CHAPTER III

The attitude of the senate after the fall of Gracchus was not that of a

combatant who had emerged secure from the throes of a great crisis. A

less experienced victor would have dwelt on the magnitude of the

movement and been guilty of an attempt at its sudden reversal. But the

government pretended that there had been no revolution, merely an

_émeute_. The wicked authors of the sedition must be punished; but the

Gracchan legislation might remain untouched. More than one motive

probably contributed to shape this view. In the first place, the

traditional policy of Rome regarded reaction as equivalent to

revolution. A rash move should be stopped in its inception; but, had it

gone a little way and yielded fruit in the shape of some permanent

organisation, it would be well to accept and, if possible, to weaken

this product; it would be the height of rashness to attempt its

destruction. The recognition of the _fait accompli_ had built up the

Roman Empire, and the dreaded consequences had not come. Why should not

the same be true of a new twist in domestic policy? Secondly, the

opposition of the senate to Gracchus's reforms was based far more

decidedly on political than on economic grounds. The frenzy which seized

the fathers during the closing act of the tribune's life, was excited by

his comprehensive onslaught on their monopoly of provincial, fiscal and

judicial administration. His attempt to annex their lands had aroused

the resentment of individuals, but not the hatred of a corporation. The

individual was always lost in the senate, and the wrongs of the

landowner could be ignored for the moment and their remedy left to time,

if political prudence dictated a middle course. Again, reflection may

have suggested the thought whether these wrongs were after all so great

or so irremediable. The pastoral wealth of Italy was much; but it was

little compared with the possibilities of enterprise in the provinces.

Might not the bait of an agrarian law, whose chances of success were

doubtful and whose operation might in time be impeded by craftily

devised legislation, lull the people into an acceptance of that

senatorial control of the foreign world, which had been so scandalously

threatened by Gracchus? There was a danger in the very raising of this

question; there was further danger in its renewal. A party cry seldom

becomes extinct; but its successful revival demands the sense of some

tangible grievance. To remove the grievance was to silence the

demagogue; what the people wanted was comfort and not power. And lastly,

the senate was not wholly composed of selfish or aggrieved land-holders.

Amongst the sternest upholders of its traditions there were probably

many who were immensely relieved that the troublesome land question had

received some approach to a solution. There are always men hide-bound by

convention and unwilling to move hand or foot in aid of a remedial

measure, who are yet profoundly grateful to the agitator whom they

revile, and profoundly thankful that the antics which they deem

grotesque, have saved themselves from responsibility and their country

from a danger.

It was with such mixed feelings that the senate viewed the Gracchan

_débâcle_. It was impossible, however, to accept the situation in its

entirety; for to recognise the whole of Gracchus's career as legitimate

was to set a dangerous precedent for the future. The large army of the

respectable, the bulwark of senatorial power, had not been sufficiently

alarmed. It was necessary to emphasise the fact that there had been an

outrageous sedition on the part of the lower classes. With this object

the senate commanded that the new consuls Popillius and Rupilius should

sit as a criminal commission for the purpose of investigating the

circumstances of the outbreak.[428] The commission was empowered to

impose any sentence, and it is practically certain that it judged

without appeal. The consuls, as usual, exercised their own discretion in

the choice of assessors. The extreme party was represented by Nasica.

Laelius, who also occupied a place on the judgment-seat, might have been

regarded as a moderate;[429] although, as popular sedition and not the

agrarian question was on its trial, there is no reason to suppose that a

member of the Scipionic circle would be less severe than any of his

colleagues in his animadversions on the wretched underlings of the

Gracchan movement whom it was his duty to convict of crime. It was in

fact the street cohort of Tiberius, men whose voices, torches and sticks

had so long insulted the feelings of respectable citizens, that seems to

have been now visited with the penalties for high treason; for no

illustrious name is found amongst the victims of the commission. On some

the ban of interdiction was pronounced, on others the death penalty was

summarily inflicted. Amongst the slain was Diophanes the rhetor; and one

Caius Villius, by some mysterious effort of interpretation which baffles

our analysis, was doomed to the parricide's death of the serpent and the

sack.[430] Blossius of Cumae was also arraigned, and his answer to the

commission was subsequently regarded as expressing the deepest villainy

and the most exalted devotion. His only defence was his attachment to

Gracchus, which made the tribune's word his law. "But what," said

Laelius "if he had willed that you should fire the Capitol?" "That would

never have been the will of Gracchus," was the reply, "but had he willed

it, I should have obeyed".[431] Blossius escaped the immediate danger,

but his fears soon led him to leave Rome, and now an exile from his

adopted as well as from his parent state, he could find no hope but in

the fortunes of Aristonicus, who was bravely battling with the Romans in

Asia. On the collapse of that prince's power he put himself to

death.[432]

The government may have succeeded in its immediate object of proving

itself an effective policeman. The sense of order may have been

satisfied, and the spirit of turbulence, if it existed, may have been

for the moment cowed. But the memory of the central act of the ghastly

tragedy on the Capitoline hill could not be so easily obliterated, and

the chief actor was everywhere received with lowered brows and

ill-omened cries.[433] It was superstition as well as hatred that

sharpened the popular feeling against Nasica. A man was walking the

streets of Rome whose hands were stained by a tribune's blood. He

polluted the city wherein he dwelt and the presence of all who met him.

The convenient theory that a mere street riot had been suppressed might

have been accepted but for the awkward fact that the sanctity of the

tribunate had been trodden under foot by its would-be vindicators. A

prosecution of Nasica was threatened; and in such a case might not the

arguments that vindicated Octavius be the doom of the accused? Popular

hatred finds a convenient focus in a single man; it is easier to loathe

an individual than a group. But for this very reason the removal of the

individual may appease the resentment that the group deserves. Nasica

was an embarrassment to the senate and he might prove a convenient

scapegoat. It was desirable that he should be at once rewarded and

removed; and the opportunity for an honourable banishment was easily

found. The impending war with Aristonicus necessitated the sending of a

commission to Asia, and Nasica was included amongst the five members of

this embassy.[434] There was honour in the possession of such a post and

wealth to be gained by its tenure; but the aristocracy had eventually to

pay a still higher price for keeping Nasica beyond the borders of Italy.

When the chief pontificate was vacated by the fall of Crassus in 130

B.C., the refugee was invested with the office so ardently sought by the

nobles of Rome.[435] He was forced to be contented with this shadow of a

splendid prize, for he was destined never to exercise the high functions

of his office in the city. He seems never to have left Asia and, after a

restless change of residence, he died near the city of Pergamon.[436]

The permanence of the land commission was the most important result of

the senate's determination to detach the political from the economic

consequences of the Gracchan movement.[437] But they tolerated rather

than accepted it. Had they wished to make it their own, every nerve

would have been strained to secure the three places at the annual

elections for men who represented the true spirit of the nobility. But

there was every reason for allowing the people's representatives to

continue the people's work. The commission was an experiment, and the

government did not wish to participate in possible failure; a seasonable

opportunity might arise for suspending or neutralising its activities,

and the senate did not wish to reverse its own work; whether success or

failure attended its operations, the task of the commissioners was sure

to arouse fears and excite odium, especially amongst the Italian allies;

and the nobility were less inclined to excite such sentiments than to

turn them to account. So the people were allowed year after year to

perpetuate the Gracchan clique and to replace its members by avowed

sympathisers with programmes of reform. Tiberius's place was filled by

Crassus, whose daughter Licinia was wedded to Caius Gracchus.[438] Two

places were soon vacated by the fall of Crassus in Asia and the death of

Appius Claudius. They were filled by Marcus Fulvius Flaccus and Gaius

Papirius Carbo.[439] The Former had already proved his sympathy with

Gracchus, the latter had Just brought to an end an agitating tribunate,

which had produced a successful ballot law and an abortive attempt to

render the tribune re-eligible. The personnel of the commission was,

therefore, a guarantee of its good faith. Its energy was on a level with

its earnestness. The task of annexing and distributing the domain land

was strenuously undertaken, and other officials, on whom fell the purely

routine function of enforcing the new limit of occupation, seem to have

been equally faithful to their work. Even the consul Popillius, one of

the presidents of the commission that tried the Gracchan rioters, has

left a record of his activity in the words that he was "the first to

expel shepherds from their domains and install farmers in their

stead".[440] The boundary stones of the commissioners still survive to

mark the care with which they defined the limits of occupied land and of

the new allotments; and the great increase in the census roll between

the years 131 and 125 B.C. finds its best explanation in the steady

increase of small landholders effected by the agrarian law. In the

former year the register had shown rather less than 319,000 citizens; in

the latter the number had risen to somewhat more than 394,000.[441] If

this increase of nearly 76,000 referred to the whole citizen body, it

would be difficult to connect it with the work of the commission, except

on the hypothesis that numerous vagrants, who did not as a rule appear

at the census, now presented themselves for assessment; but, when it is

remembered that the published census list of Rome merely contained the

returns of her effective military strength, and that this consisted

merely of the _assidui_, it is clear that a measure which elevated large

portions of the _capite censi_ to the position of yeoman farmers must

have had the effect of increasing the numbers on the register; and this

sudden leap in the census roll may thus be attributed to the successful

working of the new agrarian scheme.[442] A result such as this could not

have been wholly transitory; in tracing the agrarian legislation of the

post-Gracchan period we shall indeed find the trial of experiments which

prove that no final solution of the land question had been reached; we

shall see the renewal of the process of land absorption which again led

to the formation of gigantic estates; but these tendencies may merely

mark the inevitable weeding-out of the weaker of the Gracchan colonists;

they do not prove that the sturdier folk failed to justify the scheme,

to work their new holdings at a profit, and to hand them down to their

posterity. It is true that the landless proletariate of the city

continued steadily to increase; but the causes which lead to the

plethora of an imperial capital are too numerous to permit us to explain

this increase by the single hypothesis of a renewed depopulation of the

country districts.

