Roman history by a foreigner stands the contemporary historical
literature of native growth. At the beginning of this period we
still find some chronicles written in Greek such as that already
mentioned(29) of Aulus Postumius (consul in 603), full of wretched
rationalizing, and that of Gaius Acilius (who closed it at an
advanced age about 612). Yet under the influence partly of
Catonian patriotism, partly of the more refined culture of
the Scipionic circle, the Latin language gained so decided an
ascendency in this field, that of the later historical works not
more than one or two occur written in Greek;(30) and not only so,
but the older Greek chronicles were translated into Latin and were
probably read mainly in these translations. Unhappily beyond the
employment of the mother-tongue there is hardly anything else
deserving of commendation in the chronicles of this epoch composed
in Latin. They were numerous and detailed enough--there are
mentioned, for example, those of Lucius Cassius Hemina (about 608),
of Lucius Calpurnius Piso (consul in 621), of Gaius Sempronius
Tuditanus (consul in 625), of Gaius Fannius (consul in 632).
To these falls to be added the digest of the official annals of
the city in eighty books, which Publius Mucius Scaevola (consul
in 621), a man esteemed also as a jurist, prepared and published
as -pontifex maximus-, thereby closing the city-chronicle in so
far as thenceforth the pontifical records, although not exactly
discontinued, were no longer at any rate, amidst the increasing
diligence of private chroniclers, taken account of in literature.
All these annals, whether they gave themselves forth as private or
as official works, were substantially similar compilations of the
extant historical and quasi-historical materials; and the value of
their authorities as well as their formal value declined beyond
doubt in the same proportion as their amplitude increased.
Chronicle certainly nowhere presents truth without fiction, and it
would be very foolish to quarrel with Naevius and Pictor because
they have not acted otherwise than Hecataeus and Saxo Grammaticus;
but the later attempts to build houses out of such castles in the
air put even the most tried patience to a severe test No blank in
tradition presents so wide a chasm, but that this system of smooth
and downright invention will fill it up with playful facility.
The eclipses of the sun, the numbers of the census, family-registers,
triumphs, are without hesitation carried back from the current year
up to the year One; it stands duly recorded, in what year, month,
and day king Romulus went up to heaven, and how king Servius
Tullius triumphed over the Etruscans first on the 25th November
183, and again on the 25th May 187, In entire harmony with such
details accordingly the vessel in which Aeneas had voyaged from
Ilion to Latium was shown in the Roman docks, and even the
identical sow, which had served as a guide to Aeneas, was preserved
well pickled in the Roman temple of Vesta. With the lying
disposition of a poet these chroniclers of rank combine all the
tiresome exactness of a notary, and treat their great subject
throughout with the dulness which necessarily results from the
elimination at once of all poetical and all historical elements.
When we read, for instance, in Piso that Romulus avoided indulging
in his cups when he had a sitting of the senate next day; or that
Tarpeia betrayed the Capitol to the Sabines out of patriotism,
with a view to deprive the enemy of their shields; we cannot be
surprised at the judgment of intelligent contemporaries as to all
this sort of scribbling, "that it was not writing history, but
telling stories to children." Of far greater excellence were
isolated works on the history of the recent past and of the
present, particularly the history of the Hannibalic war by Lucius
Caelius Antipater (about 633) and the history of his own time
by Publius Sempronius Asellio, who was a little younger. These
exhibited at least valuable materials and an earnest spirit of truth,
in the case of Antipater also a lively, although strongly affected,
style of narrative; yet, judging from all testimonies and fragments,
none of these books came up either in pithy form or in originality
to the "Origines" of Cato, who unhappily created as little of a school
in the field of history as in that of politics.
Memoirs and Speeches
The subordinate, more individual and ephemeral, species of
historical literature--memoirs, letters, and speeches--were
strongly represented also, at least as respects quantity.
The first statesmen of Rome already recorded in person their
experiences: such as Marcus Scaurus (consul in 639), Publius Rufus
(consul in 649), Quintus Catulus (consul in 652), and even the
regent Sulla; but none of these productions seem to have been of
importance for literature otherwise than by the substance of their
contents. The collection of letters of Cornelia, the mother of
the Gracchi, was remarkable partly for the classical purity of
the language and the high spirit of the writer, partly as the first
correspondence published in Rome, and as the first literary
production of a Roman lady. The literature of speeches preserved
at this period the stamp impressed on it by Cato; advocates'
pleadings were not yet looked on as literary productions, and such
speeches as were published were political pamphlets. During the
revolutionary commotions this pamphlet-literature increased in
extent and importance, and among the mass of ephemeral productions
there were some which, like the Philippics of Demosthenes and
the fugitive pieces of Courier, acquired a permanent place in
literature from the important position of their authors or from
their own weight. Such were the political speeches of Gaius
Laelius and of Scipio Aemilianus, masterpieces of excellent Latin
as of the noblest patriotism; such were the gushing speeches of
Gaius Titius, from whose pungent pictures of the place and the
time--his description of the senatorial juryman has been given
already(31)--the national comedy borrowed various points; such
above all were the numerous orations of Gaius Gracchus, whose
fiery words preserved in a faithful mirror the impassioned
earnestness, the aristocratic bearing, and the tragic destiny
of that lofty nature.
Sciences
In scientific literature the collection of juristic opinions by
Marcus Brutus, which was published about the year 600, presents
a remarkable attempt to transplant to Rome the method usual among
the Greeks of handling professional subjects by means of dialogue,
and to give to his treatise an artistic semi-dramatic form by a
machinery of conversation in which the persons, time, and place
were distinctly specified. But the later men of science, such
as Stilo the philologist and Scaevola the jurist, laid aside
this method, more poetical than practical, both in the sciences
of general culture and in the special professional sciences.
The increasing value of science as such, and the preponderance
of a material interest in it at Rome, are clearly reflected in this
rapid rejection of the fetters of artistic form. We have already
spoken(32) in detail of the sciences of general liberal culture,
grammar or rather philology, rhetoric and philosophy, in so far
as these now became essential elements of the usual Roman training
and thereby first began to be dissociated from the professional
sciences properly so called.
Philology
In the field of letters Latin philology flourished vigorously, in
close association with the philological treatment--long ago placed
on a sure basis--of Greek literature. It was already mentioned
that about the beginning of this century the Latin epic poets found
their -diaskeuastae- and revisers of their text;(33) it was also
noticed, that not only did the Scipionic circle generally insist
on correctness above everything else, but several also of the most
noted poets, such as Accius and Lucilius, busied themselves with
the regulation of orthography and of grammar. At the same period
we find isolated attempts to develop archaeology from the
historical side; although the dissertations of the unwieldy
annalists of this age, such as those of Hemina "on the Censors"
and of Tuditanus "on the Magistrates," can hardly have been better
than their chronicles. Of more interest were the treatise on
the Magistracies by Marcus Junius the friend of Gaius Gracchus, as
the first attempt to make archaeological investigation serviceable
for political objects,(34) and the metrically composed -Didascaliae-
of the tragedian Accius, an essay towards a literary history of the
Latin drama. But those early attempts at a scientific treatment
of the mother-tongue still bear very much a dilettante stamp, and
strikingly remind us of our orthographic literature in the Bodmer-
Klopstock period; and we may likewise without injustice assign but
a modest place to the antiquarian researches of this epoch.
Stilo
The Roman, who established the investigation of the Latin language
and antiquities in the spirit of the Alexandrian masters on a
scientific basis, was Lucius Aelius Stilo about 650.(35) He first
went back to the oldest monuments of the language, and commented on
the Salian litanies and the Twelve Tables. He devoted his special
attention to the comedy of the sixth century, and first formed a
list of the pieces of Plautus which in his opinion were genuine.
He sought, after the Greek fashion, to determine historically the
origin of every single phenomenon in the Roman life and dealings
and to ascertain in each case the "inventor," and at the same time
brought the whole annalistic tradition within the range of his
research. The success, which he had among his contemporaries, is
attested by the dedication to him of the most important poetical,
and the most important historical, work of his time, the Satires
of Lucilius and the Annals of Antipater; and this first Roman
philologist influenced the studies of his nation for the future by
transmitting his spirit of investigation both into words and into
things to his disciple Varro.
Rhetoric
The literary activity in the field of Latin rhetoric was, as might
be expected, of a more subordinate kind. There was nothing here to
be done but to write manuals and exercise-books after the model of
the Greek compendia of Hermagoras and others; and these accordingly
the schoolmasters did not fail to supply, partly on account of the
need for them, partly on account of vanity and money. Such a
manual of rhetoric has been preserved to us, composed under Sulla's
dictatorship by an unknown author, who according to the fashion
then prevailing(36) taught simultaneously Latin literature and
Latin rhetoric, and wrote on both; a treatise remarkable not merely
for its terse, clear, and firm handling of the subject, but above
all for its comparative independence in presence of Greek models.
Although in method entirely dependent on the Greeks, the Roman yet
distinctly and even abruptly rejects all "the useless matter which
the Greeks had gathered together, solely in order that the science
might appear more difficult to learn." The bitterest censure is
bestowed on the hair-splitting dialectics--that "loquacious science
of inability to speak"--whose finished master, for sheer fear of
expressing himself ambiguously, at last no longer ventures to
pronounce his own name. The Greek school-terminology is throughout
and intentionally avoided. Very earnestly the author points out
the danger of many teachers, and inculcates the golden rule that
the scholar ought above all to be induced by the teacher to help
himself; with equal earnestness he recognizes the truth that the
school is a secondary, and life the main, matter, and gives in
his examples chosen with thorough independence an echo of those
forensic speeches which during the last decades had excited notice
in the Roman advocate-world. It deserves attention, that the
opposition to the extravagances of Hellenism, which had formerly
sought to prevent the rise of a native Latin rhetoric,(37)
continued to influence it after it arose, and thereby secured
to Roman eloquence, as compared with the contemporary eloquence
of the Greeks, theoretically and practically a higher dignity
and a greater usefulness.
Philosophy
Philosophy, in fine, was not yet represented in literature,
since neither did an inward need develop a national Roman philosophy
nor did outward circumstances call forth a Latin philosophical
authorship. It cannot even be shown with certainty that there
were Latin translations of popular summaries of philosophy
belonging to this period; those who pursued philosophy read
and disputed in Greek.
Professional Sciences
Jurisprudence
In the professional sciences there was but little activity.
Well as the Romans understood how to farm and how to calculate,
physical and mathematical research gained no hold among them.
The consequences of neglecting theory appeared practically in
the low state of medical knowledge and of a portion of the military
sciences. Of all the professional sciences jurisprudence alone was
flourishing. We cannot trace its internal development with
chronological accuracy. On the whole ritual law fell more and
more into the shade, and at the end of this period stood nearly
in the same position as the canon law at the present day. The finer
and more profound conception of law, on the other hand, which
substitutes for outward criteria the motive springs of action
within--such as the development of the ideas of offences arising
from intention and from carelessness respectively, and of
possession entitled to temporary protection--was not yet in
existence at the time of the Twelve Tables, but was so in the age
of Cicero, and probably owed its elaboration substantially to the
present epoch. The reaction of political relations on the development
of law has been already indicated on several occasions; it was
not always advantageous. By the institution of the tribunal of the
-Centumviri- to deal with inheritance,(38) for instance, there was
introduced in the law of property a college of jurymen, which, like
the criminal authorities, instead of simply applying the law placed
itself above it and with its so-called equity undermined the legal
institutions; one consequence of which among others was the
irrational principle, that any one, whom a relative had passed over
in his testament, was at liberty to propose that the testament
should be annulled by the court, and the court decided according
to its discretion.
