnote: Sertorius is almost the only one among the
statesmen of antiquity who seems to have recognized the modern truth,
that education is a valuable aid in making a government firm. He
established a school in Spain in which boys of high rank, dressed in
the garb of Romans, learned the languages that still form the basis of
a classical education, while they were also held as hostages for the
good behavior of their elders. He was not a philanthropist, but a
sagacious ruler, and the author of Latin colonies in the West. He was
for a time accompanied by a white fawn, which he encouraged the
superstitious barbarians to believe was a familiar spirit, by means of
which he communicated with the unseen powers and ensured his success.]
He did not intentionally go to live in Spain, but having heard that
there were certain islands out in the Atlantic celebrated since the
days of Plato as the abode of the blest; where gentle breezes brought
soft dews to enrich the fertile soil; where delicate fruits grew to
feed the inhabitants without their trouble or labor; where the yellow-
haired Rhadamanthus was refreshed by the whistling breezes of Zephyrus;
he longed to find them and live in peace and quiet, far from the rush
of war and the groans of the oppressed. From this bright vision he was
turned, but perhaps his efforts to establish a merciful government in
Spain may be traced to its influence.
Another prominent man on the stage at this time was a leader of the
aristocratic party, Marcus Crassus, who lived in a house that is
estimated to have cost more than a quarter of a million dollars.
Probably he would not have been very prominent if his father had not
left him a small fortune, to which he had added very largely by methods
that we can hardly consider noble. It is said that when the Sullan
proscription was going on, he obtained at ruinously low prices the
estates that the proscribed had to give up, and, whenever there was a
fire, he would be on the spot ready to buy the burning or ruined
buildings for little or nothing. He owned many slaves who were
accomplished as writers, silversmiths, stewards, and table-waiters,
whom he let out to those who wished their services, and thus added
largely to his income. He did not build any houses, except the one in
which he lived, for he agreed with the proverb which says that fools
build houses for wise men to live in, though "the greatest part of Rome
sooner or later came into his hands," as Plutarch observes. He was of
that sordid, avaricious character which covets wealth merely for the
desire to be considered rich, for the vulgar popularity that
accompanies that reputation, and not for ambition or enjoyment. He was
said to be uninfluenced by the love of luxury or by the other passions
of humanity. He was not a man of extensive learning, though he was
pretty well versed in philosophy and in history, and by pains and
industry had made himself an accomplished orator. He could thus wield a
great influence by his speeches to the people from the rostra.
Among the aristocrats who composed the oligarchy that ruled at about
this time were two men born in the same year (106 B.C.): the egotistic,
vain, and irresolute, but personally pure orator, Marcus Tullius
Cicero; and the cold and haughty soldier, Cneius Pompeius Magnus,
commonly known as Pompey the Great. The philosophical, oratorical, and
theological writings of Cicero are still studied in our schools as
models in their different classes. Inheriting a love of culture from
his father, a member of an ancient family, he was afforded every
advantage in becoming acquainted with all branches of a polite
education; and travelled to the chief seats of learning in Greece and
Asia Minor with this end in view. When he was twenty-six years of age,
he made his first appearance as a public pleader, and soon gained the
reputation of being the first orator at the Roman bar. Besides these
pursuits, Cicero had had a brief military experience, during the war
between Sulla and Marius.
Pompey, likewise, began to learn the art of war under his father, in
the same struggle, but he continued its exercise until he became a
consummate warrior. For his success in pursuing the remains of the
Marian faction in Africa and Sicily, Pompey was honored with the name
Magnus (the Great), and with a triumph, a distinction that had never
before been won by a man of his rank who had not previously held public
office.
[Illustration: POMPEY (CNEIUS POMPEIUS MAGNUS).]
Older than these men there was one whose character is forever blackened
on the pages of history by the relentless pen of Cicero, Caius Licinius
Verres, who, if we may believe the only records we have regarding him,
was the most phenomenal freebooter of all time. The story of his career
is a vivid demonstration of the manner in which the people of the Roman
provinces were outraged by the officers sent to rule over them, and we
shall anticipate our story a little in tracing it. The provincial
governors were, as a class, corrupt, and Verres was as vile as any of
them, but he was also brutal in his manners and natural instincts,
rapacious, licentious, cruel, and fond of low companions. At first, one
of the Marian faction, he betrayed his associates, embezzled the funds
that had been entrusted to him, and joined himself to Sulla, who sent
him to Brundusium, allowing him a share in the confiscated estates.