The distribution of allotments, however, represented but the simpler

element of the scheme. The really arduous task was to determine in any

given case what land could with justice be distributed. The judicial

powers of the triumvirs were taxed to the utmost to determine what land

was public, and what was private. The possessors would at times make no

accurate profession of their tenure; such as were made probably in many

cases aroused distrust. Information was invited from third parties, and

straightway the land courts were the scene of harrowing litigation.[443]

It could at times be vaguely ascertained that, while a portion of some

great domain was held on occupation from the State, some other portion

had been acquired by purchase; but what particular part of the estate

was held on either tenure was undiscoverable, for titles had been lost,

or, when preserved, did not furnish conclusive evidence of the justice

of the original transfer. Even the ascertainment of the fact that a

tract of land had once belonged to the State was no conclusive proof

that the State could still claim rights of ownership; for some of it had

in early times been assigned in allotments, and no historical record

survived to prove where the assignment had ended and the permission of

occupation had begun. The holders of private estates had for purposes of

convenience worked the public land immediately adjoining their own

grounds, the original landmarks had been swept away, and, although they

had paid their dues for the possession of so many acres, it was

impossible to say with precision which those acres were. The present

condition of the land was no index; for some of the possessors had

raised their portion of the public domain to as high a pitch of

cultivation as their original patrimonies: and, as the commissioners

were naturally anxious to secure arable land in good condition for the

new settlers, the original occupiers sometimes found themselves in the

enjoyment of marsh or swamp or barren soil,[444] which remained the sole

relics of their splendid possessions. The judgments of the court were

dissolving ancestral ties, destroying homesteads, and causing the

transference of household gods to distant dwellings. Such are the

inevitable results of an attempt to pry into ancient titles, and to

investigate claims the basis of which lies even a few decades from the

period of the inquisition.

But, while these consequences were unfortunate, they were not likely to

produce political complications so long as the grievances were confined

to members of the citizen body. The vested interests which had been

ignored in the passing of the measure might be brushed aside in its

execution. Had the territory of Italy belonged to Rome, there would have

been much grumbling but no resistance; for effective resistance required

a shadow of legal right. But beyond the citizen body lay groups of

states which were interested in varying degrees in the execution of the

agrarian measure: and their grievances, whether legitimate or not,

raised embarrassing questions of public law. The municipalities composed

of Roman citizens or of half-burgesses had, as we saw, been alarmed at

the introduction of the measure, perhaps through a misunderstanding of

its import and from a suspicion that the land which had been given them

in usufruct was to be resumed. Possibly the proceedings of the

commission may have done something to justify this fear, for the limits

of this land possessed by corporate bodies had probably become very

ill-defined in the course of years. But, although a corporate was

stronger than an individual interest and rested on some public

guarantee, the complaints of these townships, composed as they were of

burgesses, were merely part of the civic question, and must have been

negligible in comparison with the protests of the federate cities of

Italy and the Latins. We cannot determine what grounds the Italian Socii

had either for fear or protest. It is not certain that land had been

assigned to them in usufruct,[445] and such portions of their conquered

territories as had been restored to them by the Roman State were their

own property. But, whether the territories which they conceived to be

threatened were owned or possessed by these communities, such ownership

or possession was guaranteed to them by a sworn treaty, and it is

inconceivable that the Gracchan legislation, the strongest and the

weakest point of which was its strict legality, should have openly

violated federative rights. When, however, we consider the way in which

the public land of Rome ran in and out of the territories of these

allied communities, it is not wonderful that doubts should exist as to

the line of demarcation between state territories and the Roman domain.

Vexed questions of boundaries might everywhere be raised, and the

government of an Italian community would probably find as much

difficulty as a private possessor in furnishing documentary evidence of

title. The fears of the Latin communities are far more comprehensible,

and it was probably in these centres that the Italian revolt against the

proceedings of the commission chiefly originated. The interests of the

Latins in this matter were almost precisely similar to those of the

Romans: and this identity of view arose from a similarity of status. The

Latin colonies had had their territories assigned by Roman

commissioners: and it is probable, although it cannot be proved, that

doubts arose as to the legitimate extent of these assignments in

relation to the neighbouring public land. Many of these territories may

have grown mysteriously at the expense of Rome in districts far removed

from the capital: and in Gaul especially encroachments on the Roman

domain by municipalities or individuals of the Latin colonies most

recently established may have been suspected. But the Latin community

had another interest in the question, which bore a still closer

resemblance to that shown by the Roman burgesses. As the individual

Latin might be a recipient of the favour of the commissioners, so he

might be the victim of their legal claims. The fact that he shared the

right of commerce with Rome and could acquire and sue for land by Roman

forms, makes it practically certain that he could be a possessor of the

Roman domain. So eager had been the government in early times to see

waste land reclaimed and defended, that it could hardly have failed to

welcome the enterprising Latin who crossed his borders, threw his

energies into the cultivation of the public land, and paid the required

dues. Many of the wealthier members of Latin communities may thus have

been liable to the fate of the ejected possessors of Rome; but even

those amongst them whose possessions did not exceed the prescribed limit

of five hundred _jugera_, may have believed that their claims would

receive, or had received, too little attention from the Roman

commission, while the difficulties resulting from the fusion of public

and private land in the same estates may have been as great in these

communities as they were in the territory of Rome. Such grievances

presented no feature of singularity; they were common to Italy, and one

might have thought that a Latin protest would have been weaker than a

Roman. But there was one vital point of difference between the two. The

Roman could appeal only as an individual; the Latin appealed as a member

of a federate state. He did not pause to consider that his grievance was

due to his being half a Roman and enjoying Roman rights. The truth that

a suzerain cannot treat her subjects as badly as she treats her citizens

may be morally, but is not legally, a paradox. The subjects have a

collective voice, the citizens have ceased to have one when their own

government has turned against them. The position of these Latins,

illogical as it may have been, was strengthened by the extreme length to

which Rome had carried her principle of non-interference in ail dealings

with federate allies. The Roman Comitia did not legislate for such

states, no Roman magistrate had jurisdiction in their internal concerns.

By a false analogy it could easily be argued that no Roman commission

should be allowed to disturb their peaceful agricultural relations and

to produce a social revolution within their borders. The allies now

sought a champion for their cause, since the constitution supplied no

mechanism for the direct expression of Italian grievances. The

complaints of individual cities had in the past been borne to the senate

and voiced by the Roman patrons of these towns. Now that a champion for

the confederacy was needed, a common patron had to be created. He was

immediately found in Scipio Aemilianus.[446]

The choice was inevitable and was dictated by three potent

considerations. There was the dignity of the man, recently raised to its

greatest height by the capture of Numantia; there was his known

detachment from the recent Gracchan policy and his forcibly expressed

dislike of the means by which it had been carried through; there was the

further conviction based on his recent utterances that he had little

liking for the Roman proletariate. The news of Gracchus's fall had been

brought to Scipio in the camp before Numantia; his epitaph on the

murdered tribune was that which the stern Hellenic goddess of justice

and truth breathes over the slain Aegisthus:--

So perish all who do the like again.[447]

To Scipio Gracchus's undertaking must have seemed an act of impudent

folly, its conduct must have appeared something worse than madness. In

all probability it was not the agrarian movement which roused his

righteous horror, but the gross violation of the constitution which

seemed to him to be involved in the inception and consequences of the

plan. Of all political temperaments that of the Moderate is the least

forgiving, just because it is the most timorous. He sees the gulf that

yawns at his own feet, he lacks the courage to take the leap, and sets

up his own halting attitude, of which he is secretly ashamed, as the

correct demeanour for all sensible and patriotic men. The Conservative

can appreciate the efforts of the Radical, for each is ennobled by the

pursuit of the impossible; but the man of half measures and

indeterminate aims, while contemning both, will find the reaction from

violent change a more potent sentiment even than his disgust at corrupt

immobility. Probably Scipio had never entertained such a respect for the

Roman constitution as during those busy days in camp, when the incidents

of the blockade were varied by messages describing the wild proceedings

of his brother-in-law at Rome. Yet Scipio must have known that an

unreformed government could give him nothing corresponding to his

half-shaped ideals of a happy peasantry, a disciplined and effective

soldiery, an uncorrupt administration that would deal honestly and

gently with the provincials. His own position was in itself a strong

condemnation of the powers at Rome. They were relying for military

efficiency on a single man. Why should not they rely for political

efficiency on another? But the latter question did not appeal to Scipio.

To tread the beaten path was not the way to make an army; but it was

good enough for politics.

Scipio did not scorn the honours of a triumph, and the victory of

Numantia was followed by the usual pageant in the streets.[448] He was

unquestionably the foremost man of Rome, and senate and commons hung on

his lips to catch some definite expression of his attitude to recent

events, or to those which were stirring men's minds in the present. They

had not long to wait, for a test was soon presented. When in 131 Carbo

introduced his bill permitting re-election to the tribunate, all the

resources of Scipio's dignified oratory were at the disposal of the

senate, and the coalition of his admirers with the voters whom the

senate could dispose of, was fatal to the chances of the bill.[449] Such

an attitude need not have weakened his popularity; for excellent reasons

could be given, in the interest of popular government itself, against

permitting any magistracy to become continuous, But his political

enemies were on the watch, and in one of the debates on the measure care

was taken that a question should be put, the answer to which must either

identify or compromise him with the new radicalism. Carbo asked him what

he thought about the death of Tiberius Gracchus. Scipio's answer was

cautious but precise; "If Gracchus had formed the intention of seizing

on the administration of the State, he had been justly slain." It was

merely a restatement of the old constitutional theory that one who aimed

at monarchy was by that very fact an outlaw. But the answer,

hypothetical as was its expression, implied a suspicion of Gracchus's

aims. It did not please the crowd; there was a roar of dissent. Then

Scipio lost his temper. The contempt of the soldier for the civilian, of

the Roman for the foreigner, of the man of pure for the man of mixed

blood--a contempt inflamed to passion by the thought that men such as he

were often at the mercy of these wretches--broke through all reserve. "I

have never been frightened by the clamour of the enemy in arms," he

shouted, "shall I be alarmed by your cries, ye step-sons of Italy?" This

reflection on the lineage of his audience naturally aroused another

protest. It was met by the sharp rejoinder, "I brought you in chains to

Rome; you are freed now, but none the more terrible for that!" [450] It

was a humiliating spectacle. The most respected man in Rome was using

the vulgar abuse of the streets to the sovereign people; and the man who

used this language was so blinded by prejudice as not to see that the

blood which he reviled gave the promise of a new race, that the mob

which faced him was not a crowd of Italian peasants, willing victims of

the martinet, that the Asiatic and the Greek, with their sordid clothes

and doubtful occupations, possessed more intelligence than the Roman

members of the Scipionic circle and might one day be the rulers of Rome.

