CHAPTER VIII

The summer must have been well advanced when Marius landed at Utica with

his untried forces. The veterans were handed over to his care by the

legate Rutilius[1114] for Metellus had fled the sight of the man, whose

success had been based on a slanderous attack on his own reputation. It

must have been with a heavy heart that he accomplished the voyage to

Rome; for the greatest expert in the moods of the people could scarcely

have foretold the surprise that awaited him there. The popular passion

was spent; it was a feverish force that had burnt itself out; the

country voters had at last bethought themselves of their work and

returned to their farms; many of the most active and disorderly spirits,

the restless loud-voiced men who are the potent minority in an

agitation, had been removed by the levy of Marius; with the city mob

docility generally alternated with revolution, and it was now inclined

to look to the verdict of the recognised heads of the State. In this

moment of reaction, too, many must have been inclined to wonder what

after all could be said against this general who had never lost a

battle, who had conquered cities and pitilessly revenged the one

disaster which was not his fault, who had constantly swept the terrible

King of Numidia as a helpless fugitive before him. The presence of

Metellus completed the work by giving stability to these half-formed

views. The common folk are the true idealists. They love a hero rather

better than a victim, although it often depends on the turn of a hair

which part the object of their attentions is to play. Now they followed

the lead of the senate; the returned commander was the man of the

day[1115] he had exalted the glory of the Roman name; and if there was

no fault, there could only have been misfortune; but misfortune might be

compensated by honour. There was the prospect of a triumph in store,

that mixed source of sensuous satisfaction and national

self-congratulation. Thus Metellus won his prizes from the Numidian war,

a parade through the streets to the Capitol and the addition of the

surname "Numidicus" to the already lengthy nomenclature of his

house[1116]

The war itself, under the guidance of Marius, soon assumed the character

which it had possessed under that of all his predecessors. The

originality of the new commander seemed to have spent itself in the

selection of his troops; no new idea seems to have been introduced into

the conduct of operations, which resumed their old shapes of precautions

against surprise, weary marches from end to end of Numidia, and the

siege of strongholds which were no sooner taken than they proved to be

beyond the area of actual hostilities. Perhaps no new idea was possible

except one that exchanged the weapons of war for those of diplomacy; but

even the final attempt that had been made in this direction by Metellus

was not continued by Marius. Bocchus, unwilling to lose the chance which

had been presented of a definite convention with Home, sent repeated

messages to her new representative to the effect that he desired the

friendship of the Roman people, and that no acts of hostility on his

part need be feared[1117] but his protestations were received with

distrust, and Marius, accustomed to the duplicity of the African mind

and rejecting the view that the king might really be wavering between

war and peace, chose to regard them as the treacherous cover for a

sudden attack. The desultory campaign which followed seems to have been

directed by two motives. The first was the training of the raw levies

which had just been brought from Rome; the second the supposed necessity

of cutting Jugurtha off from the strongholds which he still held at the

extremities of his kingdom. As these extremities were now threatened or

commanded, on the south by the Gaetulians and on the west by the

Mauretanians, the area of the war was no less than that of Numidia

itself; and, as the occupation of such an area was impossible, the

destruction of these strongholds, which was little loss to a mobile

self-supporting force such as that which Jugurtha had at his command,

was the utmost end which could be secured.

The practice of the untrained Roman levies was rendered easy by the fact

that Jugurtha had resumed the offensive. He no longer had the help of

his Mauretanian auxiliaries, for Bocchus had retired to his own kingdom,

and he had therefore lost his desire for a pitched battle; but his

swarms of Gaetulian horse had enabled him to resume his old style of

guerilla fighting, and he had taken advantage of the practical

suspension of hostilities which had accompanied the change in the Roman

command, to set on foot a series of raids against the friends of Rome

and even to penetrate the borders of the Roman province itself.[1118]

For some time the attention of Marius was absorbed in following his

difficult tracks, in striving to anticipate his rapidly shifting plans,

in creating in his own men the habits of endurance, the mobility and the

strained attention, which even a brief period of such a chase will

rapidly engender in the rawest of recruits. The pursuit gradually

shifted to the west, and a series of sharp conflicts on the road ended

finally in the rout of the king in the neighbourhood of Cirta. With

troops now seasoned to the toils of long marches and deliberate attack,

Marius turned to the more definite, if not more effective, enterprise of

beleaguering such fortified positions as were still strongly held, and

by their position seemed to give a strategic advantage to the enemy. His

object was either to strip Jugurtha of these last garrisons or to force

him to a battle if he came to their defence. At first he confined his

operations within a narrow area; the best part of the summer months

seems to have been spent in the territory lying east and south of Cirta,

and within this region several fortresses and castles still adhering to

the king were reduced by persuasion or by force.[1119] Yet Jugurtha made

no move, and Marius gained a full experience of the helpless irritation

of the commander who hears that his enemy is far away, neglectful of his

efforts and wholly absorbed in some deep-laid scheme the very rudiments

of which are beyond the reach of conjecture. His operations seem to have

brought him to a point somewhere in the neighbourhood of Sicca, and this

proximity to the southern regions of Numidia suggested the thought of an

enterprise that might rival and even surpass Metellus's storm of Thala.

About thirteen miles west of that town[1120] lay the strong city of

Capsa.[1121] It marked almost the extremest limit of Jugurtha's empire

in this direction, placed as it was just north of the great lakes and

west of the deepest curve of the Lesser Syrtis. The town was the gift of

an oasis, which here broke the monotony of the desert with pleasant

groves of dates and olives and a perennial stream of water. The sources

of this stream, which was formed by the union of two fountains, had been

enclosed within the walls, and supplied drinking water for the city

before it passed beyond it to irrigate the land. Even this supply hardly

sufficed for the moderate needs of the Numidians, who supplemented it by

rain water[1122] which they caught and stored in cisterns. A siege of

Capsa in the dry season might therefore prove irksome to the

inhabitants; but the invading army might be even less well supplied, for

although four other springs outside the walls fed the canals which

served the work of irrigation, they tended to run low when the season of

rain was past. The security of the city, although its defences and its

garrison were strong, was thought to reside mainly in its desert

barrier. The waste through which an invading army would have to pass was

waterless and barren, while the multitude of snakes and scorpions that

found a congenial home on the arid soil increased the horror, if not the

danger, of the route.[1123] Jugurtha had dealt kindly by the lonely

citizens of Capsa; they were free from taxes and had seldom to answer to

any demand of the king: and this favour, which was perhaps as much the

product of necessity as of policy, had strengthened their loyalty to the

Numidian throne. It is probable that some strategic, or at least

military, motive was mingled in the mind of Marius with the mere desire

of excelling his predecessor and creating a deep impression in the minds

of the proletariate in his army and at home. Although Capsa, with its

limited resources, could hardly ever have served as the point of

departure for a large Numidian or Gaetulian host, it might have been of

value as a refuge for the king when he wished to vanish from the eyes of

his enemies, and perhaps as a means of communication with friendly

cities or peoples situated between the two Syrtes. To vanquish the

difficulties of such an enterprise might also strike terror into the

Numidian garrisons of other towns, and the subjects of Jugurtha might

feel that no stronghold was safe when the unapproachable Capsa had been

taken or destroyed. But the difficulties of the task were great. The

Numidians of these regions were more attached to a pastoral life than to

agriculture; the stores of corn to be found along the route were

therefore scanty, and their scarcity was increased by the fact that the

king, who seems but lately to have passed through these regions, had

ordered that large supplies of grain should be conveyed from the

district and stored in the fortresses which his garrisons still

held.[1124] Nothing could be got from the fields, which at this late

period of the autumn showed nothing but arid stubble. It was fortunate

that some stores still lay at Lares (Lorbeus), a town at a short

distance to the south-east of his present base;[1125] these were to be

supplemented by the cattle that the foraging parties had driven in, and

the Roman soldier would at least have his unwelcome supply of meat

tempered by a moderate allowance of meal. Yet the terrors of the journey

were so great that Marius thought it wise to conceal the object of his

enterprise even from his own men, and even when, after a six days' march

to the south, he had reached a stream called the Tana,[1126] the motive

of the expedition was still in all probability unknown. Here, as in

Metellus's march on Thala, a large supply of water was drawn from the

river and stored in skins, all heavy baggage was discarded, and the

lightened column prepared for its march across the desert. By day the

soldiers kept their camp and every stage of the journey was accomplished

between night-fall and dawn. On the morning of the third day they had

reached some rising ground not more than two miles from Capsa.[1127] The

sun had not yet risen when Marius halted his men in a hollow of the

dunes, and watched the town to see whether his cautious plans had really

effected a surprise. Evidently they had; for, when day broke, the gates

were seen to open and large numbers of Numidians could be observed

leaving the city for the business of the fields. The word was given, and

in a moment the whole of the cavalry and the lightest of the infantry

were dashing on the town. They were meant to block the gates; while

Marius and the heavier troops followed as speedily as they could,

driving the straggling Numidians before them. It was the possession of

these hostages that decided the fate of the town. The commandant

parleyed and agreed to admit the Romans within the walls, the condition,

whether tacit or expressed, of this surrender being that the lives of

the citizens should be spared. The condition was immediately broken. The

town was given over to the flames, all the Numidians of full age were

put to the sword, the rest were sold into slavery, and the movable

property which had been seized was divided amongst the soldiers. The

breach of international custom was not denied; the only attempt at

palliation was drawn from the reflection that it was due neither to

motiveless treachery nor to greed; a position like Capsa, it was

urged,--difficult of approach, open to the enemy, the home of a race

notorious for its mobile cunning-could be held neither by leniency nor

by fear.[1128] The expedition had miscarried, if the town was not

destroyed; and, as frequently happens in the pursuit of wars with

peoples to whom the convenient epithet of "barbarian" can be applied,

the successful fruit of cruelty and treachery was perhaps defended on

the ground that the obligations of international law must be either

reciprocal or non-existent.

