Philip V., of Macedon, and Antiochus the Great, of Syria. The
battle of Magnesia, B. C. 190, lays the foundation of her power
in Asia, and the battle of Pydna makes her the head of the
civilized world. In the meanwhile, Sardinia is conquered, and
wars carried on in Spain and Liguria. The third and last Punic
War ends, B. C. 146, with the destruction of Carthage. The
same year, Corinth is destroyed by Mummius. Viriathus holds
out nine years in western Spain; he is assassinated B. C. 140;
Numantia is captured B. C. 133; and Spain divided into three
Roman provinces.
FOURTH PERIOD, B. C. 133-30.
=120.= The possessions of Rome now extended from the Atlantic to the
Ægean, and from the Atlas Mountains to the Pyrenees and Alps. But changes
in the relations of rich and poor, governing and governed classes, in
her own capital, now withdrew her attention for a while from foreign
conquests, and led to important civil controversies. The old strife
between patricians and plebeians was long ago at an end. Many plebeian
houses had become noble through their members having held high offices in
the state; and they had their clientage, their share in the public lands,
their seat in the Senate, and their right of displaying waxen images of
their ancestors in their houses or in funeral processions, equally with
the oldest burghers of all. Freedmen were constantly admitted to the
franchise.
=121.= The real cause of trouble was in the sufferings of the poor,
who, since the formation of the last colony, in 177 B. C., had had no
new allotment of lands. Rome was a “commonwealth of millionaires and
beggars.” The Licinian laws (see § 64) were practically set aside. Many
rich proprietors held four times the amount of public land to which they
were entitled; and instead of employing the required proportion of free
labor, preferred to cultivate by means of gangs of slaves. The foreign
wars, which formerly so frightfully reduced[73] the numbers of the common
people, had now ceased; the labor market became over-stocked, and a mass
of paupers, hungry, helpless, and hopeless, began to threaten serious
danger to the state. The multitude of slaves, chiefly taken in war, more
or less trained for fighting, and conscious of their strength, were a not
less dangerous class. The best and wisest of the Romans saw the danger,
and sought means to avert it. But among those who most deeply deplored
the miseries of the people, a large party believed that nothing could be
done.
=122.= In 133 B. C., the tribune Tiberius Gracchus, a son of the
conqueror of Sardinia, and grandson of Scipio Africanus, brought forward
a bill for reviving the provisions of the Licinian laws. The great amount
of state lands which would thus become vacant, he proposed to divide
among the poor; and to compensate the former occupants for their losses,
by making them absolute owners of the 500 jugera of land which they
could legally retain. This movement, apparently so just, was violently
opposed. The leased lands had been, in some instances, three hundred
years in the same family. Buildings had been erected at great expense,
and the property had been held or transferred as if in real ownership.
The strong influence of the wealthy class was therefore made to bear
against the bill; and when it was brought before the popular assembly,
Octa´vius, a colleague of Gracchus in the tribuneship, interposed his
veto and prevented the vote from being taken. But Gracchus moved the
people to depose Octavius, and so carried the bill. Three commissioners,
Tiberius Gracchus himself, his brother Caius, and his father-in-law,
Appius Claudius, were appointed to examine into the extent of the abuse,
and enforce the Agrarian laws.
=123.= Their task was difficult, and Tiberius had to content the people
by continually bringing forward more and more popular measures. The
kingdom of Pergamus, with its treasury, had just become the inheritance
of the Romans. Gracchus proposed that the money should be distributed
among the new land-holders, to provide implements and stock for their
farms. Other proposals were for shortening the term of military
service, for extending the privilege of jury to the common people,
and for admitting the Italian allies to the rights of Roman citizens.
The aristocratic party had declared from the beginning that this bold
innovator should not escape their vengeance. His candidacy for a second
tribuneship brought the opposition to a crisis. Tiberius was slain upon
the steps of the Capitol, and his body thrown into the Tiber.
=124.= Though the reformer was dead, his reform went on. The party in
power earnestly desired to relieve the public danger and distress, and,
by order of the Senate, the commission continued the distribution of
lands. A law proposed by Scipio Æmilianus, B. C. 129, withdrew the work
from the hands of the commissioners, and placed it permanently in those
of the consuls. The lands which were really public property were by
this time distributed, and questions had arisen concerning territories
which had been granted to Italian allies. “The greatest general and the
greatest statesman of his age,” Scipio saw as clearly and lamented as
deeply as the Gracchi the needs of his country, and, with unselfishness
equal to theirs, he sought to check the reform, when convinced that it
had gone as far as justice would permit. But he, too, became a martyr
to his efforts. Soon after the passage of his bill, and on the morning
of the day appointed for his oration upon popular rights, he was found
murdered in his bed.
=125.= Caius Gracchus returned from his quæstorship in Sardinia, B. C.
124, and became tribune of the people. His plans for relieving the poorer
classes were more revolutionary than those of his brother, but many of
them were most beneficent and widely reaching in their results. Colonies
were formed, both in Italy and beyond the sea, to afford an outlet to the
crowded and distressed population of Rome. Six thousand colonists were
sent to the deserted site of Carthage; another company to Aquæ Sextiæ
(Aix), in southern Gaul; and a third, with the full “Roman right,” to
Narbo Martius (Narbonne´). The latter colony, though not founded until
after the death of Caius, was equally a fruit of his policy. It was
fostered by the commercial class, for the sake of its lucrative trade
with Gaul and Britain.
A less beneficent though doubtless needed law, provided for the
distribution of grain from the public stores, at less than half price,
to all residents in the city who chose to apply for it. An extensive
range of buildings, the Sempronian granaries, were erected to supply
this demand. The result was the crowding within the walls of Rome of the
whole mass of poor and inefficient people from the surrounding country,
thus giving to the popular leaders a majority in the assembly, and the
absolute control of the elections; creating, at the same time, that lazy,
hungry, and disorderly mob which for five hundred years constituted the
chief danger of the imperial city.
=126.= The lowest age for military service was fixed at seventeen years,
and the cost of the soldier’s equipment, which formerly had been deducted
from his wages, was now defrayed by the government. Having thus won
the poorer people, Caius drew to his side the plebeian aristocracy, by
placing in their hands the collection of revenues in the provinces, thus
creating the class of great merchants and bankers, hitherto scarcely
known in Rome. The new “province of Asia” had been formed from the
kingdom of Pergamus, and its name, like that of “Africa” given to the
Carthaginian territory, doubtless implied that its limits were not
considered as fixed. In accordance with the despotic principle that
conquered or inherited lands were the private property of the state, the
province was now loaded with taxes, and the privilege of collection was
publicly sold at Rome to the highest bidder. The “publicans” amassed
great fortunes, but the unhappy provincials were reduced to extreme
distress.
=127.= Gracchus would have gone a step farther, and extended the full
rights of Roman citizenship to all free Italians. But this liberal policy
was equally hateful to the Senate and the commons. The former gained over
his colleague, Liv´ius Drusus, who outbade Gracchus by proposing still
more popular measures, which, however, were never meant to be fulfilled.
Instead of two Italian colonies, composed only of citizens of good
character, which had been planned by Gracchus, Drusus proposed twelve, to
contain 3,000 settlers each. Caius had left the domain lands subject, as
of old, to a yearly rent. Drusus abolished this, and left the lessees in
absolute possession of their farms.
At the end of the second year, Caius lost his tribuneship, and the new
consuls were opposed to him. His policy was now violently attacked, and
especially the formation of the transmarine colonies. It was reported
that African hyenas had dug up the newly placed boundary stones of
Juno´nia, the successor of Carthage; and the priests declared that the
gods in this way signified their displeasure at the attempt to rebuild an
accursed city. The auguries were taken anew; a popular tumult arose, in
which an attendant of the priests was killed. The next day the Forum was
occupied by an armed force, and all the aristocratic party appeared with
swords and shields. Caius and his former colleague, Ful´vius Flaccus,
retired with their followers to the Aventine, the old stronghold of the
commons. The nobility, with their Cretan mercenaries, stormed the mount;
250 persons of humble rank were slain, and the two leaders were pursued
and put to death. Three thousand of their adherents were strangled in
prison, by order of the Senate. Cornelia,[74] the mother of the Gracchi,
was not permitted to wear mourning for the last and noblest of her sons;
but the people honored their memory with statues, and on the sacred
ground where they had fallen, sacrifices were offered as in temples of
the gods.
=128.= Next to Egypt, the most important client-state of Rome was
Numidia, which occupied nearly the same space with the modern province
of Algeria. Massinissa, the Numidian king, had been rewarded for his
faithful service in the Second Punic War, by a grant of the greater part
of the Carthaginian territories. Micip´sa, his son, was now a feeble old
man, who cared more for Greek philosophy than for affairs of state, and
had dropped the control of his kingdom into the hands of his nephew,
Jugur´tha, whom he raised by adoption to a level with his own sons. In
his will he divided the civil, military, and judicial offices of the
kingdom between the three princes.
After the old king’s death, his sons, Adher´bal and Hiemp´sal, disputed
the will, while Jugurtha boldly claimed the supreme and sole authority.
Hiempsal was murdered by hired ruffians. Adherbal appealed in person
to the Roman Senate, which had undertaken to guarantee his father’s
bequests. But Jugurtha had learned in the camps that every senator had
his price; and his emissaries worked so skillfully, that the whole blame
of the dispute and the murder was thrown upon the suppliant prince. A new
division of the kingdom was ordered to be made, by Roman commissioners
sent over for the purpose. Jugurtha received the fertile and populous
region which was afterward known as Mauritania; Adherbal, with Cirta,
the capital, had only a tract of sandy desert toward the east.
=129.= Jugurtha, however, was not satisfied; and failing by many insults
to provoke his cousin to war, he at last besieged him in his capital,
and in spite of lame remonstrances from Rome, captured and put him to
death with cruel tortures, and ordered an indiscriminate massacre of all
the inhabitants of the town. Of these, many were Italians. Even the base
venality of the Roman government could no longer withstand the righteous
indignation of the people. War was declared and an army promptly sent
forward, which received the submission of many Numidian towns. But again
the wily usurper was able to buy peace with African gold. He pretended
to submit at discretion, but was re-instated in his kingdom upon paying
a moderate fine and surrendering his war elephants, which he was soon
permitted to redeem. Public indignation again broke out at Rome. Jugurtha
was summoned to the city, to answer concerning the means by which he had
obtained the peace. His cousin, Massi´va, took this opportunity to prefer
his own claim to the kingdom of Massinissa; but he was assassinated by
a confidant of Jugurtha, who immediately, with the aid of his master,
escaped from Rome.
=130.= This new insult enraged the people beyond endurance. The Senate
canceled the peace and dismissed Jugurtha from the city. His sarcastic
remark in leaving expressed a melancholy truth: “If I had gold enough, I
would buy the city itself.” The war was renewed, but the army, equally
demoralized with its chiefs, was wholly unfit for service. In attempting
to besiege the treasure-town of Suthul, the incompetent commander
suffered himself to be drawn off into the desert, where his whole army
was routed and made to pass under the yoke. By the terms of surrender,
Numidia was evacuated and the canceled peace renewed. The generals whose
misconduct had led to this disgrace were tried at Rome and exiled, and
with them Opim´ius, the head of the Numidian commission, and the real
executioner of Caius Gracchus.
In token of the earnestness with which the war was now to be carried
on, Qu. Metellus, a stern and upright patrician of the old school, was
elected consul for the African campaign. Among his lieutenants was Caius
Marius, the son of a Latin farmer, who had risen from the ranks by his
sterling ability. He won the hearts of the soldiers by voluntarily
sharing all their toils and privations; and through their reports to
friends at home, his praise was in every mouth.
=131.= The wild tribes of the desert flocked to the standard of Jugurtha,
whom they hailed as their deliverer from Roman domination; and with his
swarms of fleet horsemen, he was able either to dictate the battle-field,
or to vanish out of sight at any moment, when the combat seemed to be
going against him. The Romans gained one or two victories, but no real
advantage. An impression, doubtless false and unjust, sprang up at Rome,
that the inaction of Metellus, like the reverses of his predecessors, was
owing to a secret understanding with Jugurtha—or, at least, that he was
prolonging the war to gratify his own love of power.
Availing himself of this prejudice, Marius returned to Rome, and was
elected consul for the year 107 B. C. Instead of having his province
allotted by the Senate, he was appointed by the people to the command
in Africa. His election was really a revolution which gave power in the
state to military talent, rather than to great wealth or noble birth.
His quæstor in this expedition was L. Cornelius Sulla, a young nobleman
distinguished chiefly hitherto by his unbounded licentiousness, but who,
by energetic application to his duties, soon won the entire confidence
and approbation of his commander. These two men stood, a few years later,
in very different relations to each other, as alternate masters of the
Roman world.
=132.= In spite of some daring adventures and the capture of several
towns, the administration of Marius was not much more successful than
that of Metellus. He continued in command as proconsul for the year
106 B. C.; and during the second winter, the real victory was gained
by Sulla, who passed through the enemy’s camp at great personal risk,
and with consummate skill conducted a negotiation with King Bocchus,
of Mauritania, for the surrender of Jugurtha. This notorious criminal
was brought in chains to Rome, where, with his two sons, he adorned the
triumph of Marius, Jan. 1, B. C. 104. A few days later, he perished with
hunger in the lower dungeon of the Mamertine prison. A new peril now
threatened Rome, and demanded unusual measures. In spite of a law to the
contrary, Marius was reëlected to the consulship, and continued to hold
that office five successive years, B. C. 104-100.
=133.= The Cimbri, a mingled horde of Celtic and Germanic tribes, had
been dislodged in some unknown manner from their seats beyond the Danube,
and were pressing upon the Roman frontier. Before the close of the
Jugurthine War, they had four times defeated consular armies in Gaul
and the Alpine regions. In the last of these defeats, at Orange, on the
Rhone (B. C. 105), an army of 80,000 men had been destroyed, and all
Italy was filled with terror. A new army was now on foot, and Marius,
with his legate, Sulla, and many other able officers, hastened into
Gaul. The Cimbri had turned aside into Spain, where, however, they met
a brave resistance, and were soon driven back across the Pyrenees. In
western Gaul nothing was able to resist their rapid course of conquest,
until they arrived at the Belgian territory beyond the Seine. They were
joined by a kindred tribe of Teuto´nes from the shores of the Baltic, and
by three cantons of Helve´tii from the mountains of Switzerland. They
now arranged a combined invasion of Italy, the Teutones to enter that
country from Roman Gaul by the western passes of the Alps, while the
Cimbri were to traverse the eastern passes from Switzerland.
=134.= It was the object of the consuls to prevent their junction, and
for this purpose Marius awaited the Teutones on the Rhone, near its
confluence with the Is´ara, while Catulus marched into northern Italy to
meet the Cimbri. One of the greatest victories ever won by Roman arms
was gained by the former, near Aix, B. C. 102. Three successive days the
barbarians had assaulted the Roman camp, when, despairing of success,
they resolved to leave it behind and continue their march into Italy.
