We have no trustworthy account of the battle which followed, Plutarch's
narrative being borrowed, it would seem, from writers not favourable
to Marius, from Catulus himself, who left a history of his campaign,
and from the notebook of Sylla, who was serving with Catulus. His story
is that Marius missed his way in a dust-storm that suddenly swept over
the plain, and that he wandered about vainly seeking the enemy till
the battle had been practically decided by the courage of the troops
commanded by Catulus and his lieutenant, Sulla. It is certain, however,
that at Rome the credit of the victory was, in the main, assigned to
Marius. About one part of the battle there is, however, no doubt.
Never has there been seen a more tragic spectacle. The scene that
closed the day at _Aquæ Sextiæ_ was repeated on a larger scale and with
added horrors at the _Campi Raudii_.[34] The Cimbrian women stood on
the waggons robed in black. They slaughtered the fugitives when these
sought temporary shelter behind the barricade, sparing neither father,
brother, or husband. Then they slaughtered their children, and finally
put an end to their own lives. As many as sixty thousand prisoners,
however, were taken, while the number that fell on the field of battle
is said to have been twice as great. The Cimbri perished as utterly as
the Teutones.
The triumph which Marius and his colleague celebrated on their return
to Rome was indeed well deserved if we consider the consequences of the
victory which it was given to reward. For more than two centuries Rome
was not again called upon to fight for her life against barbarian foes.
Her armies met indeed more than once with serious disasters, but these
defeats were incurred in campaigns of aggression. And if, as might
easily happen, her frontiers were sometimes crossed, it was a mere
matter of hordes of casual plunderers, whose movements did not really
affect the general course of events.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 33: About 15 miles to the north of Marseilles. It must be
distinguished, of course, from Aix-les-Bains.]
[Footnote 34: The spot cannot be identified, but it must have been near
Vercellæ.]
IV
BEYOND THE PYRENEES
We have seen how Carthage, expelled from the islands that belonged to
Italy, found compensation in Spain. When the issue of the Second Punic
War was decided against her, and her domains were limited to Africa,
Spain passed into Roman hands. Much of the country, however, had never
acknowledged the rule of either power, and it required two centuries of
effort before it became what it was for the first three centuries of
our era, the most completely Latinized of all the Roman provinces.
The Carthaginians were finally driven from Spain in 206. We may pass
quickly over the next fifty years. By degrees the Roman power advanced
till the whole peninsula, some mountainous regions in the north and
centre excepted, became subject to it. Rebellions were frequent, for
the Roman system was to change the provincial governors almost from
year to year, and some of these officials were cruel and extortionate.
As I am not writing a history either of Rome or of Spain, I must limit
myself to the most important and representative persons and events.
Viriathus was a native of Lusitania, a region nearly corresponding
to what is now called Portugal. His hatred of the Romans came from a
shameful act of treachery from which his countrymen suffered at the
hands of one of the Roman generals. This man had expressed his pity
for the poverty of their country, which drove them, he said, into
robbing their neighbours. He would give them, if they would trust him,
lands better worth cultivating. What he did was to massacre them in
detachments, one detachment being kept in ignorance of the fate of
those who had gone before. Viriathus was one of the few who escaped.
It was not for some time that he secured the complete confidence of his
countrymen, or was able to collect an army with which he could meet his
adversaries in the field. His first great success was won in 147 B.C.,
when the proprætor Vetilius was drawn into an ambush and defeated.
Vetilius was taken prisoner and killed by his captors, who, seeing
only a "very fat old man," did not recognise his value. Two-fifths of
the army of ten thousand perished at the same time. Another disaster
happened in the year following. Plautius, the Roman general, was
deceived by a pretended retreat, and suffered a heavy loss of men.
Affairs seemed to be in so serious a condition that the authorities
at Rome resolved on sending a large force and as able a commander as
they could find to the seat of war. The man they chose was Fabius,
the brother of the younger Scipio, and a son therefore of the famous
conqueror of Macedonia.[35] Before Fabius could reach the scene of war
another Roman army had been almost destroyed. Fabius himself for a time
could do but little. He had to content himself with getting his forces,
all of them newly recruited, into order. In his second year of command,
however, he inflicted a severe defeat on Viriathus and compelled him to
evacuate the Roman territory.