The destruction of Capsa was followed by other successes of a similar

though less arduous kind. The event had served the purpose of Marius

well in so far as it spread before him a name of terror which caused

some of the Numidian garrisons to flee their strong places without a

struggle. In the few cases where resistance was met, it was beaten down,

and the fortified places which Jugurtha's soldiers were not rash enough

to defend, were utterly destroyed by fire.[1129] Marius left a

wilderness behind him on his return march to winter quarters,[1130] and

perhaps renewed his devastating course in the south-eastern parts of

Numidia during the spring of the following year, before his attention

was suddenly called to another point in the vast area of the war. This

easy triumph which cost little Roman blood and enriched the soldiers

with the spoils of war, created in his men a belief in his foresight and

prowess which seemed sufficient to stand the severest strain.[1131] A

great effort had now to be made in a quarter of Numidia which lay not

less than seven hundred miles from the recent scene of operations. As

neither the site of Marius's recent winter quarters nor the base which

he chose for his spring campaign are known to us, we cannot say whether

the expedition which he now directed to the extreme west of Numidia was

an unpleasant diversion from a scheme already in operation, or whether

it was the result of a plan matured in the winter camp; but in either

case this conviction of the necessity for sweeping the country in such

utterly diverse directions proves the full success of the plan which

Jugurtha was pursuing. It is more difficult to determine whether Marius

increased the success of this plan by a political blunder of his own.

The point at which he is now found operating was near the river Muluccha

or Molocath,[1132] the dividing line between the kingdoms of Numidia and

Mauretania. If the incursion which he made into this region was

unprovoked, it was a challenge to King Bocchus and an impolitic

disturbance of the recent attitude of quiescence that had been assumed

by that hesitating monarch; but it is possible that news had reached

Marius that a Mauretanian attack was impending, and that the same motive

which had impelled Metellus to hasten from the south to the defence of

Cirta, now urged his successor to push his army more than five hundred

miles farther to the west up to the very borders of Mauretania. The

movement seems to have been defensive, for at the moment when we catch

sight of his efforts he had not attempted to cross the admitted

frontier,[1133] but was endeavouring to secure a strong position that

lay within what he conceived to be the Numidian territory. A giant rock

rose sheer out of the plain, tapering into the narrow fortress which

continued by its walls an ascent so smoothly precipitous that it seemed

as though the work of nature had been improved by the hand of man.[1134]

But one narrow path led to the summit and was believed to be the only

way, not merely to a position of supreme value for defensive purposes,

but also to one of those rich deposits which the many-treasured king was

held to have laid up in the strongest parts of his dominions. The

difficulties of a siege were almost insurmountable. The garrison was

strong and well supplied with food and water; the only avenue for a

direct assault upon the walls was narrow and dangerous; the site was as

ill-suited as it could be for the movement of the heavier engines of

war. When the attack was made, the mantlets of the besiegers were easily

destroyed by fire and stones hurled from above; yet the soldiers could

not leave cover, nor get a firm hold on the steeply sloping ground; the

foremost amongst the storming party fell stricken with wounds, and a

panic seemed likely to prevail amidst the ever-victorious army if it

were again urged to the attack. While Marius was brooding over this

unexpected check, and his mind was divided between the wisdom of a

retreat and the chances that might be offered by delay, an accident

supplied the defects of strength and counsel.[1135] A Ligurian in quest

of snails was tempted to pursue his search from ridge to ridge on that

side of the hill which lay away from the avenue of attack and had

hitherto been deemed inaccessible. He suddenly found that he had nearly

reached the summit; a spirit of emulation urged him to complete the work

which he had unconsciously begun, and the branches of a giant holmoak,

which twisted amongst the rocks, gave him a hold and footing when the

perpendicular walls of the last ascent seemed to deny all chance of

further progress. When at length he craned over the edge of the highest

ridge, the interior of the fort lay spread before him. No member of the

garrison was to be seen, for every man was engaged in repelling the

assault which had been renewed on the opposite side. A prolonged survey

was therefore possible, and all the important details of the fortress

were imprinted on the mind of the Ligurian before he began his leisurely

descent. The features of the slope he traversed were also more

cautiously observed; the next ascent would be attempted by more than

one, and every irregularity that might give a foothold must be noted by

the man who would have to prove and illustrate his tale. When the story

was told to Marius he sent some of his retinue to view the spot; their

reports differed according to the character of their minds; some of the

investigators were sanguine, others more than doubtful; but the consul

eventually determined to make the experiment. The escalade was to be

attempted by a band of ten; five of the trumpeters and buglemen were

selected and four centurions, the Ligurian was to be their guide. With

head and feet bare, their only armour a sword and light leathern shield

slung across their backs, the soldiers painfully imitated the daring

movements of their active leader. But he was considerate as well as

daring. Sometimes he would weave a scaling ladder of the trailing

creepers; at others he would lend a helping hand; at others again he

would gather up their armour and send them on before him, then step

rapidly aside and pass with his burden up and down their struggling

line. His cheery boldness kept them to their painful task until every

man had reached the level of the fort. It was as desolate as when first

seen by the Ligurian, for Marius had taken care that a frontal attack

should engage the attention of the garrison. The climb had been a long

one, and the battle had now been raging many hours when news was brought

to the anxious commander that his men had gained the summit.[1136] The

assault was now renewed with a force that astonished the besieged, and

soon with a recklessness that led them to think the besiegers mad. They

could see the Roman commander himself leaving the cover of the mantlets

and advancing in the midst of his men up the perilous ascent under a

tortoise fence of uplifted shields. Over the heads of the advancing

party came a storm of missiles from the Roman lines below. Confident as

the Numidians were in the strength of their position, scornful as were

the gibes which a moment earlier they had been hurling against the foe,

they could not think lightly of the serried mass that was moving up the

hill and the rain of bullets that heralded its advance. Every hand was

busy and every mind alert when suddenly the Roman trumpet call was heard

upon their rear. The women and boys, who had crept out to watch the

fight, were the first to take the alarm and to rush back to the shelter

of the fort; most of the men were fighting in advance of their outer

walls; those nearest to the ramparts were the first to be seized with

the panic; but soon the whole garrison was surging backwards, while

through and over it pressed the long and narrow wedge of Romans, cutting

their way through the now defenceless mass until they had seized the

outworks of the fort.

It is difficult to gauge the positive advantages secured by this feat of

arms; but it is probable that the capture of this particular

hill-fortress, although its difficulty gave it undue prominence in the

annals of the war, was not an isolated fact, but one of a series of

successful attempts to establish a chain of posts upon the Mauretanian

border, which might bring King Bocchus to better counsels and interrupt

his communications with Jugurtha. The enterprise may have been followed

by a tolerably long campaign in these regions. This campaign has not

been recorded, but that it was contemplated is proved by the fact that

Marius had ordered an enormous force of cavalry to meet him near the

Muluccha.[1137] The force thus summoned actually served the purpose of

covering a retirement that was practically a retreat; but this could not

have been the object which it was intended to fulfil when its presence

was commanded. A large force of horse was essential, if Bocchus was to

be paralysed and the border country swept clear of the enemy. The cloud

that was to burst from Mauretania was not the only chance that could be

foretold; it was the issue to be dreaded, if all plans at prevention

failed; but it was one that might possibly be averted by the presence of

a commanding force in the border regions.

It had taken nearly a year to collect and transport from Italy the

cavalry force that now entered the camp of Marius. The reason why Italy

and not Africa was chosen as the recruiting ground is probably to be

found in the lack of confidence which the Romans felt even in those

Numidians who professed a friendly attitude; otherwise cheapness and

even efficiency might seem to have dictated the choice of native

contingents, although it is possible that, as a defensive force, the

tactical solidarity of the Italians gave them an advantage even over the

Numidian horse. The Latins and Italian allies had furnished the troopers

that had lately landed on African soil,[1138] perhaps not at the port of

Utica, but at some harbour on the west, for the time consumed by Marius

in the march to his present position, even had not his campaign been

planned in winter quarters, would have given him an opportunity to send

notice of his whereabouts to the leader of the auxiliary force. This

leader was Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who had spent nearly the whole of the

first year of his quaestorship in beating up on Italian soil the troops

of horsemen which he now led into the camp. In comparison with the

arrival of the force that of the quaestor was as nothing; yet the advent

of such a subordinate was always a matter of interest to a general.

Tradition had determined that the ties between a commander and his

quaestor should be peculiarly close; the superior was responsible for

every act of the minor official whom the chance of the lot might thrust

upon him; if his subordinate were capable, he was the chosen delegate

for every delicate operation in finance, diplomacy, jurisdiction, or

even war: if he were incapable, he might be dismissed,[1139] but could

not be neglected, for he was besides the general the only man in the

province holding the position of a magistrate, and was in titular rank

superior even to the oldest and most distinguished of the legates.[1140]