Distrusting his new recruits, Marius would not suffer his men to be drawn
from their intrenchments until the entire host had departed; and so
great were the numbers, and so cumbrous the baggage of the barbarians,
that they were six days in passing the Roman works. When they were gone,
Marius broke up his camp and started in pursuit, still maintaining
perfect order, and intrenching himself carefully every night. In the
neighborhood of Aix he overtook the Teutones, and the pitched battle
which was then fought ended in the complete destruction of the nation.
The warriors who survived the combat put an end to their own lives; and
their wives, preferring death to slavery, followed their example.
=135.= Meanwhile, the other division, less ably resisted, had advanced
through the Brenner Pass and routed the army of Catulus near Trent. But
the comfort and plenty of the Lombard plain were, for the moment, a
better protection to Rome than the wisdom of her generals. The Cimbri
went into winter-quarters, and Marius had time to recruit his army and
hasten to join his colleague in the spring of 101 B. C. When the Cimbri
ascended the valley of the Po, hoping to effect the proposed junction
with their Teutonic comrades, they met, instead, the combined armies of
Marius and Lutatius. The battle was fought at Vercel´læ, westward of
Milan, July 30, 101 B. C. The barbarians were wholly defeated, and either
slaughtered or enslaved; 14,000 were left dead upon the battle-field, and
60,000 were transferred to the slave-markets of Rome.
=136.= Marius was received at Rome with a brilliant triumph, in which
he was hailed as a third Romulus and a second Camillus, and his name in
libations was coupled with those of the gods. The common people rejoiced
scarcely more for the victory over the barbarians than for that over
the government. The triumph of their chosen general, the farmer’s boy
of Arpi´num, seemed to them a triumph of the untitled and unprivileged
masses over the rich and favored few. Marius was elected to his sixth
consulate, and if he had been as great a statesman as general, the
Republic might even then have been exchanged for a monarchy. But he had
no matured policy, and no skill in adapting means to ends. He allied
himself with two unprincipled demagogues, Saturni´nus and Glau´cia, to
secure his election, and then abandoned them to the vengeance of the
Senate, when their crimes had become too bold for endurance.
The government candidate for the consulship was assailed and beaten to
death; and the party which procured the murder, proclaiming Saturninus
its chief, broke open the prison doors and gave freedom and arms to both
prisoners and slaves. This armed rabble fought the guards of Marius in
the very market-place of the city; but it was driven at length to the
Capitol, cut off from water, and forced to surrender. Without waiting the
forms of trial, some young nobles climbed to the roof of the building
where the rioters were imprisoned, tore off the tiles, and stoned them
to death. In this disgraceful manner perished four high officers of the
Roman people: a prætor, a quæstor, and two tribunes.
=137.= The beautiful island of Sicily was a second time the scene of a
servile war, B. C. 102-99. Its fertility and importance as a grain market
to Rome had attracted speculators, who farmed their vast estates by
means of multitudes of slaves. In the First Servile War (B. C. 134-132),
200,000 rebels were in arms; the second taxed the best exertions of
three successive consuls, and though it was ended, B. C. 99, in victory
to Rome, the terror it had excited did not soon die away. The slaves
not only outnumbered the ruling class, but surpassed it in strength,
and even, in some rare instances, in military talent. They were treated
with such inhuman cruelty, that they never lacked a motive for revolt,
and thus the rural districts were always liable to outbreaks when the
governing force was removed.
The Roman slave-code, it may be hoped, has never been equaled in
barbarity by that of any civilized state. The slave was “nothing” in
law; his master might torture or kill him with no other punishment
than the loss of his property; and when, after such a victory as that
of Vercellæ, captives could be bought, as we are told, for less than a
dollar a head, that motive could have had no weight against the passion
of revenge. Happily, society is sometimes better than its laws. Household
servants commonly enjoyed the confidence and affection of their masters;
physicians and teachers were usually Greek slaves, and their learning and
talents caused them to be respected in spite of the misfortune of their
condition.
RECAPITULATION.
Though plebeians enjoy political equality, the poor suffer
for want of land and employment. Tiberius Gracchus passes the
Agrarian laws, but becomes a martyr to his zeal for reform.
Scipio Æmilianus, trying to moderate the Agrarian movement,
is also murdered. Caius Gracchus founds colonies in Italy
and abroad; provides for the poor by a public distribution
of grain; gives to the rich plebeians the collection of
provincial revenues, and thus creates a class of great bankers
and publicans. He is opposed with armed violence and slain,
B. C. 121. The crimes of Jugurtha occasion the Numidian war,
B. C. 111-106. Metellus is succeeded in command by Marius,
who becomes consul, B. C. 107. Jugurtha is captured by the
address of Sulla; Marius defeats the Teutones in a great
battle near Aix, B. C. 102; and the Cimbri, the next year,
at Vercellæ. A sedition at Rome is followed by the death of
several magistrates. Sicily is twice devastated by servile
insurrections, B. C. 134-132, and B. C. 102-99.
THE SOCIAL WAR.
=138.= Meanwhile, Rome was shaken by the efforts and death of another
reformer, M. Livius Drusus, son of the opponent of Gracchus. As a noble,
he was filled with shame for the corruptions of his order, and sought
to revive the safest and best of the laws of the Gracchi, by giving the
franchise to all Italians, and by taking the judicial power from the
knights, who had greatly abused it. He was murdered at his own door by
an unknown assassin, B. C. 91, and both of his laws repealed. The allies
in the south and center of Italy, disappointed in all their hopes by the
death of their champion, now flew to arms. Eight nations, the Marsi,
Marrucini, Peligni, Vestini, Picenti´ni, Samnites, Apu´li, and Lucani,
formed a federal republic under the name of _Italia_, chose two consuls,
and fixed their capital at Corfin´ium, in the Apennines.
The first movements in the “Social War” were disastrous to Rome. L.
Cæsar, the consul, Perper´na, his legate, and Postu´mius, a prætor,
were defeated. A consular army under Cæpio was destroyed; Campania was
overrun, and the northern Italians were almost ready to join the league.
But a late concession saved Rome. The coveted rights of citizenship were
conferred on all who had taken no part in the war, and on all who would
now withdraw from it. The confederate ranks were thus divided; and, at
length, even the Samnites and Lucanians, who were the last to submit,
were won by a promise of all that they had asked.
=139.= The slow and cautious conduct of Marius in this war had been
eclipsed by the brilliant activity of Sulla, who was now consul; and the
Senate, choosing to consider the old general unequal to the hardships
of a campaign, conferred the command against Mithridates upon the young
patrician officer. The jealousy which had long ago supplanted the
ancient confidence between Marius and Sulla, now broke out into violent
opposition. To defeat his rival, Marius persuaded Rufus, the tribune, to
propose a law for distributing the newly enfranchised Italians among all
the tribes. The old citizens would thus be greatly outnumbered, and the
appointment of Sulla reversed, for all the new voters regarded Marius
as their friend and benefactor. The consuls interfered, but Marius and
his ally occupied the Forum with an armed force, compelled the consuls
to withdraw their interdict, passed the law by intimidation, and easily
obtained a vote of the tribes appointing Marius to the command of the
Pontic War.
[Illustration: MAP of the ROMAN EMPIRE.]
=140.= This brutal interference with the forms of law was naturally
met by an opposing force. The military tribunes sent by Marius to take
command, in his name, of the army at Nola, were stoned to death by the
soldiers of Sulla, who instantly marched upon Rome at the head of six
legions. The city was unprepared for resistance; Sulla became its master,
and Marius, with his son and partisans, fled. He wandered, a fugitive and
outlaw, along the coast of southern Italy; now half starved in a wood,
now buried all night to his chin in a swamp; again indebted for a few
hours’ sleep to the charity of a ship-master or to a peasant, who refused
the reward offered by Sulla for the head of the outlaw, and enabled him
to elude his pursuers.
At Mintur´næ he was sheltered by a woman to whom he had formerly rendered
some kindness; but the officers of the town resolved to comply with the
orders of the government at Rome, and with difficulty prevailed upon a
Gallic or Cimbrian soldier to undertake the work of despatching him.
But no sooner had the barbarian entered the room where the old general,
unarmed and defenseless, lay upon a bed, than his courage failed, his
drawn sword fell from his hand, and he rushed from the house, exclaiming,
“I can not kill Caius Marius!”
=141.= The people of Minturnæ now took more generous counsel, and
resolved not to destroy the deliverer of Italy. They provided him with a
ship, and conducted him with good wishes to the sea, where he embarked
for Africa. Here, too, he was warned by the governor to leave the
country, or be treated as an enemy of Rome. But a revolution had by this
time taken place in Rome itself, which favored the return of Marius.
Cinna, one of the new consuls, was of the Marian party, and wished to
enforce the laws of Rufus. The aristocrats armed, under the command of
the other consul, Octavius, and a battle was fought in the Forum, in
which Cinna was defeated and expelled from the city. Like Sulla, he
appealed to the army; and as the army was now composed of Italians, who
could not but favor that party which promised them supreme power in the
Roman elections, the tide was turned against the aristocrats.
Marius returned, seized upon Ostia and other ports on the Latin coast,
captured the corn ships, and thus starved Rome into surrender. This
time the captured city was given up to a reign of terror. As Marius
walked through the streets, his guards stabbed all persons whom he
did not salute. Fresh lists were made out every day of those whom he
either feared or hated, as victims for the dagger. Marius and Cinna
declared themselves consuls for B. C. 86, in contempt of the usual form
of election. But the unrelenting master of Rome did not long enjoy his
seventh consulship, which he had all his life superstitiously expected,
and now so unscrupulously obtained. He died on the eighteenth day of his
magistracy, and in the seventy-first year of his age.
=142.= Sulla had brought the Mithridatic War to a victorious conclusion,
having conducted five difficult and costly campaigns at his own expense,
and recovered for Rome the revolted territories of Greece, Macedonia, and
Asia Minor. But he never forgot that the Republic which he was serving
had declared him a public enemy, confiscated his wealth, and murdered his
best friends for their adherence to him. If his vengeance was delayed, it
was only the more bitter and effectual. He now returned with a powerful
army devotedly attached to his person, and laden with treasure collected
from the conquered cities of Asia.
To disarm the enmity of the Italians, who formed the most valuable part
of his opponents’ forces, he proclaimed that he would not interfere with
the rights of any citizen, old or new. He suffered no injury to be done
to either the towns or fields of the Italians, and he made separate
treaties with many of their cities, by which he guaranteed their full
enjoyment of Roman privileges so long as they should favor his interests.
The Samnites alone held out against Sulla, and in concert with the Marian
party renewed their old hostilities. Cinna was murdered by his own
troops, on his way to meet Sulla in Dalma´tia.
=143.= Landing at Brundis´ium, Sulla marched without opposition through
Calabria, Apulia, and Campania; defeated one consul near Capua, and won
over the entire army of the other by means of emissaries well supplied
with gold. He was reinforced by three legions, under Cneius Pompey, and
by the adherence of many distinguished citizens, among whom were Metellus
Pius, Crassus, and Lucullus. He was still outnumbered by the Marians,
who, in 82 B. C., brought into the field an army of 200,000 men, under
the two consuls Papir´ius Carbo and the younger Marius. The latter was
defeated, however, with great loss at Sacripor´tus, and took refuge in
Præneste, where he had deposited his military chest, enriched by the
treasures of the Capitoline temples. This town was blockaded, while Sulla
marched upon Rome. Marius had secretly ordered his partisans in the city
to put to death the most illustrious of the Cornelian faction; and thus
perished the pontifex maximus, and many others whose sacred office or
exalted character would, in more virtuous times, have made them secure
from violence.
=144.= The army of Samnites and Lucanians, by the request of Marius,
moved toward Rome, Telesi´nus, their leader, declaring that he would raze
the city to the ground. A furious battle was fought near the Colline
Gate, in which Sulla was victorious; and, with a cold-blooded ferocity
too common in those fearful times, ordered 6,000 prisoners to be cut to
pieces in the Campus Martius. Sulla was now master of Rome and of Italy,
and his vengeance had begun. A “proscription list” of his enemies was
exhibited in the Forum, and a reward of two talents was offered to all
who would kill these outlawed persons, or even show the place of their
concealment. As usual, private hatred and even the meanest avarice found
indulgence under the name of political enmity. Any friend of Sulla was
permitted to add names to the list; and as the property of the proscribed
usually went to his accuser, the possession of a house, a field, or even
a piece of silver plate was often enough to mark a man as a public enemy.
Sulla was appointed dictator, with unlimited power to “restore order to
the Republic.” The constitutional changes which he made, were designed
to re-instate the Senate and nobles in the preëminence which they had
enjoyed in the earliest years after the expulsion of the kings. He
limited the sway of the tribunes of the people, and lowered the dignity
of their office by prohibiting those who had held it from becoming
consuls. Though himself a man of dissolute morals, Sulla clearly saw
that the worst miseries of the Roman people proceeded from their own
corruption, and he tried to check luxury and crime by the most stringent
enactments. But the attempt was hopeless; the character of the nation was
so far degraded that no rank or class was fit to rule, and its subjection
to the will of a tyrant had become a necessity.
=145.= Sulla increased the number of the Senate by 300 new members chosen
from the knights, all, of course, adherents of his own. He gained, also,
a sort of body-guard, by giving the rights of citizenship to 10,000
slaves of those whom he had proscribed. These freedmen all received
his own clan-name, Cornelius, and became his clients. He rewarded his
veterans with the confiscated lands of the Marian party, thus replacing
honest and industrious farmers with too often lawless and thriftless
military communities. When Sulla had held the dictatorship three years,
he surprised the world by suddenly resigning it, and retiring to his
country-seat at Pute´oli. Here he devoted his days to the amusements of
literature, mingled, unhappily, with less ennobling pleasures. He died B.
C. 78, the year following his abdication. Two days before his death he
completed the history of his own life and times, in twenty-two volumes,
in which he recorded the prediction of a Chaldæan soothsayer, that he
should die, after a happy life, at the very height of his prosperity.
=146.= A remnant of the Marian faction still held out in the west of
Spain. Sertorius had been sent to command that province, chiefly because,
as the most honest and keen-sighted of the Marians, he was troublesome to
his brother officers. During the proscription by Sulla, he was joined
by many exiles, who aided him in drilling the native troops. Though
driven for a time into Africa by the proconsul An´nius, he returned,
upon the invitation of the Lusitanians, with a Libyan and Moorish army,
which defeated the fleet of Sulla in the Straits of Gibraltar, and his
land forces near the Guadalquivir. All Roman Spain became subject to
Sertorius. With the aid of Cilician pirates, he captured the islands of
Ivi´ca and Formente´ra. He formed a government, in which the senate was
composed only of Romans; but he distinguished the native Spaniards by
many marks of favor, and won their confidence not only by his brilliant
genius, but by his perfect justice in the administration of their affairs.