Thence he was transferred to Cilicia, where again he proved a traitor
to his superior officer, and stole from cities, private persons,
temples, and public places, every thing that his rapacity coveted. One
city offered him a vessel as a loan, and he refused to return it;
another had a statue of Diana covered with gold, and he scraped off the
precious metal to put it in his pocket. Using the money thus gained to
ensure his election to office at Rome, Verres enjoyed a year at the
Capitol, and then entered upon a still more outrageous career as
governor of the island of Sicily. Taking with him a painter and a
sculptor well versed in the values of works of art, he systematically
gathered together all that was considered choice in the galleries and
temples. Allowing his officers to make exorbitant exactions upon the
farmers, he confiscated many estates to his own use, and reaped the
crops. Even travellers were attacked to enrich this extraordinary
thief, and six vessels were afterward dispatched to Rome with the
plunder, which he asserted was sufficient to permit him to revel in
opulence the remainder of his life, even if he were obliged to give up
two thirds in fines and bribes.
The people Verres had outraged did not, however, suffer in quiet. They
engaged Cicero to conduct their case against him, and this the great
orator did with overwhelming success. [Footnote: The orations of Cicero
against Verres are based upon information which the orator gathered by
personally examining witnesses at the scenes of the rascality he
unveiled. The orator showed a true Roman lack of appreciation of Greek
art, and exercised his own love of puns to a considerable extent,
playing a good deal upon the name Verres, which meant a boar. The
extreme corpulence of the defendant, too, offered an opportunity for
gross personal allusions. Cicero compared him to the Erymanthean boar,
and called him the "drag-net" of Sicily, because his name resembled the
word _everriculum_, a drag-net.] Though protected by Hortensius,
an older advocate, who, during the absence of Cicero, on his travels,
had acquired the highest rank as an orator, so terrible was the
arraignment in its beginning that, at the suggestion of Hortensius,
Verres did not remain to hear its close, but hastened into voluntary
exile. He precipitately took ship for Marseilles, and for twenty-seven
years was forced to remain in that city. Would that every misdoer among
the provincial governors had thus been followed up by the law!
The representative of the Sullan party at this time was Lucius Sergius
Catiline, an aristocrat, who, during the proscription, behaved with
fiendish atrocity towards those of the opposite party, torturing and
killing men with the utmost recklessness. His early years had been
passed in undisguised debaucheries and unrestrained vice, but in spite
of all his acts, he made political progress, was prætor, governor of
Africa, and candidate for the consulship by turn. Failing in the last
effort, however, he entered into a conspiracy to murder the successful
candidates, and was only foiled by his own impatience. We shall find
that he was encouraged by this failure which so nearly proved a
success.
There was one man among the host of busy figures on the stage at this
eventful period who seems to stalk about like a born master, and the
lapse of time since his days has not at all dimmed the fame of his
deeds, so deep a mark have they left upon the laws and customs of
mankind, and so noteworthy are they in the annals of Rome. Caius Julius
Cæsar was six years younger than Pompey and Cicero, and was of the
popular or Marian party, both by birth and tastes. His aunt Julia was
wife of the great Marius himself, and though he had married a young
woman of high birth to please his father, he divorced her as soon as
his father died, and married Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, the devoted
opponent of Sulla, to please himself.
When Sulla returned to Rome from the East, he ordered Pompey to put
away his wife, and he obeyed. He ordered Cæsar, a boy of seventeen, to
give up his Cornelia, and he proudly replied that he would not. Of
course he could not remain at Rome after that, and he fled to the land
of the Sabines until Sulla was induced to grant him a pardon. Still, he
did not feel secure at Rome, and a second time he sought safety in
expatriation. Upon the death of the dictator, he returned, having
gained experience in war, and having developed his talents as an orator
by study in a school at Rhodes. He plunged immediately into public life
and won great distinction by his effective speaking.
These are enough characters for us to remember at present. They
represent four groups, all striving for supreme power. There are the
men of the oligarchy, represented by Pompey and Cicero, actually
holding the reins of government; and Crassus, standing for the
aristocrats, who resent their claims; Cæsar, foremost among the
Marians, the former opponents of Sulla and his schemes; and Catiline,
at the head of the faction which included the host of warriors that
Sulla had settled in peaceful pursuits throughout Italy,--in peaceful
pursuits that did not at all suit their impetuous spirits, ever eager
as they were for some revolution that would plunge them again into
strife, and perchance win for them some spoil.
[Illustration: CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR.]
The consuls at the time of the death of Sulla were Lepidus and Catulus,
who now fell out with one another, Lepidus taking the part of the
Marians, and Catulus holding with the aristocrats. This was the same
Lepidus who had opposed the burial of the dictator Sulla in the Campus
Martius. As soon as the Marians saw that one consul was ready to favor
them, there was great excitement among the portion of the community
that looked for gain in confusion. Those who had lost their riches and
civic rights, hoped to see them restored; young profligates trusted
that in some way they might find means to gratify their love of luxury;
and the people in general, who had no other reason, thought that after
the three years of the calm of despotism, it would be refreshing to see
some excitement in the forum. Lepidus was profuse in promises; he told
the beggars that he would again distribute free grain; and the families
deprived of their estates, that they might soon expect to enjoy them
again. Catulus protested in vain, and the civil strife constantly
increased, without any apparent probability that the Senate, now weak
and inefficient, would or could successfully interfere. Finally it was
decreed that Lepidus and Catulus should each be sent to the provinces
under oath not to turn their swords against each other.