It was a matter of chance whether a government or a campaign was to be

helped or hindered by the arrival of a new quaestor; and Marius, when he

first heard of the man whom destiny had brought to his side, was

inclined to be sceptical as to the amount of assistance which was

promised by the new appointment.[1141] Apart from a remarkable personal

appearance--an impression due to the keen blueness of the eyes, the

clear pallor of the face, the sudden flush that spread at moments over

the cheeks as though the vigour of the mind could be seen pulsing

beneath the delicate skin[1142]--there was little to recommend Sulla to

the mind of a hard and stern man engaged in an arduous and disappointing

task. The new lieutenant had no military experience, he was the scion of

a ruined patrician family, and, if the gossip of Rome were true, his

previous life suggested the light-hearted adventurer rather than the

student of politics or war. In his early youth he seemed destined to

continue the later traditions of his family--those of an unaspiring

temper or a careless indolence, which had allowed the consulship to

become extinct in the annals of the race and had been long content with

the minor prize of the praetorship. Even this honour had been beyond the

reach of the father of Sulla; the hereditary claim to office had been

completely broken, and the family fortune had sunk so low that there

seemed little chance of the renewal of this claim. The present bearer of

the name, the elder son of the house, had lived in hired rooms, and such

slender means as he could command seemed to be employed in gratifying a

passion for the stage.[1143] Yet this taste was but one expression of a

genuine thirst for culture;[1144] and, whatever the opinion of men might

be, this youth whose most strenuous endeavours were strangely mingled

with a careless geniality and an appetite that never dulled for the

pleasures of the senses and the flesh, had a wonderful faculty for

winning the love of women. His father had made a second marriage with a

lady of considerable means; and the affection of the step-mother, who

seems to have been herself childless, was soon centred on her husband's

elder son.[1145] At her death he was found to be her heir, and the

fortune thus acquired was added to or increased by another that had also

come by way of legacy from a woman. This benefactress was Nicopolis, a

woman of Greek birth, whose transitory loves, which had Brought her

wealth, were closed by a lasting passion for the man to Whom this wealth

was given.[1146] The possession of this competence, which might have

completed the wreck of the nerveless pleasure-seeker that Sulla seemed

to be, proved the true steel of which the man was made. The first steps

in his political career gave the immediate lie to any theory of wasted

opportunities. He had but exceeded by a year or two the minimum age for

office when he was elected to the quaestorship; he was but thirty-one

when he was scouring Italy for recruits;[1147] a year later he had

entered Marius's camp near the Muluccha with his host of cavalry. A very

brief experience was sufficient to convert the general's prejudice into

the heartiest approval of his new officer. Any spirit of emulation which

Sulla possessed was but shown in action and counsel; none could outstrip

him in prowess and forethought, yet all that he did seemed to be the

easy outcome either of opportunity or of a ready wit which charmed

without startling: and he was never heard to breathe a word which

reflected on the conduct of the pro-consul or his staff. Over the petty

officers and the soldiers he attained the immediate triumph which

attends supreme capacity combined with a facile temper and a sense of

humour. His old companions of the stage had been perhaps his best

instructors in the art of moulding the will of the common man. He had

the right address for every one; a grumble was met by a few kind words;

a roar of laughter was awakened by a ready jest, and its recipient was

the happier for the day. When help was wanted, his resources seemed

boundless; yet he never gave as though he expected a return, and the

idea of obligation was dismissed with a shrug and a smile.[1148] Sulla

was not one of the clumsy intriguers who laboriously lay up a store of

favour and are easily detected in the attempt. He was a terrible man

because his insight and his charm were a part of his very nature, as

were also the dark current of ambition, scarcely acknowledged even by

its possessor, and the surging tides of passion, carefully dammed by an

exquisitely balanced intellect into a level stream, on which crowds

might float and believe themselves to be victims or agents of an

overmastering principle, not of a single man's caprice.

The capacity of every officer in Marius's army was soon to be put to an

effective test; for the coalition of Jugurtha and Bocchus, which the

campaign might have been meant to prevent, turned out to be its

immediate result. The Moor was still hesitating between peace and

war--looking still, it may be, for another bid from the representative

of Rome, and waiting for the moment when he might compel the attention

of Metellus's rude successor, who preferred the precautions of war to

those of diplomacy--when the Numidian king, in despair at this ruinous

passivity and at the loss of the magnificent strategic chance that was

being offered by the enemy, approached his father-in-law with the

proposal that the cession of one-third of Numidia should be the price of

his assistance. The cession was to take effect, either if the Romans

were driven out of Africa, or if a settlement was reached with Rome

which left the boundaries of Numidia intact.[1149] Bocchus may not have

credited the likelihood of the realisation of the first alternative; but

combined action might render the second possible, and even if that

failed, his chances of a bargain with Rome were not decreased by

entering on a policy of hostility which might be closed at the opportune

moment. For the time, however, he played vigorously for Jugurtha's

success. His troops of horsemen poured over the border to join the

Numidian force, and the combined armies moved rapidly to the east to

encompass the columns of Marius, that had just begun their long march to

the site which had been chosen for winter quarters.

The object of the Roman general was to keep in touch with the sea for

the purpose of facilitating the supply of his army. But we cannot say

whether his original choice was a station so distant as the

neighbourhood of Cirta,[1150] or whether his movement in this direction,

which severed him by some hundreds of miles from the region which he had

lately commanded, was a measure forced on him by the danger to which his

army was exposed in the distant west from the overwhelming forces of the

enemy. He had at any rate covered a great stretch of territory before he

actually came into touch with the combined forces of Bocchus and

Jugurtha; for the almost continuous fighting that ensued, when once the

armies had come into contact, seems all to have been confined to the

last few days before Cirta was reached and to a period of time which

could have formed but a small fraction of the whole duration of the

march. The first attack was planned for the closing hours of the

day.[1151] The advent of night would be of advantage to the native force

whether they were victorious or defeated. In the first case their

knowledge of the ground would enable them to follow up their success, in

the second their retreat would be secured. Under all circumstances a

struggle in the darkness must increase the difficulties of the Romans. A

complete surprise was impossible, for Marius's scouting was good, and

from all directions horsemen dashed up to tell him the enemy was at

hand. But the quarter from which such an attack would be aimed could not

be determined, and so incredibly rapid were the movements of the Moorish

and Gaetulian horse that scarcely had the last messenger ridden up when

the Roman column was assailed on every side. The Roman army had no time

to form in line, and anything approaching battle array was scorned by

the enemy. They charged in separate squadrons, the formation of which

seemed to be due to chance as much as to design; this desultory mode of

attack enabled them to assail the Roman forces at every point and to

prevent any portion of the men from acquiring the stability that might

save the helplessness of the others; they harried the legionaries as

they shifted their heavy baggage, drew their swords and hurried into

line, and the cavalry soldiers as they strove to mount their frightened

horses. Horse and foot were inextricably mixed, and no one could tell

which was the van and which the rear of the surrounded army. The general

fought like a common soldier, but he did not forget the duties of a

commander. With his chosen troop of horse he rode up and down the field,

detecting the weak points of his own men, the strong points of the

enemy, lending a timely succour to the first and throwing his weight

against the second.[1152] But it was the experience of the well-trained

legionaries that saved the day. Schooled in such surprises, they began

to form small solid squares, and against these barriers the impact of

the light horsemen beat in vain.[1153] But night was drawing on--the

hour which the allied kings had chosen as the crowning moment of their

attack--and Marius was as fully conscious as his enemies how helpless

the Roman force would be if such a struggle were protracted into the

darkness. Fortunately the place of the attack had been badly chosen; the

neighbouring ground did not present a wholly level expanse on which

cavalry could operate at will. But a short distance from the scene of

the fight two neighbouring hills could be seen to rise above the plain;

the smaller possessed an abundant spring of water, the larger by its

rugged aspect seemed to promise an admirable rampart for defence.[1154]

It was impossible to withdraw the whole army to the elevation which

contained the welcome stream, for its space did not permit of an

encampment; but Marius instructed Sulla to seize it with the cavalry. He

then began to draw his scattered infantry together, taking advantage of

the disorder in the enemy which the last sturdy stand of the veterans

had produced, and when the divisions were at last in touch with one

another, he led the whole force at a quick march to the place which he

had chosen for its retreat. The kings soon recognised that this retreat

was unassailable; their plan of a night attack had failed; but they did

not lose the hope that they held the Romans at their mercy. The fight

had become a blockade; they would coop the Romans within their narrow

limits, or force them to straggle on their way under a renewal of the

same merciless assault. To have withstood the legions and occupied their

ground, was itself a triumph for Gaetulians and Moors. They spread their

long lines round either hill and lighted a great ring of watchfires; but

their minds were set on passing the night in a manner conducive neither

to sleep nor vigilance. They threw away their victory in a manner common

to barbarism, which often lacks neither courage nor skill, but finds its

nemesis in an utter lack of self-restraint. From the silent darkness of

the ridge above the Romans could see, in the circles of red light thrown

by the blazing watch-fires, the forms of their enemies in every attitude

of careless and reckless joy; while the delirious howls of triumph which

reached their ears, were a source, not of terror, but of hope. In the

Roman camp no sound was heard; even the call of the patrol was hushed by

the general's command.[1155] As the night wore on, the silence spread to

the Plain below, but here it was the silence of the deep and profound

sleep that comes on men wearied by the excesses of the night. Suddenly

there was a terrific uproar. Every horn and trumpet in the Roman lines

seemed to be alive, every throat to be swelling the clamour with

ear-piercing yells. The Moors and Gaetulians, springing from the ground,

found the enemy in their very midst. Where the slaughter ended, the

pursuit began. No battle in the war had shown a larger amount of slain;

for flight, which was the Numidian's salvation and the mockery of his

foe, had been less possible in this conflict than in any which had

gone before.

Marius continued his march, but with precautions even greater than those

which he had previously observed. He formed his whole army into a

"hollow square" [1156]--in fact, a great oblong, arranged equally for

defence on front, flanks, and rear, while the baggage occupied the

centre. Sulla with the cavalry rode on the extreme right; on the left

was Aulus Manlius with the slingers and archers and some cohorts of

Ligurians; the front and rear were covered by light infantry selected

from the legions under the command of military tribunes. Numidian

refugees scoured the country around, their knowledge of the land giving

them a peculiar value as a scouting force. The camp was formed with the

same scrupulous care; whole cohorts formed from legionaries kept watch

against the gates, fortified posts were manned at short distances along

the enclosing mound, and squadrons of auxiliary cavalry moved all night

before the ramparts. Marius was to be seen at all points and at all

hours, a living example of vigilance not of distrust, a master in the

art of controlling men, not by terror but by sharing in their toils.

Four days had the march progressed and Cirta was reported to be not far

distant, when suddenly an ominous but now familiar sight was seen.