The development of juristic literature admits of being more
distinctly recognized. It had hitherto been restricted to
collections of formularies and explanations of terms in the laws;
at this period there was first formed a literature of opinions
(-responsa-), which answers nearly to our modern collections of
precedents. These opinions--which were delivered no longer merely
by members of the pontifical college, but by every one who found
persons to consult him, at home or in the open market-place,
and with which were already associated rational and polemical
illustrations and the standing controversies peculiar to
jurisprudence--began to be noted down and to be promulgated in
collections about the beginning of the seventh century. This was
done first by the younger Cato (d. about 600) and by Marcus Brutus
(nearly contemporary); and these collections were, as it would
appear, arranged in the order of matters.(39) A strictly
systematic treatment of the law of the land soon followed.
Its founder was the -pontifex maximus- Quintus Mucius Scaevola
(consul in 659, d. 672),(40) in whose family jurisprudence was,
like the supreme priesthood, hereditary. His eighteen books
on the -Ius Civile-, which embraced the positive materials of
jurisprudence--legislative enactments, judicial precedents, and
authorities--partly from the older collections, partly from oral
tradition in as great completeness as possible, formed the starting-
point and the model of the detailed systems of Roman law; in like
manner his compendious treatise of "Definitions" (--oroi--) became
the basis of juristic summaries and particularly of the books
of Rules. Although this development of law proceeded of course
in the main independently of Hellenism, yet an acquaintance with
the philosophico-practical scheme-making of the Greeks beyond
doubt gave a general impulse to the more systematic treatment of
jurisprudence, as in fact the Greek influence is in the case of
the last-mentioned treatise apparent in the very title. We have
already remarked that in several more external matters Roman
jurisprudence was influenced by the Stoa.(41)
Art exhibits still less pleasing results. In architecture,
sculpture, and painting there was, no doubt, a more and more
general diffusion of a dilettante interest, but the exercise of
native art retrograded rather than advanced. It became more and
more customary for those sojourning in Grecian lands personally to
inspect the works of art; for which in particular the winter-
quarters of Sulla's army in Asia Minor in 670-671 formed an epoch.
Connoisseur-ship developed itself also in Italy. They had
commenced with articles in silver and bronze; about the commencement
of this epoch they began to esteem not merely Greek statues,
but also Greek pictures. The first picture publicly exhibited in
Rome was the Bacchus of Aristides, which Lucius Mummius withdrew
from the sale of the Corinthian spoil, because king Attalus offered
as much as 6000 -denarii- (260 pounds) for it. The buildings became
more splendid; and in particular transmarine, especially Hymettian,
marble (Cipollino) came into use for that purpose--the Italian
marble quarries were not yet in operation. A magnificent colonnade
still admired in the time of the empire, which Quintus Metellus
(consul in 611) the conqueror of Macedonia constructed in the
Campus Martius, enclosed the first marble temple which the capital
had seen; it was soon followed by similar structures built on the
Capitol by Scipio Nasica (consul in 616), and near to the Circus by
Gnaeus Octavius (consul in 626). The first private house adorned
with marble columns was that of the orator Lucius Crassus (d. 663)
on the Palatine.(42) But where they could plunder or purchase,
instead of creating for themselves, they did so; it was a wretched
indication of the poverty of Roman architecture, that it already
began to employ the columns of the old Greek temples; the Roman
Capitol, for instance, was embellished by Sulla with those of the
temple of Zeus at Athens. The works, that were produced in Rome,
proceeded from the hands of foreigners; the few Roman artists of
this period, who are particularly mentioned, are without exception
Italian or transmarine Greeks who had migrated thither. Such was
the case with the architect Hermodorus from the Cyprian Salamis,
who among other works restored the Roman docks and built for
Quintus Metellus (consul in 611) the temple of Jupiter Stator
in the basilica constructed by him, and for Decimus Brutus (consul
in 616) the temple of Mars in the Flaminian circus; with the sculptor
Pasiteles (about 665) from Magna Graecia, who furnished images
of the gods in ivory for Roman temples; and with the painter
and philosopher Metrodorus of Athens, who was summoned to paint
the pictures for the triumph of Lucius Paullus (587). It is
significant that the coins of this epoch exhibit in comparison
with those of the previous period a greater variety of types,
but a retrogression rather than an improvement in the cutting
of the dies.
Finally, music and dancing passed over in like manner from Hellas
to Rome, solely in order to be there applied to the enhancement of
decorative luxury. Such foreign arts were certainly not new in
Rome; the state had from olden time allowed Etruscan flute-players
and dancers to appear at its festivals, and the freedmen and
the lowest class of the Roman people had previously followed
this trade. But it was a novelty that Greek dances and musical
performances should form the regular accompaniment of a genteel
banquet. Another novelty was a dancing-school, such as Scipio
Aemilianus full of indignation describes in one of his speeches,
in which upwards of five hundred boys and girls--the dregs of the
people and the children of magistrates and of dignitaries mixed up
together--received instruction from a ballet-master in far from
decorous castanet-dances, in corresponding songs, and in the use of
the proscribed Greek stringed instruments. It was a novelty too--
not so much that a consular and -pontifex maximus- like Publius
Scaevola (consul in 621) should catch the balls in the circus as
nimbly as he solved the most complicated questions of law at home--
as that young Romans of rank should display their jockey-arts
before all the people at the festal games of Sulla. The government
occasionally attempted to check such practices; as for instance in
639, when all musical instruments, with the exception of the simple
flute indigenous in Latium, were prohibited by the censors.
But Rome was no Sparta; the lax government by such prohibitions
rather drew attention to the evils than attempted to remedy them
by a sharp and consistent application of the laws.
If, in conclusion, we glance back at the picture as a whole which
the literature and art of Italy unfold to our view from the death
of Ennius to the beginning of the Ciceronian age, we find in these
respects as compared with the preceding epoch a most decided
decline of productiveness. The higher kinds of literature--such
as epos, tragedy, history--have died out or have been arrested in
their development. The subordinate kinds--the translation and
imitation of the intrigue-piece, the farce, the poetical and prose
brochure--alone are successful; in this last field of literature
swept by the full hurricane of revolution we meet with the two men
of greatest literary talent in this epoch, Gaius Gracchus and Gaius
Lucilius, who stand out amidst a number of more or less mediocre
writers just as in a similar epoch of French literature Courier
and Beranger stand out amidst a multitude of pretentious nullities.
In the plastic and delineative arts likewise the production,
always weak, is now utterly null. On the other hand the receptive
enjoyment of art and literature flourished; as the Epigoni of
this period in the political field gathered in and used up the
inheritance that fell to their fathers, we find them in this field
also as diligent frequenters of plays, as patrons of literature,
as connoisseurs and still more as collectors in art. The most
honourable aspect of this activity was its learned research,
which put forth a native intellectual energy, more especially in
jurisprudence and in linguistic and antiquarian investigation.
The foundation of these sciences which properly falls within the
present epoch, and the first small beginnings of an imitation of
the Alexandrian hothouse poetry, already herald the approaching
epoch of Roman Alexandrinism. All the productions of the present
epoch are smoother, more free from faults, more systematic than
the creations of the sixth century. The literati and the friends
of literature of this period not altogether unjustly looked down
on their predecessors as bungling novices: but while they ridiculed
or censured the defective labours of these novices, the very men
who were the most gifted among them may have confessed to themselves
that the season of the nation's youth was past, and may have
ever and anon perhaps felt in the still depths of the heart
a secret longing to stray once more in the delightful paths
of youthful error.
NOTES FOR VOLUME IV
Chapter I
1. III. VII. The State of Culture in Spain.
2. Italica must have been intended by Scipio to be what was called in
Italy forum et -conciliabulum civium Romanorum-; Aquae Sextiae in Gaul
had a similar origin afterwards. The formation of transmarine burgess-
communities only began at a later date with Carthage and Narbo: yet
it is remarkable that Scipio already made a first step, in a certain
sense, in that direction.
3. III. VII. Gracchus
4. The chronology of the war with Viriathus is far from being
precisely settled. It is certain that the appearance of Viriathus
dates from the conflict with Vetilius (Appian, Hisp. 61; Liv. lii.;
Oros. v. 4), and that he perished in 615 (Diod. Vat. p. 110, etc.);
the duration of his rule is reckoned at eight (Appian, Hisp. 63), ten
(Justin, xliv. 2), eleven (Diodorus, p. 597), fifteen (Liv. liv.;
Eutrop. iv. 16; Oros. v. 4; Flor. i. 33), and twenty years (Vellei.
ii. 90). The first estimate possesses some probability, because the
appearance of Viriathus is connected both in Diodorus (p. 591; Vat.
p. 107, 108) and in Orosius (v. 4) with the destruction of Corinth.
Of the Roman governors, with whom Viriathus fought, several undoubtedly
belong to the northern province; for though Viriathus was at work
chiefly in the southern, he was not exclusively so (Liv. lii.);
consequently we must not calculate the number of the years of his
generalship by the number of these names.
5. IV. I. Celtiberian War
6. III. VII. Massinissa
7. III. VI. Peace, III. VII. Carthage
8. The line of the coast has been in the course of centuries so
much changed that the former local relations are but imperfectly
recognizable on the ancient site. The name of the city is preserved
by Cape Cartagena--also called from the saint's tomb found there
Ras Sidi bu Said--the eastern headland of the peninsula, projecting
into the gulf with its highest point rising to 393 feet above
the level of the sea.
9. The dimensions given by Beule (Fouilles a Carthage, 1861)
are as follows in metres and in Greek feet (1=0.309 metre):--
Outer wall 2 metres = 6 1/2 feet.
Corridor 1.9 " = 6 "
Front wall of casemates 1 " = 3 1/4 "
Casemate rooms 4.2 " = 14 "
Back wall of casemates 1 " = 3 1/4 "
------------------------
Whole breadth of the walls 10.1 metres = 33 feet.
Or, as Diodorus (p. 522) states it, 22 cubits (1 Greek cubit = 1 1/2
feet), while Livy (ap. Oros. iv. 22) and Appian (Pun. 95), who seem
to have had before them another less accurate passage of Polybius,
state the breadth of the walls at 30 feet. The triple wall of
Appian--as to which a false idea has hitherto been diffused by
Floras (i. 31)--denotes the outer wall, and the front and back walls
of the casemates. That this coincidence is not accidental, and that
we have here in reality the remains of the famed walls of Carthage
before us, will be evident to every one: the objections of Davis
(Carthage and her Remains, p. 370 et seq.) only show how little
even the utmost zeal can adduce in opposition to the main results
of Beule. Only we must maintain that all the ancient authorities
give the statements of which we are now speaking with reference not
to the citadel-wall, but to the city-wall on the landward side, of
which the wall along the south side of the citadel-hill was an
integral part (Oros. iv. 22). In accordance with this view, the
excavations at the citadel-hill on the east, north, and west, have
shown no traces of fortifications, whereas on the south side they
have brought to light the very remains of this great wall. There is
no reason for regarding these as the remains of a separate
fortification of the citadel distinct from the city wall; it may
be presumed that further excavations at a corresponding depth--the
foundation of the city wall discovered at the Byrsa lies fifty-six
feet beneath the present surface--will bring to light like, or at
any rate analogous, foundations along the whole landward side,
although it is probable that at the point where the walled suburb of
Magalia rested on the main wall the fortification was either weaker
from the first or was early neglected. The length of the wall as a
whole cannot be stated with precision; but it must have been very
considerable, for three hundred elephants were stabled there, and
the stores for their fodder and perhaps other spaces also as well as
the gates are to be taken into account. It is easy to conceive how
the inner city, within the walls of which the Byrsa was included,
should, especially by way of contrast to the suburb of Magalia which
had its separate circumvallation, be sometimes itself called Byrsa
(App. Pun. 117; Nepos, ap. Serv. Aen. i. 368).