The new race was one of infinite possibilities. It needed guidance, not

abuse. Carbo and his friends must have been delighted with the issue of

their experiment. Scipio had paid the first instalment to that treasury

of hatred, which was soon to prove his ruin and to make his following a

thing of the past.

Such was the position of Scipio when he was approached by the Italians.

His interest in their fortunes was twofold. First he viewed them with a

soldier's eye.[451] They were tending more and more to form the flower

of the Roman armies abroad: and, although in obedience to civic

sentiment he had employed a heavier scourge on the backs of the

auxiliaries than on those of the Roman troops before Numantia,[452] the

chastisement, which he would have doubtless liked to inflict on all, was

but an expression of his interest in their welfare. Next he admired the

type for its own sake. The sturdy peasant class was largely represented

here, and he probably had more faith in its permanence amongst the

federate cities than amongst the needy burgesses whom the commissioners

were attempting to restore to agriculture. He could not have seen the

momentous consequences which would follow from a championship of the

Italian allies against the interests of the urban proletariate; that

such a dualism of interests would lead to increased demands on the part

of the one, to a sullen resistance on the part of the other; that in

this mere attempt to check the supposed iniquities of a too zealous

commission lay the germ of the franchise movement and the Social War.

His protection was a matter of justice and of interest. The allies had

deserved well and should not be robbed; they were the true protectors of

Rome and their loyalty must not be shaken. Scipio, therefore, took their

protest to the senate. He respected the susceptibilities of the people

so far as to utter no explicit word of adverse criticism on the Gracchan

measure; but he dwelt on the difficulties which attended its execution,

and he suggested that the commissioners were burdened with an invidious

task in having to decide the disputed questions connected with the land

which they annexed. By the nature of the case their judgments might

easily appear to the litigants as tinged with prejudice. It would be

better, he suggested, if the functions of jurisdiction were separated

from those of distribution and the former duties given to some other

authority.[453] The senate accepted the suggestion, and its

reasonableness must have appealed even to the people, for the measure

embodying it must have passed the Comitia, which alone could abrogate

the Gracchan law.[454] Possibly some recent judgments of the

commissioners had produced a sense of uneasiness amongst large numbers

of the citizen body, and there may have been a feeling that it would be

to the advantage of all parties if the cause of scandal were removed.

Perhaps none but the inner circle of statesmen could have predicted the

consequences of the change. The decision of the agrarian disputes was

now entrusted to the consuls, who were the usual vehicles of

administrative jurisdiction. The history of the past had proved over and

over again the utter futility of entrusting the administration of an

extraordinary and burdensome department to the regular magistrates. They

were too busy to attend to it, even if they had the will. But in this

case even the will was lacking. Of the two consuls Manius Aquillius was

destined for the war in Asia, and his colleague Caius Sempronius

Tuditanus had no sooner put his hand to the new work than he saw that

the difficulties of adjudication had been by no means the creation of

the commissioners. He answered eagerly to the call of a convenient

Illyrian war and quitted the judgment seat for the less harassing

anxieties of the camp.[455] The functions of the commissioners were

paralysed; they seem now to have reached a limit where every particle of

land for distribution was the subject of dispute, and, as there was no

authority in existence to settle the contested claims, the work of

assignation was brought to a sudden close. The masses of eager

claimants, that still remained unsatisfied, felt that they had been

betrayed; the feeling spread amongst the urban populace, and the name of

Scipio was a word that now awoke suspicion and even execration.[456] It

was not merely the sense of betrayal that aroused this hostile

sentiment; the people charged him with ingratitude. Masses of men, like

individuals, love a _protégé_ more than a benefactor. They have a pride

in looking at the colossal figure which they have helped to create. And

had not they in a sense made Scipio? Their love had been quickened by

the sense of danger; they had braved the anger of the nobles to put

power into his hands; they had twice raised him to the consulship in

violation of the constitution. And now what was their reward? He had

deliberately chosen to espouse the cause of the allies and oppose the

interests of the Roman electorate. Scipio's enemies had good material to

work upon. The casual grumblings of the streets were improved on, and

formulated in the openly expressed belief that his real intention was

the repeal of the Sempronian law, and in the more far-fetched suspicion

that he meant to bring a military force to bear on the Roman mob, with

its attendant horrors of street massacre or hardly less bloody

persecution.[457]

The attacks on Scipio were not confined to the informal language of

private intercourse. Hostile magistrates introduced his enemies to the

Rostra, and men like Fulvius Flaccus inveighed bitterly against

him.[458] On the day when one of these attacks was made, Scipio was

defending his position before the people; he had been stung by the

charge of ingratitude, for he retorted it on his accusers; he complained

that an ill return was being made to him for his many services to the

State. In the evening Scipio was escorted from the senate to his house

by a crowd of sympathisers. Besides senators and other Romans the escort

comprised representatives of his new clients, the Latins and the Italian

allies.[459] His mind was full of the speech which he meant to deliver

to the people on the following day. He retired early to his sleeping

chamber and placed his writing tablet beside his bed, that he might fix

the sudden inspirations of his waking hours. When morning dawned, he was

found lying on his couch but with every trace of life extinct. The

family inquisition on the slaves of the household was held as a matter

of course. Their statements were never published to the world, but it

was believed that under torture they had confessed to seeing certain men

introduced stealthily during the night through the back part of the

house; these, they thought, had strangled their master.[460] The reason

which they assigned for their reticence was their fear of the people;

they knew that Scipio's death had not appeased the popular fury, that

the news had been received with joy, and they did not wish by invidious

revelations to become the victims of the people's hate. The fears of the

slaves were subsequently reflected in the minds of those who would have

been willing to push the investigation further. There was ground for

suspicion; for Scipio, although some believed him delicate,[461] had

shown no sign of recent illness. A scrutiny of the body is even said to

have revealed a livid impress near the throat.[462] The investigation

which followed a sudden death within the walls of a Roman household, if

it revealed the suspicion of foul play, was usually the preliminary to a

public inquiry. The duty of revenge was sacred; it appealed to the

family even more than to the public conscience. But there was no one to

raise the cry for retribution. He had no sons, and his family was

represented but by his loveless wife Sempronia. His many friends must

indeed have talked of making the matter public, and perhaps began at

once to give vent to those dark suspicions which down to a late age

clouded the names of so many of the dead man's contemporaries. But the

project is said to have been immediately opposed by representatives of

the popular party;[463] the crime, if crime there was, had been no

vulgar murder; a suspicion that violence had been used was an insult to

the men who had fought him fairly in the political field; a _quaestio_

instituted by the senate might be a mere pretext for a judicial murder;

it might be the ruse by which the nobles sought to compass the death of

the people's new favourite and rising hope, Caius Gracchus. Ultimately

those who believed in the murder and pined to avenge it, were

constrained to admit that it was wiser to avoid a disgraceful political

wrangle over the body of their dead hero. But, for the retreat to be

covered, it must be publicly announced by those who had most authority

to speak, that Scipio had died a natural death. This was accordingly the

line taken by Laelius, when he wrote the funeral oration which Quintus

Fabius Maximus delivered over the body of his uncle;[464] "We cannot

sufficiently mourn this death by disease" were words purposely spoken to

be an index to the official version of the decease. The fear of

political disturbance which veiled the details of the tragedy, also

dictated that the man, whom friends and enemies alike knew to have been

the greatest of his age, should have no public funeral.[465]

The government might well fear a scandalous scene--the Forum with its

lanes and porticoes crowded by a snarling holiday crowd, the laudation

of the speakers interrupted by gibes and howls, the free-fight that

would probably follow the performance of the obsequies.

But suppression means rumour. The mystery was profoundly enjoyed by this

and subsequent ages. Every name that political or domestic circumstances

could conveniently suggest, was brought into connection with Scipio's

death. Caius Gracchus,[466] Fulvius Flaccus,[467] Caius Papirius

Carbo[468] were all indifferently mentioned. Suspicion clung longest to

Carbo, probably as the man who had lately come into the most direct

conflict with his supposed victim; even Carbo's subsequent conversion to

conservatism could not clear his name, and his guilt seems to have been

almost an article of faith amongst the optimates of the Ciceronian

period. But there were other versions which hinted at domestic crime.

Did not Cornelia have an interest in removing the man who was undoing

the work of her son, and might she not have had a willing accomplice in

Scipio's wife Sempronia?[469] It was believed that this marriage of

arrangement had never been sanctioned by love; Sempronia was plain and

childless, and the absence of a husband's affection may have led her to

think only of her duties as a daughter and a sister.[470] People who

were too sane for these extravagances, but were yet unwilling to accept

the prosaic solution of a natural death and give up the pleasant task of

conjecture, suggested that Scipio had found death by his own hand. The

motive assigned was the sense of his inability to keep the promises

which he had made.[471] These promises may have been held to be certain

suggestions for the amelioration of the condition of the Latin and

Italian allies.