Scouts were riding in on every hand; all reported an enemy, but none

could say with certainty the quarter from which he might appear.[1157]

The present disposition of the Roman troops had made the direction of

the attack a matter of comparatively little moment, and Marius called a

halt without making any change in the order of his march. Soon the enemy

came down, and Jugurtha, when he saw the hollow square, knew that his

plan had been partly foiled. He had divided his own forces into four

divisions; some of these were to engage the Roman van; but some at least

might be able to throw themselves at the critical moment on the

undefended rear of the Roman column, when its attention was fully

engaged by a frontal attack.[1158]

As things were, the Roman army presented no one point that seemed more

assailable than another, and Jugurtha determined to engage with the

Roman cavalry on the right, probably with the idea that by diverting

that portion of the Roman force which was under the circumstances its

strongest protecting arm, he might give an opportunity to his ally to

lead that attack upon the rear which was to be the crowning movement of

the day. His assault, which was directed near to the angle which the

right flank made with the van, was anticipated rather than received by

Sulla, who rapidly formed his force into two divisions, one for attack,

the other for defence. The first he massed in dense squadrons, and at

the head of these he charged the Moorish horse; the second stood their

ground, covering themselves as best they could from the clouds of

missiles that rose from the enemy's ranks, and slaughtering the daring

horsemen that rode too near their lines. For a time it seemed as if the

right flank and the van were to bear the brunt of the battle; the king

was known to be there in person: and Marius, knowing what Jugurtha's

presence meant, himself hastened to the front.

But suddenly the chief point of the attack was changed. Bocchus had been

joined by a force of native infantry, which his son Volux had just

brought upon the field. It was a force that had not yet known defeat,

for some delay upon the route had prevented it from taking part in the

former battle. With this infantry, and probably with a considerable body

of Moorish horse,[1159] Bocchus threw himself upon the Roman rear.

Neither the general nor his chief officers were present with the

division that was thus attacked; Marius and Sulla were both engrossed

with the struggle at the other end of the right wing, and Manlius seems

still to have kept his position on the left flank; the absence of an

inspiring mind amongst the troops assailed, their ignorance of the fate

of their distant comrades, moved Jugurtha to lend the weight of his

presence and his words to the efforts of his fellow king. With a handful

of horsemen he quitted the main force under his command and galloped

down the whole length of the right wing, until he wheeled his horse

amidst the front ranks of the struggling infantry. He raised a sword

streaming with blood and shouted in the Latin tongue that Marius had

already fallen by his hand, that the Romans might now give up the

struggle. The suggestion conveyed by his words shook the nerves even of

those who did not credit the horrifying news,[1160] while the presence

of the king, here as everywhere, stirred the Africans to their highest

pitch of daring. They pressed the wavering Romans harder than before,

the battle at this point had almost become a rout, when suddenly a large

body of Roman horse was seen to be bearing down on the right flank of

the Moorish infantry. They were led by Sulla, whose vigorous attacks had

scattered the enemy on the right wing; he could now employ his cavalry

for other purposes, and the Moorish infantry shook beneath the flank

attack, Jugurtha refused to see that the tide of victory had turned;

with a reckless courage he still strove to weld together the shattered

forces of the Moors and to urge them against the Roman lines; his own

escape was a miracle; men fell to left and right of him, he was pressed

on both sides by the Roman horse; at times he seemed almost alone amidst

his foes; yet at the last moment he vanished, and the capture which

would have ended the war was still beyond the reach of Roman skill and

prowess.[1161] Sulla had saved the day, the advent of Marius was but

needed to put the final touches to the victory. He had seen the cavalry

on the right scatter beneath the charges of the Roman horse, and almost

at the same moment news was brought him that his men were being driven

back upon the rear. His succour was scarcely needed, but his presence

gave an impulse to pursuit. The sight of the field when that pursuit was

at its height, lived ever in the minds of those who shared in its glory

and its horror. The sickening spectacle which a hard fought battle

yields, was protracted in this instance by the vast vista of the plains.

Wherever the eye could reach there were prostrate bodies of men and

horses, whose only claim to life was the writhing agony of their wounds;

on a stage dyed red with blood and strewn with the furniture of

shattered weapons little moving groups could be seen. The figures of

these puppets showed all the phases of helpless flight, violent pursuit,

and pitiless slaughter.

In spite of the carnage of this battlefield, victory here, as elsewhere

throughout the war, meant little more than driving off the foe. We

possess but a fragmentary record of this terrible retreat to Cirta, but

it is certain that its dangers and losses were by no means exhausted in

two pitched battles. A chance notice torn from its context[1162] tells

of a third great contest which closed a long period of harassing

attacks. Close to the walls of Cirta the Roman army was met by the two

kings at the head of sixty thousand horse. The combatants were swathed

in a cloud raised by the dust of battle, the Roman soldiers massed in a

narrow space were such helpless victims of the missiles of the enemy

that the Numidian and Moorish horsemen ceased to single out their

targets, and threw their javelins at random into the crowded ranks with

the certainty that each would find its mark. For three days was the

running fight continued. A charge was impossible against the volleys of

the foe, and retreat was cut off by the multitude of light horsemen that

hemmed the army in on every side. In the last desperate effort which

Marius made to free himself from the meshes of the kings, even the

centre of his column shook under the hail of missiles that assailed it,

and to the weapons of the enemy were soon added the terrors of blinding

heat and intolerable thirst. Suddenly a storm broke over the warring

hosts. It cooled the throats of the Romans and refreshed their limbs,

while it lessened the power of their foes. The strapless javelins[1163]

of the Numidians could not be hurled when wet, for they slipped from the

hands of the thrower; their shields of elephants' hide absorbed water

like a sponge and weighed down the arms on which they hung. The Moors

and Numidians, seeing that even their means of defence had failed them,

took to flight: but only to appear on another day with their army raised

to ninety thousand and to repeat the attempt to surround the Roman host.

This last effort ended in a signal victory for Marius. The forces of the

two kings were not only defeated but almost destroyed.

The events thus recorded can scarcely be regarded as mere variants of

the two battles which we have previously described. Vague and rhetorical

as is the account which sets them forth, it shows that there were

traditions of suffering and loss endured by the army of Marius such as

found no parallel in the campaign of his predecessor. Marius had

attempted what Metellus had never dared--a campaign in the far west of

Numidia. Its results were fruitless successes of the paladin type

followed by a burdensome and disastrous retreat. The west was lost, the

east was threatened, yet the lesson was not without its fruit. The

general when he reached the walls of Cirta had lost something of his

hardy faith in the use of blood and iron; he was more ready to appeal to

the motives which make for peace, to pretend a trust he did not feel, to

make promises which might induce the fluid treachery of Bocchus to

harden into a definite act of treason to his brother king, above all, to

lean on some other man who could play the delicate game of diplomatic

fence with a cunning which his own straightforward methods could not

attain. Everything depended on the attitude of the King of Mauretania;

and here again the campaign had not been without some healthful

consequences. If the Romans had gained no material advantage, Bocchus

had suffered some very material losses. His forces had been cut up, the

stigma of failure attached (perhaps for the first time) to their leader,

the first contact with the Romans had not been encouraging to his

subjects. And the campaign may also have revealed the difficulty, if not

the hopelessness, of Jugurtha's cause. The plan of driving the Romans

from Africa could not be perfected even with the combined forces of the

two kingdoms at their fullest strength; however much they might harass,

they had proved themselves utterly unable to attain such a success as

even the most complacent patriotism could name a victory; while the

sturdiness of the resistance of Rome seemed to banish the hypothesis

that Jugurtha would be included in any terms that might be made. Yet the

campaign had left Bocchus in an excellent position for negotiation. He

had shown that Mauretania was a great make-weight in the scale against

Rome; he had advertised his power as an enemy, his value as an ally; now

was the time to see whether the power and the value, so long ignored,

would be appreciated by Rome.

But five days are said to have elapsed since the last great conflict

with the Moors when envoys from Bocchus waited on Marius in his winter

quarters at Cirta.[1164] The request which they brought was that "two of

the Roman general's most trusty friends should wait on the king, who

desired to speak with them on a matter of interest to himself and the

Roman people".[1165] Marius forthwith singled out Sulla and Manlius, who

followed the envoys to the place of meeting that had been arranged. On

the way it was agreed by the representatives of Rome that they should

not wait for the king to open the discussion. Hitherto every proposal

had come from Bocchus; he had been played with, but never given a

straightforward answer, still less a sign of real encouragement. Yet no

good could be gained by expecting the king to assume a grovelling

attitude, by forcing him to begin proposals for peace with a confession

of his own humiliation. It would be far wiser if the commissioners

opened with a few spontaneous remarks which might restore rest and

dignity to the royal mind. Manlius the elder readily yielded the place

of first speaker to the more facile Sulla. If the words which history

has attributed to the quaestor[1166] were really used by him, they are a

record of one of those rare instances in which a diplomatist is able to

tell the naked truth. Sulla began by dwelling on the joy which he and

his friends derived from the change in Bocchus's mind--from the

heaven-sent inspiration which had taught the king that peace was

preferable to war. He then dwelt on the fact, which he might have

adduced the whole of his country's history to prove, that Rome had been

ever keener in the search for friends than subjects, that the Republic

had ever deemed voluntary allegiance safer than that compelled by force.

He showed that Roman friendship might be a boon, not a burden, to

Bocchus; the distance of his kingdom from the capital would obviate a

conflict of interests, but no distance was too great to be traversed by

the gratitude of Rome. Bocchus had already seen what Rome could do in

war; all that he needed to learn was the still greater lesson that her

generosity was as unconquerable as her arms. Sulla's words were a

genuine statement of the whole theory of the Protectorate, as it was

held and even acted on at this period of history. As a proof of the

ruinous lengths to which Roman generosity might proceed, he could have

pointed to the Numidian war now in the sixth year of its disastrous

course. The darker side of the Protectorate--the rapacity of the

individual adventurer--was no creation of the government, and needed not

to be reproduced on the canvas of the bright picture which he drew. The

hopes held out to Bocchus were genuine enough; the burden of his

alliance was but slight, its security immense.

The king seemed impressed by the gracious overtures of the

commissioners. His answer was not only friendly, but apologetic.[1167]

He urged that he had not taken up arms in any spirit of hostility to

Rome, but simply for the purpose of defending his own frontiers. He

claimed that the territory near the Muluccha, which had been harried by

Marius, did not belong to Jugurtha at all. He had expelled the Numidian

king from this region and it was his by the right of war. He appealed

finally to the fact of his own former embassy to Rome: he had made a

genuine effort to secure her friendship, but this had been

repulsed.[1168] He was, however, willing to forget the past; and, if

Marius permitted, he would like to send a fresh embassy to the senate.