The war was carried on with varying fortunes for four years. In 141
B.C. it seemed to have been brought to a conclusion highly favourable
to the Lusitanians and their gallant leaders. Viriathus surprised
a Roman army that was investing one of the Lusitanian towns, and
inflicted upon it so heavy a loss that it was compelled to raise
the siege. In their retreat the Romans became entangled in a narrow
pass, and were compelled to surrender. Viriathus was moderate in his
demands. Lusitania was to be independent, and its people recognised as
allies and friends of Rome. This treaty was ratified at Rome. But the
ambition of a Roman general and the bad faith of the Senate brought
this arrangement to an end. Servilius Cæpio was disappointed to find
that the war had been brought to an end, and obtained permission from
the Senate, which had not the effrontery to cancel the treaty, to make
private war upon Viriathus. Before long something happened that gave
the desired pretext, and Viriathus was declared a public enemy. He
sent envoys to the Roman camp to arrange, if it were possible, terms
of peace. Cæpio persuaded them by promises of great rewards to murder
their chief. This they did, stabbing him in the neck as he lay asleep
in his tent fully armed. The blow was so skilfully given that he died
without a groan, and the murderers were able to escape to the Roman
camp. From Cæpio, however, they received nothing but the remark that
the Romans did not approve and could not reward soldiers who slew their
own general. One is glad to record the disappointment of such villains,
but it is not easy to understand the unblushing assurance with which
Roman historians inveigh against the "_Punic faith_," as they are
pleased to call it, of Hannibal. The war was carried on for a time, but
the Lusitanians could find no competent successor to Viriathus and were
compelled to submit.
But Spain was not yet subdued. The scene of war was transferred to
Numantia (now Garay on the upper waters of the Douro). Though not a
walled town, it was a very strong place, environed with woods, situated
on steep cliffs, and protected by two rivers. The one accessible side
was strongly entrenched. The fighting force which it could muster was
small, numbering not more than eight thousand, but there were no better
fighting-men in all Spain. General succeeded general in the Roman camp,
but no advance was made. At last the people of Rome waxed impatient.
There had been, they said, the same disappointment and mismanagement
at Carthage, and they must employ the same man to put an end to them.
Scipio Africanus was accordingly elected. He declined to take any
men from the muster roll. There were soldiers enough, he thought, in
Spain. And there was no lack of volunteers attracted by his remarkable
prestige, among them a company of five hundred to which he gave the
name of the "Company of Friends."[36] Even these he left to follow him
while he hurried on to do for the besieging army at Numantia what he
had done ten years before at Carthage. He cleared it of an idle and
dissolute multitude, among whom soothsayers are specially mentioned,
perpetually consulted, says the historian, by a soldiery demoralised
by fear. A spit, a brass pot, and a single drinking-cup were all that
was allowed for mess furniture; the rations were cut down to flesh,
boiled or roasted (bread, we may presume, though it is not mentioned).
In short, every luxury was banished, some of them seeming, certainly,
a little strange, bath attendants, for instance. "Your mules," he
said, "want rubbing down, for they have no hands, but you have." This
purification effected, he proceeded to harden his men by exercise,
avoiding battle till he thought they were fit for it. It is interesting
to find that in the winter of this year he was joined by a contingent
of African troops under the command of Jugurtha, a grandson of the old
king Masinissa.
The Romans had an overwhelming superiority in numbers, and it was
only a matter of time for a patient and skilful commander such as was
Scipio to make resistance impossible. The river, which the besieged had
found very useful as a method of communicating with the outer world
and replenishing their supplies, was closed against them by elaborate
contrivances. The whole town, which had a compass of fifteen miles, was
closely invested, while a system of signals for the protection of the
siege works from sudden attack was organised. Thirty thousand men were
on constant duty in guarding the turrets and ramparts; twenty thousand
more were held in readiness to deliver an assault wherever and whenever
Scipio might see fit, and there was a further reserve of ten thousand.