=147.= Metellus, Sulla’s colleague in the consulship, who commanded his
armies in Spain, was completely baffled by the unwearied activity and
superior knowledge of the country displayed by Sertorius. At length
Cneius Pompey, who had already, in his thirtieth year, gained the title
of Great, and the honor of a triumph for his victories over the allies of
the Marians in Africa, was sent into Spain with the title of proconsul,
to share the command with Metellus. His military skill far surpassed that
of his predecessors, but for five years the war was still dragged out
with more loss and vexation than success.
At last, Sertorius was murdered by one of his own officers, a man of
high birth, who envied the ascendency of genius and integrity, and hoped
by removing his general to open the way to his own advancement. He was
totally defeated and captured by Pompey in the first battle which he
fought as commander-in-chief; and though he tried to save his life by
giving up the papers of Sertorius, and thus betraying the secrets of his
party in Rome, he was ordered to instant execution, B. C. 72.
=148.= The Spanish war was now ended, but a nearer and greater danger
threatened Rome. The pride and luxury fed by foreign conquest had brought
no increase of refinement to the common people; and their favorite
amusement for festal days was to see the bravest captives, taken in war
and trained for the purpose, slaughter each other in the amphitheater.
The ædiles, who provided the public shows, vied with each other in the
numbers and training of the gladiators, whom they either bought or hired
from their owners for exhibition. Among the unhappy men who were under
training in the school at Capua, was a Thracian peasant named Spar´tacus.
His soul revolted against the beastly fate to which he was doomed, and
he communicated his spirit to seventy of his comrades. Forcibly breaking
bounds, they passed out at the gates of Capua, seized upon the road some
wagon-loads of gladiators’ weapons, and took refuge in an extinct crater
of Vesuvius. They defeated 3,000 soldiers who besieged them, and armed
themselves more effectively with the spoils of the slain.
Spartacus proclaimed freedom to all slaves who would join him. The
half-savage herdsmen of the Bruttian and Lucanian mountains sprang to
arms at his call, and the number of insurgents quickly rose to 40,000.
They defeated two legions under the prætor Varinius, stormed and
plundered Thurii and Metapon´tum, Nola and Nuce´ria, and many other towns
of southern Italy. In the second year their forces were increased to
100,000 men, and they defeated successively two consuls, two prætors, and
the governor of Cisalpine Gaul. All Italy, from the Alps to the Straits
of Messana, quaked at the name of Spartacus, as it had done, more than a
hundred years before, at that of Hannibal; but it only proved the decay
of Roman character, that a mere bandit chief could accomplish what had
once taxed the genius of the greatest general whom the world had yet
produced.
=149.= Spartacus, however, saw clearly that in the end the organized
power and resources of Rome must be superior to his own, and he only
proposed to his followers to fight their way to and beyond the Alps,
and then disperse to their homes; but the insurgents, spoiled with
success, refused to leave Italy, and turned again to the south. Their
winter-quarters, near Thurii, were like an immense fair crowded with
the plunder of the whole peninsula, which merchants from far and near
assembled to buy. Spartacus refused gold or silver, and took in exchange
only iron or brass, which he converted into weapons of war by means of
foundries established in his camp. In the panic which pervaded Rome, no
one was willing to offer himself for the office of prætor. At length,
Licinius Crassus accepted the appointment, and led eight legions into the
field.
=150.= Spartacus was twice defeated, and driven to the southern point of
Bruttium. Thence he tried to escape into Sicily, where the servile war
was still smoldering and ready to be rekindled, and where, by holding the
grain fields, he could soon have raised a bread-riot among the hungry
mob of Rome. But the Cilician pirates, who had engaged to transport him,
proved treacherous; and his attempt to convey his army across the straits
on rafts and wicker boats was ineffectual. He then, in despair, broke the
lines of Crassus, and once more threw Rome into great consternation.
But the same jealousies which had scattered the forces of Greeks and
Romans, doomed the barbarians, also, to destruction. Thirty thousand
Gauls separated themselves from Spartacus and his Thracians, and were
totally destroyed near Crotona. The final encounter took place on the
head-waters of the Silarus. Spartacus fell desperately fighting, and his
army was destroyed. Only 5,000 of his men made their way to the north of
Italy, where they were met by Pompey on his return from Spain, and all
put to the sword. The 6,000 prisoners taken by Crassus were crucified
along the Appian Way.
=151.= The two triumphant generals, Pompey and Crassus, demanded the
consulship as their reward. To attain this, it was needful to set aside
some of the Sullæan laws, for Pompey had neither reached the required
age nor passed through the preliminary offices. But the deliverers of
Rome could not ask in vain. On Dec. 31, B. C. 71, Pompey triumphed a
second time for his victories in Spain; the next day, Jan. 1, B. C.
70, he entered on the duties of his consulship with Licinius Crassus.
Though formerly a chief instrument of the oligarchy under Sulla, Pompey
now attached himself to the democratic party, more especially to the
wealthy middle class. He restored to the tribunes of the people the power
which Sulla had taken away, and caused judges to be chosen no longer
exclusively from the Senate, but in equal proportions from the Senate,
the knights, and the tribunes of the treasury—a class of moneyed men who
collected and paid the revenues due to the soldiers.
Reform in the government of the provinces was a rallying cry of the new
party, and the year of Pompey’s consulate was marked by the prosecution
of Verres, ex-prætor of Syracuse, for his shameless robbery of the
province of Sicily. The impeachment was conducted by Marcus Tullius
Cicero, the great lawyer and orator, whose wonderful learning and
eloquence had already made him illustrious. Cicero was allowed one
hundred and ten days to collect evidence of Verres’s guilt. In less
than half the time he returned from Sicily, followed by a long train of
witnesses, whose fortunes had been ruined by the fraud and inhumanity of
the prætor. Verres himself had been heard to boast that he had amassed
wealth enough to support a life-time of luxury, even if he should spend
two-thirds of his ill-gotten gains in hushing inquiry or in buying a
pardon; and the unhappy provincials plainly declared that, if he were
acquitted, they would petition the Senate to repeal all the laws against
official injustice, that in future their governors might, at least, only
plunder to enrich themselves, and not to bribe their judges. But Verres
was condemned, and not even awaiting his sentence, escaped with his
treasures to Massilia.
=152.= At the end of his consulship, Pompey did not accept a province,
but remained quietly in Rome, taking no part in public affairs. An
increasing danger soon demanded the exercise of his talents. Since the
destruction of the naval power of Carthage, Syria, and Egypt, the pirates
of the Cilician coast had cruised unchecked throughout the Mediterranean,
and had even been encouraged by Mithridates and Sertorius in their enmity
against Rome. They captured the corn-ships, plundered the wealthiest
cities, and even attacked Roman dignity in its most imposing form, by
carrying off great magistrates, with their trains of attendants, from the
Appian Way.
The crisis demanded extraordinary measures, and, in B. C. 67, Pompey was
intrusted with absolute and irresponsible control of the Mediterranean,
with a district extending fifty miles inland from its coasts, and with
unlimited command of ships, money, and men. The price of provisions fell
instantly upon his appointment, showing the confidence which his great
ability had inspired. In forty days he had swept the western sea, and
restored the broken communication between Italy, Africa, and Spain. Then
sailing from Brundisium, he cleared the sea to the eastward, hunting the
corsairs from all their inlets by means of the several squadrons under
his fifteen lieutenants, and winning many to voluntary submission by his
merciful treatment of the prisoners who fell into his hands.
The final battle took place near the Cilician coast, above which, on
the heights of Mount Taurus, the pirates had placed their families and
their plunder. They were defeated; 10,000 men were slain, their arsenals,
magazines, and 1,300 vessels destroyed, while 400 ships and 20,000
prisoners were taken. Pompey showed no less wisdom in disposing of his
captives than energy in defeating them. They were settled in isolated
towns, and provided with honest employment; and as a result of the short
and decisive conflict of three months, the Mediterranean remained safe
and open to peaceful traffic for many years.
=153.= The Mithridatic War, though conducted with great ability by
Lucullus, had become disastrous to the Romans; and a new law, proposed
by Manil´ius, now extended Pompey’s jurisdiction over all the forces
in Asia, with power to make war, peace, or alliance with the several
kings at his own discretion. Within a year, B. C. 66, he received the
submission of the king of Armenia, and drove Mithridates beyond the
Cau´casus. He deposed the last of the Seleucidæ, and placed Syria, as
well as Pontus and Bithynia, under provincial management.
As centers of Roman or Greek civilization, he founded thirty-nine new
cities, beside rebuilding or reviving many old ones. Among the former
was Nicop´olis—“the city of victory”—which he caused to be built as a
home for his veteran soldiers, on the site of the decisive overthrow of
Mithridates. He subdued Phœnicia and Palestine, B. C. 63, captured the
temple-fortress of Jerusalem by a siege of three months, and established
Hyrcanus as “high priest and ruler of the people.” The next year he
returned to Italy in a long triumphal procession.
RECAPITULATION.
Death of Drusus is followed by the Social War, in the
victorious ending of which Sulla gains great glory. Marius
interferes by violence with his appointment to command in the
war against Pontus. Sulla overpowers the city by his legions,
and Marius becomes an exile. After Sulla’s departure he
returns, captures Rome, and massacres his opponents, but dies
soon after the beginning of his seventh consulship. Sulla,
returning triumphant from the East, defeats the new consuls and
their allies, and by his proscriptions makes havoc with life
and property at Rome. As dictator, he restores the aristocratic
government of the early Republic. He dies in retirement, B.
C. 78. Sertorius, ten years sovereign in Spain, is opposed by
Pompey, and murdered, B. C. 72. War of the gladiators, under
Spartacus, fills all Italy with terror, B. C. 73-71. It is
ended by Crassus, who, with Pompey the Great, becomes consul
for B. C. 70. Cicero impeaches Verres for extortion in Sicily.
Pompey, intrusted with extraordinary powers by the Gabinian
law, destroys the Cilician pirates; then completes the Pontic
War, and establishes Roman dominion in western Asia.
CONQUESTS OF JULIUS CÆSAR.
=154.= Rome, meanwhile, had narrowly escaped ruin from the iniquitous
schemes of one of her own nobles. L. Ser´gius Catili´na, a man of ancient
family, but worthless character and ruined fortunes, seized the time
when all the troops were absent from Italy, to plot with other nobles,
as wicked and turbulent as himself, for the overthrow of the government.
The new consuls were to be murdered on the day of their inauguration.
Catiline and Autro´nius were to take the supreme command in Italy, and
Piso was to lead an army into Spain. The first plot failed through
the imprudence of its leader; but a second, of still bolder and more
comprehensive character, was formed. Eleven senators were drawn into the
conspiracy; magazines of arms were formed, and troops levied in various
parts of the peninsula. The wide-spread discontent of the people with the
existing government aided the success of the movement; and, in the end,
slaves, gladiators, and even criminals from the common prisons, were to
be liberated and armed.
The secret was kept by a vast number of persons for eighteen months, but
the main features of the plot were at length made known to Cicero, then
consul, and by his vigilance and prudence it was completely foiled. He
confronted Catiline in the Senate—where the arch conspirator had the
boldness to take his usual place—with an oration, in which he laid open
with unsparing vehemence the minutest circumstances of the plot. The
convicted ringleader fled from Rome in the night, and placed himself
at the head of his two legions, hoping yet to strike an effective blow
before the levies ordered by the Senate could be fit for service. His
chief accomplices were seized and strangled in prison, by order of the
Senate, while he himself was followed and defeated in Etruria by the
proconsul Antonius. The battle was decisive. Catiline fell fighting far
in advance of his troops, and 3,000 of his followers perished with him.
No free Roman was taken alive. B. C. 62.
=155.= Though this daring conspiracy was thus happily crushed, the
weakness and disorder of society alarmed the best and wisest citizens.
It was feared that some man of commanding talent might yet succeed where
Catiline had failed, and overthrow the liberties of Rome. Pompey, now
returning with his victorious legions from the East, was the immediate
object of dread to the Senate and aristocratic party. But he quieted
apprehension by disbanding his army as soon as he touched the soil of
Italy, and proceeded slowly to Rome accompanied by only a few friends.
They could not refuse his claim to a triumph, and from the number and
extent of his victories, this pageant was the most imposing that Rome
had ever seen. Although there was no army to lengthen the procession,
it occupied two days in passing through the city. The inscriptions
enumerated 22 kings and 12,000,000 of people as conquered; 800 ships,
nearly 900 towns, and 1,000 fortresses taken; and the Roman revenues
nearly doubled.
By an unusual act of clemency, Pompey spared the lives of all his
captives, and dismissed to their homes all except Aristobulus, of Judæa,
and the young Tigranes, of Armenia, who were detained lest they should
stir up revolts in their respective countries. But though the aristocrats
of the Senate had taken part in the public honors paid to Pompey, they
could not forget that his appointment in the East had been in defiance
of their opposition. His demands of allotments of land to his veterans,
and for himself a second consulship and the ratification of his official
acts, were refused; and Pompey, to redeem his pledges to his soldiers,
now made an alliance with an abler man, and one far more dangerous to
the old order of things—if the Senate could but have foreseen it—than
himself. B. C. 60.
=156.= Caius Julius Cæsar had been proscribed in his eighteenth year,
because he had refused to put away his young wife, Cornelia, the daughter
of Cinna, at the command of Sulla. He was for a time a fugitive in danger
of death, but his friends at length, with great difficulty, procured his
pardon from the dictator, on the plea of his youth and insignificance.
Sulla was more discerning; he remarked, “That boy will some day be the
ruin of the aristocracy, for there are many Marii in him.”
Upon the death of his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius, Cæsar defied
the law which had pronounced her husband an enemy of the state, by
causing his waxen image to be carried in the funeral procession. It was
welcomed by the people with loud acclamations. In his ædileship, three
years later—which, in the magnificence of the games celebrated, and the
buildings erected at his own expense, surpassed all that had preceded
it—Cæsar ventured upon a bolder step. He replaced in the Capitol,
during one night, the statues of Marius, and the representations of his
victories in Africa and Gaul, which had been removed by Sulla. When
morning dawned, the common people and the veterans of Marius wept and
shouted for joy at the re-appearance of the well-known features, and
greeted Cæsar with rapturous applause. Though formally accused in the
Senate of violating a law, he could not be condemned against the voice of
the people.
=157.= Dignities and honors followed in rapid succession. He became
pontifex maximus in 63 B. C.; prætor, in 62; and at the end of his
prætorship he obtained the government of Farther Spain. In this first
military command he acquired not only wealth for himself and his
soldiers, but great reputation by subduing the Lusitanian mountaineers.
On his return, he desired both a triumph and the consulship; but he could
not obtain the one if he entered the city before it was decreed, nor the
other without being personally present at the approaching election; so he
abandoned the showy for the solid advantage, and was duly chosen consul,
with Bib´ulus, a tool of the Senate, for his colleague.