This last request was provisionally granted by the commissioners;

Bocchus, in making it, showed a wise and, in consideration of some of

the events of this very war, a natural sense of the insecurity of the

promises made by Roman commanders, at the same time as he exhibited a

justifiable faith in a word once given by the great organ of the

Republic. Yet, when the commissioners had taken their departure, his old

hesitancy seemed to revive. He consented at least to listen to those of

his advisers who still urged the claims of Jugurtha.[1169] They had

raised their voices again, either at the time when the Roman

commissioners were waiting on Bocchus, or immediately after their

departure; for Jugurtha had no sooner learnt of his father-in-law's

renewed negotiations with Rome than he had used every means (amongst

others, we are told, that of costly gifts) to induce his Mauretanian

supporters to advocate his cause.

A further stage in the negotiations was reached before the winter season

was over, although it is probable that, at the time when this next step

was taken by the Mauretanian king, the new year had been passed and the

advent of spring was not far off. Marius, who was not fettered in his

operations by respect for the traditional seasons which were deemed

suitable to a campaign, had started with some flying columns of infantry

and a portion of the cavalry to some desert spot, with a view to besiege

a fortress still held by Jugurtha, and garrisoned by all the deserters

from the Roman army who were now in the king's service. Sulla had been

left with the usual title of pro-praetor to represent his absent

commander. To the headquarters of the winter camp[1170] Bocchus now sent

five of his closest friends, men chosen for their approved loyalty and

ability.[1171] His last access of hesitancy, if it were more than a

semblance, had certainly been shortlived, and the envoys were given full

powers to arrange the terms of peace. They had set out with all speed to

reach the Roman winter camp, but their journey had been long and

painful. They had been seized and plundered on the route by Gaetulian

brigands, and now appeared panic-stricken and in miserable plight before

the representative of Rome. Stripped of their credentials and the

symbols of their high office, they expected to be treated as vagrant

impostors from a hostile state; Sulla received them with the lavish

dignity that might be the due of princes. The simple nomads felt the

charm and the surprise of this first glimpse of the public manners of

Rome. Was it possible that these kindly and courteous men were the

spoilers of the world? The rumour must be the false invention of the

enemies of the bounteous Republic. The untrained mind rapidly argues

from the part to the whole, and Sulla's tact had done a great service to

his country. He had also established a claim on the Mauretanian

king,[1172] and this personal tie was not to be without its

consequences.

The envoys revealed to the quaestor the instructions of their master,

and asked his help and advice in the mission that lay before them. They

dwelt with pardonable pride on the wealth, the magnificence, and the

honour of their king, and dilated on every point in which the alliance

with such a potentate was likely to serve the cause of Rome.[1173] Sulla

promised them the plenitude of his help; he instructed them in the mode

in which they should address Marius, in which they should approach the

senate, and continued to be their host for forty days, until his

commander was ready to listen to their proposals and forward them on

their way. When Marius returned to Cirta after the successful completion

of his brief campaign, and heard of the arrival of the envoys, he asked

Sulla to bring them[1174] to his quarters, and made preparations for

assembling as formal a council as the resources of the province

permitted. A praetor happened to be within its limits and several men of

senatorial rank. All these sat to listen to the proposals made by

Bocchus. The verdict of the council was in favour of the genuineness of

the king's appeal, and the proconsul granted the envoys permission to

make their way to Rome. They asked an armistice for their king[1175]

until the mission should be completed. Loud and angry voices were heard

in protest--the voices of the narrow and suspicious men who are haunted

by the fixed conviction that a request for a cessation of hostilities is

always a treacherous attempt at renewed preparations for war. But Sulla

and the majority of the board supported the request of the envoys, and

the wiser counsel at length prevailed. The embassy now divided; two of

its members returned to their king, while three were escorted to Rome by

Cnaeus Octavius Ruso, a quaestor who had brought the last instalment of

pay for the army and was ready for his return homewards. The language of

the envoys before the Roman senate assumed the apologetic tone which had

been suggested by Sulla. Their king, they said, had erred; Jugurtha had

been the cause of this error. Their master asked that Rome should admit

him to treaty relations with herself, that she should call him her

friend. It is not impossible that these negotiations had a secret

history; that Bocchus was told of some very material reward that he

might expect, if Jugurtha were surrendered. But the assumption is not

necessary. The magic of the name of Rome had fired the imagination of

the African king at the commencement of the struggle; now that his fears

were quieted, the end, in whatever form it was attained, may have seemed

supremely desirable in itself. His envoys had been schooled by Sulla to

expect much more than was promised and to read the senate's words

aright. Certainly, if a prize had been offered for Bocchus's fidelity,

the offer was carefully concealed. The official form in which the

government accepted the petitioner's request, granted a free pardon and

expressed a cold probation. "The senate and Roman people (so ran the

resolution) are used to be mindful of good service and of wrongs. Since

Bocchus is penitent for the past, they excuse his fault. He will be

granted a treaty and the name of friend, when he has proved that he

deserves the grant." [1176]

When Bocchus received this answer, he despatched a letter to Marius

asking that Sulla should be sent to advise with him on the matters that

touched the common interests of himself and Rome.[1177] It was tolerably

clear what the subject of interest was. If it could be made "common,"

the end of the war had been reached. Sulla was despatched, and the final

triumph, if attained, would be that of the diplomatist, not of the

soldier. The quaestor was accompanied by an escort of cavalry, slingers,

and archers, and a cohort of Italians bearing the weapons of a

skirmishing force; for the adventures of Bocchus's envoys had shown the

insecurity of the route. On the fifth day of the march, a large body of

horse was seen approaching from a distance--a force that looked larger

and more threatening than it afterwards proved to be; for it rode in

open order, and the wild evolutions of the horsemen seemed to be the

preliminary to an attack. Sulla's escort sprang to their arms; but the

returning scouts soon removed all sense of fear. The approaching band of

cavalry proved to be but a thousand strong and their leader to be Volux

the son of Bocchus. The prince saluted Sulla and told him that he had

been sent to meet and escort him to the presence of the king. For two

days the combined forces advanced together, and there were no adventures

by the road; but on the evening of the second day, when their resting

place had been already chosen, the Moorish prince came hastily to Sulla

with a look of perplexity on his face. He said that his scouts had just

informed him that Jugurtha was close at hand, he entreated Sulla to join

him in flight from the camp while it was yet night.[1178] The request

was met by an indignant refusal; Sulla pointed to his men, whose lives

might be sacrificed by the disgraceful disappearance of their leader.

But, when Volux shifted his ground and merely insisted on the utility of

a march by night from the dangerous neighbourhood, the quaestor yielded

assent. He ordered that the soldiers should take their evening meal, and

that a large number of fires should be lit which were to be left burning

in the deserted camp. At the first watch the Moors and Romans stole

silently from the lines. The dawn found them jaded, heavy with sleep,

and longing for rest. Sulla was supervising the measurement of a camp,

when some Moorish horsemen galloped up with the news that Jugurtha was

but two miles in advance of their position. It was clear that the

anxious Numidian was watching their every movement; the question to be

answered was "Was Prince Volux in the plot?" The facts seemed dark

enough to justify any suspicion. The nerves of the Romans had been

shaken by the unknown danger which had forced them to leave their camp,

by the night of sleepless watchfulness which had followed its

abandonment. A panic was the inevitable result, and panic leads to fury.

Voices were raised that the Moorish traitor should be slain, and that,

if the fruit of his treason was reaped, he at least should not be

allowed to see it. Sulla himself was weighed down with the same

suspicion that animated his men, but he would not allow them to lay

violent hands on the Moor.[1179] He encouraged them as best he might,

then he turned with a passionate protest on his dubious companion. He

called the protecting god of his own race, the guardian of its

international honour, Jupiter Maximus, to witness the crime and perfidy

of Bocchus, and he ordered Volux to leave his camp. The unhappy prince

was probably in a state of genuine terror of Jugurtha, of complete

uncertainty as to the intentions of that jealous kinsman and ally. Even

had Volux known that his father Bocchus wished to play a double game, to

balance the helplessness of Sulla against that of Jugurtha, to hold two

valuable hostages in his hands at once, how could he be certain that

Jugurtha would be content to play the part of a mere pawn in the king's

game, to be dependent for his safety on the passing whim of a man whom

he distrusted? Jugurtha might have everything to gain by massacring the

Romans and seizing Sulla. The act would compromise Bocchus hopelessly in

the eyes of the Roman government. There was hardly a man that would not

believe in his treason, and from that time forth Bocchus would have no

choice but to be the firm ally of Numidia against the vengeance of Rome.

Yet, if Volux acted or spoke as though he believed in the possibility of

this issue, he might seem to be incriminating his father and himself, he

might seem to deserve the stern rebuke of Sulla and the order of

expulsion from the Roman camp. His fears must therefore be concealed and

he must profess a confidence which he did not feel. With tears which may

have expressed a genuine emotion, he entreated Sulla not to harbour the

unworthy suspicion. There had been no preconcerted treachery; the danger

was at the most the product of the cunning of Jugurtha, who had

discovered their route. Volux implied that the object of the Numidian's

movement was to compromise the Moorish government in the eyes of Sulla;

but he stated his emphatic belief that Jugurtha would, or could, do no

positive hurt to the Roman envoy or his retinue. He pointed out that the

king had no great force at his command, and (what was more important

still) that he was now wholly dependent on the favour of his

father-in-law. It was incredible, he maintained, that Jugurtha would

attempt any overt act of hostility, when the son of Bocchus was present

to be a witness to the crime. Their best plan would be to show their

indifference to his schemes, to ride in broad daylight through the

middle of his camp. If Sulla wished, he would send on the Moorish

escort, or leave it where it was and ride with him alone.