Every man of the whole number had his place, which he was not permitted
to leave except under express orders. The besieged did not give up the
hope of damaging the siege works, and made frequent attacks, but they
contended in vain against a system so elaborately complete, one, too,
which received the unwearying attention of the man who had contrived
it. Not a day or a night passed, we are told, without Scipio visiting
the whole circle of the investment. After all, it was by the pressure
of famine not by superior strength that Numantia fell. An embassy
was sent to ask for terms. Scipio, who knew from the deserters how
desperate was the condition of the city, demanded an unconditional
surrender. The unhappy men who carried back this unwelcome reply
were slain by their infuriated countrymen. But there was no other
alternative, except death. That was the choice of the great majority;
a few hundreds came out to the conqueror, such a miserable spectacle,
so squalid, so emaciated, and withal so savage as none had ever seen
before. Scipio chose fifty of the poor wretches to adorn his triumph;
the rest he sold as slaves. It must be admitted that the Romans were
not generous enemies, for Scipio was conspicuous among his countrymen
for humanity and culture. Yet this was the best treatment he could
bring himself to accord to foes so brave that he had never ventured an
assault on their city.
Sertorius is a remarkable, one might say, an admirable figure, but
the story of the long struggle between him and the generals of Rome
scarcely belongs to my subject. Yet it is not wholly unconnected
with it. Political life at Rome did not habitually run into the
excesses which were so lamentably common in the Greek states. When the
aristocrat Coriolanus led the Volscian armies against his own country
the act was exceptional. Sertorius was a democratic Coriolanus.
Sertorius won considerable distinction as a soldier in the campaigns
against the Cimbri and Teutones. When the Consul Cæpio was defeated
he narrowly escaped with his life, swimming across the Rhone in full
armour; he fought at Aquæ Sextiæ, having done good service by entering
the camp of the Teutones as a spy. When the Civil War broke out he
declared for the democratic party. After various changes of fortune
the aristocrats were victorious, and then Sertorius found himself in a
most difficult position. The democratic leaders had given him a command
in Spain, as much to get rid of him, for he was too honourable to suit
them, as for any other reason. By degrees he drifted into the position
of an enemy. He opposed the march of a Consular army sent across the
Pyrenees by the Roman government, crossed to Africa when he could no
longer remain in Spain, and came back again to take command of the
Lusitanians when this tribe rebelled against Rome. Here he was joined
by other adherents of the democratic party, the most important of whom
was a certain Perpenna, who brought with him a considerable force,
and became his second-in-command. All this time, though waging war
with Roman consuls and proconsuls, he claimed to be the Roman governor
of Spain, establishing, for instance, a Senate into which no one but
Roman citizens were admitted. In 77 B.C. Pompey, who was already
famous as a soldier--he had enjoyed the honour of a triumph at the age
of twenty-five--was sent into Spain. But Pompey found his task more
than he could perform. He won, it is true, victories over Sertorius'
lieutenants, but he could not claim any decided success over the great
man himself. In a great battle fought on the banks of the Sucro he
was routed with the loss of six thousand men. Nor during the three
years that followed did he make much way. What really happened during
this time it is not easy to say. By some accounts Sertorius became
self-indulgent and arbitrary; according to others, his Roman colleagues
in command, many of them of better birth than their superior, were
jealous of him. What is certain is that it was by a Roman hand that
he fell. In 72 B.C. he was assassinated by the orders of Perpenna.
Perpenna was wholly unequal to the position which he hoped to attain
by the death of his chief. He was defeated in the first battle which
he fought with the Roman armies, and was taken prisoner. To save his
life he offered to put into Pompey's hands the private letters of
Sertorius. Many of them had been sent from Rome, and would probably
have compromised various persons of distinction. Pompey ordered the
letters to be burnt and Perpenna to be executed.
One Spanish people, the Cantabri, represented by the modern Basques,
still retained their independence. They were not finally subdued till
fifty years after the death of Sertorius, and even then they had to be
watched and kept in order. Spain, however, as a whole became the most
thoroughly Italian in manners and speech of all the provinces of Rome.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 35: Æmilius Paullus. This son had been adopted into the
Fabian family.]