10. Such is the height given by Appian, l. c.; Diodorus gives
the height, probably inclusive of the battlements, at 40 cubits
or 60 feet. The remnant preserved is still from 13 to 16 feet
(4-5 metres) high.
11. The rooms of a horse-shoe shape brought to light in excavation
have a depth of 14, and a breadth of 11, Greek feet; the width of
the entrances is not specified. Whether these dimensions and the
proportions of the corridor suffice for our recognizing them
as elephants' stalls, remains to be settled by a more accurate
investigation. The partition-walls, which separate the apartments,
have a thickness of 1.1 metre = 3 1/2 feet.
12. Oros. iv. 22. Fully 2000 paces, or--as Polybius must have
said--16 stadia, are=about 3000 metres. The citadel-hill, on which
the church of St. Louis now stands, measures at the top about 1400,
half-way up about 2600, metres in circumference (Beule, p. 22); for
the circumference at the base that estimate will very well suffice.
13. It now bears the fort Goletta.
14. That this Phoenician word signifies a basin excavated in a
circular shape, is shown both by Diodorus (iii. 44), and by its
being employed by the Greeks to denote a "cup." It thus suits only
the inner harbour of Carthage, and in that sense it is used by Strabo
(xvii. 2, 14, where it is strictly applied to the admiral's island)
and Fest. Ep. v. -cothones-, p. 37. Appian (Pun. 127) is not quite
accurate in describing the rectangular harbour in front of the Cothon
as part of it.
15. --Oios pepnutai, toi de skiai aissousin--.
16. III. III. Acquisition of Territory in Illyria, III. IX. Macedonia
17. III. X. Macedonia Broken Up
18. This road was known already by the author of the pseudo-
Aristotelian treatise De Mirabilibus as a commercial route between
the Adriatic and Black seas, viz. As that along which the wine jars
from Corcyra met halfway those from Thasos and Lesbos. Even now
it runs substantially in the same direction from Durazzo, cutting
through the mountains of Bagora (Candavian chain) near the lake
of Ochrida (Lychnitis), by way of Monastir to Salonica.
19. III. X. Greek National Party
20. III. IX. The Achaeans
21. III. IX. The Achaeans
22. At Sabine townships, at Parma, and even at Italica in Spain
(p. 214), several pediments marked with the name of Mummius have
been brought to light, which once supported gifts forming part
of the spoil.
23. III. III. Organization of the Provinces
24. III. VIII. Final Regulation of Greece
25. The question whether Greece did or did not become a Roman
province in 608, virtually runs into a dispute about words. It is
certain that the Greek communities throughout remained "free" (C. I.
Gr. 1543, 15; Caesar, B. C. iii. 5; Appian, Mithr. 58; Zonar. ix.
31). But it is no less certain that Greece was then "taken possession
of" by the Romans (Tac. Ann. xiv. 21; 1 Maccab. viii. 9, 10); that
thenceforth each community paid a fixed tribute to Rome (Pausan. vii.
16, 6; comp. Cic. De Prov. Cons. 3, 5), the little island of Gyarus,
for instance, paying 150 --drachmae-- annually (Strabo, x. 485);
that the "rods and axes" of the Roman governor thenceforth ruled
in Greece (Polyb. xxxviii. l. c.; comp. Cic. Verr. l. i. 21, 55),
and that he thenceforth exercised the superintendence over the
constitutions of the cities (C. I. Gr. 1543), as well as in certain
cases the criminal jurisdiction (C. I. Gr. 1543; Plut. Cim. 2), just
as the senate had hitherto done; and that, lastly, the Macedonian
provincial era was also in use in Greece. Between these facts there
is no inconsistency, or at any rate none further than is involved
in the position of the free cities generally, which are spoken of
sometimes as if excluded from the province (e. g. Sueton. Cats., 25;
Colum. xi. 3, 26), sometimes as assigned to it (e. g. Joseph. Ant.
Jud. xiv. 4, 4). The Roman domanial possessions in Greece were,
no doubt, restricted to the territory of Corinth and possibly some
portions of Euboea (C. I. Gr. 5879), and there were no subjects
in the strict sense there at all; yet if we look to the relations
practically subsisting between the Greek communities and the
Macedonian governor, Greece may be reckoned as included in the
province of Macedonia in the same manner as Massilia in the province
of Narbo or Dyrrhachium in that of Macedonia. We find even cases
that go much further: Cisalpine Gaul consisted after 665 of mere
burgess or Latin communities and was yet made a province by Sulla,
and in the time of Caesar we meet with regions which consisted
exclusively of burgess-communities and yet by no means ceased to
be provinces. In these cases the fundamental idea of the Roman
-provinicia- comes out very clearly; it was primarily nothing but
a "command," and all the administrative and judicial functions of
the commandant were originally collateral duties and corollaries
of his military position.
On the other hand, if we look to the formal sovereignty of the free
communities, it must be granted that the position of Greece was not
altered in point of constitutional law by the events of 608. It was
a difference de facto rather than de jure, when instead of the Achaean
league the individual communities of Achaia now appeared by the side
of Rome as tributary protected states, and when, after the erection
of Macedonia as a separate Roman province, the latter relieved the
authorities of the capital of the superintendence over the Greek
client-states. Greece therefore may or may not be regarded as a part
of the "command" of Macedonia, according as the practical or the
formal point of view preponderates; but the preponderance is justly
conceded to the former.
26. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War
27. A remarkable proof of this is found in the names employed to
designate the fine bronze and copper wares of Greece, which in the time
of Cicero were called indiscriminately "Corinthian" or "Delian" copper.
Their designation in Italy was naturally derived not from the places
of manufacture but from those of export (Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 2, 9);
although, of course, we do not mean to deny that similar vases were
manufactured in Corinth and Delos themselves.
28. III. X. Course Pursued with Pergamus
29. III. IX. Extension of the Kingdom of Pergamus
30. III. X. Course Pursued with Pergamus
31. Several letters recently brought to light (Munchener
Sitzungsberichte, 1860, p. 180 et seq.) from the kings Eumenes II,
and Attalus II to the priest of Pessinus, who was uniformly called
Attis (comp. Polyb. xxii. 20), very clearly illustrate these
relations. The earliest of these and the only one with a date,
written in the 34th year of the reign of Eumenes on the 7th day
before the end of Gorpiaeus, and therefore in 590-1 u. c. offers to
the priest military aid in order to wrest from the Pesongi (not
otherwise known) temple-land occupied by them. The following,
likewise from Eumenes, exhibits the king as a party in the feud
between the priest of Pessinus and his brother Aiorix. Beyond doubt
both acts of Eumenes were included among those which were reported at
Rome in 590 et seq. as attempts on his part to interfere further in
Gallic affairs, and to support his partisans in that quarter (Polyb.
xxxi. 6, 9; xxxii. 3, 5). On the other hand it is plain from one of
the letters of his successor Attalus that the times had changed and
his wishes had lowered their tone. The priest Attis appears to have
at a conference at Apamea obtained once more from Attalus the promise
of armed assistance; but afterwards the king writes to him that in a
state council held for the purpose, at which Athenaeus (certainly the
known brother of the king), Sosander, Menogenes, Chlorus, and other
relatives (--anagkaioi--) had been present, after long hesitation the
majority had at length acceded to the opinion of Chlorus that nothing
should be done without previously consulting the Romans; for, even if
a success were obtained, they would expose themselves to its being lost
again, and to the evil suspicion "which they had cherished also
against his brother" (Eumenes II.).
32. In the same testament the king gave to his city Pergamus
"freedom," that is the --demokratia--, urban self-government.
According to the tenor of a remarkable document that has recently
been found there (Staatsrecht, iii(3). p. 726) after the testament
was opened, but before its confirmation by the Romans, the Demos thus
constituted resolved to confer urban burgess-rights on the classes
of the population hitherto excluded from them, especially on the
-paroeci- entered in the census and on the soldiers dwelling in town
and country, including the Macedonians, in order thus to bring
about a good understanding among the whole population. Evidently
the burgesses, in confronting the Romans with this comprehensive
reconciliation as an accomplished fact, desired, before the Roman
rule was properly introduced, to prepare themselves against it
and to take away from the foreign rulers the possibility of using
the differences of rights within the population for breaking up
its municipal freedom.
33. These strange "Heliopolites" may, according to the probable
opinion which a friend has expressed to me, be accounted for by supposing
that the liberated slaves constituted themselves citizens of a town
Heliopolis--not otherwise mentioned or perhaps having an existence
merely in imagination for the moment--which derived its name from
the God of the Sun so highly honoured in Syria.
34. III. IX. Extension of the Kingdom of Pergamus
35. III. IX. Extension of the Kingdom of Pergamus
36. III. IX. Extension of the Kingdom of Pergamus
37. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War
38. III. IX. Armenia
39. From him proceed the coins with the inscription "Shekel
Israel," and the date of the "holy Jerusalem," or the "deliverance
of Sion." The similar coins with the name of Simon, the prince
(Nessi) of Israel, belong not to him, but to Bar-Cochba the leader
of the insurgents in the time of Hadrian.
40. III. III. Illyrian Piracy
41. IV. I. New Organization of Spain
42. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War
Chapter II
1. In 537 the law restricting re-election to the consulship was
suspended during the continuance of the war in Italy, that is, down to
551 (p. 14; Liv. xxvii. 6). But after the death of Marcellus in 546
re-elections to the consulship, if we do not include the abdicating
consuls of 592, only occurred in the years 547, 554, 560, 579, 585, 586,
591, 596, 599, 602; consequently not oftener in those fifty-six years
than, for instance, in the ten years 401-410. Only one of these, and
that the very last, took place in violation of the ten years' interval
(i. 402); and beyond doubt the singular election of Marcus Marcellus
who was consul in 588 and 599 to a third consulship in 602, with the
special circumstances of which we are not acquainted, gave occasion to
the law prohibiting re-election to the consulship altogether (Liv. Ep.
56); especially as this proposal must have been introduced before 605,
seeing that it was supported by Cato (p. 55, Jordan).
2. III. XI. The Nobility in Possession of the Equestrian Centuries
3. III. XI. Festivals
4. IV. I. General Results
5. III. XII. Results
6. I. XIII. Landed Proprietors
7. It was asserted even then, that the human race in that quarter
was pre-eminently fitted for slavery by its especial power of
endurance. Plautus (Trin. 542) commends the Syrians: -genus quod
patientissitmum est hominum-.
8. III. XII. Rural Slaves ff., III. XII. Culture of Oil and Wine,
and Rearing of Cattle
9. III. XII. Pastoral Husbandry
10. III. I. The Carthaginian Dominion in Africa
11. The hybrid Greek name for the workhouse (-ergastulum-, from
--ergaszomai--, after the analogy of -stabulum-, -operculum-) is
an indication that this mode of management came to the Romans from
a region where the Greek language was used, but at a period when
a thorough Hellenic culture was not yet attained.