=158.= He now managed to detach Pompey from the senatorial party, and
form with him and Crassus a _triumvirate_, which, though only a secret
agreement, not a public magistracy, ruled the Roman world for several
years. The power of Crassus was due to his enormous wealth; that of
Pompey, to his great military services; and that of Cæsar, to his
unequaled genius and unbounded popularity. Their combined influence was
soon felt in the official acts of Cæsar. He brought forward an Agrarian
law for dividing the rich public lands of Campania among the poorest
citizens. It was passed against the violent opposition of Bibulus and all
the aristocratic party; a commission of twenty, with Pompey and Crassus
at its head, was appointed to divide the lands, and the veterans thus
obtained most of their claims.
The defeated consul, who had declared that he would rather die than
yield, now shut himself up in his house, and never re-appeared in public
until his year of office had expired. Cæsar obtained a ratification of
all Pompey’s acts in Asia, and, at the same time, attached the equites to
his party, by giving them more favorable terms in farming the provincial
revenues. At the close of his consulship he obtained the government of
Illyricum and Gaul, on both sides of the Alps, for a term of five years,
with a general commission to “protect the friends and allies of the Roman
people.”
=159.= The religious and national bond between the many Celtic tribes
which inhabited the ancient territories of Britain, Belgium, France,
Switzerland, and a part of Spain, was strong enough to unite them, now
and then, in resistance to their common enemies, the Germans on the north
and the Romans on the south, but not strong enough to prevent rivalries
among themselves, which often gave the foreign power room to interfere
in their affairs. The Roman province, founded B. C. 121, now extended
northward along the Rhone as far as Geneva; and a great emigration of
Germans had occupied territories west of the Rhine, from the neighborhood
of the modern Strasbourg to the German Ocean.
=160.= During his first summer in Gaul, Cæsar, by the extraordinary
swiftness and decision of his movements, subdued two nations and
established Roman supremacy in the center of the country. The Helvetii,
who lived between Lake Geneva and the Jura, finding themselves in too
narrow quarters, had resolved to emigrate and conquer new habitations to
the westward. They burned their twelve towns and four hundred villages,
and assembled at Geneva to the number of 368,000 persons, men, women,
and children, intending to pass through the Roman province into western
Gaul. Cæsar prevented this move by a wall nineteen miles in length,
which he extended along the left bank of the Rhone; and bringing up
three legions from Italy, he followed the Helvetians along their second
route, and defeated them near Bibrac´te. The remnant of the nation—less
than one-third of the number on their muster-rolls when the migration
began—were ordered back to their native hills.
The Seq´uani, a Celtic tribe north of the Helvetii, had called in
Ariovis´tus, the most powerful of the German chiefs, against their rivals
the Ædui, who were styled allies and kinsmen of the Romans. Having
subdued the Ædui, Ariovistus turned upon his late allies, and demanded
two-thirds of their lands in payment for his services. All the Gauls
begged aid of Cæsar, who met the German prince near the Rhine, in what
is now Alsace. So great was the fame of Ariovistus and his gigantic
barbarians, who for fourteen years had not slept under a roof, that the
Roman soldiers were afraid to fight; and though shamed out of their
cowardice by the stirring appeal of their general, every man made his
will before going into battle. The result of the combat was the complete
destruction of the German host, only Ariovistus and a few followers
escaping across the Rhine.
=161.= The second year, Cæsar conquered the Belgians north of the Seine,
and the Senate decreed a public thanksgiving of fifteen days for the
subjugation of Gaul. His lieutenant, Decimus Brutus, fought the first
naval battle on the Atlantic, with the high-built sailing vessels of the
Celts. The maritime tribes revolting the following winter, were subdued;
and but for a few brief rebellions, the territories of France and Belgium
remained under Roman dominion. Cæsar repaired each winter to his province
of Cisalpine Gaul, to watch affairs in Italy. In 56 B. C., he had to
reconcile Pompey with Crassus, and re-arrange, in his camp at Luca, the
affairs of the triumvirate.
It was agreed that Pompey and Crassus should be consuls the next year,
and that, after their term had expired, the former should govern Spain,
and the latter Asia, while the proconsular government of Cæsar in Gaul
should be prolonged to a second term of five years. In choosing the most
arduous and least lucrative province for himself, Cæsar wished to begin
the execution of his great scheme for civilizing the West, and organizing
the whole Roman dominion into one compact state. The revolution begun by
the Gracchi was not yet completed, and it was easy to see that the strife
of parties must come again to the sword, as it had in the time of Marius
and Sulla. In such a case, Cæsar desired to be near Italy, and to have an
army trained to perfect discipline and devotion to himself.
=162.= In the fourth year, B. C. 55, he threw a bridge across the Rhine
and invaded Germany. Late in the autumn, he made a reconnoitering
expedition to Britain, and received hostages from the tribes. This
time the Senate decreed twenty days’ thanksgiving, though Cato stoutly
insisted that Cæsar ought, rather, to be given up to the vengeance of
the barbarians, to avert the anger of the gods for his having seized the
German embassadors. The next year, B. C. 54, Cæsar again invaded Britain
with five legions. Notwithstanding the brave resistance of a native
chief, Cas´sivelau´nus, he penetrated north of the Thames, took hostages,
and imposed tribute; but he left no military posts to hold the island in
subjection.
A formidable revolt of the Gauls, the following winter, destroyed one of
the six divisions of the Roman army, and imperiled another, commanded by
Quintus Cicero, brother of the orator. Cæsar came to its relief, defeated
60,000 of the enemy, and restored quietness to the north. The Germans
having aided in this revolt, he again crossed the Rhine near Coblentz, in
the summer of 53 B. C. He fought no battles, for the people took refuge
among their wooded hills; but the invasion served, as before, to make an
imposing display of Roman power.
=163.= The following year, Gaul was every-where in a blaze of revolt,
and the campaign was the most difficult and brilliant of all Cæsar’s
operations. Ver´cinget´orix, king of the Arver´ni, and the ablest of the
Gallic chieftains, stirred up all the tribes, and nearly wrested the
country from Roman control. While Cæsar was besieging him in Ale´sia, a
Gallic army of more than a quarter of a million of men encamped around
the Romans and besieged them in turn. But the genius of the proconsul
surmounted even this crisis. He kept down all attempts at sortie, while
he defeated the outer army; then forced the town to surrender, and
captured Vercingetorix himself. Six years later, the Gallic chief adorned
the triumph of Cæsar, and was then executed in the Mamertine prison at
the foot of the Capitol. The Gauls now saw that resistance was hopeless.
The firm and skillful management of Cæsar in pacifying the country
and organizing the Roman rule, completed the work that his brilliant
victories had prepared; and by the year 50 B. C., Gaul was at peace.
=164.= Meanwhile, Crassus, fearing that his colleagues would reap all
the warlike glory of the league, undertook, after plundering the temples
of the East, to make war against Parthia—a war unprovoked by the enemy,
unauthorized by the Senate, and unwarranted by his own abilities.
Contrary to advice, he plunged into the hot and sandy desert east of the
Euphrates, lost the greater part of his army in a battle near Carrhæ (the
Haran of Abraham), and was himself slain, soon after, by the treachery of
the Parthian general, B. C. 53.
Pompey, now sole consul, no longer pretended any friendship for Cæsar.
The conqueror of Mithridates and the Cilician pirates did not fancy that
he could be eclipsed by any man; and the relationship between them was
lately dissolved by the death of Julia, the daughter of Cæsar, who had
been the wife of Pompey. The enemies of the former obtained a decree of
the Senate requiring him to surrender his proconsular power, and return
to Rome before becoming candidate for a second consulship. Cato had
declared that he would prosecute Cæsar for capital offenses as soon as he
should resign his command.
It could hardly have been expected that the governor of Gaul would quit
his devoted legions, and all the treasures of the conquered province, to
place himself unarmed at the mercy of his enemies. Such virtue had been
known in the days of Curtius, but self-surrender for the public good had
ceased to be fashionable at Rome. Moreover, Cæsar may well have doubted
whether the sacrifice of his life would promote the public interests.
The Romans required a master; and his own plans for building up a great
empire from the scattered fragments of provinces, by extending equal
rights to all the conquered peoples, were doubtless the most enlarged and
beneficent that had yet been formed. He believed that the great interests
of Rome were consistent with his own.
=165.= His enemies lost no opportunity to deprive him of resources. Under
pretext of a war with Parthia, the two former colleagues of Crassus
were required to furnish each one legion to be sent to Asia. Pompey had
formerly lent a legion to Cæsar, and now demanded its return. Cæsar
dismissed the two legions, giving to each man his share of the treasure
which was to be distributed at his approaching triumph. He wrote at the
same time to the Senate, offering to resign his command if Pompey would
do the same, but not otherwise. The two legions were kept in Italy. After
a violent debate, it was enacted that Cæsar should, without conditions,
disband his army on a certain day, under penalty of being declared an
enemy of the state. The tribunes, Antonius and Cassius, vetoed the
motion, but their veto was set aside; and believing their lives in
danger, they fled to Cæsar’s camp at Raven´na.
RECAPITULATION.
Catiline’s deep-laid conspiracy is defeated by Cicero, and its
lender slain in battle. Pompey disbands his army and triumphs
for his conquests in Asia. He forms with Cæsar, now consul, and
Crassus, the first triumvirate. The next year, B. C. 58, Cæsar,
as proconsul, assumes the command in Gaul; subdues the Helvetii
and the Germans, under Ariovistus, in one campaign; afterward
conquers the Belgæ; twice bridges the Rhine and ravages
Germany; twice invades Britain; suppresses revolts in Gaul,
and organizes the whole country into a peaceful and permanent
part of the Roman dominion. Crassus, in Asia, is overwhelmingly
defeated, with the loss of his army and his life, B. C. 53.
Pompey breaks with Cæsar, and becomes the champion of the
Senate.
CÆSAR MASTER OF ROME.
=166.= It was time for decisive action. Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, a
little river which separated his province from Roman Italy, and advanced
with one legion, the troops in Gaul having received orders to follow
without delay. To enter the country without resigning his command was
itself a declaration of war. Panic seized Rome, and the Senate fled,
leaving the public treasures behind. Fifteen thousand recruits, destined
for Pompey’s army, seized their officers and handed them over, with
themselves and the town Corfin´ium, where they were quartered, to Cæsar.
Other bodies of recruits followed their example. Pompey, having lost more
than half his ten legions, retired to Brundisium; and though besieged by
Cæsar, succeeded in escaping with 25,000 men to Greece.
The Roman world was now really divided between the two generals. Pompey
controlled Spain, Africa, and the East, and hoped, by commanding the sea
and the corn islands, to starve Italy into surrender. Cæsar had only
Italy, Illyricum, and Gaul. If Pompey had acted with energy, he might
speedily have created an army in the East and regained Rome, but by
delay he allowed Cæsar to attack his provinces in detail, and wrest the
entire empire from his grasp. The emigrated nobles assembled themselves
at Thessalonica and re-organized a senate, in which they made a vain show
of keeping up the constitutional forms, while, by their petty jealousies,
they hampered every movement of their general-in-chief.
=167.= Cu´rio, the ablest of Cæsar’s lieutenants, captured Sicily, and
thus averted famine from Rome. In Africa he was less fortunate. Drawn
into an unexpected combat with the whole army of King Juba, he was
defeated, and chose to be slain rather than meet his general in disgrace.
Instead of the anarchy and general proscription which his enemies had
predicted, Cæsar soon restored order in Italy, and universal confidence,
by the moderation and forbearance of his conduct. Friends and foes were
equally protected. The moneyed class, which had most to gain from a
settled government, came over to the side of Cæsar, and the “rich lords
resumed their daily task of writing their rent-rolls.”
His first foreign enterprise was against Spain, where Pompey had seven
legions. It was conquered by a severe and toilsome campaign of forty
days. Returning through Gaul, Cæsar received the surrender of Massilia,
and learned of his appointment to the dictatorship at Rome. He held this
high office only eleven days, but long enough to preside at the election
of consuls, in which he himself, of course, received the greatest number
of votes; to pass laws relieving debtors, and restoring to the enjoyment
of their estates the descendants of those whom Sulla had proscribed; and
to begin his scheme of consolidating the provinces, by granting the full
rights of Roman citizenship to the Gauls.
=168.= As consul, he then led his army to Brundisium and crossed into
Greece. Pompey had assembled from the eastern countries a great army and
fleet, the latter of which commanded the sea, and seemed to forbid the
passage of Cæsar. But Bibulus, the admiral, confiding in his superior
numbers and the wintry season, was off his guard until seven legions were
landed in Epirus. The attempt to capture Pompey’s camp and treasures, at
Dyrra´chium, failed; but the vain confidence inspired by their partial
success, in the proud and frivolous young nobles of the refugee party,
eventually proved their ruin.
Cæsar was, indeed, in a perilous position; his fleet was destroyed,
and he was cut off in a hostile country where food must soon fail.
Nevertheless, with his usual good fortune or consummate skill, he
contrived to draw his victorious enemy after him to the interior of the
country, where Pompey’s fleet gave him no advantage, and then to choose
his own battle-field at Pharsa´lia, in Thessaly. The army of Pompey, in
horse and foot, numbered 54,000 men; that of Cæsar, scarcely more than
22,000. The former was abundantly supplied both with provisions and
military materials, while the latter was near the point of starvation,
and compelled to stake its existence on one desperate venture. So certain
did the result appear, that the patricians in Pompey’s camp were already
disputing among themselves the succession to Cæsar’s pontificate.
=169.= On the 9th of August, B. C. 48, the Pompeians crossed the river
which separated the two camps, and with their cavalry commenced the
attack. Cæsar’s horsemen were driven in, but a picked troop of his
legionaries, tried on a hundred Gallic fields, unexpectedly charged the
assailants. Their orders were to aim their javelins at the enemies’
faces. Confused by this novel attack, the cavalry turned and fled; and
Pompey, who had been urged by the reproaches of his self-appointed
counselors to give battle, contrary to his better judgment, and who had
never shared their confidence, did not wait to see the general attack,
but galloped away to his camp.
His army was completely routed; 15,000 lay dead upon the field, and
20,000 surrendered on the morning after the battle. Many of the
aristocracy hastened to make their peace with the conqueror; the
“irreconcilables” either betook themselves to the mountains or the sea,
to carry on for years a predatory warfare; or to Africa, where King Juba,
of Numidia, perceiving that Cæsar’s consolidating policy would deprive
him of his kingdom, still stood firmly on the Pompeian side. The other
client-states withdrew their quotas of ships and men as soon as they saw
that Pompey’s cause was lost.
=170.= Pompey fled to Egypt. The young queen, Cleopatra, was now in
Syria, having been driven from her kingdom by her brother’s guardian,
Pothi´nus, who was with an army holding the eastern frontier against
her. The perfidious statesmen who surrounded the king, sent out a boat
inviting the illustrious fugitive to land; but just as he had reached
the shore, he was stabbed by a former centurion of his own, who was now
in the service of Ptolemy. Pompey perceived his fate; without a word,
he covered his face with his toga, and submitted to the swords of his
executioners. His head was cut off, and his body cast out upon the sand,
where it was buried by one of his own attendants.