But it required no conjecture and no suspicion to emphasise the tragic

nature of Scipio's death. He was but fifty-six; he was by far the

greatest general that Rome could command, a champion who could spring

into the breach when all seemed lost, make an army out of a rabble and

win victory from defeat; he was a great moral force, the scourge of the

new vices, the enemy of the provincial oppressor; he was the greatest

intellectual influence in aristocratic Rome, embellishing the staid

rigour of the ancient Roman with something of the humanism of the Greek;

Xenophon was the author who appealed most strongly to his simple and

manly tastes; and his purity of soul and clearness of intellect were

fitly expressed in the chasteness and elegance of his Latin style. The

modern historian has not to tax his fancy in discovering great qualities

in Scipio; the mind of every unprejudiced contemporary must have echoed

the thought of Laelius, when he wrote in his funeral speech "We cannot

thank the gods enough that they gave to Rome in preference to other

states a man with a heart and intellect like this".[472] But the

dominant feeling amongst thinking men, who had any respect for the

empire and the constitution, was that of panic at the loss. Quintus

Metellus Macedonicus had been his political foe; but when the tidings of

death were brought him, he was like one distraught. "Citizens," he

wailed, "the walls of our city are in ruins." [473] And that a great

breach had been made in the political and military defences of Rome is

again the burden of Laelius's complaint, "He has perished at a time when

a mighty man is needed by you and by all who wish the safety of this

commonwealth." These utterances were not merely a lament for a great

soldier, but the mourning for a man who might have held the balance

between classes and saved a situation that was becoming intolerable. We

cannot say whether any definite means of escape from the brewing storm

was present to Scipio's mind, or, if he had evolved a plan, whether he

was master of the means to render it even a temporary success. Perhaps

he had meddled too little with politics to have acquired the dexterity

requisite for a reconciler. Possibly his pride and his belief in the

aristocracy as an aggregate would have stood in his way. But he was a

man of moderate views who led a middle party, and he attracted the

anxious attention of men who believed that salvation would not come from

either of the extremes. He had once been the favourite of the crowd, and

might be again, he commanded the distant respect of the nobility, and he

had all Italy at his side. Was there likely to be a man whose position

was better suited to a reconciliation of the war of jarring interests?

Perhaps not; but at the time of his death the first steps which he had

taken had only widened the horizon of war. He found a struggle between

the commons and the nobles; he emphasised, although he had not created,

the new struggle between the commons and Italy. His next step would have

been decisive, but this he was not fated to take.

When we turn from the history of the agrarian movement and its

unexpected consequences to other items in the internal fortunes of Rome

during this period, we find that Tiberius Gracchus had left another

legacy to the State. This was the idea of a magistracy which, freed from

the restraint of consulting the senate, should busy itself with

political reform, remove on its own initiative the obstacles which the

constitution threw in the path of its progress, and effect the

regeneration of Rome and even of Italy by means of ordinances elicited

from the people. The social question was here as elsewhere the efficient

cause; but it left results which seemed strangely disproportionate to

their source. The career of Gracchus had shown that the leadership of

the people was encumbered by two weaknesses. These were the packing of

assemblies by dependants of the rich, whose votes were known and whose

voices were therefore under control, and the impossibility of

re-election to office, which rendered a continuity of policy on the part

of the demagogue impossible. It was the business of the tribunate of

Carbo to remove both these hindrances to popular power. His first

proposal was to introduce voting by ballot in the legislative

assemblies;[474] it was one that could not easily be resisted, since the

principle of the ballot had already been recognised in elections, and in

all judicial processes with the exception of trials for treason. These

measures seem to have had the support of the party of moderate reform:

and Scipio and his friends probably offered no resistance to the new

application of the principle. Without their support, and unprovided with

arguments which might excite the fears or jealousy of the people, the

nobility was powerless: and the bill, therefore, easily became law. The

change thus introduced was unquestionably a great one. Hitherto the

country voters had been the most independent; now the members of the

urban proletariate were equally free, and from this time forth the voice

of the city could find an expression uninfluenced by the smiles or

frowns of wealthy patrons. The ballot produced its intended effect more

fully in legislation than in election; its introduction into the latter

sphere caused the nobility to become purchasers instead of directors;

but it was seldom that a law affected individual interests so directly

as to make a bargain for votes desirable. The chief bribery found in the

legislative assemblies was contained in the proposal submitted by the

demagogue.

Carbo's second proposal, that immediate and indefinite re-election to

the tribunate should be permitted, was not recommended on the same

grounds of precedent or reason. The analogies of the Roman constitution

were opposed to it, and the rules against the perpetuity of office which

limited the patrician magistracies, and made even a single re-election

to the consulship illegal,[475] while framed in support of aristocratic

government, had had as their pretext the security of the Republic, and

therefore ostensibly of popular freedom and control. Again, the people

might be reminded that the tribunate was not always a power friendly to

their interests, and that the veto which blocked the expression of their

will might be continued to a second year by the obstinate persistence of

a minority of voters. Excellent arguments of a popular kind could be,

and probably were, employed against the proposal. Certainly the

sentiment which really animated the opposition could have found little

favour with the masses, who ultimately voted for the rejection of the

bill. All adherents of senatorial government must have seen in the

success of the measure the threat of a permanent opposition, the

possibility of the rise of official demagogues of the Greek type,

monarchs in reality though, not in name, the proximity of a Gracchan

movement unhampered by the weakness which had led to Gracchus's fall. It

is easier for an electorate to maintain a principle by the maintenance

of a personality than to show its fervour for a creed by submitting new

and untried exponents to a rigid confession of faith. The senate knew

that causes wax and wane with the men who have formulated them, and it

had always been more afraid of individuals than of masses. Scipio's view

of the Gracchan movement and his acceptance of the cardinal maxims of

existing statecraft, prepare us for the attitude which he assumed on

this occasion. His speech against the measure was believed to have been

decisive in turning the scale. He was supported by his henchmen, and the

faithful Laelius also gave utterance to the protests of the moderates

against the unwelcome innovation. This victory, if decisive, would have

made the career of Caius Gracchus impossible--a career which, while it

fully justified the attitude of the opposition, more than fulfilled the

designs of the advocates of the change. But the triumph was evanescent.

Within the next eight years re-election to the tribunate was rendered

possible under certain circumstances. The successful proposal is said to

have taken the form of permitting any one to be chosen, if the number of

candidates fell short of the ten places which were to be filled.[476]

This arrangement was probably represented as a corollary of the ancient

religious injunction which forbade the outgoing tribunes to leave the

Plebs unprovided with guardians; and this presentment of the case

probably weakened the arguments of the opposition. The aristocratic

party could hardly have misconceived the import of the change. It was

intended that a party which desired the re-election of a tribune should,

by withdrawing some of its candidates at the last moment,[477] qualify

him for reinvestiture with the magistracy.

The party of reform were rightly advised in attempting to secure an

adequate mechanism for the fulfilment of a democratic programme before

they put their wishes into shape. That they were less fortunate in the

proposals that they formulated, was due to the fact that these proposals

were at least as much the result of necessity as of deliberate choice.

The agrarian question was still working its wicked will. It hung like an

incubus round the necks of democrats and forced them into most

undemocratic paths. The legacy left by Scipio had become the burdensome

inheritance of his foes. Italian claims were now the impasse which

stopped the present distribution and the future acquisition of land. The

minds of many were led to inquire whether it might not be possible to

strike a bargain with the allies, and thus began that mischievous

co-operation between a party in Rome and the protected towns in Italy,

which suggested hopes that could not be satisfied, led to open revolt as

the result of the disappointment engendered by failure, and might easily

be interpreted as veiling treasonable designs against the Roman State,

The franchise was to be offered to the Italian towns on condition that

they waived their rights in the public land.[478] The details of the

bargain were probably unknown, even to contemporaries, for the

negotiations demanded secrecy; but it is clear that the arrangements

must have been at once general and complex; for no organisation is

likely to have existed that could bind each Italian township to the

agreement, nor could any town have undertaken to prejudice all the

varying rights of its individual citizens. When the Italians eagerly

accepted the offer, a pledge must have been got from their leading men

that the local governments would not press their claims to the disputed

land as an international question; for it was under this aspect that the

dispute presented the gravest difficulties. The commons of these states

might be comforted by the assurance that, when they had become Roman

citizens, they would themselves be entitled to share in the

assignations. These negotiations, which may have extended over two or

three years, ended by bringing crowds of Italians to Rome. They had no

votes; but the moral influence of their presence was very great. They

could applaud or hiss the speakers in the informal gatherings of the

Contio; it was not impossible that in the last resort they might lend

physical aid to that section of the democrats which had advocated their

cause. It might even have been possible to manufacture votes for some of

these immigrants. A Latin domiciled in Rome always enjoyed a limited

suffrage in the Comitia, and a pretended domicile might easily be

invented for a temporary resident. Nor was it even certain that the

wholly unqualified foreigner might not give a surreptitious vote; for

the president of the assembly was the man interested in the passing of

the bill, and his subordinates might be instructed not to submit the

qualifications of the voters to too strict a scrutiny. It was under

these circumstances that the senate resorted to the device, rare but not

unprecedented, of an alien act. Following its instructions, the tribune

Marcus Junius Pennus introduced a proposal that foreigners should be

excluded from the city.[479] We know nothing of the wording of the act.

It may have made no specific mention of Italians, and its operation was

presumably limited to strangers not domiciled before a certain date.