[Footnote 36: Possibly in recollection of the Royal Companions in the
army of Alexander the Great, _vide_ p. 130.]
V
ACROSS EUPHRATES
It would be impossible to pass over without notice one of the most
formidable enemies that Rome ever encountered--Mithradates, King of
Pontus. Mithradates was, indeed, hardly to be called a barbarian. He
had a taste for art and letters, had a museum of Greek and Persian
antiquities, and played the part of a generous patron to poets and
philosophers. But he was a barbarian at heart, savage and cruel in his
dealings with his kinsfolk and his servants, and with no conception
of enlightened rule. Rome, however oppressive and short-sighted her
individual citizens might be, was an agent of civilisation, and her
final triumph over the King of Pontus, the ablest, it may be said, of
the Eastern potentates with whom she came into connection, was for the
general good of mankind.
Mithradates came to the throne of Pontus in early youth. He cherished
from the first ambitious schemes of extending his dominions. At first
his efforts were directed against his neighbours on the north and east;
when he attempted to extend his frontiers westward he naturally came
into collision with the Romans. It is needless to go into details; it
will suffice to say that war was declared in B.C. 89. The time suited
Mithradates very well, for it found Rome in a very helpless condition.
What is called the Social War, _i.e._, the revolt of the Italian allies
against Rome, was still in progress, and there was positively no army
available to meet the huge host, nearly 300,000 in all, which the King
brought into the field. All that the Roman officers in Lesser Asia
could do was to shut themselves up in such fortified towns as they
could hope to hold against the King. Mithradates now gave orders for an
act which was as foolish as it was wicked. He was at Ephesus--the fact
shows how little remained to Rome--when he directed that all Italians
sojourning in Lesser Asia should be put to death. Had he said "Romans,"
not "Italians," he might have secured the combination with himself of
the Italian adversaries of Rome. As it was he hopelessly alienated
them.
Nor did he make himself better liked by his new subjects in Asia. They
found that in exchanging masters they had lost much more than they
had gained. The Romans were often oppressive, but they had at least
some kind of system, and were, in theory at least, subject to law; the
King was a capricious tyrant, whose whims, often as cruel as they were
strange, had to be instantaneously humoured under pain of death or
torture. The end was that Mithradates was beaten everywhere. An army
which he had sent into Greece was destroyed. His arms were equally
unsuccessful in Asia. An attempt to make common cause with Sulla's
political opponents--some of the democratic leaders were actually in
arms--came to nothing. Finally, in 84 peace was made. The King had to
give up all his conquests, to surrender for punishments the men who had
taken a leading part in the massacre, and to pay a war indemnity of
20,000 talents.[37]
After a somewhat uneasy peace of ten years war broke out again. Each
side was suspicious of the other. Mithradates had steadily employed
himself in increasing his dominions in every direction where he did not
come into actual collision with Rome. Rome, on the other hand, had
a way of receiving legacies of kingdoms, very much to the annoyance
of those who conceived themselves to have a better title to the
inheritance. In 75 B.C., for instance, she took possession of Bithynia,
which Mithradates had always coveted, in accordance with the will of
Nicomedes III. The King naturally took offence at this proceeding, and
as he saw at the same time a prospect of taking his great enemy at a
disadvantage, he declared war. He hoped that Sertorius in Spain would
make a diversion in his favour, and he also looked for help from the
pirates who swarmed in the Mediterranean.
These expectations were but partially fulfilled. Sertorius was
very near the end of his career, and could be practically ignored.
Mithradates won a few successes here and there, but he had a very able
soldier, Lucullus, to contend with. After a few months' fighting he had
to fly from his kingdom and take refuge with his son-in-law, Tigranes,
King of Armenia.