Cæsar soon arrived in pursuit; but when the ghastly head was presented
to him, he turned away weeping, and ordered the murderers to be put to
death. He remained five mouths at Alexandria, regulating the affairs of
the kingdom, which he secured to Cleopatra jointly with her brother. He
thus became involved in war with the people, and in a naval battle was
once compelled to save his life by swimming from ship to ship, holding
his sword in his teeth, and the manuscript of his Commentaries upon the
Gallic Wars in one hand over his head. He was victorious at last, and
Ptolemy was drowned in the Nile.
=171.= Cæsar then turned rapidly toward Asia Minor, where Pharnaces of
Pontus was trying to regain his father’s lost dominions. The Roman army
had been defeated at Nicopolis with great loss, but Cæsar won a decisive
victory at Zie´la, and finished the campaign in five days. It was on this
occasion that he sent to the Senate his memorable dispatch, “Veni, vidi,
vici.”[75] The presence of the chief made a similar transformation of the
war in Africa. The Pompeian party had re-established its senate at Utica,
and during Cæsar’s long delay in Egypt had raised an army fully equal to
that which had been conquered at Pharsalia.
In attempting to carry the war into Africa, Cæsar met an unexpected
obstacle in a mutiny of his veterans in southern Italy. Wearied out with
the unusual hardships of their last campaigns, and imagining that their
general could do nothing without them, they refused to embark for Sicily,
and commenced their march toward Rome. Having provided for the security
of the city, Cæsar suddenly appeared among the legions, and demanded
to know what they wanted. Cries of “discharge!” were heard on every
hand. He took them instantly at their word; and then addressing them as
“citizens,” not as “soldiers,” promised them, at his approaching triumph,
their full share in the treasure and lands which he had destined for his
faithful followers, though in the triumph itself they could, of course,
have no part.
His presence and his voice revived their old affection; they stood mute
and ashamed at the sudden severing of the bond which had been their
only glory in the past. At length they began to beg, even with tears,
that they might be restored to favor, and honored again with the name
of “Cæsar’s soldiers.” After some delay their prayer was granted; the
ring-leaders were only punished by a reduction of one-third in their
triumphal presents, and the revolt was at an end.
=172.= The campaign in Africa was not less difficult than the one in
Greece. The Pompeians were well supplied with cavalry and elephants, and
were able to fight on fields of their own choosing. They gained a battle
near Rus´pina, but in the more decisive conflict at Thapsus, they were
completely overthrown. The soldiers of Cæsar disregarded his orders to
spare their fellow-citizens; they were determined to obtain rest from
war at any cost of Roman blood, and 50,000 Pompeians were left dead upon
the battle-field. Cæsar was now master of all Africa. Cato, commanding
at Utica, provided for the safety of his friends either by flight or
surrender; then shutting himself in his room, read all night the treatise
of Plato on the Immortality of the Soul, and toward morning killed
himself with his own sword.
[Illustration: Coin of Cæsar, enlarged twice the size.]
=173.= Cæsar returned to Rome in possession of absolute power. Instead
of the proscriptions, which, in similar circumstances, had marked the
return of Marius and Sulla, he proclaimed amnesty to all, and sought
to avail himself of the wisdom of all parties in reorganizing civil
affairs. As he had never triumphed, he now celebrated four days for his
victories in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Numidia; but the rejoicings were
only for the conquest of foreign foes, for it was regarded as unseemly to
triumph over Roman citizens. Twenty thousand tables were spread in the
streets and public squares, gifts of grain and money were distributed
among soldiers and people, and the games were celebrated with a splendor
never before approached. Cæsar now applied himself with diligence to
regulate the disorders of the state; and the benefit of one, at least, of
his provisions is felt even to the present day. The reckoning of time,
through the carelessness or corruption of the pontiffs (see § 29), had
fallen into hopeless confusion: harvest festivals took place in spring,
and those of the late vintage at midsummer. Cæsar, as chief pontiff,
reformed the calendar, by adding ninety days to the current year, and
then, with the aid of an Alexandrian astronomer, adapted the reckoning
to the sun’s course. He made the Roman year consist of 365 days, and
added a day every fourth year. The Julian Calendar, with only one
emendation,[76] is that which we now follow. In acknowledgment of his
service in this matter, the Senate ordered the month of Cæsar’s birth to
be called henceforth from his clan-name, July. His successor, Augustus,
on occasion of some trifling improvement in the calendar, gave his own
surname to the following month.
=174.= The Pompeians made one more rally in Spain, but they were defeated
and overthrown by Cæsar, in the severe and decisive battle of Munda,
March 17, B. C. 45. Cneius Pompey, the younger, was slain; his brother
Sextus soon submitted, and received the family estates. He was proscribed
during the disorders which followed the death of Cæsar, and for eight
years kept up a piratical warfare upon the sea. Having settled the
affairs of Spain, Cæsar celebrated a fifth triumph, and was loaded by the
servile Senate with unlimited powers and dignities. He became dictator
and censor for life, the latter office now receiving its new title,
præfecture of morals. He was permitted to make peace or war without
consulting either Senate or people. In his highest and most distinctive
power, that of perpetual imperator, he was to name his successor. His
person was declared sacred, and all the senators bound themselves by oath
to watch over his safety. His statues were ordered to be placed in all
the temples, and his name in civil oaths was associated with those of the
gods.
=175.= Cæsar availed himself of his unprecedented power to plan many
great works of general utility. He projected a much-needed digest of
Roman laws, and the founding of a Latin and Greek library on the model
of that of Alexandria, which had been almost destroyed by fire during
the recent siege. He proposed to turn the course of the Tiber, so as at
once to drain the Pontine marshes, to add to the city an extensive tract
of land available for building, and to connect with Rome the large and
convenient port of Terraci´na, instead of the inferior one of Ostia.
Above all, he desired to substitute a great Mediterranean empire for the
mere city government which, for more than a hundred years, had ruled
Italy and the world. To atone for the narrow policy of municipal Rome,
he rebuilt the two great commercial cities, Carthage and Corinth, which
Roman jealousy had demolished; and he effaced, as far as possible, the
distinctions between Italy and the provinces. In the many colonies which
he founded in Europe, Asia, and Africa, he provided homes for 80,000
emigrants, mostly from the crowded tenement houses of Rome itself.
His plans embraced the varied interests of every class and nation
within the empire, and aimed to reach, by the union of all, a higher
civilization than either had attained alone. In the wildest regions of
Germany, Dalmatia, or Spain, the Roman soldier was followed by the Greek
school-master and the Jewish trader.
=176.= Though occupying the highest rank as a general, Cæsar was more a
statesman than a warrior, and desired to base his government, not upon
military power, but upon the confidence of the people. He was already in
his fortieth year when he first assumed the command of an army. Still,
his great works as a ruler had all to be executed in the brief intervals
of military affairs. The five and a half years which followed his
accession to supreme power were occupied by seven important campaigns;
and he was about undertaking an expedition against Parthia, to avenge the
overthrow of Crassus, when a violent death ended his career. It is said
that he desired, before his departure, to receive the title of king.
A conspiracy had already been formed among his personal enemies. It was
now strengthened by the accession of several honest republicans, who
dreamed that the death of the dictator would restore freedom to the
state. At the festival of the Lupercalia, Feb. 15, B. C. 44, the crown
was offered to Cæsar, by Antony, his colleague in the consulship; but,
perceiving the consternation of the people, he declined it. On the 15th
of the following month, in spite of many warnings, Cæsar repaired to the
Senate-house. He had just taken his seat, when one of the conspirators
stooped and touched his robe. At this signal, Casca stabbed him in the
shoulder; the others thronged around with their drawn swords or daggers.
Instead of the flattering crowd, nothing but murderous faces and the
gleam of steel met his eye on every side. Still he stood at bay, wounding
one assailant with his stylus, throwing back another, and disarming a
third, until he received a wound from the hand of Brutus, whom, though
an adherent of Pompey, he had honored with his confidence and loaded
with benefits. Then drawing his mantle about him, with the reproachful
exclamation, “And _thou_, Brutus!” he fell at the base of Pompey’s statue
and expired.
=177.= Brutus, raising aloft his bloody dagger, cried aloud to Cicero,
“Rejoice, father of our country, for Rome is free!” Never was rejoicing
more unfounded. If Brutus and his accomplices could have restored to the
Roman people the simple and self-denying virtues of the olden time, Rome
would indeed have been free. But Cæsar understood the times better than
his assassins. In cutting off the only man who was capable of ruling with
clear insight, firmness, and beneficence, they had plunged the state
again into the horrors of civil war, and made it the easy prey of a less
able and less liberal despot. Senate and people were at first paralyzed
by the suddenness of the change, and by fear of a return to the old
scenes of proscription. Antony, now sole consul, had time to possess
himself of Cæsar’s papers and treasures; and by his funeral oration over
the body of the dictator—especially by reading his will, in which all
the Roman people were remembered with great liberality—he roused the
indignant passions of the crowd against the murderers.
Antony was for a time the most popular man in Rome, but a rival soon
appeared in the person of Octavia´nus, the grand-nephew and adopted son
of Julius Cæsar. This young man, who had been educated with great care
under the eye of his adoptive father, arrived from the camp at Apollonia
and claimed his inheritance, out of which he carefully distributed the
legacies to soldiers and people. Cicero was led to look upon him as the
hope of the state, and in his third great series of orations, called the
Philip´pics, he destroyed the popularity of Antony and his influence with
the Senate. Two of Antony’s legions deserted to Octavian, and Antony
himself, in two battles, was routed and driven across the Alps.
=178.= The two consuls for the year 43 B. C. were slain in the battle
before Mu´tina. Octavian, returning to Rome, compelled the popular
assembly to elect him to that office, though he was only nineteen years
of age. He was appointed to carry on the war against Antony, who had now
been joined by Lepidus—formerly master of the horse to Julius Cæsar—and
was now descending from the Alps with a formidable army of seventeen
legions. But the Senate, almost equally afraid of Antony and Octavian,
revoked the outlawry of the former; and the latter, disgusted with its
vacillations, resolved upon a league with the two commanders, whose
forces alone could give him victory over the assassins.
On a small island in the Reno, near Bono´nia (Bologna), the three met,
and the Second Triumvirate, of Antony, Cæsar Octavianus, and Lepidus, was
then formed, B. C. 43, proposing to share between them for five years the
government of the Roman world. A proscription followed, in which Cicero,
though the friend of Cæsar, was sacrificed to the hatred of Antony. The
illustrious orator was murdered near his own villa at For´miæ, and his
head and right hand were nailed to the rostrum at Rome, from which he
had so often discoursed of the sacred rights of citizens. Two thousand
knights and three hundred senators perished in this proscription. Those
who could escape took refuge with Sextus Pompey in Sicily, or with Brutus
and Cassius in Greece.
=179.= Antony and Octavian crossed the Adriatic, and defeated the last
of the conspirators in two battles at Philippi, in the autumn of 42 B.
C. Both Brutus and Cassius ended their lives by suicide. Cæsar returned
to Italy, where a new civil war was stirred up by Fulvia, the wife of
Antony, and Lucius, his brother. Lucius Antonius threw himself into
Perusia, where he was besieged and taken by Octavian. The common citizens
were spared, but 300 or 400 nobles were slain at the altar of Julius
Cæsar, on the anniversary of his death, March 15, B. C. 40. Fulvia died
in Greece, and a new agreement between the triumvirs, called the Peace of
Brundisium, was sealed by the marriage of Antony with Octavia, the sister
of the younger Cæsar.
In the new division of the civilized world, Antony received the East;
Octavian, Italy and Spain; and Lepidus, Africa. Sextus Pompey, whose
fleets, commanding the sea, threatened the capital with famine, was
admitted, next year, to a sort of partnership with the triumvirate, in
which he received the islands of the western Mediterranean, on condition
of his supplying Rome with grain. The conditions of this treaty were
never fulfilled, and a two years’ war between Pompey and Octavian was
the result. It was ended B. C. 36, by a great sea-fight off Nau´lochus.
Agrippa, the intimate friend of Cæsar, routed the forces of Pompey, who
fled in despair to Asia, and the following year was captured and put to
death. His land forces, deserted by their leader, prevailed upon Lepidus
to become their general, and declare war against Octavian. But the young
Cæsar acted with an intrepidity worthy of his name. He went unarmed and
almost alone into the camp of Lepidus, and by his eloquence persuaded
them to desert their unworthy commander and be faithful to himself.
=180.= Lepidus being degraded, the two remaining members of the
triumvirate continued three years at the head of affairs. But an alliance
so purely selfish could not be permanent. Antony neglected his noble
wife for the enchantments of the Egyptian queen, on whom he bestowed
Phœnicia, Cœle-Syria, and other dominions of Rome. He wasted the forces
committed to him in expeditions which resulted only in loss and disgrace;
and he laid aside the simple dignity of a Roman citizen for the arrogant
ceremony of an Eastern monarch.
In 32 B. C., war was declared against Cleopatra, and in September of
the following year the forces of the two triumvirs met off Actium, in
Acarnania. Antony had collected a vast fleet and army; but his officers,
disgusted by his weak self-indulgence, were ready to be drawn over to the
side of Octavian. Disheartened by many desertions, Antony took no active
part in the battle, but while those of his forces who still faithfully
adhered to him were fighting bravely in his defense, he drew off with a
portion of his fleet, and followed Cleopatra to Egypt. His land army,
after waiting a week for its fugitive commander, surrendered to Octavian.
From this moment Cæsar was master of the Roman world. The final blow
was given the next year in Egypt, where Antony was defeated before
Alexandria, and deserted by his fleet and army. Cleopatra negotiated to
betray him, but when she found that Octavian wanted to capture her, that
she might adorn his triumph, she ended her life by the poison of an asp.
Antony, in despair, had already killed himself, and Egypt became a Roman
province. Octavian, returning to Rome the following year, celebrated a
three-fold triumph, and the gates of Janus were closed the third time, in
token of universal peace, B. C. 29.
RECAPITULATION.
Cæsar crosses the Rubicon, and in three months becomes master
of Italy. He subdues the Pompeians in Spain, becomes dictator,
and afterward consul; pursues Pompey into Greece; is defeated
at Dyrrhachium, but victorious at Pharsalia, B. C. 48. Pompey
is slain in Egypt. Cæsar re-establishes Cleopatra under the
Roman protectorate; re-conquers Pontus; quells a mutiny in
his Gallic legions, and overthrows the Pompeians at Thapsus,
in Africa. He celebrates four triumphs at Rome; reforms
the calendar; finally crushes the Pompeians in Spain; is
invested with sovereign powers, and organizes a cosmopolitan
empire. On the eve of departure for Asia, he is murdered
in the Senate-house by sixty conspirators. Antony aims to
succeed him, but Octavian receives his inheritance. Antony,
Octavian, and Lepidus form the Second Triumvirate, B. C. 43.
In the proscription which follows, Cicero is killed. Brutus
and Cassius are defeated at Philippi, B. C. 42. A dispute in
the triumvirate is ended by the Peace of Brundisium, and the
marriage of Antony and Octavia. Lepidus is degraded from the
triumvirate, B. C. 35; the two remaining colleagues quarrel,
and the battle of Actium makes Octavian supreme ruler of the
empire, B. C. 31.
III. THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
=181.= FIRST PERIOD, B. C. 31-A. D. 192. The empire founded by Cæsar
Octavianus was an absolute monarchy under the form of a republic. Many
of the high offices, which had been borne by different persons, were
now concentrated in one; but he declined the name dictator, which had
been abused by Marius and Sulla, and was careful to be elected only for
limited periods, and in the regular manner. The title Imperator, which he
bore for life, had always belonged to generals of consular rank during
the time of their command. The name Augustus, by which he is henceforth
to be known, was a title of honor bestowed by the Senate, and made
hereditary in his family. As chief, or “Prince of the Senate,” he had the
right to introduce subjects for discussion; and as pontifex maximus, or
high priest of the state, he had a controlling influence in all sacred
affairs.
He lived in the style of a wealthy senator in his house on the Palatine,
walked abroad without retinue, and carefully avoided kingly pomp. The
popular assemblies still appointed consuls, prætors, quæstors, ædiles,
and tribunes, but the successful candidate was always recommended
by the emperor, if he did not himself accept the appointment. These
old-fashioned dignities were now little more than empty names, the real
power having passed, under Augustus himself, to new officers, especially
to the præfect of the city and the commander of the Prætorian Guard.[77]
The people, meanwhile, were satisfied with liberal distributions of corn,
wine, and oil, and amused by a constant succession of games.
=182.= In seven centuries the Roman dominion had grown from the few
acres on the Palatine Hill, to embrace the Mediterranean with all its
coasts, from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, and from the African Desert
to the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euxine. The twenty-seven provinces,
reorganized by Augustus, were divided between himself and the Senate
according to their condition. Those which were securely at peace were
called Senatorial Provinces, and governed by proconsuls appointed by
the legislative body; those which demanded the presence of an army were
Imperial Provinces, and were managed either by the emperor in person or
by his legates.
The standing army, which maintained order in the entire empire,
consisted, in the time of Augustus, of twenty-five legions, each legion
numbering, in horse, foot, and artillery, a little less than 7,000 men.
This force of 175,000 was distributed along the Rhine, the Danube,
and the Euphrates, or in Britain, Spain, and Africa, according to the
danger from the outer barbarians. While internal peace was maintained by
the wise management of Augustus, the natural boundaries of the empire
above mentioned were only gained and kept by active war. Northern and
north-western Spain, the Alpine provinces of Rhætia and Vindelic´ia, and
the Danubian countries Nor´icum, Panno´nia, and Mœ´sia, required almost
unremitted warfare of more than twenty years, B. C. 12-A. D. 9.
=183.= The Germans, east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, though
often defeated, were never subdued. Drusus, a step-son of Augustus, was
the first Roman general who descended the Rhine to the German Ocean. He
built two bridges and more than fifty fortresses along the river, and
imposed a tribute upon the Frisians north of its mouth. Drusus died in
his third campaign, B. C. 9, and was succeeded by his brother Tiberius,
who after many years, A. D. 4, seemed to have subdued the tribes between
the Rhine and the Elbe.
[Illustration: Coin of Drusus, twice the size of the original.]
But his successor, Qu. Varus, attempted to establish the same arrogant
and arbitrary rule which he had exercised over the slavish Syrians—a
people crushed by nearly two thousand years of despotism, Assyrian,
Egyptian, Persian, and Macedonian. The free-spirited Germans rose in
revolt, under their princely leader, Armin´ius (Herman). Arminius had
been educated at Rome, and had thoroughly learned the tactics of the
legions; but Roman refinement never weakened his German fidelity to
fatherland. Private wrong was now added to national oppression, and he
deeply laid and firmly executed his plan for the destruction of the Roman
army and the deliverance of Germany.
=184.= Varus was enticed into the broken and difficult country of the
Teutoberg´er Wald, at a season when heavy rains had increased the
marshiness of the ground. Barricades of fallen trees blocked his way,
and, in a narrow valley, a hail-storm of javelins burst upon his legions
from the hosts of Arminius. On the next day the battle was renewed, and
the Romans were literally destroyed, for all the captives were sacrificed
upon the altars of the old German divinities. The garrisons throughout
the country were put to the sword, and within a few weeks not a Roman
foot remained on German soil.
The news of the disaster struck Rome with terror. The superstitious
believed that supernatural portents had accompanied the event. The temple
of Mars was struck by a thunderbolt, comets blazed in the sky, and spears
of fire darted from the northward into the prætorian camp. A statue of
Victory, which had stood on the Italian frontier looking toward Germany,
turned of its own accord and faced toward Rome. Augustus, in his grief,
heightened by the weakness of old age, used for months to beat his head
against the wall, exclaiming, “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!”
By the revolt of Arminius, Germany was once and forever freed. Roman
armies were led thither by Germanicus and the younger Drusus, but they
gained no permanent advantages; and by the will of Augustus and the
policy of his successors, the Rhine continued to be regarded as the
frontier until, five centuries later, the tide of conquest turned in the
other direction, and the Teutonic races divided the Roman Empire into the
kingdoms of modern Europe.
=185.= The reign of Augustus was a refreshing contrast to the century
of revolution which had preceded it, for the security and prosperity
that were felt throughout the empire. Commerce revived, agriculture
was greatly improved, and the imperial city was adorned with temples,
porticos, and other new and magnificent buildings. Augustus could truly
boast that he “found Rome of brick and left it of marble.” A more lasting
glory surrounds his name from the literary brilliancy of his court. Livy,
the historian, and Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibul´lus, with other poets,
enjoyed his patronage and celebrated his achievements; and in allusion
to this, the brightest period of every nation’s literature is commonly
called its “Augustan Age.” Augustus had no son, and his choice of an heir
fell upon Tiberius, the son of his wife, Livia, by a former marriage.
By the same arrangement, Germanicus, the son of Drusus, was adopted by
Tiberius, and married to Agrippi´na, granddaughter of Augustus.
=186.= In the 77th year of his age, Augustus closed his long and
wonderfully prosperous reign of forty-five years, A. D. 14. The Senate
and people submitted to his appointed successor. The army would more
willingly have proclaimed its idolized general Germanicus, but the
younger prince absolutely refused to sanction the act. Tiberius, so far
from prizing his fidelity, never forgave his popularity; and the court
soon understood that the surest way to gain the favor of the emperor was
to ill-treat his adopted son.
[Illustration: ROMAN FORUM, UNDER THE EMPERORS.
_Temple of Juno Moneta._ _Tabularium, or Hall of Records._ _Temple of
Concord._ _Temple of Jupiter Tonans._ _Temple of Saturn._ _Temple of
Vespasian._ _Arch of Septimius Severus._ _Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus._
_Julian Basilica._ _Arch of Tiberius._ _Milliarium and Rostra._ _Statue
of Domitian._ _Mamertine Prison._]
The policy of Tiberius was that of many another cowardly and suspicious
tyrant. Conscious of his own unworthiness, either by birth or genius,
of the high place he filled, he saw a rival in every possessor of great
talent or even exalted virtue. He was afraid to call to his assistance
the great patricians or the princes of the Julian house, and he regarded
his own relations with unmingled jealousy. As he found it impossible,
however, to administer alone all the world-embracing affairs of such an
empire, he raised to the post of prætorian præfect a Volsinian knight,
Seja´nus, whom he fancied too mean to be dangerous, but who became, in
fact, the master of the whole dominion.
=187.= Germanicus, meanwhile, conducted three campaigns, A. D. 14-17;
and, after several disasters, gained some important victories over
Arminius, between the Rhine and the Elbe. He was recalled A. D. 17, to
receive the honor of a triumph, and was met, twenty miles from Rome, by
an enthusiastic multitude which had poured forth to welcome him. He was,
indeed, dangerously dear both to his legions and to the common people;
and though he believed that in one year more he could complete the
conquest of Germany, he was now transferred to another army and to the
eastern wars. In his new command he settled the affairs of Armenia, and
organized Cappadocia as a province; but he died A. D. 19, near Antioch in
Syria, believing himself poisoned by Piso, a subordinate, who had been
sent by the emperor with express orders to thwart and injure his chief.
=188.= Drusus, the son of Tiberius, was poisoned by order of Sejanus,
who had the boldness to request permission of the emperor to marry the
widow of his victim. This was refused; but Tiberius, still blinded to the
marvelous ambition of the wretch who ruled him, consented to retire to
Capreæ, and leave Rome in the hands of Sejanus. His time was now given up
to swinish excesses, while his worthless lieutenant maintained for five
years a riot of misrule. His wicked schemes did not spare the best or
noblest of the imperial family; but, at length, he perceived his master’s
suspicion directed toward him, and prepared to anticipate the blow by
assassinating Tiberius himself. His plot was discovered, and he was
suddenly seized and executed, A. D. 31.
The fall of this unworthy favorite took from Tiberius the only man whom
he had ever trusted, and henceforth all were equally the objects of his
fierce and cruel jealousy. Agrippina, the noble wife, as well as Nero,
Drusus, and Livil´la, the unworthy sons and daughter of Germanicus, were
put to death by his orders. Unlike Augustus, who scrupulously kept
within the forms of law, he usurped the right to condemn without trial
all who were obnoxious to him; and he extended the definition of treason
to words and even thoughts. From his island retreat in the beautiful
Bay of Naples, he issued destruction to men, women, and even innocent
children who had the misfortune to be of sufficiently noble birth to
attract his attention. It was a relief to the world when he died from
illness, A. D. 37, at the age of seventy-eight.
=189.= Tiberius had appointed no successor, but Senate, soldiers, and
people united in the choice of Caius Cæsar, the only surviving son
of Germanicus and Agrippina. In his childhood he had been the pet of
the legions in Germany, and from the little military boots (_caligæ_)
which he wore to please them, he acquired the nickname _Caligula_.
This childish appellation is the name by which he is commonly known in
history. Caligula was now twenty-six years of age, and was considered
to be of a mild and generous disposition. The first months of his reign
justified the impression. He released the prisoners and recalled the
exiles of Tiberius, and he restored power to the regular magistrates and
the popular assemblies. But his weak head was turned by the possession
of absolute power, and of the enormous wealth hoarded by Tiberius. In
unbounded self-indulgence, he extinguished the last spark of reason, and
exerted his tremendous power only for mischief, and in the most wild and
reckless manner. Choosing to be considered as a god, he built a temple to
himself, under the name of Jupiter Latiaris; and so servile was Rome now
become, that her noblest citizens purchased the honor of officiating as
priests to this worthless divinity.
The worst abuse of absolute power was shown in contempt for human life.
When the supply of criminals for the public games was exhausted, the
emperor ordered spectators, taken at random from the crowd, to be thrown
to the beasts; and lest they should curse him in their last agonies,
their tongues were first cut out. But this mad career of despotism worked
its own destruction; for, in the fourth year of his reign, and the
thirtieth of his age, Caius Cæsar was murdered by two of his guards.
=190.= The Roman world being thus suddenly without a master, the
prætorians took upon themselves to decide its fate. Finding Claudius,
the uncle of Caligula, a weak and timid old man, hiding himself in the
palace, they saluted him as emperor, and hurried him away to their camp,
where he received the oaths of allegiance. Considered from childhood
as lacking in intellect, Claudius had been treated by his relatives
with a contempt, and by his servants with a harshness and cruelty,
which only increased the natural irresoluteness of his character. Yet,
though feeble, he was a good and honest man, and the evil wrought
in his reign was the work of others. His infamous wife, Messali´na,
gratified her jealousy and revenge at the expense of the noblest in the
state, especially the imperial princesses, without even a show of legal
formality. At last she was executed for her crimes, and the emperor
procured a law from the Senate which enabled him to marry his niece,
Agrippina.
This princess appears to advantage only when compared with her
predecessor. She recalled Seneca, the philosopher, from exile, and made
him the tutor of her son, Nero. She protected many who were unjustly
accused, and she advanced to power the faithful Burrhus, who proved a
better servant, both to herself and her son, than either deserved. At
the same time, Agrippina persuaded her husband to set aside his own
son, Britan´nicus, in favor of her son by a former marriage. This youth
bore his father’s name, L. Domitius Ahenobar´bus, but by the emperor’s
adoption he became Nero Claudius Cæsar Drusus Germanicus. By the first of
these names he is known in history as one of the most wicked of tyrants.
Having gained all that she hoped from the weak compliance of Claudius,
Agrippina poisoned him, and presented her son to the prætorian guards as
their imperator. Some, it is said, cried out, “Where is Britannicus?” but
there was no serious resistance, and the new emperor was accepted by the
Senate, the people, and the provinces.
=191.= For the first five years, under the wise and honest administration
of Seneca and Burrhus, the Romans believed that the golden age had
returned. Taxes were remitted; lands were allotted to the needy and
deserving. The _delators_, that infamous class of people who made their
living by accusing others of crime, were suppressed or banished. The
Roman arms prospered in Armenia, under the able command of Cor´bulo, who
captured the two capitals, Artax´ata and Tigranocerta, and completely
subdued the kingdom. In Germany all was quiet, and the legions on the
lower Rhine had leisure to complete the embankments which protected the
land from inundation.
None of this prosperity was due, however, to the character of Nero, who
was a sensual and cruel tyrant even from his youth. In the second year
of his reign he poisoned his foster-brother, Britannicus. A few years
later, he murdered his mother, his wife, and the too faithful Burrhus,
cast off the influence of Seneca, and thenceforth gave free course to his
tyrannical caprices. He encouraged the informants again, and filled his
treasury with the confiscated property of their victims.
=192.= He persecuted both Jews and Christians, charging upon the latter
the great fire at Rome, which he was more than suspected of having
himself caused to be kindled. By this terrible conflagration, ten of the
fourteen wards, or “regions,” of the city were made uninhabitable. Nero
watched the burning from a tower on the Esquiline, while, in the dress of
an actor, he chanted the “Sack of Troy.” Whether or not he had ordered
the destruction of Rome in consequence of his disgust with its narrow and
winding streets, he wisely availed himself of the opportunity to rebuild
it in more regular and spacious proportions. The houses were constructed
of stone, and rendered fire-proof; each was surrounded with balconies,
and separated from other houses by lanes of considerable width, while a
plentiful supply of water was introduced into every tenement.
The palace of Nero having been destroyed, he built his Golden House on a
scale of magnitude and splendor which Rome had never seen. The porticos
which surrounded it were three miles in length; within their bounds were
parks, gardens, and a lake which filled the valley afterward occupied
by the Flavian Amphitheater. The chambers of this imperial mansion were
gilded and inlaid with gems. The least of its ornaments, though probably
the greatest of its objects, was a colossal statue of Nero himself, 120
feet in height.
=193.= Nero desired to be praised as a musician and a charioteer, and so
far forgot his imperial dignity as to appear as an actor in the theaters.
He gained prizes at the Olympic Games, A. D. 67, which had been delayed
two years that he might be present. He took part, also, in the vocal
performances at the Isthmian Games, on which occasion he ordered the
death of a singer whose voice drowned his own. On his return, he entered
Rome through a breach in the walls, after the ancient Hellenic custom;
but the 1,800 garlands with which he had been laden by the servile
Greeks, showed the decline of the old heroic spirit, rather than the
glory of the victor.