12. III. VI. Guerilla War in Sicily
13. III. XII. Falling Off in the Population
14. IV. I. War against Aristonicus
15. IV. I. Cilicia
16. Even now there are not unfrequently found in front of
Castrogiovanni, at the point where the ascent is least abrupt, Roman
projectiles with the name of the consul of 621: L. Piso L. f. cos.
17. II. III. Licinio-Sextian Laws
18. III. I. Capital and Its Power in Carthage
19. II. III. Influence of the Extension of the Roman Dominion in
Elevating the Farmer-Class
20. III. XI. Assignations of Land
21. II. II. Public Land
22. III. XII. Falling Off of the Population
23. IV. II. Permanent Criminal Commissions
24. III. XI. Position of the Governors
25. III. IX. Death of Scipio
26. III. XI. Reform of the Centuries
27. III. VII. Gracchus
28. IV. I. War against Aristonicus
29. IV. I. Mancinus
30. II. III. Licinio-Sextian Laws
31. II. III. Its Influence in Legislation
32. IV. I. War against Aristonicus
33. II. III. Attempts at Counter-Revolution
34. This fact, hitherto only partially known from Cicero (De L. Agr.
ii. 31. 82; comp. Liv. xlii. 2, 19), is now more fully established
by the fragments of Licinianus, p. 4. The two accounts are to be
combined to this effect, that Lentulus ejected the possessors in
consideration of a compensatory sum fixed by him, but accomplished
nothing with real landowners, as he was not entitled to dispossess
them and they would not consent to sell.
35. II. II. Agrarian Law of Spurius Cassius
36. III. XI. Rise of A City Rabble
37. III. IX. Nullity of the Comitia
Chapter III
1. IV. I. War against Aristonicus
2. IV. II. Ideas of Reform
3. III. VI. The African Expedition of Scipio
4. To this occasion belongs his oration -contra legem iudiciariam-
Ti. Gracchi--which we are to understand as referring not, as has been
asserted, to a law as to the -indicia publica-, but to the supplementary
law annexed to his agrarian rogation: -ut triumviri iudicarent-, qua
publicus ager, qua privatus esset (Liv. Ep. lviii.; see IV. II.
Tribunate of Gracchus above).
5. IV. II. Vote by Ballot
6. The restriction, that the continuance should only be allowable if
there was a want of other qualified candidates (Appian, B. C. i. 21),
was not difficult of evasion. The law itself seems not to have belonged
to the older regulations (Staatsrecht, i. 473), but to have been
introduced for the first time by the Gracchans.
7. Such are the words spoken on the announcement of his projects of
law:--"If I were to speak to you and ask of you--seeing that I am of
noble descent and have lost my brother on your account, and that there
is now no survivor of the descendants of Publius Africanus and Tiberius
Gracchus excepting only myself and a boy--to allow me to take rest for
the present, in order that our stock may not be extirpated and that
an offset of this family may still survive; you would perhaps readily
grant me such a request."
8. IV. III. Democratic Agitation under Carbo and Flaccus
9. III. XII. Results. Competition of Transmarine Corn
10. III. XII. Prices of Italian Corn
11. III. XI. Reform of the Centuries
12. IV. III. The Commission for Distributing the Domains
13. III. VII. The Romans Maintain A Standing Army in Spain
14. Thus the statement of Appian (Hisp. 78) that six years' service
entitled a man to demand his discharge, may perhaps be reconciled with
the better known statement of Polybius (vi. 19), respecting which
Marquardt (Handbuch, vi. 381) has formed a correct judgment. The time,
at which the two alterations were introduced, cannot be determined
further, than that the first was probably in existence as early as 603
(Nitzsch, Gracchen, p. 231), and the second certainly as early as the
time of Polybius. That Gracchus reduced the number of the legal years of
service, seems to follow from Asconius in Cornel, p. 68; comp. Plutarch,
Ti. Gracch. 16; Dio, Fr. 83, 7, Bekk.
15. II. I. Right of Appeal; II. VIII. Changes in Procedure
16. III. XII. Moneyed Aristocracy
17. IV. II. Exclusion of the Senators from the Equestrian Centuries
18. III. XI. The Censorship A Prop of the Nobility
19. III. XI. Patricio-Plebeian Nobility, III. XI. Family Government
20. IV. I. Western Asia
21. That he, and not Tiberius, was the author of this law, now appears
from Fronto in the letters to Verus, init. Comp. Gracchus ap. Gell. xi.
10; Cic. de. Rep. iii. 29, and Verr. iii. 6, 12; Vellei. ii. 6.
22. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law
23. We still possess a great portion of the new judicial ordinance--
primarily occasioned by this alteration in the personnel of the judges--
for the standing commission regarding extortion; it is known under the
name of the Servilian, or rather Acilian, law -de repetundis-.
24. This and the law -ne quis iudicio circumveniatur- may
have been identical.
25. A considerable fragment of a speech of Gracchus, still extant,
relates to this trafficking about the possession of Phrygia, which after
the annexation of the kingdom of Attalus was offered for sale by Manius
Aquillius to the kings of Bithynia and of Pontus, and was bought by the
latter as the highest bidder.(p. 280) In this speech he observes that
no senator troubled himself about public affairs for nothing, and adds
that with reference to the law under discussion (as to the bestowal
of Phrygia on king Mithradates) the senate was divisible into three
classes, viz. Those who were in favour of it, those who were against it,
and those who were silent: that the first were bribed by kingMithra dates,
the second by king Nicomedes, while the third were the most cunning,
for they accepted money from the envoys of both kings and made each
party believe that they were silent in its interest.
26. IV. III. Democratic Agitation under Carbo and Flaccus
27. IV. II. Tribunate of Gracchus
28. II. II. Legislation
29. II. III. Political Abolition of the Patriciate
Chapter IV
1. IV. III. Democratic Agitation under Carbo and Flaccus
2. IV. II. Tribunate of Gracchus
3. It is in great part still extant and known under the erroneous
name, which has now been handed down for three hundred years,
of the Thorian agrarian law.
4. II. VII. Attempts at Peace
5. II. VII. Attempts at Peace
6. This is apparent, as is well known, from the further course of
events. In opposition to this view stress has been laid on the fact
that in Valerius Maximus, vi. 9, 13, Quintus Caepio is called patron
of the senate; but on the one hand this does not prove enough, and on
the other hand what is there narrated does not at all suit the consul
of 648, so that there must be an error either in the name or in
the facts reported.
7. It is assumed in many quarters that the establishment of the
province of Cilicia only took place after the Cilician expedition of
Publius Servilius in 676 et seq., but erroneously; for as early as 662
we find Sulla (Appian, Mithr. 57; B. C. i. 77; Victor, 75), and in
674, 675, Gnaeus Dolabella (Cic. Verr. i. 1, 16, 44) as governors of
Cilicia--which leaves no alternative but to place the establishment of
the province in 652. This view is further supported by the fact that
at this time the expeditions of the Romans against the corsairs--e. g.
the Balearic, Ligurian, and Dalmatian expeditions--appear to have been
regularly directed to the occupation of the points of the coast whence
piracy issued; and this was natural, for, as the Romans had no standing
fleet, the only means of effectually checking piracy was the occupation
of the coasts. It is to be remembered, moreover, that the idea of a
-provincia- did not absolutely involve possession of the country, but
in itself implied no more than an independent military command; it is
very possible, that the Romans in the first instance occupied nothing in
this rugged country save stations for their vessels and troops.
The plain of eastern Cilicia remained down to the war against Tigranes
attached to the Syrian empire (Appian, Syr. 48); the districts to
the north of the Taurus formerly reckoned as belonging to Cilicia--
Cappadocian Cilicia, as it was called, and Cataonia--belonged to
Cappadocia, the former from the time of the breaking up of the kingdom
of Attalus (Justin, xxxvii. 1; see above, IV. I. War against Aristonicus),
the latter probably even from the time of the peace with Antiochus.
8. IV. II. Insurrections of the Slaves
9. III. VII. Numidians
10. IV. I The Siege
11. The following table exhibits the genealogy of the Numidian princes:--
Massinissa
516-605
(238-149)
------------------------------------------------------
Micipsa Gulussa Mastanabal
d. 636 d. bef. 636 d. bef. 636
(118) (118) (118)
---------------------------- ------- ---------------------
Adherbal Hiempsal I Micipsa Massiva Gauda Jugurtha
d. 642 d. c. 637 (Diod. d. 643 d.bef. 666 d. 650
(112) (117) p. 607) (111) (88) (104)
----------- -------
Hiempsal II Oxyntas
------
Juba I
-------
Juba II
12. In the exciting and clever description of this war by Sallust
the chronology has been unduly neglected. The war terminated in the
summer of 649 (c. 114); if therefore Marius began his management
of the war as consul in 647, he held the command there in three
campaigns. But the narrative describes only two, and rightly so.
For, just as Metellus to all appearance went to Africa as early as 645,
but, since he arrived late (c. 37, 44), and the reorganization of the
army cost time (c. 44), only began his operations in the following
year, in like manner Marius, who was likewise detained for a
considerable time in Italy by his military preparations (c. 84),
entered on the chief command either as consul in 647 late in the
season and after the close of the campaign, or only as proconsul in
648; so that the two campaigns of Metellus thus fall in 646, 647, and
those of Marius in 648, 649. It is in keeping with this that Metellus
did not triumph till the year 648 (Eph. epigr. iv. p. 277). With this
view the circumstance also very well accords, that the battle on the
Muthul and the siege of Zama must, from the relation in which they
stand to Marius' candidature for the consulship, be necessarily
placed in 646. In no case can the author be pronounced free from
inaccuracies; Marius, for instance, is even spoken of by him
as consul in 649.
The prolongation of the command of Metellus, which Sallust reports
(lxii. 10), can in accordance with the place at which it stands only
refer to the year 647; when in the summer of 646 on the footing of the
Sempronian law the provinces of the consuls to be elected for 647 were
to be fixed, the senate destined two other provinces and thus left
Numidia to Metellus. This resolve of the senate was overturned by
the plebiscitum mentioned at lxxii. 7. The following words which are
transmitted to us defectively in the best manuscripts of both families,
-sed paulo... decreverat; ea res frustra fuit,- must either have named
the provinces destined for the consuls by the senate, possibly -sed
paulo [ante ut consulibus Italia et Gallia provinciae essent senatus]
decreverat- or have run according to the way of filling up the
passage in the ordinary manuscripts; -sed paulo [ante senatus
Metello Numidiam] decreverat-.
13. Now Beja on the Mejerdah.
14. The locality has not been discovered. The earlier supposition
that Thelepte (near Feriana, to the northward of Capsa) was meant, is
arbitrary; and the identification with a locality still at the present
day named Thala to the east of Capsa is not duly made out.
15. Sallust's political genre-painting of the Jugurthine war--the
only picture that has preserved its colours fresh in the otherwise
utterly faded and blanched tradition of this epoch--closes with the
fall of Jugurtha, faithful to its style of composition, poetical, not
historical; nor does there elsewhere exist any connected account of
the treatment of the Numidian kingdom. That Gauda became Jugurtha's
successor is indicated by Sallust, c. 65 and Dio. Fr. 79, 4, Bekk.,
and confirmed by an inscription of Carthagena (Orell. 630), which
calls him king and father of Hiempsal II. That on the east the
frontier relations subsisting between Numidia on the one hand and
Roman Africa and Cyrene on the other remained unchanged, is shown by
Caesar (B. C. ii. 38; B. Afr. 43, 77) and by the later provincial
constitution. On the other hand the nature of the case implied, and
Sallust (c. 97, 102, 111) indicates, that the kingdom of Bocchus was
considerably enlarged; with which is undoubtedly connected the fact,
that Mauretania, originally restricted to the region of Tingis
(Morocco), afterwards extended to the region of Caesarea (province
of Algiers) and to that of Sitifis (western half of the province of
Constantine). As Mauretania was twice enlarged by the Romans, first
in 649 after the surrender of Jugurtha, and then in 708 after the
breaking up of the Numidian kingdom, it is probable that the
region of Caesarea was added on the first, and that of Sitifis
on the second augmentation.