It was one of those situations which are the supreme tests of the

qualities of a man. Sulla knew that his life depended on the caprice, or

the momentary sense of self-interest, of a barbarian who was believed to

have shrunk from no crime and on whose head Rome had put a price. Yet he

did not hesitate. He passed with Volux through the lines of Jugurtha's

camp, and the desperate Numidian never stirred. What motive held his

hand was never known; it may have been that Jugurtha never intended

violence; yet the failure of his plan of compromising Bocchus might well

have stirred such a ready man to action; it may have been that he still

relied on his influence with the Mauretanian king, which was perpetuated

by his agents at the court. But some believed that his inaction was due

to surprise, and that the transit of Sulla through the hostile camp was

one of those actions which are rendered safe by their very

boldness.[1180]

In a few days the travellers had reached the spot where Bocchus held his

court. The secret advocates of Numidia and Rome were already in

possession of the king.[1181] Jugurtha's representative was Aspar, a

Numidian subject who had been sent by his master as soon as the news had

been brought of Bocchus's demand for the presence of Sulla. He had been

sent to watch the negotiations and, if possible, to plead his monarch's

cause. The advocate of Rome was Dabar, also a Numidian but of the royal

line and therefore hostile to Jugurtha. He was a grandson of Masinissa,

but not by legitimate descent, for his father had been born of a

concubine of the king.[1182] His great parts had long recommended him to

Bocchus, and his known loyalty to Rome made him a useful intermediary

with the representative of that power. He was now sent to Sulla with the

intimation that Bocchus was ready to meet the wishes of the Roman

people; that he asked Sulla himself to choose a day, an hour and a place

for a conference; that the understanding, which already existed between

them, remained wholly unimpaired. The presence of a representative of

Jugurtha at the court should cause no uneasiness. This representative

was only tolerated because there was no other means of lulling the

suspicion of the Numidian king. We do not know what Sulla made of this

presentment of the case; but somewhere in the annals of the time there

was to be found an emphatic conviction that Bocchus was still playing a

double game, that he was still revolving in his mind the respective

merits of a surrender of Jugurtha to the Romans and of Sulla to

Jugurtha;[1183] that his fears prompted the first step, his inclinations

the second, and that this internal struggle was waged throughout the

whole of the tortuous negotiations which ensued.

Sulla, in accepting the promised interview, replied that he did not

object to the presence of Jugurtha's legate at the preliminaries; but

that most of what he wished to say was for the king's ear alone, or at

least for those of a very few of his most trusted counsellors. He

suggested the reply that he expected from the king, and after a short

interval was led into Bocchus's presence. At this meeting he gave the

barest intimation of his mission; he had been sent, he said, by the

proconsul[1184] to ask the king whether he intended peace or war. It had

been arranged that Bocchus should make no immediate answer to this

question, but should reserve his reply for another date. The king now

adjourned the audience to the tenth day, intimating that on that day his

intention would be decided and his reply prepared. Sulla and Bocchus

both retired to their respective camps; but the king was restless, and

at a late hour of that very night a message reached Sulla entreating an

immediate and secret interview. No one was present but Dabar, the trusty

go-between, and interpreters whose secrecy was assured. The narrative of

this momentous meeting[1185] is therefore due to Sulla, whose fortunate

possession of literary tastes has revealed a bit of secret history to

the world. The king began with some complimentary references to his

visitor, an acknowledgment of the great debt that he owed him, a hope

that his benefactor would never be weary of attempting to exhaust his

boundless gratitude. He then passed to the question of his own future

relations with Rome. He repeated the assertion, which he had made on the

occasion of Sulla's earlier visit, that he had never made, or even

wished for, war with the people of Rome, that he had merely protected

his frontiers against armed aggression. But he was willing to waive the

point. He would impose no hindrance to the Romans waging war with

Jugurtha in any way they pleased. He would not press his claim to the

disputed territory east of the Muluccha. He would be content to regard

that river, which had been the boundary between his own kingdom and that

of Micipsa, as his future frontier. He would not cross it himself nor

permit Jugurtha to pass within it. If Sulla had any further request to

urge, which could be fairly made by the petitioner and honourably

granted by himself, he would not refuse it.

A strict and safe neutrality was the tentacle put out by Bocchus. The

only shadow of a positive service by which he proposed to deserve the

alliance of Rome, was the abandonment of a highly disputable claim to a

part of Jugurtha's possessions. It was certainly time to bring the

monarch to the real point at issue, and Sulla pressed it home. He began

by a brief acknowledgment of the complimentary references which the king

had made to himself, and then indulged in some plain speaking as to the

expectations which the Roman government had formed of their would-be

ally.[1186] He pointed out that the offers made by Bocchus were scarcely

needed by Rome. A power that possessed her military strength would not

be likely to regard them in the light of favours. Something was expected

which could be seen to subserve the interests of Rome far more than

those of the king himself. The service was patent. He had Jugurtha in

his power; if he handed him over to Rome, her debt would certainly be

great, and it would be paid. The recognition of friendship, the treaty

which he sought, and the portion of Numidia which he claimed--all these

would be his for the asking. The king drew back; he urged the sacred

bonds of relationship, the scarce less sacred tie of the treaty which

bound him to his son-in-law; he emphasised the danger to himself of such

a flagrant breach of faith. It might alienate the hearts of his

subjects, who loved Jugurtha and hated the name of Rome.[1187] But Sulla

continued to press the point; the king's resistance seemed to give way,

and at last he promised to do everything that his persistent visitor

demanded. It was agreed, however, between the two conspirators that it

was necessary to preserve a semblance of peaceful relations with

Jugurtha. A pretence must be made of admitting him to the terms of the

convention; this would be a ready bait, for he was thoroughly tired of

the war. Sulla agreed to this arrangement as the only means of

entrapping his victim; to Bocchus it may have had another significance

as well; it still left his hands free.

The next day witnessed the beginning of the machinations that were to

end in the sacrifice of a Numidian king or a Roman magistrate. Bocchus

summoned Aspar, the agent of Jugurtha, and told him that a communication

had been received from Sulla to the effect that terms might be

considered for bringing the war to a close; he therefore asked the

legate to ascertain the views of his sovereign.[1188] Aspar departed

joyfully to the headquarters of Jugurtha, who was now at a considerable

distance from the scene of the negotiations. Eight days later he

returned with all speed, bearing a message for the ear of Bocchus.

Jugurtha, it appeared, was willing to submit to any conditions. But he

had little confidence in Marius. It had often happened that terms of

peace sanctioned by Roman generals had been declared invalid. But there

was a way of obtaining a guarantee. If Bocchus wished to secure their

common interests and to enjoy an undisputed peace, he should arrange a

meeting of all the principals to the agreement, on the pretext of

discussing its terms. At that meeting Sulla should be handed over to

Jugurtha. There could be no doubt that the possession of such a hostage

would wring the consent of the senate and people to the terms of the

treaty; for it was incredible that the Roman government would leave a

member of the nobility, who had been captured while performing a public

duty, in the power of his foes.

Bocchus after some reflection consented to this course. Then, as later,

it was a disputed question whether the king had even at this stage made

up his mind as to his final course of action.[1189] When the time and

place for the meeting had been arranged, the nature of the treachery was

still uncertain. At one moment the king was holding smiling converse

with Sulla, at another with the envoy of Jugurtha. Precisely the same

promises were made to both; both were satisfied and eager for the

appointed day. On the evening before the meeting Bocchus summoned a

council of his friends; then the whim took him that they should be

dismissed, and he passed some time in silent thought. Before the night

was out he had sent for Sulla, and it was the cunning of the Roman that

set the final toils for the Numidian. At break of day the news was

brought that Jugurtha was at hand. Bocchus, attended by a few friends

and the Roman quaestor, advanced as though to do him honour, and halted

on some rising ground which put the chief actors in the drama in full

view of the men who lay in ambush. Jugurtha proceeded to the same spot

amidst a large retinue of his friends; it had been agreed that all the

partners to the conference should come unarmed.[1190] A sign was given,

and the men of the ambuscade had sprung from every side upon the mound.

Jugurtha's retinue was cut down to a man; the king himself was seized,

bound and handed over to Sulla. In a short while he was the prisoner

of Marius.

Every one had long known that the war would be closed with the capture

of the king. Marius could leave for other fields and dream other dreams

of glory. But even the utter collapse of resistance in Numidia did not

obviate the necessity for a considerable amount of detailed labour,

which absorbed the energy of the commander during the closing months of

the year. Even when news had been brought from Rome that a grateful

people had raised him to the consulship for the second time, and that a

task greater than that of the Numidian war had been entrusted to his

hand,[1191] he did not immediately quit the African province, and it is

probable that at least the initial steps of the new settlement of

Numidia determined by the senate, were taken by him. The settlement was

characteristic of the imperialism of the time. The government declined

to extend the evils of empire westward and southward, to make of

Mauretania another Numidia, and to enter on a course of border warfare

with the tribes that fringed the desert. It therefore refused to

recognise Numidia as a province. In default of an abler ruler, Gauda was

set upon the throne of his ancestors;[1192] he had long had the support

of Marius, and seems indeed to have been the only legitimate claimant.

But he was not given the whole of the realm which had been swayed by

Masinissa and Micipsa. The aspirations of Bocchus for an extension of

the limits of Mauretania had to be satisfied, partly because it would

have been ungenerous and impolitic to deprive of a reward that had been

more than hinted at, a man who had violated his own personal

inclinations and the national traditions of the subjects over whom he

ruled, for the purpose of performing a signal service to Rome; partly

because it would have been dangerous to the future peace of Numidia, and

therefore of Rome, to leave the question of Bocchus's claims to

territory east of the Muluccha unsettled, especially with such a ruler

as Gauda on the throne. The western part of Numidia was therefore

attached to the kingdom of Mauretania; nearly five hundred miles of

coast line may have been transferred, and the future boundary between

the two dominions may have been the port of Saldae on the west of the

Numidian gulf.[1193] The wisdom of this settlement is proved by its

success. Until Rome herself becomes a victim to civil strife, and her

exiles or conquerors play for the help of her own subjects, Numidia

ceases to be a factor in Roman politics. The mischief of interfering in

dynastic questions had been made too patent to permit of the rash

repetition of the dangerous experiment.