Lepidus slowly proceeded to carry out his part of this decree, but
Catulus remained behind long enough to complete a great temple, which
towered above the forum on the Capitoline Hill. The foundations only
remain now, but they bear an inscription placed there by order of the
senate, testifying that Catulus was the consul under whom the structure
was completed. Lepidus did not consider his oath binding long, and the
following year (B.C. 77) he marched straight to Rome again, announcing
to the senators that he came to re-establish the rights of the people
and to assume the dictatorship himself. He was met by an army under
Pompey and Catulus, at a spot near the Mulvian bridge and the Campus
Martius, almost on the place where the fate of the Roman Empire was to
be determined four centuries later by a battle between Maxentius and
Constantine (A.D. 312). Lepidus was defeated and forced to flee.
Shortly after, he died on the island of Sardinia, overcome by chagrin
and sorrow. One would expect to read of a new proscription, after this
success, but the victors did not resort to that terrible vengeance.
Thus Pompey found himself at the head of Roman affairs.
His first duty was to march against the remnant of the party of the
Marians. They had joined Sertorius in Spain. It was the year 76 when
Pompey arrived on the scene of his new operations. He found his enemy
more formidable than he had supposed, and it was not until five years
had passed, and Sertorius had been assassinated, that he was able to
achieve the victory and scatter the army of the Marians. Meantime the
Romans had been fearing that Sertorius would actually prove strong
enough to march upon the capital and perhaps overwhelm it. Hardly had
their fears in this respect been quieted than they found themselves
menaced by a still more frightful catastrophe.
We remember how, in the year 264 B.C., two young Romans honored the
memory of their father by causing men to fight each other to the death
with swords to celebrate his funeral, and hints from time to time have
shown how the Romans had become more and more fond of seeing human
beings hack and hew each other in the amphitheatres. The men who were
to be "butchered to make a Roman holiday," as the poet says, were
trained for their horrid work with as much system as is now used in our
best gymnasiums to fit men to live lives of happy peace, if not with
more. They were divided into classes with particular names, according
to the arms they wore, the hours at which they fought, and their modes
of fighting, and great were the pains that their instructors took to
make them perfect in their bloody work. Down at Capua, that celebrated
centre of refinement and luxury, there was a school of gladiators, kept
by one Lentulus, who hired his fierce pupils out to the nobles to be
used at games and festivals.
While Pompey was away engaged with Sertorius, the enemies of Rome
everywhere thought it a favorable moment to give her trouble, and these
gladiators conspired in the year 73 to escape to freedom, and thus
cheat their captors out of their expected pleasures, and give their own
wives and children a little more of their lives. So large was the
school that two hundred engaged in the plot, though only seventy-eight
were successful in escaping. They hurried away to the mountains, armed
with knives and spits that they had been able to snatch from the stalls
as they fled, and, directed by one Spartacus who had been leader of a
band of robbers, found their way to the crater of Mount Vesuvius, not a
comfortable resort one would think; but at that time it was quite
different in form from what it is now, the volcano being extinct, so
that it afforded many of the advantages of a fortified town. From every
quarter the hard-worked slaves flocked to the standard of Spartacus,
and soon he found himself at the head of a large army. His plan was to
cross the Alps, and find a place of refuge in Gaul or in his native
Thrace; but his brutalized followers thought only of the present. They
were satisfied if they could now and then capture a rich town, and for
a while revel in luxuries; if they could wreak their vengeance by
forcing the Romans themselves to fight as gladiators; or, if they had
the opportunity to kill those to whom they attributed their former
distresses. They cared not to follow their leader to the northward, and
thus his wiser plans were baffled; but, in spite of all obstacles, he
laid the country waste from the foot of the Alps to the most southern
extremity of the toe of the Italian boot. For two years he was able to
keep up his war against the Roman people, but at last he was driven to
the remotest limits of Bruttium, where his only hope was in getting
over to Sicily, in the expectation of gaining other followers; but his
army was signally defeated by Crassus, a small remnant only escaping to
the northward, where they were exterminated by Pompey, then returning
from Spain (B.C. 71). From Capua to Rome six thousand crosses, each
bearing a captured slave, showed how carefully and ruthlessly the man-
hunt had been pursued by the frightened and exasperated Romans. Both
Crassus and Pompey claimed the credit of the final victory, Pompey
asserting that though Crassus had scotched the serpent, he had himself
killed it.
[Illustration: GLADIATORS.]