16. III. VIII. Interference of the Community with the Finances
Chapter V
1. If Cicero has not allowed himself to fall into an anachronism
when he makes Africanus say this as early as 625 (de Rep. iii. 9),
the view indicated in the text remains perhaps the only possible one.
This enactment did not refer to Northern Italy and Liguria, as the
cultivation of the vine by the Genuates in 637 (III. XII. Culture Of
Oil and Wine, and Rearing of Cattle, note) proves; and as little to
the immediate territory of Massilia (Just. xliii 4; Posidon. Fr. 25,
Mull.; Strabo, iv. 179). The large export of wine and oil from
Italy to the region of the Rhone in the seventh century of the
city is well known.
2. In Auvergne. Their capital, Nemetum or Nemossus, lay not
far from Clermont.
3. The battle at Vindalium is placed by the epitomator of Livy and by
Orosius before that on the Isara; but the reverse order is supported by
Floras and Strabo (iv. 191), and is confirmed partly by the circumstance
that Maximus, according to the epitome of Livy and Pliny, H. N. vii. 50,
conquered the Gauls when consul, partly and especially by the Capitoline
Fasti, according to which Maximus not only triumphed before Ahenobarbus,
but the former triumphed over the Allobroges and the king of the Arverni,
the latter only over the Arverni. It is clear that the battle with
the Allobroges and Arverni must have taken place earlier than that
with the Arverni alone.
4. Aquae was not a colony, as Livy says (Ep. 61), but a -castellum-
(Strabo, iv. 180; Velleius, i. 15; Madvig, Opusc. i. 303). The same
holds true of Italica (p. 214), and of many other places--Vindonissa,
for instance, never was in law anything else than a Celtic village,
but was withal a fortified Roman camp, and a township of very
considerable importance.
5. III. VII. Measures Adopted to Check the Immigrations of
the Transalpine Gauls
6. III. III. Expedition against Scodra
7. III. III. Impression in Greece and Macedonia
8. III. X. Humiliation of the Greeks in General
9. IV. I. Province of Macedonia. the Pirustae in the valleys of
the Drin belonged to the province of Macedonia, but made forays
into the neighbouring Illyricum (Caesar, B. G. v. 1).
10. II. IV. the Celts Assail the Etruscans in Northern Italy
11. "The Helvetii dwelt," Tacitus says (Germ. 28), "between the
Hercynian Forest (i. e. here probably the Rauhe Alp), the Rhine, and
the Main; the Boii farther on." Posidonius also (ap. Strab. vii. 293)
states that the Boii, at the time when they repulsed the Cimbri,
inhabited the Hercynian Forest, i. e. the mountains from the Rauhe
Alp to the Bohmerwald The circumstance that Caesar transplants them
"beyond the Rhine" (B. G. i. 5) is by no means inconsistent with this,
for, as he there speaks from the Helvetian point of view, he may very
well mean the country to the north-east of the lake of Constance; which
quite accords with the fact, that Strabo (vii. 292) describes the former
Boian country as bordering on the lake of Constance, except that he is
not quite accurate in naming along with them the Vindelici as dwelling
by the lake of Constance, for the latter only established themselves
there after the Boii had evacuated these districts. From these seats
of theirs the Boii were dispossessed by the Marcomani and other
Germanic tribes even before the time of Posidonius, consequently
before 650; detached portions of them in Caesar's time roamed about
in Carinthia (B. G. i. 5), and came thence to the Helvetii and into
western Gaul; another swarm found new settlements on the Plattensee,
where it was annihilated by the Getae; but the district--the "Boian
desert," as it was called--preserved the name of this the most harassed
of all the Celtic peoples (III. VII. Colonizing of The Region South
of The Po, note).
12. They are called in the Triumphal Fasti -Galli Karni-; and in Victor
-Ligures Taurisci- (for such should be the reading instead of the
received -Ligures et Caurisci-).
13. The quaestor of Macedonia M. Annius P. f., to whom the town of
Lete (Aivati four leagues to the north-west of Thessalonica) erected
in the year 29 of the province and 636 of the city this memorial stone
(Dittenberger, Syll. 247), is not otherwise known; the praetor Sex.
Pompeius whose fall is mentioned in it can be no other than the
grandfather of the Pompeius with whom Caesar fought and the brother-in-
law of the poet Lucilius. The enemy are designated as --Galaton
ethnos--. It is brought into prominence that Annius in order to spare
the provincials omitted to call out their contingents and repelled the
barbarians with the Roman troops alone. To all appearance Macedonia
even at that time required a de facto standing Roman garrison.
14. If Quintus Fabius Maximus Eburnus consul in 638 went to Macedonia
(C. I. Gr. 1534; Zumpt, Comm. Epigr. ii. 167), he too must have
suffered a misfortune there, since Cicero, in Pison. 16, 38, says:
-ex (Macedonia) aliquot praetorio imperio, consulari quidem nemo rediit,
qui incolumis fuerit, quin triumpharit-; for the triumphal list, which
is complete for this epoch, knows only the three Macedonian triumphs
of Metellus in 643, of Drusus in 644, and of Minucius in 648.
15. As, according to Frontinus (ii. 43), Velleius and Eutropius, the
tribe conquered by Minucius was the Scordisci, it can only be through
an error on the part of Florus that he mentions the Hebrus (the Maritza)
instead of the Margus (Morava).
16. This annihilation of the Scordisci, while the Maedi and Dardani
were admitted to treaty, is reported by Appian (Illyr. 5), and in fact
thence forth the Scordisci disappear from this region. If the final
subjugation took place in the 32nd year --apo teis proteis es Keltous
peiras--, it would seem that this must be understood of a thirty-two
years' war between the Romans and the Scordisci, the commencement of
which presumably falls not long after the constituting of the province
of Macedonia (608) and of which the incidents in arms above recorded,
636-647, are a part. It is obvious from Appian's narrative that the
conquest ensued shortly before the outbreak of the Italian civil wars,
and so probably at the latest in 663. It falls between 650 and 656,
if a triumph followed it, for the triumphal list before and after is
complete; it is possible however that for some reason there was no
triumph. The victor is not further known; perhaps it was no other than
the consul of the year 671; since the latter may well have been late
in attaining the consulate in consequence of the Cinnan-Marian troubles.
17. The account that large tracts on the coasts of the North Sea
had been torn away by inundations, and that this had occasioned the
migration of the Cimbri in a body (Strabo, vii. 293), does not indeed
appear to us fabulous, as it seemed to those who recorded it; but
whether it was based on tradition or on conjecture, cannot be decided.
18. III. VII. Measures Adopted to Check the Immigrations of
the Transalpine Gauls
19. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law
20. The usual hypothesis, that the Tougeni and Tigorini had advanced
at the same time with the Cimbri into Gaul, cannot be supported by
Strabo (vii. 293), and is little in harmony with the separate part acted
by the Helvetii. Our traditional accounts of this war are, besides, so
fragmentary that, just as in the case of the Samnite wars, a connected
historical narration can only lay claim to approximate accuracy.
21. To this, beyond doubt, the fragment of Diodorus (Vat. p. 122)
relates.
22. IV. IV. The Proletariate and Equestrian Order under the Restoration
23. The deposition from office of the proconsul Caepio, with which was
combined the confiscation of his property (Liv. Ep. 67), was probably
pronounced by the assembly of the people immediately after the battle
of Arausio (6th October 649). That some time elapsed between the
deposition and his proper downfall, is clearly shown by the proposal
made in 650, and aimed at Caepio, that deposition from office should
involve the forfeiture of a seat in the senate (Asconius in Cornel,
p. 78). The fragments of Licinianus (p. 10; -Cn. Manilius ob eandem
causam quam et Caepio L. Saturnini rogatione e civitate est cito [?]
eiectus-; which clears up the allusion in Cic. de Or. ii. 28, 125) now
inform us that a law proposed by Lucius Appuleius Saturninus brought
about this catastrophe. This is evidently no other than the Appuleian
law as to the -minuta maiestas- of the Roman state (Cic. de Or. ii.
25, 107; 49, 201), or, as its tenor was already formerly explained
(ii. p. 143 of the first edition [of the German]), the proposal of
Saturninus for the appointment of an extraordinary commission to
investigate the treasons that had taken place during the Cimbrian
troubles. The commission of inquiry as to the gold of Tolosa
(Cic. de N. D. iii. 30, 74) arose in quite a similar way out of
the Appuleian law, as the special courts of inquiry--further mentioned
in that passage--as to a scandalous bribery of judges out of the Mucian
law of 613, as to the occurrences with the Vestals out of the Peducaean
law of 641, and as to the Jugurthine war out of the Mamilian law of 644.
A comparison of these cases also shows that in such special
commissions--different in this respect from the ordinary ones--even
punishments affecting life and limb might be and were inflicted. If
elsewhere the tribune of the people, Gaius Norbanus, is named as the
person who set agoing the proceedings against Caepio and was afterwards
brought to trial for doing so (Cic. de Or. ii. 40, 167; 48, 199; 49, 200;
Or. Part. 30, 105, et al.), this is not inconsistent with the view
given above; for the proposal proceeded as usual from several tribunes
of the people (ad Herenn. i. 14, 24; Cic. de Or. ii. 47, 197), and,
as Saturninus was already dead when the aristocratic party was in a
position to think of retaliation, they fastened on his colleague.
As to the period of this second and final condemnation of Caepio,
the usual very inconsiderate hypothesis, which places it in 659,
ten years after the battle of Arausio, has been already rejected.
It rests simply on the fact that Crassus when consul, consequently
in 659, spoke in favour of Caepio (Cic. Brut. 44, 162); which, however,
he manifestly did not as his advocate, but on the occasion when
Norbanus was brought to account by Publius Sulpicius Rufus for his
conduct toward Caepio in 659. Formerly the year 650 was assumed for
this second accusation; now that we know that it originated from a
proposal of Saturninus, we can only hesitate between 651, when he was
tribune of the people for the first time (Plutarch, Mar. 14; Oros,
v. 17; App. i. 28; Diodor. p. 608, 631), and 654, when he held that
office a second time. There are not materials for deciding the point
with entire certainty, but the great preponderance of probability is
in favour of the former year; partly because it was nearer to the
disastrous events in Gaul, partly because in the tolerably full
accounts of the second tribunate of Saturninus there is no mention
of Quintus Caepio the father and the acts of violence directed against
him. The circumstance, that the sums paid back to the treasury in
consequence of the verdicts as to the embezzlement of the Tolosan
booty were claimed by Saturninus in his second tribunate for his
schemes of colonization (De Viris Ill. 73, 5, and thereon Orelli,
Ind. Legg. p. 137), is not in itself decisive, and may, moreover,
have been easily transferred by mistake from the first African to
the second general agrarian law of Saturninus.