In comparison with the settlement of Numidia, the ultimate fate of its

late king was a matter of little concern. But Jugurtha had played too

large a part in history to permit either the historian, or the lounger

of the streets who jostled his neighbour for the privilege of gazing

with hungry eyes at the visage and bearing of the terrible warrior, to

be wholly indifferent to his end. The prisoner was foredoomed. Had he

not for years been treated as an escaped criminal, not as a hostile

king? If one ignored his outrages on his own race, had he not massacred

Roman merchants, prompted the treacherous slaughter of a Roman garrison,

and devised the murder of a client of the Roman people in the very

streets of Rome? In truth, a formidable indictment might be brought

against Jugurtha, nor was it the care of any one to discriminate which

of the counts referred to acts of war, and which must be classed in the

category of merely private crimes. It was sufficient that he was an

enemy (which to the Roman mind meant traitor) who had brought death to

citizens and humiliation to the State, and it is probable that, had the

Numidian been the purest knight whose chivalrous warfare had shaken the

power of Rome, he would have taken that last journey to the Capitol. It

was the custom of Rome, and any derogation of the iron rule was an act

of singular grace. The stupidity of the mob, which is closely akin to

its brutality, was utterly unable to distinguish between the differences

in conduct which are the result of the varying ethical standards of the

races of the world, or even to balance the enormities committed by their

own commanders against those which could be fastened on the enemy whom

they had seized. And this lack of imagination was reflected in a

cultured government, partly because their culture was superficial and

they were still the products of the grim old school which had produced

their ferocious ancestors, partly for reasons that were purely politic.

The light hold which Rome held over her dependants, could only be

rendered light by acts of occasional severity; the world must be made to

see the consequences of rebellion against a sovereign. But the true

justification for Roman rigour was not dependent on such considerations,

which are often of a highly disputable kind, nearly so much as on the

normal attitude of the Roman mind itself. Cruelty was but an expression

of Roman patriotism; with characteristic consistency they applied much

the same views to their citizens and their subjects, and their treatment

of captured enemies was but one expression of the spirit which found

utterance in their own terrible law of treason.

When Marius celebrated his triumph on the 1st of January in the year

which followed the close of the Numidian war,[1194] Jugurtha and his two

sons walked before his chariot. While the pageant lasted, the king still

wore his royal robes in mockery of his former state; when it had reached

its bourne on the Capitol, the degradation and the punishment were

begun. But it was believed by some that neither could now be felt, and

that it was a madman that was pushed down the narrow stair which leads

to the rock-hewn dungeon below the hill.[1195] His tunic was stripped

from him, the golden rings wrested from his ears, and, as the son of the

south[1196] stepped shivering into the well-like cavern, the cry "Oh!

what a cold bath!" burst from his lips. Of the stories as to how the end

was reached, the more detailed speaks of a protracted agony of six days

until the prisoner had starved to death, his weakened mind clinging ever

to the hope that his life might yet be spared.[1197]

The minor prize of the Numidian war was a quantity of treasure including

more than three thousand pounds' weight of gold and over five thousand

of silver[1198]--which was shown in the triumph of Marius before it was

deposited in the treasury. It was indeed the only permanent prize of the

war which could be exhibited to the people; if one excepted two triumphs

and the recognition of the merit of three officials, there was nothing

else to show. It was difficult to justify the war even on defensive

grounds, for it would have required a courageous advocate to maintain

that the mere recognition of Jugurtha as King of Numidia would have

imperilled the Roman possessions in Africa; and, if the struggle had

assumed an anti-Roman character, this result had been assisted, if not

secured, by the tactics of the opposition which had systematically

foiled every attempt at compromise. But a war, which it is difficult to

justify and still more difficult to remember with satisfaction, may be

the necessary result of a radically unsound system of administration:

and the disasters which it entails may be equally the consequence of a

military system, excellent in itself but ill-adapted to the

circumstances of the country in which the struggle is waged. These are

the only two points of view from which the Numidian war is remarkable on

strategic or administrative grounds. The strategic difficulties of the

task do nothing more than exhibit the wisdom of the majority of the

senate, and of the earlier generals engaged in the campaign, in seeking

to avoid a struggle at almost any cost. A military system is conditioned

by the necessities of its growth; even that of an empire is seldom

sufficiently elastic to be equally adapted to every country and equally

capable of beating down every form of armed resistance. The Roman system

had been evolved for the type of warfare which was common to the

civilised nations around the Mediterranean basin--nations which employed

heavily armed and fully equipped soldiers as the main source of their

fighting strength, and which were forced to operate within a narrow

area, on account of the possession of great centres of civilisation

which it was imperative to defend. Its mobility was simply the mobility

of a heavy force of infantry with a circumscribed range of action; in

the days of its highest development it was still strikingly weak in

cavalry. It had already shown itself an imperfect instrument for putting

down the guerilla warfare of Spain; it had never been intended for the

purposes of desert warfare, or to effect the pacification of nomad

tribes extending over a vast and desolate territory. Even as the

Parthian war of Trajan required the formation of what was practically a

new army developed on unfamiliar lines, so the complete reorganisation

of the Republican system would have been essential to the effective

conquest of Numidia. The slight successes of this war, such as the

taking of Thala and of Capsa and the victories near Cirta, were attained

by judicious adaptations to the new conditions, by the employment of

light infantry and the increased use of cavalry; but even these

improvements were of little avail, for effective pursuit was still

impossible, and without pursuit the conflict could not be brought to a

close. The unkindness of the conditions almost exonerates the generals

who blundered during the struggle, and to an unprejudiced observer the

record of incompetence is slight. The fact that the inconclusive

proceedings of Metellus and Marius were deemed successes, almost

justifies the exploits of a Bestia, and even the crowning disaster of

the war--the surprise of the army of Aulus Albinus--might have been the

lot of a better commander opposed to an enemy so far superior in

mobility and knowledge of the land. Most wars of this type are

destructive of military reputations; the general is fortunate who can

emerge as the least incapable of the host of blunderers. If we adopt

this relative standard, one fortunate issue of the campaign may be held

to be the discovery that Marius was not unworthy of his military

reputation. The verdict, it is true, was not justified by positive

results; but it was the verdict of the army that he led and as incapable

of being ignored as all such judgments are. His leadership had been

characterised at least by efficiency in detail, and this efficiency had

been secured by gentle measures, by unceasing vigilance, by the

cultivation of a true soldierly spirit, and by the untiring example of

the commander. The courage of the innovator--a courage at once political

and military--had also given Rome, in the mass of the unpropertied

classes, a fathomless source from which she could draw an army of

professional soldiers, if she possessed the capacity to use her

opportunities.

The political issues of the war were bound up with those which were

strategic, both in so far as the hesitancy of the senate to enter on

hostilities was based on a just estimate of the difficulties of the

campaign, and in so far as the policy of smoothing over difficulties in

a client state by diplomatic means, in preference to stirring up a

hornet's nest by the thrust of the sword, was one of the traditional

maxims of the Roman protectorate. But this second issue raised the whole

of the great administrative question of the limits of the duties which

Rome owed to her client kings. Such a question not infrequently suggests

a conflict of duty with interest. The claims of Adherbal for protection

against his aggressive cousin might be just, but even to many moderate

men, not wholly vitiated by the maxims of a Machiavellian policy, they

may have appeared intolerable. Was Rome to waste her own strength and

stake the peace of the empire on a mere question of dynastic succession?

Might it not be better to allow the rivals to fight out the question

amongst themselves, and then to see whether the man who emerged

victorious from the contest was likely to prove a client acceptable and

obedient to Rome? There was danger in the course, no doubt: the danger

inherent in a vicious example which might spread to other protected

states; but might it not be a slighter peril than that involved in

dethroning a ruler, who had proved his energy and ability, his

familiarity with Roman ways, and his knowledge of Roman methods, above

all, his possession of the confidence of the great mass of the Numidian

people? Nay, it might be argued that Adherbal had by his weakness proved

his unfitness to be an efficient agent of Rome. It might be asked

whether such a man was likely to be an adequate representative of Roman

interests in Africa, an adequate protector of the frontiers of the

province. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the advocates of

interference had something more than the claim of justice and the claim

of prestige on their side. It was an undisputed fact that the division

of power in Numidia, at the time when the question was presented to

Rome, showed that Adherbal stood for civilisation and Jugurtha for

barbarism. This was an issue that might not have been manifest at first,

although any one who knew Numidia must have been aware that the military

spirit of the country which was embodied in Jugurtha, was not

represented in the coast cities with their trading populations drawn

from many towns, but in the remote agricultural districts and the

deserts of the west and south; but it was an issue recognised by the

commissioners when they assigned the more civilised portion of the

kingdom to Adherbal, and the territories, whose strength was the natural

wealth and the manhood which they yielded, to his energetic rival; and

it was one that became painfully apparent when Jugurtha led his

barbarous hordes against Cirta, and when these hordes in the hour of

victory slew every merchant and money-lender whom they could find in the

town. It was this aspect of the question that ultimately proved the

decisive factor in bringing on the war; for the claims of justice could

now be reinforced by those of interest, and the interest which was at

stake was that of the powerful moneyed class at Rome. It was this class

that not only forced the government to war, but insisted on seeing the

war through to its bitter end. It was this class that systematically

hindered all attempts at compromise, that brandished its control of the

courts in the face of every one who strove to temper war with hopes of

peace, that tolerated Metellus until he proved too dilatory, and sent

out Marius in the vain hope that he might show greater expedition. The

close of the war was a singular satire on their policy, a remarkable

proof of the justice of the official view. The end came through

diplomacy, not through battle, through an unknown quaestor who belonged

to the old nobility and possessed its best gifts of facile speech and

suppleness in intrigue, not through the great "new man" who was to be a

living example of what might be done, if the middle class had the making

of the ministers of the State.