But, like all similar provisions, it must have contained further

limitations, for it is inconceivable that the foreign trader, engaged in

legitimate business, was hustled summarily from the city. But, however

limited its scope, its end was clear: and the fact that it passed the

Comitia shows that the franchise movement was by no means wholly

popular. A crowd is not so easy of conversion as an individual. Recent

events must have caused large numbers of the urban proletariate to hate

the very name of the Italians, and the idea of sharing the privileges of

empire with the foreigner must already have been distasteful to the

average Roman mind. It was in vain that Caius Gracchus, to whom the

suggestion of his brother was already becoming a precept, tried to

emphasise the political ruin which the spirit of exclusiveness had

brought to cities of the past.[480] The appeal to history and to nobler

motives must have fallen on deaf ears. It is possible, however, that the

personality of the speaker might have been of some avail, had he been

ably supported, and had the people seen all their leaders united on the

question of the day. But there is reason for supposing that serious

differences of opinion existed amongst these leaders as to the wisdom of

the move. Some may have held that the party of reform had merely drifted

in this direction, that the proposal for enfranchisement had never been

considered on its own merits, and that they had no mandate from the

people for purchasing land at this costly price. It may have been at

this time that Carbo first showed his dissatisfaction with the party, of

which he had almost been the accepted leader. If he declined to

accompany his colleagues on this new and untried path, the first step in

his conversion to the party of the optimates betrays no inconsistency

with his former attitude; for he could maintain with justice that the

proposal for enfranchising Italy was not a popular measure either in

spirit or in fact.

It was, therefore, with more than doubtful chances of success that

Fulvius Flaccus, who was consul in the following year, attempted to

bring the question to an issue by an actual proposal of citizenship for

the allies. The details of his scheme of enfranchisement have been very

imperfectly preserved.[481] We are unaware whether, like Caius Gracchus

some three years later, he proposed to endow the Latins with higher

privileges than the other allies: and, although he contemplated the

non-acceptance of Roman citizenship by some of the allied communities,

since he offered these cities the right of appeal to the people as a

substitute for the status which they declined, we do not know whether

his bill granted citizenship at once to all accepting states, or merely

opened a way for a request for this right to come from individual cities

to the Roman people. But it is probable that the bill in some way

asserted the willingness of the people to confer the franchise, and

that, if any other steps were involved in the method of conferment, they

were little more than formal. The fact that the _provocatio_ was

contemplated as a substitute for citizenship is at once a proof that the

old spirit of state life, which viewed absorption as extermination, was

known still to be strong in some of the Italian communes, and that many

of the individual Italians were believed to value the citizenship mainly

as a means of protecting their persons against Roman officialdom. That

the democratic party was strong at the moment when this proposal was

given to the world is shown by the fact that Flaccus filled the

consulship; that it had little sympathy with his scheme is proved by the

isolation of the proposer and by the manner in which the senate was

allowed to intervene. The conferment of the franchise had been proved to

be essentially a popular prerogative;[482] the consultation of the

senate on such a point might be advisable, but was by no means

necessary; for, in spite of the ruling theory that the authority of the

senate should be respected in all matters of legislation, the complex

Roman constitution recognised shades of difference, determined by the

quality of the particular proposal, with respect to the observance of

this rule. The position of Flaccus was legally stronger than that of

Tiberius Gracchus had been. Had he been well supported by men of

influence or by the masses, the senate's judgment might have been set at

naught. But the people were cold, Carbo had probably turned away, and

Caius Gracchus had gone as quaestor to Sardinia. The senate was

emboldened to adopt a firm attitude. They invited the consul to take

them into his confidence. After much delay he entered the senate house;

but a stubborn silence was his only answer to the admonitions and

entreaties of the fathers that he would desist from his purpose.[483]

Flaccus knew the futility of arguing with people who had adopted a

foregone conclusion; he would not even deign to accept a graceful

retreat from an impossible position. The matter must be dropped; but to

withdraw it at the exhortation of the senate, although complimentary to

his peers and perhaps not unpleasing even to the people in their present

humour, would prejudice the chances of the future. In view of better

days it was wiser to shelve than to discard the measure. His attitude

may also have been influenced by pledges made to the allies; to these,

helpless as he was, he would yet be personally faithful. His fidelity

would have been put to a severe test had he remained in Italy; but the

supreme magistrate at Rome had always a refuge from a perplexing

situation. The voice of duty called him abroad,[484] and Flaccus set

forth to shelter Massilia from the Salluvii and to build up the Roman

power in Transalpine Gaul.[485] Perhaps only a few of the leading

democrats had knowledge enough to suspect the terrible consequences that

might be involved in the failure of the proposal for conferring the

franchise. To the senate and the Roman world they must have caused as

much astonishment as alarm. It could never have been dreamed that the

well-knit confederacy, which had known no spontaneous revolt since the

rising of Falerii in the middle of the third century, could again be

disturbed by internal war. Now the very centre of this confederacy, that

loyal nucleus which had been unshaken by the victories of Hannibal, was

to be the scene of an insurrection, the product of hope long deferred,

of expectations recently kindled by injudicious promises, of resentment

at Pennus's success and Flaccus's failure. Fregellae, the town which

assumed the lead in the movement and either through overhaste or faulty

information alone took the fatal step,[486] was a Latin colony which had

been planted by Rome in the territory of the Volsci in the year 328

B.C.[487] The position of the town had ensured its prosperity even

before it fell into the hands of Rome. It lay on the Liris in a rich

vine-growing country, and within that circle of Latin and Campanian

states, which had now become the industrial centre of Italy. It was

itself the centre of the group of Latin colonies that lay as bulwarks of

Rome between the Appian and Latin roads, and had in the Hannibalic war

been chosen as the mouthpiece of the eighteen faithful cities, when

twelve of the Latin states grew weary of their burdens and wavered in

their allegiance.[488] The importance of the city was manifest and of

long-standing, its self-esteem was doubtless great, and it perhaps

considered that its signal services had been inadequately recompensed by

Rome. But its peculiar grievances are unknown, or the particular reasons

which gave Roman citizenship such an excessive value in its eyes. It is

possible that its thriving farmer class had been angered by the agrarian

commission and by undue demands for military service, and, in spite of

the commercial equality with the Romans which they enjoyed in virtue of

their Latin rights, they may have compared their position unfavourably

with that of communities in the neighbourhood which had received the

Roman franchise in full. Towns like Arpinum, Fundi and Formiae had been

admitted to the citizen body without forfeiting their self-government.

Absorption need not now entail the almost penal consequences of the

dissolution of the constitution; while the possession of citizenship

ensured the right of appeal and a full participation in the religious

festivals and the amenities of the capital. It is also possible that, in

the case of a prosperous industrial and agricultural community situated

actually within Latium, the desire for actively participating in the

decisions of the sovereign people may have played its part. But

sentiment probably had in its councils as large a share as reason: and

the fact that this sentiment led to premature action, and that the fall

of the state was due to treason, may lead as to suppose that the Romans

had to deal with a divided people and that one section of the community,

perhaps represented by the upper or official class, although it may have

sympathised with the general desire for the attainment of the franchise,

was by no means prepared to stake the ample fortunes of the town on the

doubtful chance of successful rebellion. A prolonged resistance of the

citizens within their walls might have given the impulse to a general

rising of the Latins. Had Fregellae played the part of a second

Numantia, the Social War might have been anticipated by thirty-five

years. But the advantage to be gained from time was foiled by treason. A

certain Numitorius Pullus betrayed the state to the praetor Lucius

Opimius, who had been sent with an army from Rome. Had Fregellae stood

alone, it might have been spared; but it was felt that some extreme

measure either of concession or of terrorism was necessary to keep

discontent from assuming the same fiery form in other communities. In

the later war with the allies a greater danger was bought off by

concession. But there the disease had run its course; here it was met in

its earliest stage, and the familiar devise of excision was felt to be

the true remedy. The principle of the "awful warning," which Alexander

had applied to Thebes and Rome to Corinth, doomed the greatest of the

Latin cities to destruction. Regardless of the past services of

Fregellae and of the fact that the passion for the franchise was the

most indubitable sign of the loyalty of the town, the government ordered

that the walls of the surrendered city should be razed and that the town

should become a mere open village undistinguished by any civic

privilege.[489] A portion of its territory was during the next year

employed for the foundation of the citizen colony of Fabrateria.[490]

The new settlement was the typical Roman garrison in a disaffected

country. But it proved the weakness of the present régime that such a

crude and antiquated method should have to be employed in the heart of

Latium. Security, however, was perhaps not the sole object of the

foundation. The confiscated land of Fregellae was a boon to a government

sadly in need of popularity at home.

An excellent opportunity was now offered for impressing the people with

the enormity of the offence that had been committed by some of their

leaders, and prosecutions were directed against the men who had been

foremost in support of the movement for extending the franchise. It was

pretended that they had suggested designs as well as kindled hopes. The

fate of the lesser advocates of the Italian cause is unknown; but Caius

Gracchus, against whom an indictment was directed, cleared his name of

all complicity in the movement.[491] The effect of these measures of

suppression was not to improve matters for the future. The allies were

burdened with a new and bitter memory; their friends at Rome were

furnished with a new cause for resentment. If the Roman people continued

selfish and apathetic, a leader might arise who would find the Italians

a better support for his position than the Roman mob. If he did not

arise or if he failed, the sole but certain arbitrament was that of

the sword.

The foreign activity of Rome during this period did not reflect the

troubled spirit of the capital. It was of little moment that petty wars

were being waged in East and West, and that bulletins sometimes brought

news of a general's defeat. Rome was accustomed to these things; and her

efforts were still marked by their usual characteristics of steady

expansion and decorous success. To predicate failure of her foreign

activity for this period is to predicate it for all her history, for

never was an empire more slowly won or more painfully preserved. It is

true that at the commencement of this epoch an imperialist might have

been justified in taking a gloomy view of the situation. In Spain

Numantia was inflicting more injury on Roman prestige than on Roman

power, while the long and harassing slave-war was devastating Sicily.

But these perils were ultimately overcome, and meanwhile circumstances

had led to the first extension of provincial rule over the wealthy East.