The fact that afterwards, when Norbanus was impeached, his impeachment
proceeded on the very ground of the law which he had taken part in
suggesting, was an ironical incident common in the Roman political
procedure of this period (Cic. Brut. 89, 305) and should not mislead
us into the belief that the Appuleian law was, like the later
Cornelian, a general law of high treason.
24. The view here presented rests in the main on the comparatively
trustworthy account in the Epitome of Livy (where we should read
-reversi in Gallium in Vellocassis se Teutonis coniunxerunt) and in
Obsequens; to the disregard of authorities of lesser weight, which
make the Teutones appear by the side of the Cimbri at an earlier date,
some of them, such as Appian, Celt. 13, even as early as the battle of
Noreia. With these we connect the notices in Caesar (B. G. i. 33; ii.
4, 29); as the invasion of the Roman province and of Italy by the Cimbri
can only mean the expedition of 652.
25. It is injudicious to deviate from the traditional account
and to transfer the field of battle to Verona: in so doing the fact
is overlooked that a whole winter and various movements of troops
intervened between the conflicts on the Adige and the decisive
engagement, and that Catulus, according to express statement (Plut. Mar.
24), had retreated as far as the right bank of the Po. The statements
that the Cimbri were defeated on the Po (Hier. Chron.), and that they
were defeated where Stilicho afterwards defeated the Getae, i. e. at
Cherasco on the Tanaro, although both inaccurate, point at least to
Vercellae much rather than to Verona.
Chapter VI
1. IV. IV. The Domain Question under the Restoration
2. I. VI. The Servian Constitution, II. III. Its Composition
3. III. XI. Reforms in the Military Service
4. III. XI. The Nobility in Possession of the Equestrian Centuries
5. IV. IV. Treaty between Rome and Numidia
6. IV. V. Warfare of Prosecutions
7. It is not possible to distinguish exactly what belongs to the first
and what to the second tribunate of Saturninus; the more especially,
as in both he evidently followed out the same Gracchan tendencies.
The African agrarian law is definitely placed by the treatise De Viris Ill.
73, 1 in 651; and this date accords with the termination, which had
taken place just shortly before, of the Jugurthine war. The second
agrarian law belongs beyond doubt to 654. The treason-law and the corn-
law have been only conjecturally placed, the former in 651 (p. 442
note), the latter in 654.
8. All indications point to this conclusion. The elder Quintus Caepio
was consul in 648, the younger quaestor in 651 or 654, the former
consequently was born about or before 605, the latter about 624 or 627.
The fact that the former died without leaving sons (Strabo, iv. 188) is
not inconsistent with this view, for the younger Caepio fell in 664,
and the elder, who ended his life in exile at Smyrna, may very well
have survived him.
9. IV. IV. Treaty between Rome and Numidia
10. IV. V. Warfare of Prosecutions
11. IV. IV. Rival Demagogism of the Senate. The Livian Laws
12. IV. V. And Reach the Danube
13. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration
14. IV. VI. Collision between the Senate and Equites in
the Administration of the Provinces
Chapter VII
1. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law
2. I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium, II. V. As to the Officering
of the Army
3. II. VII. Furnishing of Contingents; III. XI. Latins
4. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition
5. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition
6. IV. III. Democratic Agitation under Carbo and Flaccus,
IV. III. Overthrow of Gracchus
7. These figures are taken from the numbers of the census of 639 and
684; there were in the former year 394, 336 burgesses capable of bearing
arms, in the latter 910,000 (according to Phlegon Fr. 12 Mull., which
statement Clinton and his copyists erroneously refer to the census of
668; according to Liv. Ep. 98 the number was--by the correct reading--
900,000 persons). The only figures known between these two--those of
the census of 668, which according to Hieronymus gave 463,000 persons--
probably turned out so low only because the census took place amidst
the crisis of the revolution. As an increase of the population of Italy
is not conceivable in the period from 639 to 684, and even the Sullan
assignations of land can at the most have but filled the gaps which the
war had made, the surplus of fully 500,000 men capable of bearing arms
may be referred with certainty to the reception of the allies which had
taken place in the interval. But it is possible, and even probable,
that in these fateful years the total amount of the Italian population
may have retrograded rather than advanced: if we reckon the total
deficit at 100,000 men capable of bearing arms, which seems not
excessive, there were at the time of the Social War in Italy three non-
burgesses for two burgesses.
8. The form of oath is preserved (in Diodor. Vat. p. 116); it runs
thus: "I swear by the Capitoline Jupiter and by the Roman Vesta and by
the hereditary Mars and by the generative Sun and by the nourishing
Earth and by the divine founders and enlargers (the Penates) of the City
of Rome, that he shall be my friend and he shall be my foe who is friend
or foe to Drusus; also that I will spare neither mine own life nor the
life of my children or of my parents, except in so far as it is for the
good of Drusus and those who share this oath. But if I should become a
burgess by the law of Drusus, I will esteem Rome as my home and Drusus
as the greatest of my benefactors. I shall tender this oath to as many
of my fellow-citizens as I can; and if I swear truly, may it fare with
me well; if I swear falsely, may it fare with me ill." But we shall do
well to employ this account with caution; it is derived either from
the speeches delivered against Drusus by Philippus (which seems to
be indicated by the absurd title "oath of Philippus" prefixed by the
extractor of the formula) or at best from the documents of criminal
procedure subsequently drawn up respecting this conspiracy in Rome; and
even on the latter hypothesis it remains questionable, whether this form
of oath was elicited from the accused or imputed to them in the inquiry.
9. II. VII. Dissolution of National Leagues
10. IV. VI. Discussions on the Livian Laws
11. IV. IV. Dissatisfaction in the Capital, IV. V. Warfare
of Prosecutions
12. Even from our scanty information, the best part of which is
given by Diodorus, p. 538 and Strabo, v. 4, 2, this is very distinctly
apparent; for example, the latter expressly says that the burgess-body
chose the magistrates. That the senate of Italia was meant to be formed
in another manner and to have different powers from that of Rome,
has been asserted, but has not been proved. Of course in its first
composition care would be taken to have a representation in some degree
uniform of the insurgent cities; but that the senators were to be
regularly deputed by the communities, is nowhere stated. As little
does the commission given to the senate to draw up a constitution exclude
its promulgation by the magistrates and ratification by the assembly
of the people.
13. The bullets found at Asculum show that the Gauls were very
numerousalso in the army of Strabo.
14. We still have a decree of the Roman senate of 22 May 676, which
grants honours and advantages on their discharge to three Greek ship-
captains of Carystus, Clazomenae, and Miletus for faithful services
renderedsince the commencement of the Italian war (664). Of the same
nature is the account of Memnon, that two triremes were summoned from
Heraclea on the Black Sea for the Italian war, and that they returned
in the eleventh year with rich honorary gifts.
15. That this statement of Appian is not exaggerated, is shown
by the bullets found at Asculum which name among others the
fifteenth legion.
16. The Julian law must have been passed in the last months of 664,
for during the good season of the year Caesar was in the field;
the Plautian was probably passed, as was ordinarily the rule with
tribunician proposals, immediately after the tribunes entered on office,
consequently in Dec. 664 or Jan. 665.
17. Leaden bullets with the name of the legion which threw them, and
sometimes with curses against the "runaway slaves"--and accordingly
Roman--or with the inscription "hit the Picentes" or "hit Pompeius"--
the former Roman, the latter Italian--are even now sometimes found,
belonging to that period, in the region of Ascoli.
18. The rare -denarii- with -Safinim- and -G. Mutil- in Oscan
characters must belong to this period; for, as long as the designation
-Italia- was retained by the insurgents, no single canton could, as a
sovereign power, coin money with its own name.
19. I. VII. Servian Wall
20. Licinianus (p. 15) under the year 667 says: -dediticiis omnibus
[ci]vita[s] data; qui polliciti mult[a] milia militum vix XV... cohortes
miserunt-; a statement in which Livy's account (Epit. 80): -Italicis
populis a senatu civitas data est- reappears in a somewhat more precise
shape. The -dediticii- were according to Roman state-law those
-peregrini liberi- (Gaius i. 13-15, 25, Ulp. xx. 14, xxii. 2) who
had become subject to the Romans and had not been admitted to alliance.
They not merely retain life, liberty, and property, but may be formed
into communities with a constitution of their own. --Apolides--,
-nullius certae civitatis cives- (Ulp. xx. 14; comp. Dig. xlviii. 19, 17,
i), were only the freedmen placed by legal fiction on the same footing
with the -dediticii qui dediticiorum numero sunt-, only by erroneous
usage and rarely by the better authors called directly -dediticii-; (Gai.
i. 12, Ulp. i. 14, Paul. iv. 12, 6) as well as the kindred -liberti
Latini Iuniani-. But the -dediticii-nevertheless were destitute of
rights as respected the Roman state, in so far as by Roman state-law
every -deditio- was necessarily unconditional (Polyb, xxi. 1; comp. xx.
9, 10, xxxvi. 2) and all the privileges expressly or tacitly conceded to
them were conceded only -precario- and therefore revocable at pleasure
(Appian, Hisp. 44); so that the Roman state, what ever it might
immediately or afterwards decree regarding its -dediticii-, could never
perpetrate as respected them a violation of rights. This destitution of
rights only ceased on the conclusion of a treaty of alliance (Liv.
xxxiv. 57). Accordingly -deditio- and -foedus- appear in constitutional
law as contrasted terms excluding each other (Liv. iv. 30, xxviii. 34;
Cod. Theod. vii. 13, 16 and Gothofr. thereon), and of precisely the same
nature is the distinction current among the jurists between the -quasi-
dediticii- and the -quasi Latini-, for the Latins are just the
-foederati- in an eminent sense (Cic. pro Balb. 24, 54).
According to the older constitutional law there were, with the exception
of the not numerous communities that were declared to have forfeited
their treaties in consequence of the Hannibalic war (p. 24), no Italian
-dediticii-; in the Plautian law of 664-5 the description: -qui
foederatis civitatibus adscripti fuerunt- (Cic. pro Arch. 4, 7)
still included in substance all Italians. But as the -dediticii-
who received the franchise supplementary in 667 cannot reasonably
be understood as embracing merely the Bruttii and Picentes, we may
assume that all the insurgents, so far as they had laid down their
arms and had not acquired the franchise under the Plautio-Papirian
law were treated as -dediticii-, or--which is the same thing--
that their treaties cancelled as a matter of course by the insurrection
(hence -qui foederati fuerunt- in the passage of Cicero cited) were
not legally renewed to them on their surrender.
21. II. III. Laws Imposing Taxes
22. IV. VI. The Equestrian Party
23. II. XI. Squandering of the Spoil
24. It is not clear, what the -lex unciaria- of the consuls Sulla and
Rufus in the year 666 prescribed in this respect; but the simplest
hypothesis is that which regards it as a renewal of the law of 397 (i.
364), so that the highest allowable rate of interest was again 1 1/12th
of the capital for the year of ten months or 10 per cent for the year
of twelve months.
25. III. XI. Reform of the Centuries
26. II. III. Powers of the Senate
27. IV. II. Death of Gracchus, IV. III. Attack on The Transmarine
Colonization. Downfall of Gracchus, IV. VI. Saturninus Assailed
28. II. III. The Tribunate of the People As an Instrument of Government
Chapter VIII
1. IV. VIII. Occupation of Cilicia
2. III. IX. Armenia
3. IV. I. Western Asia
4. The words quoted as Phrygian --Bagaios-- = Zeus and the old
royal name --Manis-- have been beyond doubt correctly referred to
the Zend -bagha- = God and the Germanic -Mannus-, Indian -Manus-
(Lassen, -Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenland-. Gesellschaft,
vol. x. p. 329 f.).