=194.= The impositions of Nero caused revolts in the provinces, and,
among others, Vespasian, the future emperor, was sent to pacify Judæa.
But Nero was jealous of his most able and faithful officers. Cor´bulo,
the conqueror of Armenia, Rufus and Scribo´nius, the commanders in
Germany, were recalled, and avoided public execution only by putting
themselves to death. All the generals on the frontier perceived that they
could escape a similar fate only by timely revolt, and insurrections
broke out at once in Germany, Gaul, Africa, and Spain. The conspirators
agreed, at length, in the choice of Galba, the governor of Hither Spain,
as their leader and emperor.
Nero perceived that resistance was hopeless. Deserted by the prætorians
and all his courtiers, he fled from his Golden House and hid himself in
the cottage of Phaon, his former slave, a few miles from the city. After
spending a night and part of a day in an agony of terror, he summoned
courage to end his own life, just as he heard the tramp of the horsemen
who were coming to take him. He was but thirty years of age, and had
reigned nearly fourteen years. With him expired the line of Augustus. The
imperial power never again remained so long in any one family as it had
among the members, by adoption or otherwise, of the Julian house.
RECAPITULATION.
Augustus (B. C. 30-A. D. 14) combines in himself all the
dignities of the Republic, but carefully avoids the appearance
of royalty. He leaves the peaceful provinces to the Senate,
but assumes the command of those which are at war. The
Germans, under Arminius, revolt and destroy the legions of
Varus. The “Augustan Age” is distinguished for prosperity
and enlightenment. Tiberius (A. D. 14-37) succeeds Augustus,
but Sejanus rules the empire. Germanicus and many others are
persecuted and put to death. Caius Cæsar (Caligula, A. D.
37-41) begins well, but, soon spoiled by power, exhibits “the
awful spectacle of a madman, master of the civilized world.”
He is succeeded by his uncle Claudius (A. D. 41-54), a weak
but honest man. Agrippina, having poisoned him, makes her son
Nero emperor (A. D. 54-68). Upon the death of his instructors,
he proves a reckless and cruel tyrant. He rebuilds Rome with
unprecedented magnificence after the great fire. Having caused
the death of his best generals, he kills himself only in time
to escape the vengeance of his people.
DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE.
=195.= Galba, the most distinguished general of his time, had gained the
favor of the emperor Claudius by refusing to assume the crown upon the
death of Caligula. He had proved his ability and worth by his wise and
just administration of the province of Africa, and had been honored at
Rome with the highest dignities to which his patrician birth and eminent
services entitled him. He was now more than seventy years of age, but
learning that Nero had sent orders for his death, he resolved to rid the
world of a tyrant by accepting the crown. He was a Roman of the ancient
style, and the luxurious prætorians were equally disgusted with his
strict discipline and his sparing distribution of money. By adopting
Piso as his successor, he disappointed Otho, who easily raised a revolt
against him, and the aged emperor and his adopted son were slain in the
Forum, Jan. 15, A. D. 69.
=196.= Otho, the early favorite of Nero, had for ten years been governor
of Lusitania. He was acknowledged, on the death of Galba, by the Senate
and most of the provinces, but the legions in Germany had already (Jan.
3, 69) proclaimed their own general, Vitel´lius. The armies of the
two generals met near the confluence of the Adda and the Po. Otho was
defeated, and died by his own hand. Vitellius, having gained a crown by
the skill and energy of his officers, lost it by his own unworthiness.
Without the courage or ability of his predecessors, he surpassed them in
contemptible self-indulgence. Vespasian, commander in Judæa, in revolting
against this monster, was hailed by the acclamations of all good people,
and supported by all the legions of the East. He took possession of
Egypt, the grain-market of Rome, and sent his lieutenants into Italy.
This time the generals of Vitellius were defeated on the Po, the capital
was taken by assault, and the disgraced emperor put to death.
=197.= During the reign of Vespasian, order and prosperity succeeded
to the storms which had convulsed the empire. The old discipline was
revived, the revenues were re-organized, the capital was beautified,
and the people employed by the construction of such great works as the
Coliseum and the Temple of Peace. The space inclosed by Nero for his own
enjoyment, was thrown open by Vespasian to the use of the people; and the
materials of the Golden House served to enrich many public buildings.
The revolt of the Batavians and other tribes on the lower Rhine was
suppressed, A. D. 70; the Jewish War of Independence was finally subdued,
the Holy City taken, and the people dispersed. Agric´ola completed the
subjugation of Britain as far as the Tyne and the Solway, which he
connected by earthworks and a chain of forts.
=198.= Titus, the son of Vespasian, having proved his military talent
during the reign of his father, by the capture of Jerusalem, had been
rewarded by a triumph, and by the title of Cæsar, which implied his
association in the government. At the death of Vespasian, he became sole
emperor without opposition. Whatever may have been his personal faults,
Titus distinguished himself as a ruler by sincere and constant efforts to
promote the happiness of his people. Recollecting, one evening, that he
had performed no act of kindness, he exclaimed that he had lost a day.
The circumstances of his reign made peculiar demands upon the emperor’s
benevolence. The beautiful Campanian towns, Hercula´neum and Pompe´ii,
were destroyed by a sudden eruption of Vesuvius. A fire raged again three
days and nights at Rome, followed by a general and fatal pestilence.
Titus assumed the pecuniary loss as his own, and even sold the ornaments
of his palace to defray the expense of rebuilding the ruined houses. He
established public baths on the site of Nero’s gardens on the Esquiline,
and completed the Coliseum, or Flavian Amphitheater, which he dedicated
by a festival of a hundred days, including combats of 5,000 wild beasts.
After a reign of but little more than two years, Titus died of a fever,
having named his brother as his successor, A. D. 81.
=199.= Domitian was regarded by the people with more favor than he
deserved, on account of the virtues of his father and brother. His nature
was morose and jealous; and when his ill-success in military matters
began to be contrasted with the victories of his predecessors, he became
cruel and tyrannical, reviving the false accusations, forfeitures, and
death-penalties of the reign of Nero. He was partially successful in his
wars in Germany, but he was defeated on the Danube with great disaster,
and even consented to pay an annual tribute to the Dacians, to keep them
from invading Mœsia. When the cruelties of Domitian began to excite the
fears of his servants, he was murdered, Sept. 18, A. D. 96.
=200.= The Senate now asserted a power which it had failed to exercise
since the days of Augustus, by naming Nerva as sovereign. He was a
childless old man, but he chose for his successor M. Ul´pius Traja´nus, a
general whose vigor and ability, already shown in war, promised well for
the interests of the state. It was henceforth considered the duty of the
emperor to select from all his subjects the man most fit to rule, without
reference to his own family, and the heir thus adopted bore the name of
Cæsar. The mild, beneficent, and economical government of Nerva afforded
a pleasing contrast to the severe and sanguinary rule of Domitian. Upon
his death, which occurred A. D. 98, his adopted heir was immediately
recognized as emperor.
=201.= Trajan was born in Spain, and his youth had been passed in
military service. The Romans regarded him as the best of all their
emperors. In personal character he was brave and generous, diligent
and modest; in his policy as a ruler he was both wise and liberal. He
scrupulously regarded the rights and dignities of the Senate, and treated
its members as his equals. He was most diligent in hearing causes that
were presented for his judgment, and in corresponding with the governors
of provinces, who consulted him on all important affairs in their
administration.
He managed the finances so well, that, without oppressive taxes or
unjust confiscations, he always had means for the construction of roads,
bridges, and aqueducts; for loans to persons whose estates had been
injured by earthquakes or tempests; and for public buildings in Rome and
all the provinces. The Ulpian Library and the great “Forum of Trajan,”
for the better transaction of public business, among many other useful
and elegant works, bore witness to his liberality. The reign of Trajan
was a literary epoch only second to that of Augustus. The great historian
Tacitus, the younger Pliny, Plutarch, Sueto´nius, and Epicte´tus, the
slave-philosopher, were all living at this time.
=202.= Augustus had enjoined his heirs to regard the Rhine, the Danube,
and the Euphrates as the limits of their dominion. Trajan, however,
desiring to throw off the disgraceful tribute which Domitian had promised
to the Dacians, made war twice against their king, Deceb´alus. He was
completely victorious; the king was slain, and his country became a Roman
province guarded by colonies and forts. On his return, A. D. 105, Trajan
celebrated a triumph, and exhibited games during 123 days. It is said
that 11,000 wild beasts were slaughtered in these spectacles, and that
10,000 gladiators, mostly Dacian prisoners, killed each other “to make a
Roman holiday.”
In the later years of this reign, the Roman and the Parthian empires
came into conflict for the control of Armenia. Trajan quickly reduced
the latter country to a Roman province, and, in subsequent campaigns,
he wrested from the Parthians the ancient countries of Mesopotamia and
Assyria. Trajan died in Cilicia, A. D. 117. His ashes were conveyed to
Rome in a golden urn, and placed under the column which bears his name.
=203.= Ha´drian began his reign by surrendering the Asiatic conquests of
Trajan. During the twenty years of almost unbroken peace which marked
his administration, Hadrian visited the remotest corners of his empire,
studied the wants and interests of his people, and tried impartially
to secure the best good of all. York in England, Athens, Antioch, and
Alexandria shared with Rome the honors of an imperial capital; and each
had its part of those great architectural works which, in some cases,
still exist to commemorate the glory of Hadrian. A revolt of the Jews,
A. D. 131-135, was ended with the banishment from Palestine of the last
remnants of their race. A Roman colony, Æ´lia Capitolina, was founded
upon the site of Jerusalem, to which the Christians, expelled by Titus,
were freely admitted with the first of their Gentile bishops. Of all the
benefits which Hadrian conferred upon the empire, the greatest, perhaps,
was his choice of a successor.
=204.= T. Aurelius Antoni´nus came to the throne A. D. 138. His
uneventful reign presents the rare example in Roman annals of
twenty-three years’ undisturbed tranquillity, and is a striking example
of the truth of the saying, “Happy is the people that has no history.”
The happiness of his great family, for so he regarded his subjects, was
the ruling purpose of his life. In Britain, the Roman boundary was pushed
to its farthest northern limit during this reign, and guarded by the
“Wall of Antoninus,” extending from the Frith of Forth to the Clyde.
Marcus Aurelius, the nephew of Hadrian, who, together with L. Verus, had
been adopted by Antoninus, assumed the latter’s name[78] with his crown.
He resembled his adoptive father in his love of religion, justice, and
peace; but his reign was far less happy, owing to calamities which were
beyond his power to avert. The barbarians north of the Danube began to
be crowded by a new and great immigration from the steppes of Asia.
The Scythic hordes, broken up from their ancient seats, we know not by
what impulse or necessity, had thrown themselves upon the Germans, and
these were driven across the Roman frontier, even into Italy, which they
ravaged as far as Aquilei´a, on the Adriatic. The two emperors proceeded
against them. Verus died in the Venetian country A. D. 169, but Aurelius
remained at his post on the Danube, summer and winter, for three years.
He gained a great victory over the Quadi, A. D. 174. A sudden storm,
occurring during the battle, decided the result. The pagans attributed it
to an intervention of Jupiter Pluvius; but the Christians, to the prayers
of Christian soldiers in the “Thundering Legion.”
During the first years of the reign of Aurelius, the Parthians made a
formidable attack upon the eastern provinces, destroyed an entire legion,
and ravaged all Syria. The general Avidius Cassius, being sent against
them as the lieutenant of Verus, more than made good the Roman losses,
for he extended the boundary of the empire again to the Tigris. But after
the death of Verus, Cassius was led to proclaim himself emperor, and
gained possession of most of the Asiatic provinces. Before Aurelius could
arrive in the East, the rebel chief was slain by his own officers, after
a reign of three months. Aurelius caused his papers to be burnt without
reading them, and suffered no man to be punished for his part in the
rebellion.
The elevation and self-control which distinguished the emperor were
owing, in great measure, to the Stoic philosophy which he studied from
his twelfth year. The only blot on his character is the persecution of
the Christians, which was doubtless instigated by the harsh and arrogant
Stoics who surrounded him. Justin Martyr at Rome, the venerable Polycarp
at Smyrna, and multitudes of less illustrious disciples at Vienna and
Lyons, suffered death for their fidelity to their religion, A. D.
167-177. Marcus Aurelius died in Pannonia, A. D. 180.
=205.= Deceived by the youthful promise of his only son, Aurelius had
associated Com´modus with him in the government at the age of fifteen.
If the young prince could have enjoyed many years of training under the
wise and virtuous care of his father, he might indeed have become all
that was hoped of him. But the untimely death of the good Aurelius left
his son at seventeen a weak, self-indulgent youth, easily controled by
worthless associates. For three years the government continued in the
course which Aurelius had marked out for it. But, A. D. 183, a plot for
the murder of Commodus was detected, and many senators were believed to
be involved. His revengeful nature, stimulated by fear, now made him a
monster of tyranny. His only use of imperial power was to issue warrants
for the death of all whom he suspected. Vain of his strength and skill,
he assumed the name of the Roman Hercules, and exhibited himself in the
amphitheater as a marksman and gladiator. At last, some of the intended
victims of his proscriptions avoided their own destruction by strangling
him in his bed-chamber, after he had reigned twelve years and nine
months, A. D. 192.
=206.= The decline of the empire, which had been delayed by the Five Good
Emperors—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines—proceeded with
frightful rapidity under Commodus. The armies in the provinces, tired
of discipline, broke up into petty bands which robbed and murdered on
their own account. One historian tells us that Peren´nis, the prætorian
præfect, was deposed and slain, with his wife and children, upon the
demand of 1,500 insurgent soldiers who had marched unresisted from
Britain to Rome. Society was as thoroughly demoralized as the army.
Except among the despised and persecuted Christians, purity of life was
scarcely to be found. Poverty was creeping upon the nations through the
decline of industry, but luxury and self-indulgence were more wildly
excessive than ever.
RECAPITULATION.
Galba (A. D. 68, 69) offends his guards by his strict economy,
and is murdered after seven months. Otho, three months emperor,
is defeated by Vitellius, who reigns from April to December,
A. D. 69. Vespasian (A. D. 69-79) restores peace, order, and
prosperity. In his reign Jerusalem is destroyed. The short but
beneficent reign of Titus (A. D. 79-81) is disturbed by great
calamities—earthquake, fire, and pestilence. Domitian (A. D.
81-96) is a gloomy tyrant, disgraced abroad and detested at
home. Nerva (A. D. 96-98) restores confidence, and chooses for
his successor Trajan (A. D. 98-117), who is called the best and
ablest of all the emperors. He gains victories north of the
Danube and east of the Euphrates, thus extending the empire
to the utmost limits which it ever attains. Hadrian (A. D.
117-138) visits every portion of his dominions, and diffuses
every-where the blessings of peace and good government.