The kingdom of Pergamon had long been the mainstay of Rome's influence

in the Orient. Her contact with the other protected princedoms was

distant and fitful; but as long as her mandates could be issued through

this faithful vassal, and he could rely on her whole-hearted support in

making or meeting aggressions, the balance of power in the East was

tolerably secure. It had been necessary to make Eumenes the Second see

that he was wholly in the power of Rome, her vassal and not her ally. He

had been rewarded and strengthened, not for his own deserts, but that he

might be fitted to become the policeman of Western Asia, and it had been

successfully shown that the hand which gave could also take away. The

lesson was learnt by the Pergamene power, and fortunately the dynasty

was too short-lived for a king to arise who should forget the crushing

display of Roman power which had followed the Third Macedonian War, or

for the realisation of that greater danger of a protectorate--a struggle

for the throne which should lead one of the pretenders to appeal to a

national sentiment and embark on a national war. Eumenes at his death

had left a direct successor in the person of his son Attalus, who had

been born to him by his wife Stratonice, the daughter of Ariarathes King

of Cappadocia.[492] But Attalus was a mere boy at the time of his

father's death, and the choice of a guardian was of vital importance for

the fortunes of the monarchy. Every consideration pointed to the uncle

of the heir, and in the strong hands of Attalus the Second the regency

became practically a monarchy.[493] The new ruler was a man of more than

middle age, of sober judgment, and deeply versed in all the mysteries of

kingcraft; for a mutual trust, rare amongst royal brethren in the East,

had led Eumenes to treat him more as a colleague than as a lieutenant.

He had none of the insane ambition which sees in the diadem the good to

which all other blessings may be fitly sacrificed, and had resisted the

invitation of a Roman coterie that he should thrust his suspected

brother from the throne and reign himself as the acknowledged favourite

of Rome. In the case of Attalus familiarity with the suzerain power had

not bred contempt. He had served with Manlius in Galatia[494] and with

Paulus in Macedonia,[495] and had been sent at least five times as envoy

to the capital itself.[496] The change from a private station to a

throne did not alter his conviction that the best interests of his

country would be served by a steady adherence to the power, whose

marvellous development to be the mainspring of Eastern politics was a

miracle which he had witnessed with his own eyes. He had grasped the

essentials of the Roman character sufficiently to see that this was not

one of the temporary waves of conquest that had so often swept over the

unchangeable East and spent their strength in the very violence of their

flow, nor did he commit the error of mistaking self-restraint for

weakness. Monarchs like himself were the necessary substitute for the

dominion which the conquering State had been strong enough to spurn; and

he threw himself zealously into the task of forwarding the designs of

Rome in the dynastic struggles of the neighbouring nations. He helped to

restore Ariarathes the Fifth to his kingdom of Cappadocia,[497] and

appealed to Rome against the aggressions of Prusias the Second of

Bithynia. He was saved by the decisive intervention of the senate, but

not until he had been twice driven within the walls of his capital by

his victorious enemy.[498] His own peace and the interests of Rome were

now secured by his support of Nicomedes, the son of Prusias, who had won

the favour of the Romans and was placed on the throne of his father. He

had even interfered in the succession to the kingdom of the Seleucidae,

when the Romans thought fit to support the pretensions of Alexander

Balas to the throne of Syria.[499] Lastly he had sent assistance to the

Roman armies in the conflict which ended in the final reduction of

Greece.[500] There was no question of his abandoning his regency during

his life-time. Rome could not have found a better instrument, and it was

perhaps in obedience to the wishes of the senate, and certainly in

accordance with their will, that he held the supreme power until his

reign of twenty-one years was closed by his death.[501] Possibly the

qualities of the rightful heir may not have inspired confidence, for a

strong as well as a faithful friend was needed on the throne of

Pergamon. The new ruler, Attalus the Third, threatened only the danger

that springs from weakness; but, had not his rule been ended by an early

death, it is possible that Roman intervention might have been called in

to save the monarchy from the despair of his subjects, to hand it over

to some more worthy vassal, or, in default of a suitable ruler, to

reduce it to the form of a province. The restraint under which Attalus

had lived during his uncle's guardianship, had given him the sense of

impotence that issues in bitterness of temper and reckless suspicion.

The suspicion became a mania when the death of his mother and his

consort created a void in his life which he persisted in believing to be

due to the criminal agency of man. Relatives and friends were now the

immediate victims of his disordered mind,[502] and the carnival of

slaughter was followed by an apathetic indifference to the things of the

outer world. Dooming himself to a sordid seclusion, the king solaced his

gloomy leisure with pursuits that had perhaps become habitual during his

early detachment from affairs. He passed his time in ornamental

gardening, modelling in wax, casting in bronze and working in

metal.[503] His last great object in life was to raise a stately tomb to

his mother Stratonice. It was while he was engaged in this pious task

that exposure to the sun engendered an illness which caused his death.

When the last of the legitimate Attalids had gone to his grave, it was

found that the vacant kingdom had been disposed of by will, and that the

Roman people was the nominated heir.[504] The genuineness of this

document was subsequently disputed by the enemies of Rome, and it was

pronounced to be a forgery perpetrated by Roman diplomats.[505] History

furnishes evidence of the reality of the testament, but none of the

influences under which it was made.[506] It is quite possible that the

last eccentric king was jealous enough to will that he should have no

successor on the throne, and cynical enough to see that it made little

difference whether the actual power of Rome was direct or indirect. It

is equally possible that the idea was suggested by the Romanising party

in his court; although, when we remember the extreme unwillingness that

Rome had ever shown to accept a position of permanent responsibility in

the East, we can hardly imagine the plan to have received the direct

sanction of the senate. It is conceivable, however, that many leading

members of the government were growing doubtful of the success of merely

diplomatic interference with the troubled politics of the East; that

they desired a nearer point of vantage from which to watch the movements

of its turbulent rulers; and that, if consulted on the chances of

success which attended the new departure, they may have given a

favourable reply. It was impossible by the nature of the case to

question the validity of the act. The legatees were far too powerful to

make it possible for their living chattels to raise an effective protest

except by actual rebellion. But, from a legal point of view, a

principality like Pergamon that had grown out of the successful seizure

of a royal estate by its steward some hundred and fifty years before

this time, might easily be regarded as the property of its kings;[507]

and certainly if any heirs outside the royal family were to be admitted

to the bequest, these would naturally be sought in the power, which had

increased its dominions, strengthened its position and made it one of

the great powers of the world. Neglected by Rome the principality would

have become the prey of neighbouring powers; whilst the institution of a

new prince, chosen from some royal house, would, have excited the

jealousy and stimulated the rapacity of the others. The acceptance of

the bequest was inevitable, although by this acceptance Rome was

departing from the beaten track of a carefully chosen policy. It is

hinted that Attalus in his bequest, or the Romans in their acceptance,

stipulated for the freedom of the dominion.[508] This freedom may be

merely a euphemism for provincial rule when contrasted with absolute

despotism; but we may read a truer meaning into the term. Rome had often

guaranteed the liberty of Asiatic cities which she had wrested from

their overlord, she had once divided Macedonia into independent

Republics, she still maintained Achaea in a condition which allowed a

great deal of self-government to many of its towns, and the system of

Roman protectorate melted by insensible degrees into that of provincial

government. It is possible that her treatment of the bequeathed

communities might have been marked by greater liberality than was

actually shown, had not the dominion been immediately convulsed by a war

of independence.

A pretender had appeared from the house of the Attalids. He could show

no legitimate scutcheon; but this was a small matter. If there was a

chance of a national outbreak, it could best be fomented by a son of

Eumenes. Aristonicus was believed to have been born of an Ephesian

concubine of the king.[509] We know nothing of his personality, but the

history of his two years' conflict with the Roman power proves him to

have been no figure-head, but a man of ability, energy and resource. A

strictly national cause was impossible in the kingdom of Pergamon; for

there was little community of sentiment between the Greek coast line and

the barbaric interior. But the commercial prosperity of the one, and the

agricultural horrors of the other, might justify an appeal to interest

based on different grounds. At first Aristonicus tried the sea. Without

venturing at once into any of the great emporia, he raised his standard

at Leucae, a small but strongly defended seaport lying almost midway

between Phocaea and Smyrna, and placed on a promontory just south of the

point where the Hermus issues into its gulf. Some of the leading towns

seem to have answered to his call.[510] But the Ephesians, not content

with mere repudiation, manned a fleet, sailed against him, and inflicted

a severe defeat on his naval force off Cyme.[511] Evidently the

commercial spirit had no liking for his schemes; it saw in the Roman

protectorate the promise of a wider commerce and a broader civic

freedom. Aristonicus moved into the interior, at first perhaps as a

refugee, but soon as a liberator. There were men here desperate enough

to answer to any call, and miserable enough to face any danger. Sicily

had shown that a slave-leader might become a king; Asia was now to prove

that a king might come to his own by heading an army of the

outcasts.[512] The call to freedom met with an eager response, and the

Pergamene prince was soon marching to the coast at the head of "the

citizens of the City of the Sun," the ideal polity which these remnants

of nationalities, without countries and without homes, seem to have made

their own.[513] His success was instantaneous. First the inland towns of

Northern Lydia, Thyatira, and Apollonis, fell into his hands.[514]

Organised resistance was for the moment impossible. There were no Roman

troops in Asia, and the protected kings, to whom Rome had sent an urgent

summons, could not have mustered their forces with sufficient speed to

prevent Aristonicus sweeping towards the south. Here he threatened the

coast line of Ionia and Caria; Colophon and Myndus fell into his power:

he must even have been able to muster something of a fleet; for the

island of Samos was soon joined to his possessions.[515] It is probable

that the co-operation of the slave populations in these various cities

added greatly to his success. His conquests may have been somewhat

sporadic, and there is no reason to suppose that he commanded all the

country included in the wide range of his captured cities and extending

from Thyatira to the coast and from the Gulf of Hermus to that of

Iassus. The forces which he could dispose of seem to have been

sufficiently engaged in holding their southern conquests; there is no

trace of his controlling the country north of Phocaea or of his even

attempting an attack on Pergamon the capital of his kingdom. His army,

however, must have been increasing in dimensions as well as in

experience. Thracian mercenaries were added to his servile bands,[516]

and the movement had assumed dimensions which convinced the Romans that

this was not a tumult but a war. Their earlier efforts were apparently

based on the belief that local forces would be sufficient to stem the

rising. Even after the revolt of Aristonicus was known, they persisted

in the idea that the commission, which would doubtless in any case have

been sent out to inspect the new dependency, was an adequate means of

meeting the emergency. This commission of five,[517] which included

Scipio Nasica, journeyed to Asia only to find that they were attending

on a civil war, not on a judicial dispute, and that the country which

was to be organised required to be conquered. The client kings of

Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia and Pontus, all eager for praise or

for reward, had rallied loyally to the cause of Rome;[518] but the

auxiliary forces that they brought were quite unable to pacify a country

now in the throes of a servile war, and they lacked a commander-in-chief

who would direct a series of ordered operations. Orders were given for

the raising of a regular army, and in accordance with the traditions of

the State this force would be commanded by a consul.