Lucullus now ventured on a very bold course of action. He sent envoys
to Tigranes demanding the surrender of Mithradates. This was, of
course, refused, as indeed Lucullus expected and even intended that
it should be. The Roman general then crossed the Euphrates and marched
on Tigranocerta. This was a new city, and was the creation as it bore
the name of Tigranes. He had peopled it with inhabitants, taken, after
the fashion of Eastern kings, from conquered or simply subject tribes,
and had supplied it with all the conveniences and ornaments of Greek
civilisation. Its walls, the historian tells us, were seventy feet
high, and must have been of huge circuit, if there were parks and lakes
within them. Lucullus laid siege to the city, though he could hardly
have had sufficient force to invest it. It was not long before Tigranes
moved to its relief. At first, indeed, he had simply refused to believe
that the Romans could have made so audacious an advance, and with a
savagery, in curious contrast with his veneer of civilisation, ordered
the messenger who brought the unwelcome news to be crucified. When he
learnt the truth, he raised a huge army--250,000 infantry and 50,000
cavalry are the numbers given us by historians--and marched to attack
Lucullus.
Mithradates was with his son-in-law, and strongly advised him not to
risk a battle. "Use your cavalry to cut off his supplies," was his
advice, for the old King knew what Roman soldiers were when they were
led by such a general as Lucullus. Tigranes laughed to scorn this
prudent counsel. He could not conceive that the handful of men which
were all that the Romans had to oppose to him, could possibly stand up
against an army which was nearly twenty times as numerous. For Lucullus
had divided his small force, leaving a part to carry on the siege of
the city while he went to meet Tigranes with the remainder.[38]
The battle that followed was one of the most remarkable in history,
worthy to be ranked with Marathon, for, indeed, the odds were at least
as great as any of which we have a record. Unfortunately for the fame
of Lucullus there was no one to tell the story as it ought to have
been told. The strategy of Lucullus was that employed times out of
number with success by the leader of a regular army acting against an
undisciplined host--he outflanked his opponents. What we can understand
from the accounts, not easily reconcilable, is that a front attack was
made, or rather threatened, by the Roman cavalry. It advanced, and
then retreated, in seeming panic, and the Asiatics pursued in headlong
haste. Meanwhile the outflanking movement had been made unseen by the
infantry. Attacking the rear of the army, they sent the camp-followers
flying in wild confusion; these broke the lines of the infantry; the
infantry in turn threw the horsemen into confusion. The panic once set
up, the huge, unmanageable numbers of the Asiatic host did nothing but
aggravate it. The pursuit was fierce and pitiless. Lucullus threatened
the severest penalties against any soldier who should turn aside for a
moment to encumber himself with spoil. For fifteen miles the road was
strewed with costly chains and bracelets which no one picked up. The
pursuit over, the men were allowed to appropriate all the treasures
they could find. _Five_ Romans, and five only, are said to have been
slain. The enemy's dead were counted by tens of thousands.
This great victory had not, it is true, the permanent result which
might have been expected. This failure was due to the weakness of the
Government at home and the jealousy of parties. Lucullus was hampered
by want of means, and had to share his authority with incompetent
colleagues. It was not long before both Tigranes and Mithradates
recovered all that they had lost.
But this was but a temporary falling back of the Roman power. The
people, profoundly dissatisfied with the policy that had made such
brilliant victories unproductive, put the supreme power into the
hands of a man whom it could trust. In 67 B.C. Pompey cleared the
Mediterranean of the pirates, and two years later he brought to an end
the long struggle with Mithradates. Tigranes had made his submission
to Rome, and, while surrendering all his conquests, had been permitted
to retain his hereditary kingdom of Armenia. Mithradates was driven to
take refuge in a remote region at the eastern end of the Black Sea. He
had conceived, it is said, a bold scheme of raising the tribes to the
north of that sea and falling upon Italy as the Gauls and as Hannibal
had fallen upon it. But he had not the means of carrying out so large a
project. His subjects, wearied of perpetual exactions, rebelled, led by
one of his sons, and he saw that nothing remained but death. His wives
and his daughters were compelled or possibly offered to drink poison.
He drank it himself, but--so runs the story--had so fortified himself
with antidotes, that the drug did not affect him. He then commanded
a Celtic mercenary to render him the last service by a stroke of his
sword. By his death the Roman dominion was practically established as
far as the Euphrates. That it was not to be extended beyond it was
practically proved by the events which I have now to relate.
Five years after the fall of Mithradates there was formed at Rome what
is commonly called the First Triumvirate.[39]