Antoninus Pius (A. D. 138-161) enjoys a reign of unexampled
tranquillity. Marcus Aurelius (A. D. 161-180), though a
peaceful philosopher by choice, is involved by necessity in
many wars. He generously forgives the rebellion led by Cassius,
but permits a persecution of the Christians, at the instance
of the Stoics. Commodus (A. D. 180-193), exasperated by a plot
against his life, becomes a revengeful tyrant, and under his
reckless misrule all order, industry, and safety vanish from
the empire.
SECOND PERIOD, A. D. 193-284.
=207.= By their unchecked disorders, the soldiers had learned their
power, and now assumed to set up and put down emperors at their will. The
murderers of Commodus proceeded to the house of Per´tinax, præfect of the
city, and offered him the crown. He was a good old man, one of the few
surviving friends of Marcus Antoninus, and one to whose care the young
prince Commodus had been committed. He reluctantly accepted the dangerous
honor, and the result justified his fears. The economy and order which he
attempted to introduce, disgusted equally the amusement-loving citizens
and the turbulent and grasping soldiers. Pertinax was murdered in his own
palace by the prætorians, March 28, A. D. 193, after a reign of less than
three months. The guards now put up the imperial crown at public auction,
and sold it to Did´ius Julia´nus, a wealthy senator, for $15,000,000. The
Senate acknowledged him, and he reigned more than two months at Rome. But
the armies in Britain, Pannonia, and Syria, not so much offended by the
scandalous insolence as encouraged by the example of their comrades at
the capital, set up their own leaders, Albi´nus, Seve´rus, and Niger, as
emperors.
=208.= Severus arrived first at Rome, gained over the prætorians by
promises of donatives, and was acknowledged by the Senate. Julianus was
deserted and slain in his palace. The first imperial act of Severus was
to disarm the prætorians, and to banish them to a distance of 100 miles
from the capital. He defeated his two rivals, the one at Cyzicus and
Issus, and the other near Lyons (Lugdu´num), in Gaul; and by their death
became undisputed master of the empire. Instead of the old prætorians,
he garrisoned Rome with 40,000 troops chosen from the legions, and their
chief, the prætorian præfect, became, next the sovereign, the most
powerful person in the world; for, beside his military command, he had
control of the public treasury, and great influence in the making and
enforcing of the laws. Severus was an able and successful general. He
extended the empire eastward by the capture of the Parthian capital,
and the conquest of Adiabe´ne; and northward, by his wars against the
Caledonians. He died at York, the Roman capital of Britain, A. D. 211,
having reigned eighteen years.
=209.= The two sons of Severus, Caracal´la and Geta, had been associated
by their father in his imperial dignity, and reigned together a year
after his death. Then their mutual hatred broke out afresh, and after a
vain attempt to divide the empire between them, Caracalla murdered Geta
in the arms of their mother. In the five years of his sole reign, he
proved one of the worst tyrants that Rome had known. Under the pretext of
exterminating the “friends of Geta,” he massacred 20,000 persons, some of
whom were the most virtuous and illustrious in the empire. Goaded by his
restless conscience, Caracalla then quitted Rome, and wandered through
all the eastern and northern provinces, followed every-where by a track
of poverty, desolation, and death. At last he plunged into a war with
Parthia, in which he had some success; but before his second campaign
he was murdered by Macri´nus, his prætorian præfect, whom the guards
proclaimed emperor.
=210.= Macrinus bestowed the title of Cæsar upon his son, and then
hastened to follow up Caracalla’s victories over the Parthians. He
encountered the Eastern monarch near Nis´ibis, and suffered a shameful
defeat, which forced him to retire into Syria. The soldiers were now
tired of their chosen imperator, whose severity of discipline was an
unwelcome change from the reckless liberality of Caracalla. Julia Mæsa,
sister-in-law of Severus, persuaded one division of the army to accept
as their prince her grandson, Bassia´nus, whom she declared to be a son
of Caracalla. He is more commonly called Elagab´alus, from the Syrian
sun-god to whose priesthood he had been dedicated as a child. The wealth
which Mæsa had hoarded during her residence at her sister’s court
materially aided to convince the soldiers. A body of troops, sent to
quell the insurrection, were also, in great measure, gained over to her
wishes. A battle was fought near Antioch, in which Macrinus was defeated,
and eventually slain, after a reign of fourteen months.
=211.= Elagabalus, or his ministers, hastened to send a letter to the
Senate, in which he loaded himself with all the high-sounding titles of
Cæsar, Imperator, son of Antoninus, grandson of Severus, Pius, Felix,
Augustus, etc. The Romans passively admitted his claims, and the Arval
Brothers offered their annual vows for his health and safety under all
these names. The Syrian boy, who, at the age of fourteen, found himself
thus clothed with imperial honors, was the most contemptible of all the
tyrants that ever afflicted the Roman world. His days and nights were
given up to gluttonous feasting and loathsome excesses.
The decorous and solemn rites of Roman religion were replaced by
degrading sorceries, which were believed to be accompanied in secret by
human sacrifices. The Syrian sun-god was placed above Jupiter Capitolinus
himself, and all that was sacred or honorable in the eyes of the people
became the object of insult and profanation. The emperor had been
persuaded to confer the title of Cæsar on his cousin, Alexander Severus;
but perceiving that this good prince soon surpassed him in the respect of
the army, he sought to procure his death. A second attempt was fatal to
Elagabalus. The prætorians murdered him and cast him into the Tiber.
=212.= Alexander Severus, now in his seventeenth year, was acknowledged
with joy by the soldiers and the Senate. His blameless life and lofty and
beneficent aims present a bright, refreshing contrast to the long annals
of Roman degradation. Purity and economy returned to public affairs; wise
and virtuous men received the highest offices; the Senate was treated
with a deference which belonged to its ancient dignity, rather than to
its recent base compliance with the whims of the army. If the power of
Alexander had been as great as his designs were pure, the world might
have been benefited.
A great revolution, about this time, changed the condition of Asia.
The new Persian monarchy, under Artaxerxes, the grandson of Sassan,
had overthrown the Parthian empire, and now aimed at the recovery of
all the dominions of Darius Hystaspes. Artaxerxes actually sent an
embassy to Alexander Severus, demanding the restitution to Persia of her
ancient provinces between the Ægean and the Euphrates. The reply was a
declaration of war. Alexander in person met the forces of Artaxerxes in
the plain east of the Euphrates, and defeated them in a great battle, A.
D. 232.
Hearing that the Germans were plundering Gaul, he hastened to make peace
and returned to Rome. The next year he set out for Germany; but before
he could begin his military operations there, he was murdered by a
small band of mutinous soldiers. The virtues of Alexander were largely
owing to the watchful care of his mother, in guarding his childhood
from the wickedness with which he was surrounded. The prince repaid her
vigilance by the most dutiful and tender regard; and it is said that her
over-cautious and economical policy, which led him to withhold gifts of
money demanded by the army, occasioned his death.
=213.= The ringleader of the mutiny was Max´imin, a Thracian peasant—a
brutal and illiterate ruffian, yet with enough natural ability to cause
him to be chosen emperor by his comrades. Three years this savage
ruled the world, his only policy being hatred toward the noble and
covetousness toward the rich; until the people of Africa, roused to fury
by the extortions of his agents, revolted and crowned their proconsul,
Gor´dian, and his son. The two Gordians were slain within a month; but
the Senate supplied their place by two of its own number, and with
unwonted spirit prepared for the defense of Italy. Maximin marched from
his winter-quarters on the Danube, but he had advanced no farther than
Aquileia when he was murdered in his tent by his own soldiers.
=214.= Though the legions had destroyed the emperor of their choice,
they had no intention of yielding to that of the Senate. They murdered
Pupie´nus and Balbi´nus within six weeks of their triumph over Maximin,
and bestowed the imperial robes upon a younger Gordian, the grandson of
the former proconsul of Africa. This boy of twelve years was intended, of
course, to be a mere tool of his ministers. Timesith´eus, the prætorian
præfect, was an able officer, and, so long as he lived, vigorously upheld
the imperial power against Persian assaults and African insurrections.
He was succeeded in command by Philip the Arabian, who artfully procured
the death of the young emperor, and assumed the purple himself. He wrote
to the Senate that Gordian had died of disease, and requested that divine
honors should be paid to his memory.
=215.= Among the few events recorded of the five years (A. D. 244-249) of
Philip’s reign, is the celebration of the “Secular Games” at Rome, upon
the completion of a thousand years from the building of the city, April
21, A. D. 248. Rival emperors were set up by the Syrians, and by the army
in Mœsia and Pannonia. Decius, a senator, was sent by Philip to appease
the latter. Their mock-emperor was already dead, but the soldiers,
believing their guilt too great to be forgiven by Philip, thronged
around Decius with tumultuous cries of “Death or the purple!” The loyal
officer, with a hundred swords at his throat, was compelled to be
crowned, and to consent to lead his rebellious army into Italy. He wrote
to assure his master that he was only acting a part, and would resign his
mock-sovereignty as soon as he could escape his troublesome subjects. But
Philip did not believe these professions of loyalty. He marched to meet
the insurgents at Verona, was defeated and slain, Sept., A. D. 249.
=216.= The two years’ reign of Decius (A. D. 249-251) was marked by two
widely different attempts to restore the ancient religion and morality of
Rome—the revival of the censorship and the persecution of the Christians.
It was deeply felt that the calamities of the empire were due to the
corruption of its people. But the first measure produced no effect, while
the second only aroused the evil passions of men, and occasioned untold
misery. The bishops of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome became martyrs, and
Alexandria was the scene of a frightful massacre. Another calamity,
for which Decius was not responsible, was the first great incursion of
the Goths, who ravaged the provinces of Mœsia and Thrace south of the
Danube. Decius was defeated by them in A. D. 250; and the next year, in
attempting to cut off their retreat, he lost his life in a great battle.
=217.= Gallus, an able general, was crowned by the Senate, Hostilia´nus,
the son of Decius, being associated with him in the imperial dignity.
Calamities thickened; pestilence raged in Rome, and fresh swarms of
barbarians, only encouraged by the successes of the Goths, and the sums
of money which had been paid them as the price of peace, ravaged the
Danubian provinces. Hostilianus died of the plague, and the distress
of the people led them to unjust accusations of the emperor. Æmilianus
having defeated an army of the invaders, was proclaimed as sovereign by
his troops, and, marching into Italy, defeated Gallus and his son at
Interam´na. Æmilian was acknowledged by the Senate, but his reign was
short. Valerian, a noble and virtuous officer, had been sent by Gallus
to bring the Gallic and German legions to his aid. He arrived too late
to save his master, but he defeated Æmilian near the scene of his former
victory, and himself received the allegiance of Senate and people.
It was no enviable distinction, for the causes that were tending to
the destruction of the empire were more numerous and fiercely active
than ever. The Franks from the lower Rhine, the Aleman´ni from southern
Germany, ravaged Italy, Gaul, and Spain, and even crossed the straits
into Africa. The Goths had made themselves fleets from the forests of
the Euxine, with which they devastated the coasts of Asia Minor and
Greece, capturing and burning innumerable cities, among which were
Cyzicus, Chalcedon, Ephesus, and even Corinth and Athens. The new Persian
kingdom of the Sassanidæ had increased in power. Its second monarch,
Sapor, conquered Armenia, and overran the Roman provinces in the East.
He defeated and captured Valerian in a battle near the Euphrates, and
gratified his pride by a spectacle which no monarch before had ever
been able to exhibit—a Roman emperor, loaded with chains but clothed in
purple, a perpetual captive at his court.
The government being thus overwhelmed with calamities, various pretenders
claimed the sovereignty of the several fragments of the empire. These
adventurers were known in general as the “Thirty Tyrants.” Their reigns
were usually too short or too insignificant to be worthy of mention.
Palmyra continued to be the royal seat of Odena´tus, and after his
death, of his widow, Zenob´ia, for ten years, A. D. 264-273, inclusive.
Pos´thumus established a kingdom in Gaul, which lasted seventeen years.
Valerian, before his disasters in the East, had associated with him, in
the cares of empire, his son Gallie´nus; but that prince could attempt
little more than the defense of Italy. Aure´olus, commanding on the upper
Danube, assumed the imperial title and crossed the Alps. He was defeated
by Gallienus, and besieged in Milan. Through his arts, Gallienus was
slain by his own soldiers; but they conferred the purple on a more honest
man and better general, whom the murdered prince had named in his dying
moments. Milan was taken and Aureolus put to death.
=218.= Though the Roman Empire seemed to be doomed to destruction,
equally by disunion within and the attacks of barbarians from without,
its final disruption was delayed by a succession of able emperors.
Claudius, who succeeded Gallienus, A. D. 268, vanquished the Alemanni in
Italy, and the Goths in Mœsia. Aurelian (A. D. 270-275) again routed the
Goths in Pannonia; and then recalling the advice of Augustus, he ceded
to the barbarians the provinces north of the Danube, removing the Roman
inhabitants to Mœsia. He made a war against Zenobia, which ended in the
capture of the “Queen of the East,” and the overthrow of her kingdom.
A still more difficult enterprise awaited Aurelian in the west, where
Tet´ricus, the last successor of Posthumus, had united Gaul, Spain, and
Britain into one powerful monarchy. But he was conquered, and the empire
was again established on the borders of the Atlantic, A. D. 274.
Aurelian was about to turn his victorious arms against the Persians, when
he was assassinated by several of his officers, owing to a plot formed
by his secretary, Mnes´theus. The army, indignant at the crime, applied
to the Senate for a new emperor, instead of permitting any general
to seize the crown. The Senate, after six months’ hesitation, during
which the soldiers respectfully waited, named M. Claudius Tac´itus, a
senator of vast wealth and blameless character. He would gladly have
declined the laborious and perilous position, on account of his age and
infirmities; but the Senate insisted, and Tacitus was crowned. All the
acts of his short reign were directed to the improvement of morals, and
the establishment of law and order throughout the empire. He was called
away to Asia Minor, where a troop of Goths, engaged by Aurelian to serve
in his Eastern expedition, were committing disorders for want of pay.
They were expelled; but Tacitus, enfeebled by old age, sank under the
exertion, and he died two hundred days from his accession to the throne,
A. D. 276.
=219.= Florian, brother of Tacitus, assumed the purple at Rome, while
the army in the East proclaimed Probus, their general. The soldiers of
Florian, however, refused to fight their comrades, and, after three
months, put their leader to death. Probus, thus undisputed master of the
Roman world, was an able general and a wise and beneficent sovereign.
He not only drove the Germans out of Gaul, subdued the Sarmatians, and
terrified the Goths into peaceable behavior, but he provided for the
security of his extended frontier by settling the border provinces with
numerous colonies of barbarians, who, becoming civilized, made a barrier
against further incursions of their countrymen. He wished, also, to
improve waste lands by the draining of marshes and the planting of vines,
and to employ in these works the dangerous leisure of his soldiers. But
the legionaries did not share the thrifty policy of their emperor. They
mutinied at Sir´mium, and by another murder ended the beneficent reign of
Probus, A. D. 282.