The heads of the State for this year were Lucius Valerius Flaccus and

Publius Licinius Crassus. Each was covetous of the attractive command;

for the Asiatic campaigns of the past had been easy, and there was no

reason to suppose that a pretender who headed a multitude of slaves

would be more difficult to vanquish than a king like Antiochus who had

had at his call all the forces of Asia. The chances of a triumph were

becoming scarcer; here was one that was almost within the commander's

grasp. But there were even greater prizes in store. The happy conqueror

would be the first to touch the treasure of the Attalids, and secure for

the State a prize which had already been the source of political strife;

he would reap for himself and his army a royal harvest from the booty

taken in the field or from the sack of towns, and he would almost

indubitably remain in the conquered country to organise, perhaps to

govern for years, the wealthiest domain that had fallen to the lot of

Rome, and to treat like a king with the monarchs of the protected states

around. These attractions were sufficient to overcome the religious

scruples of both the candidates; for it chanced that both Crassus and

Flaccus were hampered by religious law from assuming a command abroad.

The one was chief pontiff and the other the Flamen of Mars; and, if the

objections were felt or pressed, the obvious candidate for the Asiatic

campaign was Scipio Aemilianus, the only tried general of the time. But

Scipio's chances were small. The nature of the struggle did not seem to

demand extraordinary genius, and Scipio, although necessary in an

emergency, could not be allowed to snatch the legitimate prizes of the

holders of office.[519] So the contest lay between the pontiff and the

priest. The controversy was unequal, for, while the pontiff was the

disciplinary head of the state religion, the Flamen was in matters of

ritual and in the rules appertaining to the observance of religious law

subject to his jurisdiction. Crassus restrained the ardour of his

colleague by announcing that he would impose a fine if the Flamen

neglected his religious duties by quitting the shores of Italy. The

pecuniary penalty was only intended as a means of stating a test case to

be submitted, as similar cases had been twice before,[520] to the

decision of the people. Flaccus entered an appeal against the fine, and

the judgment of the Comitia was invited. The verdict of the people was

that the fine should be remitted, but that the Flamen should obey the

pontiff.[521] As Crassus had no superior in the religious world, it was

difficult, if not impossible, for the objections against his own tenure

of the foreign command to be pressed.[522] The people, perhaps grateful

for the Gracchan sympathies of Crassus, felt no scruple about dismissing

their pontiff to a foreign land, and readily voted him the conduct

of the war.

The story of the campaign which followed is confined to a few personal

anecdotes connected with the remarkable man who led the Roman armies.

The learning of Crassus was attested by the fact that, when he held a

court in Asia, he could not only deliver his judgments in Greek, but

adapt his discourse to the dialect of the different litigants.[523] His

discipline was severe but indiscriminating; it displayed the rigour of

the erudite martinet, not the insight of the born commander. Once he

needed a piece of timber for a battering ram, and wrote to the architect

of a friendly town to send the larger of two pieces which he had seen

there. The trained eye of the expert immediately saw that the smaller

was the better suited to the purpose; and this was accordingly sent. The

intelligence of the architect was his ruin. The unhappy man was stripped

and scourged, on the ground that the exercise of judgment by a

subordinate was utterly subversive of a commander's authority.[524]

Another account represents such generalship as he possessed as having

been diverted from its true aim by the ardour with which, in spite of

his enormous wealth, he followed up the traces of the spoils of

war.[525] But his death, which took place at the beginning of the second

year of his command,[526] was not unworthy of one who had held the

consulship. He was conducting operations in the territory between Elaea

and Smyrna, probably in preparation for the siege of Leucae,[527] still

a stronghold of the pretender. Here he was suddenly surprised by the

enemy. His hastily formed ranks were shattered, and the Romans were soon

in full retreat for some friendly city of the north. But their lines

were broken by uneven ground and by the violence of the pursuit. The

general was detached from the main body of his army and overtaken by a

troop of Thracian horse. His captors were probably ignorant of the value

of their prize; and, even had they known that they held in their hands

the leader of the Roman host, the device of Crassus might still have

saved him from the triumph of a rebel prince and shameful exposure to

the insults of a servile crowd. He thrust his riding whip into the eye

of one of his captors. Frenzied with pain, the man buried his dagger in

the captive's side.[528]

The death of Crassus created hardly a pause in the conduct of the

campaign; for Marcus Perperna, the consul for the year, was soon in the

field and organising vigorous measures against Aristonicus. The details

of the campaign have not been preserved, but we are told that the first

serious encounter resulted in a decisive victory for the Roman

arms.[529] The pretender fled, and was finally hunted down to the

southern part of his dominions. His last stand was made at Stratonicea

in Caria. The town was blockaded and reduced by famine, and Aristonicus

surrendered unconditionally to the Roman power.[530] Perperna reserved

the captive for his triumph, he visited Pergamon and placed on shipboard

the treasures of Attalus for transport to Rome;[531] by these decisive

acts he was proving that the war was over, for yet a third eager consul

was straining every nerve to get his share of glory and of gain. Manius

Aquillius was hastening to Asia to assume a command which might still be

interpreted as a reality;[532] the longer he allowed his predecessor to

remain, the more unsubstantial would his own share in the enterprise

become. A triumph would be the prize of the man who had finished the

war, and perhaps even Aristonicus's capture need not be interpreted as

its close. A scene of angry recrimination might have been the result of

an encounter between the rival commanders; but this was avoided by

Perperna's sudden death at Pergamon.[533] It is possible that

Aristonicus was saved the shame of a Roman triumph, although one

tradition affirms that he was reserved for the pageant which three years

later commemorated Aquillius's success in Asia.[534] But he did not

escape the doom which the State pronounced on rebel princes, and was

strangled in the Tullianum by the orders of the senate.[535]

Aquillius found in his province sufficient material for the prolongation

of the war. Although the fall of Aristonicus had doubtless brought with

it the dissolution of the regular armies of the rebels, yet isolated

cities, probably terrorised by revolted slaves who could expect no mercy

from the conqueror, still offered a desperate resistance. In his

eagerness to end the struggle the Roman commander is said to have shed

the last vestiges of international morality, and the reduction of towns

by the poisoning of the streams which provided them with water,[536]

while it inflicted an indelible stain on Roman honour, was perhaps

defended as an inevitable accompaniment of an irregular servile war. The

work of organisation had been begun even before that of pacification had

been completed. The State had taken Perperna's success seriously enough

to send with Aquillius ten commissioners for the regulation of the

affairs of the new province,[537] and they seem to have entered on their

task from the date of their arrival.[538] There was no reason for delay,

since the kingdom of Pergamon had technically become a province with the

death of Attalus the Third.[539] The Ephesians indeed even antedated

this event, and adopted an era which commenced with the September of the

year 134,[540] the reason for this anticipation being the usual Asiatic

custom of beginning the civil year with the autumnal equinox. The real

point of departure of this new era of Ephesus was either the death of

Attalus or the victory of the city over the fleet of Aristonicus. But,

though the work of organisation could be entered on at once, its

completion was a long and laborious task, and Aquillius himself seems to

have spent three years in Asia.[541] The limits of the province, which,

like that of Africa, received the name of the continent to which it

belonged, required to be defined with reference to future possibilities

and the rights of neighbouring kingdoms; the taxation of the country had

to be adjusted; and the privileges of the different cities proportioned

to their capacity or merits. The law of Aquillius remained in essence

the charter of the province of Asia down to imperial times, although

subsequent modifications were introduced by Sulla and Pompeius. The new

inheritance of the Romans comprised almost all the portion of Asia Minor

lying north of the Taurus and west of Bithynia, Galatia and Cappadocia.

Even Caria, which had been declared free after the war with Perseus,

seems to have again fallen under the sway of the Attalid kings. The

monarchy also included the Thracian Chersonese and most of the Aegean

islands.[542] But the whole of this territory was not included in the

new province of Asia. The Chersonese was annexed to the province of

Macedonia,[543] a small district of Caria known as the Peraea and

situated opposite the island of Rhodes, became or remained the property

of the latter state; in the same neighbourhood the port and town of

Telmissus, which had been given to Eumenes after the defeat of

Antiochus, were restored to the Lycian confederation.[544] With

characteristic caution Rome did not care to retain direct dominion over

the eastern portions of her new possessions, some of which, such as

Isauria, Pisidia and perhaps the eastern portion of Cilicia, may have

rendered a very nominal obedience to the throne of the Attalids. She

kept the rich, civilised and easily governed Hellenic lands for her own,

but the barbarian interior, as too great and distant a burden for the

home government, was destined to enrich her loyal client states.