5. They are here grouped together, because, though they were in
part doubtless not executed till between the first and the second
war with Rome, they to some extent preceded even the first (Memn.
30; Justin, xxxviii. 7 ap. fin.; App. Mithr. 13; Eutrop. v. 5) and
a narrative in chronological order is in this case absolutely
impracticable. Even the recently found decree of Chersonesus
(p. 17) has given no information in this respect According to it
Diophantus was twice sent against the Taurian Scythians; but that
the second insurrection of these is connected with the decree of
the Roman senate in favour of the Scythian princes (p. 21) is not
clear from the document, and is not even probable.
6. It is very probable that the extraordinary drought, which
is the chief obstacle now to agriculture in the Crimea and in
these regions generally, has been greatly increased by the
disappearance of the forests of central and southern Russia,
which formerly to some extent protected the coast-provinces
from the parching northeast wind.
7. The recently discovered decree of the town of Chersonesus in
honour of this Diophantus (Dittenberger, Syll. n. 252) thoroughly
confirms the traditional account. It shows us the city in the
immediate vicinity--the port of Balaclava must at that time have
been in the power of the Tauri and Simferopol in that of the
Scythians--hard pressed partly by the Tauri on the south coast of
the Crimea, partly and especially by the Scythians who held in
their power the whole interior of the peninsula and the mainland
adjoining; it shows us further how the general of king Mithradates
relieves on all sides the Greek city, defeats the Tauri, and erects
in their territory a stronghold (probably Eupatorion), restores the
connection between the western and the eastern Hellenes of the
peninsula, overpowers in the west the dynasty of Scilurus, and in
the east Saumacus prince of the Scythians, pursues the Scythians
even to the mainland, and at length conquers them with the
Reuxinales--such is the name given to the later Roxolani here,
where they first appear--in the great pitched battle, which is
mentioned also in the traditional account. There does not seem to
have been any formal subordination of the Greek city under the king;
Mithradates appears only as protecting ally, who fights the battles
against the Scythians that passed as invincible (--tous anupostatous
dokountas eimen--), on behalf of the Greek city, which probably
stood to him nearly in the relation of Massilia and Athens to Rome.
The Scythians on the other band in the Crimea become subjects
(--upakooi--) of Mithradates.
8. The chronology of the following events can only be determined
approximately. Mithradates Eupator seems to have practically
entered on the government somewhere about 640; Sulla's intervention
took place in 662 (Liv. Ep. 70) with which accords the calculation
assigning to the Mithradatic wars a period of thirty years (662-691)
(Plin. H. N. vii. 26, 97). In the interval fell the quarrels as to
the Paphlagonian and Cappadocian succession, with which the bribery
attempted by Mithradates in Rome (Diod. 631) apparently in the first
tribunate of Saturninus in 651 (IV. VI. Saturninus) was probably
connected. Marius, who left Rome in 665 and did not remain long
in the east, found Mithradates already in Cappadocia and negotiated
with him regarding his aggressions (Cic. ad Brut. i. 5; Plut. Mar. 31);
Ariarathes VI had consequently been by that time put to death.
9. IV. III. Character of the Constitution of Gaius Gracchus
10. A decree of the senate of the year 638 recently found in the
village Aresti to the south of Synnada (Viereck, -Sermo Graecus quo
senatus Romanus usus sit-, p. 51) confirms all the regulations made
by the king up to his death and thus shows that Great Phrygia after
the death of the father was not merely taken from the son, as Appian
also states, but was thereby brought directly under Roman allegiance.
11. III. IX. Rupture between Antiochus and the Romans
12. Retribution came upon the authors of the arrest and surrender
of Aquillius twenty-five years afterwards, when after Mithradates'
death his son Pharnaces handed them over to the Romans.
13. IV. VII. Economic Crisis
14. We must recollect that after the outbreak of the Social War
the legion had at least not more than half the number of men which it
had previously, as it was no longer accompanied by Italian contingents.
15. The chronology of these events is, like all their details,
enveloped in an obscurity which investigation is able to dispel,
at most, only partially. That the battle of Chaeronea took place,
if not on the same day as the storming of Athens (Pausan, i. 20),
at any rate soon afterwards, perhaps in March 668, is tolerably certain.
That the succeeding Thessalian and the second Boeotian campaign took
up not merely the remainder of 668 but also the whole of 669, is in
itself probable and is rendered still more so by the fact that Sulla's
enterprises in Asia are not sufficient to fill more than a single
campaign. Licinianus also appears to indicate that Sulla returned to
Athens for the winter of 668-669 and there took in hand the work of
investigation and punishment; after which he relates the battle of
Orchomenus. The crossing of Sulla to Asia has accordingly been
placed not in 669, but in 670.
16. The resolution of the citizens of Ephesus to this effect has
recently been found (Waddington, Additions to Lebas, Inscr. iii.
136 a). They had, according to their own declaration, fallen into
the power of Mithradates "the king of Cappadocia," being frightened
by the magnitude of his forces and the suddenness of his attack;
but, when opportunity offered, they declared war against him "for
the rule (--egemonia--) of the Romans and the common weal."
17. The statement that Mithradates in the peace stipulated for
impunity to the towns which had embraced his side (Memnon, 35)
seems, looking to the character of the victor and of the
vanquished, far from credible, and it is not given by Appian
or by Licinianus. They neglected to draw up the treaty of
peace in writing, and this neglect afterwards left room far
various misrepresentations.
18. Armenian tradition also is acquainted with the first
Mithradatic war. Ardasches king of Armenia--Moses of Chorene tells
us--was not content with the second rank which rightfully belonged
to him in the Persian (Parthian) empire, but compelled the Parthian
king Arschagan to cede to him the supreme power, whereupon he had a
palace built for himself in Persia and had coins struck there with
his own image. He appointed Arschagan viceroy of Persia and his
son Dicran (Tigranes) viceroy of Armenia, and gave his daughter
Ardaschama in marriage to the great-prince of the Iberians
Mihrdates (Mithradates) who was descended from Mihrdates satrap
of Darius and governor appointed by Alexander over the conquered
Iberians, and ruled in the northern mountains as well as over the
Black Sea. Ardasches then took Croesus the king of the Lydians
prisoner, subdued the mainland between the two great seas (Asia
Minor), and crossed the sea with innumerable vessels to subjugate
the west. As there was anarchy at that time in Rome, he nowhere
encountered serious resistance, but his soldiers killed each other
and Ardasches fell by the hands of his own troops. After
Ardasches' death his successor Dicran marched against the army of
the Greeks (i. e. the Romans) who now in turn invaded the Armenian
land; he set a limit to their advance, handed over to his brother-
in-law Mihrdates the administration of Madschag (Mazaca in
Cappadocia) and of the interior along with a considerable force,
and returned to Armenia. Many years afterwards there were still
pointed out in the Armenian towns statues of Greek gods by well-
known masters, trophies of this campaign.
We have no difficulty in recognizing here various facts of
the first Mithradatic war, but the whole narrative is evidently
confused, furnished with heterogeneous additions, and in particular
transferred by patriotic falsification to Armenia. In just the
same way the victory over Crassus is afterwards attributed to
the Armenians. These Oriental accounts are to be received with all
the greater caution, that they are by no means mere popular legends;
on the contrary the accounts of Josephus, Eusebius, and other
authorities current among the Christians of the fifth century have been
amalgamated with the Armenian traditions, and the historical romances
of the Greeks and beyond doubt the patriotic fancies also of Moses
himself have been laid to a considerable extent under contribution.
Bad as is cur Occidental tradition in itself, to call in the aid of
Oriental tradition in this and similar cases--as has been attempted
for instance by the uncritical Saint-Martin--can only lead to
still further confusion.
19. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War
Chapter IX
1. The whole of the representation that follows is based in
substance on the recently discovered account of Licinianus, which
communicates a number of facts previously unknown, and in
particular enables us to perceive the sequence and connection of
these events more clearly than was possible before.
2. IV. VII. The Bestowal of the Franchise and Its Limitations.
That there was no confirmation by the comitia, is clear from
Cic. Phil. xii. 11, 27. The senate seems to have made use of
the form of simply prolonging the term of the Plautio- Papirian
law (IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts),
a course which by use and wont (i. 409) was open to it and
practically amounted to conferring the franchise on all Italians.
3. "-Ad flatus sidere-," as Livy (according to Obsequens, 56)
expresses it, means "seized by the pestilence" (Petron. Sat. 2;
Plin. H. N. ii. 41, 108; Liv. viii. 9, 12), not "struck by
lightning," as later writers have misunderstood it.
4. IV. VII. Combats with the Marsians
5. IV. VII. Sulpicius Rufus
6. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts
7. IV. V. In Illyria
8. IV. VI. Discussions on the Livian Laws
9. IV. VII. Energetic Decrees
10. Lucius Valerius Flaccus, whom the Fasti name as consul in 668,
was not the consul of 654, but a younger man of the same name,
perhaps son of the preceding. For, first, the law which prohibited
re-election to the consulship remained legally in full force from
c. 603 (IV. II. Attempts at Reform) to 673, and it is not probable
that what was done in the case of Scipio Aemilianus and Marius was
done also for Flaccus. Secondly, there is no mention anywhere, when
either Flaccus is named, of a double consulship, not even where it
was necessary as in Cic. pro Flacc. 32, 77. Thirdly, the Lucius
Valerius Flaccus who was active in Rome in 669 as -princeps
senatus- and consequently of consular rank (Liv. 83), cannot have
been the consul of 668, for the latter had already at that time
departed for Asia and was probably already dead. The consul of
654, censor in 657, is the person whom Cicero (ad Att. viii. 3, 6)
mentions among the consulars present in Rome in 667; he was in 669
beyond doubt the oldest of the old censors living and thus fitted
to be -princeps senatus-; he was also the -interrex- and the
-magister equitum- of 672. On the other hand, the consul of 668,
who Perished at Nicomedia (p. 47), was the father of the Lucius
Flaccus defended by Cicero (pro Flacc. 25, 61, comp. 23, 55. 32, 77).
11. IV. VI. The Equestrian Party
12. IV. VII. Sulla Embarks for Asia
13. We can only suppose this to be the Brutus referred to, since
Marcus Brutus the father of the so-called Liberator was tribune of
the people in 671, and therefore could not command in the field.
14. IV. IV. Prosecutions of the Democrats
15. It is stated, that Sulla occupied the defile by which alone
Praeneste was accessible (App. i. 90); and the further events
showed that the road to Rome was open to him as well as to the
relieving army. Beyond doubt Sulla posted himself on the cross
road which turns off from the Via Latina, along which the Samnites
advanced, at Valmontone towards Palestrina; in this case Sulla
communicated with the capital by the Praenestine, and the enemy by
the Latin or Labican, road.
16. Hardly any other name can well be concealed under the corrupt
reading in Liv. 89 -miam in Samnio-; comp. Strabo, v. 3, 10.
17. IV. IX. Pompeius
18. IV. VIII. New Difficulties
Chapter X
1. III. XI. Abolition of the Dictatorship
2. -Satius est uti regibus quam uti malis legibus- (Ad Herenn. ii.
36).
3. II. I. The Dictator, II. II. The Valerio-Horatian Laws, II. III.
Limitation of the Dictatorship
4. IV. VII. Legislation of Sulla
5. This total number is given by Valerius Maximus, ix. 2. 1.
According to Appian (B. C. i. 95), there were proscribed by Sulla
nearly 40 senators, which number subsequently received some
additions, and about 1600 equites; according to Florus (ii. 9,
whence Augustine de Civ. Dei, iii. 28), 2000 senators and equites.
According to Plutarch (Sull. 31), 520 names were placed on the list
in the first three days; according to Orosius (v. 21), 580 names
during the first days. there is no material contradiction between
these various reports, for it was not senators and equites alone
that were put to death, and the list remained open for months.
When Appian, at another passage (i. 103), mentions as put to death
or banished by Sulla, 15 consulars, 90 senators, 2600 equites, he
there confounds, as the connection shows, the victims of the civil
war throughout with the victims of Sulla. The 15 consulars were--
Quintus Catulus, consul in 652; Marcus Antonius, 655; Publius
Crassus, 657; Quintus Scaevola, 659; Lucius Domitius, 660; Lucius
Caesar, 664; Quintus Rufus, 666; Lucius Cinna, 667-670; Gnaeus
Octavius, 667; Lucius Merula, 667; Lucius Flaccus, 668; Gnaeus
Carbo, 669, 670, 672; Gaius Norbanus, 671; Lucius Scipio, 671;
Gaius Marius, 672; of whom fourteen were killed, and one, Lucius
Scipio, was banished. When, on the other hand, the Livian account
in Eutropius (v. 9) and Orosius (v. 22) specifies as swept away
(-consumpti-) in the Social and Civil wars, 24 consulars, 7
praetorians, 60 aedilicians, 200 senators, the calculation includes
partly the men who fell in the Italian war, such as the consulars
Aulus Albinus, consul in 655; Titus Didius, 656; Publius Lupus,
664; Lucius Cato, 665; partly perhaps Quintus Metellus Numidicus
(IV. VI. Violent Proceedings in The Voting), Manius Aquillius,
Gaius Marius the father, Gnaeus Strabo, whom we may certainly regard
as also victims of that period, or other men whose fate is unknown to us.
Of the fourteen consulars killed, three--Rufus, Cinna, and Flaccus--
fell through military revolts, while eight Sullan and three Marian
consulars fell as victims to the opposite party. On a comparison of
the figures given above, 50 senators and 1000 equites were regarded
as victims of Marius, 40 senators and 1600 equites as victims
of Sulla; this furnishes a standard--at least not altogether
arbitrary--for estimating the extent of the crimes on both sides.
6. The Sextus Alfenus, frequently mentioned in Cicero's oration on
behalf of Publius Quinctius, was one of these.
7. II. VII. Latins. To this was added the peculiar aggravation that,
while in other instances the right of the Latins, like that of
the -peregrini-, implied membership in a definite Latin or foreign
community, in this case--just as with the later freedmen of Latin
and deditician rights (comp. IV. VII. The Bestowal of the Franchise and
Its Limitations. n.)--it was without any such right of urban membership.
The consequence was, that these Latins were destitute of the privileges
attaching to an urban constitution, and, strictly speaking, could not
even make a testament, since no one could execute a testament otherwise
than according to the law of his town; they could doubtless, however,
acquire under Roman testaments, and among the living could hold dealings
with each other and with Romans or Latins in the forms of Roman law.
8. IV. IV. The Domain Question under the Restoration
9. That Sulla's assessment of the five years' arrears and of the
war expenses levied on the communities of Asia (Appian, Mithr. 62
et al.) formed a standard for the future, is shown by the facts,
that the distribution of Asia into forty districts is referred to
Sulla (Cassiodor. Chron. 670) and that the Sullan apportionment
was assumed as a basis in the case of subsequent imposts (Cic. pro
Flacc. 14, 32), and by the further circumstance, that on occasion
of building a fleet in 672 the sums applied for that purpose were
deducted from the payment of tribute (-ex pecunia vectigali populo
Romano-: Cic. Verr. l. i. 35, 89). Lastly, Cicero (ad Q. fr. i. i,
ii, 33) directly says, that the Greeks "were not in a position of
themselves to pay the tax imposed on them by Sulla without -publicani-."
10. III. XI. Separation of the Orders in the Theatre
11. IV. III. Insignia of the Equites. Tradition has not indeed
informed us by whom that law was issued, which rendered it necessary
that the earlier privilege should be renewed by the Roscian theatre-law
of 687 (Becker-Friedlander, iv, 531); but under the circumstances
the author of that law was undoubtedly Sulla.
12. IV. VI. Livius Drusus
13. IV. VII. Rejection of the Proposals for an Accomodation
14. III. XI. The Nobility in Possession of the Senate
15. How many quaestors had been hitherto chosen annually, is not
known. In 487 the number stood at eight--two urban, two military,
and four naval, quaestors (II. VII. Quaestors of the Fleet,
II. VII. Intermediate Fuctionaries); to which there fell to be added
the quaestors employed in the provinces (III. III. Provincial Praetors).
For the naval quaestors at Ostia, Cales, and so forth were by no means
discontinued, and the military quaestors could not be employed
elsewhere, since in that case the consul, when he appeared as
commander-in-chief, would have been without a quaestor. Now, as
down to Sulla's time there were nine provinces, and moreover two
quaestors were sent to Sicily, he may possibly have found as many
as eighteen quaestors in existence. But as the number of the
supreme magistrates of this period was considerably less than that
of their functions (p. 120), and the difficulty thus arising was
constantly remedied by extension of the term of office and other
expedients, and as generally the tendency of the Roman government
was to limit as much as possible the number of magistrates, there
may have been more quaestorial functions than quaestors, and it may
be even that at this period no quaestor at all was sent to small
provinces such as Cilicia. Certainly however there were, already
before Sulla's time, more than eight quaestors.
16. III. XI. The Censorship A Prop of the Nobility
17. We cannot strictly speak at all of a fixed number of senators.
Though the censors before Sulla prepared on each occasion a list of
300 persons, there always fell to be added to this list those non-
senators who filled a curule office between the time when the list
was drawn up and the preparation of the next one; and after Sulla
there were as many senators as there were surviving quaestorians
But it may be probably assumed that Sulla meant to bring the senate
up to 500 or 600 members; and this number results, if we assume
that 20 new members, at an average age of 30, were admitted
annually, and we estimate the average duration of the senatorial
dignity at from 25 to 30 years. At a numerously attended sitting
of the senate in Cicero's time 417 members were present.
18. II. III. The Senate. Its Composition
19. IV. VI. Political Projects of Marius
20. III. XI. Interference of the Community in War and Administration
21. IV. VII. Legislation of Sulla
22. II. III. Restrictions As to the Accumulation and the Reoccupation
of Offices
23. IV. II. Attempts at Reform
24. To this the words of Lepidus in Sallust (Hist. i. 41, 11
Dietsch) refer: -populus Romanus excitus... iure agitandi-, to
which Tacitus (Ann. iii. 27) alludes: -statim turbidis Lepidi
rogationibus neque multo post tribunis reddita licentia quoquo
vellent populum agitandi-. That the tribunes did not altogether
lose the right of discussing matters with the people is shown by
Cic. De Leg. iii. 4, 10 and more clearly by the -plebiscitum de
Thermensibus-, which however in the opening formula also designates
itself as issued -de senatus sententia-. That the consuls on the
other hand could under the Sullan arrangements submit proposals to
the people without a previous resolution of the senate, is shown
not only by the silence of the authorities, but also by the course
of the revolutions of 667 and 676, whose leaders for this very
reason were not tribunes but consuls. Accordingly we find at this
period consular laws upon secondary questions of administration,
such as the corn law of 681, for which at other times we should
have certainly found -plebiscita-.
25. II. III. Influence of the Elections
26. IV. II. Vote by Ballot
27. For this hypothesis there is no other proof, except that
the Italian Celt-land was as decidedly not a province--in the sense
in which the word signifies a definite district administered by a
governor annually changed--in the earlier times, as it certainly was
one in the time of Caesar (comp. Licin. p. 39; -data erat et Sullae
provincia Gallia Cisalpina-).
The case is much the same with the advancement of the frontier;
we know that formerly the Aesis, and in Caesar's time the Rubico,
separated the Celtic land from Italy, but we do not know when the
boundary was shifted. From the circumstance indeed, that Marcus
Terentius Varro Lucullus as propraetor undertook a regulation of
the frontier in the district between the Aesis and Rubico (Orelli,
Inscr. 570), it has been inferred that that must still have been
provincial land at least in the year after Lucullus' praetorship 679,
since the propraetor had nothing to do on Italian soil. But it was
only within the -pomerium- that every prolonged -imperium- ceased of
itself; in Italy, on the other hand, such a prolonged -imperium- was
even under Sulla's arrangement--though not regularly existing--at
any rate allowable, and the office held by Lucullus was in any case
an extraordinary one. But we are able moreover to show when and
how Lucullus held such an office in this quarter. He was already
before the Sullan reorganization in 672 active as commanding
officer in this very district (p, 87), and was probably, just like
Pompeius, furnished by Sulla with propraetorian powers; in this
character he must have regulated the boundary in question in 672
or 673 (comp. Appian, i. 95). No inference therefore may be drawn
from this inscription as to the legal position of North Italy, and
least of all for the time after Sulla's dictatorship. On the other
hand a remarkable hint is contained in the statement, that Sulla
advanced the Roman -pomerium- (Seneca, de brev. vitae, 14; Dio,
xliii. 50); which distinction was by Roman state-law only accorded
to one who had advanced the bounds not of the empire, but of the
city--that is, the bounds of Italy (i. 128).
28. As two quaestors were sent to Sicily, and one to each of the
other provinces, and as moreover the two urban quaestors, the two
attached to the consuls in conducting war, and the four quaestors
of the fleet continued to subsist, nineteen magistrates were
annually required for this office. The department of the twentieth
quaestor cannot be ascertained.
29. The Italian confederacy was much older (II. VII. Italy and
The Italians); but it was a league of states, not, like the Sullan
Italy, a state-domain marked off as an unit within the Roman empire.
30. II. III. Complete Opening Up of Magistracies and Priesthoods
31. II. III. Combination of The Plebian Aristocracy and The Farmers
against The Nobility
32. III. XIII. Religious Economy
33. IV. X. Punishments Inflicted on Particular Communities
34. e. g. IV. IV. Dissatisfaction in the Capital, IV. V. Warfare of
Prosecutions
35. IV. II. Vote by Ballot
36. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law
37. II. II. Intercession
38. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law
39. IV. VII. Rejection of the Proposals for an Accomodation
40. II. VII. Subject Communities
41. IV. X. Cisapline Gaul Erected into A Province
42. IV. VII. Preparations for General Revolt against Rome
43. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition
44. IV. IX. Government of Cinna
45. IV. VII. Decay of Military Discipline
46. IV. VII. Economic Crisis
47. IV. VII. Strabo
48. IV. VIII. Flaccus Arrives in Asia
49. IV. IX. Death of Cinna
50. IV. IX. Nola
51. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates
52. Euripides, Medea, 807:-- --Meideis me phaulein kasthenei
nomizeto Meid eisuchaian, alla thateron tropou Bareian echthrois
kai philoisin eumenei--.
53. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates
54. IV. IX. Fresh Difficulties with Mithradates, IV. X. Re-establishment
of Constitutional Order
55. Not -pthiriasis-, as another account states; for the simple
reason that such a disease is entirely imaginary.
Chapter XI