Aquillius and his commissioners must have received definite instructions

not to claim for Rome any territory lying east of Mysia, Lydia and

Caria; but they seem to have had no instructions as to how the discarded

territories were to be disposed of. The consequence was that the kings

of the East were soon begging for territory from a Roman commander and

his assistants. Lycaonia was the reward of proved service; it was given

to the sons of Ariarathes the Fifth, King of Cappadocia, who had fallen

in the war.[545] Cilicia is also said to have accompanied this gift, but

this no man's land must have been regarded both by donor and recipient

as but a nominal boon. For Phrygia proper, or the Greater Phrygia as

this country south of Bithynia and west of Galatia was called,[546]

there were two claimants.[547] The kings of Pontus and Bithynia competed

for the prize, and each supported his petition by a reference to the

history of the past. Nicomedes of Bithynia could urge that his grandsire

Prusias had maintained an attitude of friendly neutrality during Rome's

struggle with Antiochus. The Pontic king, Mithradates Euergetes,

advanced a more specious pretext of hereditary right. Phrygia, he

alleged, had been his mother's dowry, and had been given her by her

brother, Seleucus Callinicus, King of Syria.[548] We do not know what

considerations influenced the judgment of Aquillius in preferring the

claim of Mithradates. He may have considered that the Pontic kingdom, as

the more distant, was the less dangerous, and he may have sought to

attract the loyalty of its monarch by benefits such as had already been

heaped on Nicomedes of Bithynia. His political enemies and all who in

subsequent times resisted the claim of the Pontic kings, alleged that he

had put Phrygia up to auction and that Mithradates had paid the higher

price; this transaction doubtless figured in the charges of corruption,

on which he was accused and acquitted: and, doubtful as the verdict

which absolved him seemed to his contemporaries and successors, we have

no proof that the desire for gain was the sole or even the main cause of

his decision. Had he considered that the investiture of Nicomedes would

have been more acceptable to the home government, the King of Bithynia

would probably have been willing to pay an adequate sum for his

advocacy. He may have been guilty of a wilful blunder in alienating

Phrygia at all. The senate soon discovered his and its own mistake. The

disputed territory was soon seen to be worthy of Roman occupation.

Strategically it was of the utmost importance for the security of the

Asiatic coast, as commanding the heads of the river valleys which

stretched westward to the Aegean, while its thickly strewn townships,

which opened up possibilities of inland trade, placed it on a different

plane to the desolate Lycaonia and Cilicia. It is possible that the

capitalist class, on whose support the senate was now relying for the

maintenance of the political equilibrium in the capital, may have joined

in the protest against Aquillius's mistaken generosity. But, though the

government rapidly decided to rescind the decision of its commissioners,

it had not the strength to settle the matter once for all by taking

Phrygia for itself. A decree of the people was still technically

superior to a resolution of the senate; it was always possible for

dissentients to urge that the people must be consulted on these great

questions of international interest; and Phrygia became, like Pergamon a

short time before, the sport of party politics. The rival kings

transferred their claims, and possibly their pecuniary offers, from the

province to the capital, and the network of intrigue which soon shrouded

the question was brutally exhibited by Caius Gracchus when, in his first

or second tribunate, he urged the people to reject an Aufeian law, which

bore on the dispute. "You will find, citizens," he urged, "that each one

of us has his price. Even I am not disinterested, although it happens

that the particular object which I have in view is not money, but good

repute and honour. But the advocates on both sides of this question are

looking to something else. Those who urge you to reject this bill are

expecting hard cash from Nicomedes; those who urge its acceptance are

looking for the price which Mithradates will pay for what he calls his

own; this will be their reward. And, as for the members of the

government who maintain a studious reserve on this question, they are

the keenest bargainers of all; their silence simply means that they are

being paid by every one and cheating every one." This cynical

description of the political situation was pointed by a quotation of the

retort of Demades to the successful tragedian "Are you so proud of

having got a talent for speaking? why, I got ten talents from the king

for holding my peace".[549] This sketch was probably more witty than

true; condemnation, when it becomes universal, ceases to be convincing,

and cynicism, when it exceeds a certain degree, is merely the revelation

of a diseased or affected mental attitude. Gracchus was too good a

pleader to be a fair observer. But the suspicion revealed by the

diatribe may have been based on fact; the envoys of the kings may have

brought something weightier than words or documents, only to find that

the balance of their gilded arguments was so perfect that the original

objection to Phrygia being given to any Eastern potentate was the only

issue which could still be supported with conviction. Yet the government

still declined to annex. Its hesitancy was probably due to its

unwillingness to see a new Eastern province handed over to the

equestrian tax-farmers, to whom Caius Gracchus had just given the

province of Asia. The fall of Gracchus made an independent judgment by

the people impossible, and, even had it been practicable for the Comitia

to decide, their judgment must have been so perplexed by rival interests

and arguments that they would probably have acquiesced in the equivocal

decision of the senate. This decision was that Phrygia should be

free.[550] It was to be open to the Roman capitalist as a trader, but

not as a collector; it was not to be the scene of official corruption or

regal aggrandisement. It was to be an aggregate of protected states

possessing no central government of its own. Yet some central control

was essential; and this was perhaps secured by attaching Phrygia to the

province of Asia in the same loose condition of dependence in which

Achaea had been attached to Macedonia. In one other particular the

settlement of Aquillius was not final. We shall find that motives of

maritime security soon forced Rome to create a province of Cilicia, and

it seems that for this purpose a portion of the gift which had been just

made to the kings of Cappadocia was subsequently resumed by Rome. The

old Pergamene possessions in Western Cilicia were probably joined to

some towns of Pamphylia to form the kernel of the new province. When

Rome had divested herself of the superfluous accessories of her bequest,

a noble residue still remained. Mysia, Lydia and Caria with their

magnificent coast cities, rich in art, and inexhaustible in wealth,

formed, with most of the islands off the coast,[551] that "corrupting"

province which became the Favourite resort of the refined and the

desperate resource of the needy. Its treasures were to add a new word to

the Roman vocabulary of wealth;[552] its luxury was to give a new

stimulus to the art of living and to add a new craving or two to the

insatiable appetite for enjoyment; while the servility of its population

was to create a new type of Roman ruler in the man who for one glorious

year wielded the power of a Pergamene despot, without the restraint of

kingly traditions or the continence induced by an assured tenure

of rule.

The western world witnessed the beginning of an equally remarkable

change. On both sides of Italy accident was laying the foundation for a

steady advance to the North, and forcing the Romans into contact with

peoples, whose subjection would never have been sought except from

purely defensive motives. The Iapudes and Histri at the head of the

Adriatic were the objects of a campaign of the consul Tuditanus,[553]

while four years later Fulvius Flaccus commenced operations amongst the

Gauls and Ligurians beyond the Alps,[554] which were to find their

completion seventy-five years later in the conquests of Caesar. But

neither of these enterprises can be intelligently considered in

isolation; their significance lies in the necessity of their renewal,

and even the proximate results to which they led would carry us far

beyond the limits of the period which we are considering. The events

completely enclosed within these limits are of subordinate importance.

They are a war in Sardinia and the conquest of the Balearic isles. The

former engaged the attention of Lucius Aurelius Orestes as consul in 126

and as proconsul in the following year.[555] It is perhaps only the

facts that a consul was deemed necessary for the administration of the

island, and that he attained a triumph for his deeds,[556] that justify

us in calling this Sardinian enterprise a war. It was a punitive

expedition undertaken against some restless tribes, but it was rendered

arduous by the unhealthiness of the climate and the difficulty of

procuring adequate supplies for the suffering Roman troops.[557] The

annexation of the Balearic islands with their thirty thousand

inhabitants[558] may have been regarded as a geographical necessity, and

certainly resulted in a military advantage. Although the Carthaginians

had had frequent intercourse with these islands and a Port of the

smaller of the two still bears a Punic name,[559] they had done little

to civilise the native inhabitants. Perhaps the value attached to the

military gifts of the islanders contributed to preserve them in a state

of nature; for culture might have diminished that marvellous skill with

the sling,[560] which was once at the service of the Carthaginian, and

afterwards of the Roman, armies. But, in spite of their prowess, the

Baliares were not a fierce people. They would allow no gold or silver to

enter their country,[561] probably in order that no temptation might be

offered to pirates or rapacious traders.[562] Their civilisation

represented the matriarchal stage; their marriage customs expressed the

survival of polyandric union; they were tenacious of the lives of their

women, and even invested the money which they gained on military service

in the purchase of female captives.[563] They made excellent

mercenaries, but shunned either war or commerce with the neighbouring

peoples, and the only excuse for Roman aggression was that a small

proportion of the peaceful inhabitants had lent themselves to piratical

pursuits.[564] The expedition was led by the consul Quintus Caecilius

Metellus and resulted in a facile conquest. The ships of the invaders

were protected by hides stretched above the decks to guard against the

cloud of well-directed missiles;[565] but, once a landing had been

effected, the natives, clad only in skins, with small shields and light

javelins as their sole defensive weapons, could offer no effective

resistance at close quarters and were easily put to rout. For the

security of the new possessions Metellus adopted the device, still rare

in the case of transmarine dependencies, of planting colonies on the

conquered land. Palma and Pollentia were founded, as townships of Roman

citizens, on the larger island; the new settlers being drawn from Romans

who were induced to leave their homes in the south of Spain.[566] This

unusual effort in the direction of Romanisation was rendered necessary

by the wholly barbarous character of the country; and the introduction

into the Balearic isles of the Latin language and culture was a better

justification than the easy victory for Metellus's triumph and his

assumption of the surname of "Baliaricus".[567] The islands flourished

under Roman rule. They produced wine and wheat in abundance and were

famed for the excellence of their mules. But their chief value to Rome

must have lain in their excellent harbours, and in the welcome addition

to the light-armed forces of the empire which was found in their warlike

inhabitants.