But the moneyed class could hardly have developed the power to force the

hand of the council of state, had it not been in union with the third

great factor in the commonwealth, that disorganised mass of fluctuating

opinion and dissipated voting power which was known as "the people." How

came the Populus Romanus to be stirred to action in this cause, with the

result that the balance of power projected by Caius Gracchus was again

restored? Much of their excitement may have been the result of

misrepresentation, of the persistent efforts made by the opposition to

prove that all parleying with the enemy was tantamount to treason; more

must have been due to the dishonouring news of positive disaster which

marked a later stage of the war; but the mingled attitude of resentment

and suspicion with which the people was taught to regard its council and

its ministers, seems to have been due to the genuine belief that many of

the former and nearly all of the latter were hopelessly corrupt. This

darkest aspect of the Numidian war is none the less a reality if we

believe that the individual charges of corruption were not well founded,

and that they were mere party devices meant to mask a policy which would

have been impossible without them. The proceedings of the Mamilian

commission certainly commanded little respect even from the democrat of

a later day; but it is with the suspicion of corruption, rather than

with the justice of that suspicion in individual cases, that we are most

intimately concerned. A political society must be tainted to the core,

if bribery can be given and accepted as a serious and adequate

explanation of the proceedings of its leading members. The suspicion was

a condemnation of the State rather than of a class. It might be tempting

to suppose that the disease was confined to a narrow circle (by a

curious accident to the circle actually in power); but of what proof did

such a supposition admit? The leaders of the people were themselves

members of the senatorial order and scions of the nobility of office.

Marius the "new man" might thunder his appeal for a purer atmosphere and

a wider field; but it would be long, if ever, before the councils of the

State would be administered by men who might be deemed virtuous because

their ancestors were unknown.

But for a time the view prevailed that the interests of the State could

best be served by a combination of powerful directors of financial

corporations with patriotic reformers, invested with the tribunate,

struggling for higher office, and expressing their views of statecraft

chiefly in the form of denunciations of the government. Such a coalition

might form a powerful and healthy organ of criticism; but it could only

become more by serving as a mere basis for a new executive power. As

regards the nature of this power and even the necessity for its

existence, the views of the discontented elements of the time were

probably as indefinite as those of the adherents of Caius Gracchus. The

Republican constitution was an accepted fact, and the senate must at

least be tolerated as a necessary element in that constitution; for no

one could dream of finding a coherent administration either in the

Comitia or in the aggregate of the magistrates of the people. Now, as at

all times since the Roman constitution had attained its full

development, the only mode of breaking with tradition in order to secure

a given end which the senate was supposed to have neglected, was to

employ the services of an individual. There was no danger in this

employment if the individual could be overthrown when his work had been

completed, or when the senate had regained its old prestige. The leader

elevated to a purely civil magistracy by the suffrages of the people was

ever subject to this risk; if his personal influence outgrew the

necessities of his task, if he ceased to be an agent and threatened to

be a master, the mere suspicion of an aspiration after monarchy would

send a shudder of reaction through the mass of men which had given him

his greatness. As long as the cry for reform was based on the existence

of purely internal evils, which the temporary power of a domestic

magistracy such as the tribunate might heal, the breast even of the most

timid constitutionalist did not deserve to be agitated by alarm for the

security of the Republican government. But what if external dangers

called for settlement, if the eyes of the mercantile classes and the

proletariate were turned on the spectacle of a foreign commerce in decay

and an empire in disorder, if the grand justification for the senate's

authority--its government of the foreign dependencies of Rome--were

first questioned, then tossed aside? Would not the Individual makeshift

have in such a case as this to be invested with military authority?

Might not his power be defended and perpetuated by a weapon mightier

than the voting tablet? Might not his supporters be a class of men, to

whom the charms of civil life are few, whose habits have trained them to

look for inspiration to an individual, not to a corporation, still less

to that abstraction called a constitution--of men not subjected to the

dividing influences, or swayed by the momentary passions, of their

fellows of the streets? In such a case might not the power of the

individual be made secure, and what was this but monarchy?

Such were the reflections suggested to posterity by the power which

popularly-elected generals began to hold from the time of the Numidian

war. But such were not the reflections of Marius and his contemporaries.

There was no precedent and no contemporary circumstance which could

suggest a belief in any danger arising from the military power. The

experiment of bearding the senate by entrusting the conduct of a

campaign to a popular favourite had been tried before, and, whether its

immediate results were beneficial or the reverse, it had produced no

ulterior effects. Whether the people had pinned its faith on men of the

nobility such as the two Scipios, or on a man of the people like Varro,

such agents had either retired from public life, confessed their

incapacity, or returned to serve the State. The armies which such

generals had led were composed of well-to-do men who, apart from the

annoyance of the levy, had no ground of complaint against the

commonwealth: and the change in the recruiting system which had been

introduced by Marius, was much too novel and too partial for its

consequences to be forecast. Nor could any one be expected to see the

fundamental difference between the Rome of but two generations past and

the Rome of the day--the difference which sprang from the increasing

divergence of the interests of classes, and the consequent weakening of

confidence in the one class which had "weathered the storm and been

wrecked in a calm". Aristocracy is the true leveller of merit, but, if

it lose that magic power by ceasing to be an aristocracy, then the turn

of the individual has come.

The fact that it was already coming may justify us in descending from

the general to the particular and remarking that the question "Who

deserved the credit of bringing the war with Jugurtha to an end?" soon

excited an interest which appealed equally to the two parties in the

State and the two personalities whom the close of the episode had

revealed. It was natural that the success of Sulla should be exploited

by resentful members of the nobility as the triumph of the aristocrat

over the parvenu, of the old diplomacy and the old bureaucracy over the

coarse and childish methods of the opposition; it was tempting to

circulate the view that the humiliation of Metellus had been avenged,

that the man who had slandered and superseded him had found an immediate

nemesis in a youthful member of the aristocracy.[1199] Such a version,

if it ever reached the ears of the masses, was heard only to be

rejected; the man who had brought Jugurtha in chains to Rome must be his

conqueror, and, even had this evidence been lacking, they did not intend

to surrender the glory which was reflected from the champion whom they

had created. Nor even in the circles of the governing class could this

controversy be for the moment more than a matter for idle or malicious

speculation. Hard fighting had to be done against the barbarians of the

north, a reorganisation of the army was essential, and for both these

purposes even they admitted that Marius was the necessary man. Even the

two men who were most interested in the verdict were content to stifle

for the time, the one the ambitious claim which was strengthened by a

belief in its justice, the other the resentful repudiation, which would

have been rendered all the more emphatic from the galling sense that it

could not be absolute. In the coming campaigns against the Germans Sulla

served first as legate and afterwards as military tribune in the army of

his old commander.[1200] But his own conviction of the part which he had

played in the Numidian war was expressed in a manner not the less

irritating because it gave no reasonable ground for offence. He began

wearing a signet ring, the seal of which showed Bocchus delivering

Jugurtha into his hand.[1201] This emblem was destined to grate on the

nerves of Marius in a still more offensive form, for thirteen years

later, when his work had been done and his glory had begun to wane, Rome

was given an unexpected confirmation of the truthfulness of the scene

which it depicted. The King of Mauretania, eager to conciliate the

people of Rome while he showed his gratitude to Sulla, sent as a

dedicatory offering to the Capitol a group of trophy-bearing Victories

who guarded a device wrought in gold, which showed Bocchus surrendering

to Sulla the person of the Numidian king. Marius would have had it

removed, but Sulla's supporters could now loudly assert the claim, which

had been only whispered when the dark cloud of barbaric invasion hung

over the State and the loyal belief of the people in Marius was

quickened by their fears.[1202]

Yet, although at the close of the Numidian war an appalling danger to

the empire tended to perpetuate the coalition that had been formed

between the mercantile classes and the proletariate, and to wring from

the senate an acceptance of the new military genius with his plans for

reform, there are clear indications which prove that an ebb of political

feeling had been witnessed, even during the last three years--a turn of

the tide which shows how utterly unstable the coalition against the

senate would have been, had it not been reinforced by the continuance of

disasters abroad. The first sign of the reaction was the flattering

reception and the triumph of Metellus; and it may have been this current

of feeling which decided the consular elections for the following year.

The successful candidates were Caius Atilius Serranus and Quintus

Servilius Caepio. Of these Serranus could trace his name back to the

great Reguli of Carthaginian fame;[1203] the family to which he

belonged, although plebeian, had figured amongst the ranks of the

official nobility since the close of the fourth century, although it is

known to have furnished the State with but five consuls since the time

of Caius Regulus. The merit which Serranus possessed in the eyes of the

voters who elevated him to his high office, was a puzzle to posterity;

for such nobility as he could boast seemed the only compensation for the

lack of intelligence which was supposed to characterise his utterances

and his conduct.[1204] But, if we may judge from the resolution which he

subsequently displayed in combating revolution at Rome,[1205] he was

known to be a supporter of the authority of the senate, and his

aristocratic proclivities may have led to his association with his more

distinguished colleague Caepio. The latter belonged to a patrician clan,

and to a branch of that clan which had lately clung to the highest

political prizes with a tenacity second only to that of the Metelli.

Caepio's great-grandfather, his grandfather, his father and his two

uncles had all filled the consulship; and his own hereditary claim to

that office had been rendered more secure by some good service in

Lusitania, which had secured him a military reputation and the triumph

which he enjoyed in the very year that preceded his candidature.[1206]

His political sentiments may have been known before his election; but

the very fact of his elevation to the consulship, and his appreciation

of the direction in which the tide of public feeling seemed to be

running, gave a definiteness to his views and a courage to his reforming

conservatism, which must have surprised his supporters as well as his

opponents, and may not have been altogether pleasing to the extreme

members of the former party. It must have been believed that a rift was

opening between the moneyed classes and the people, and that the latter,

satisfied with their recent political triumph and reconciled by the

honest passivity of the senate, were content to resume their old

allegiance to the governing class. It must even have been held that a

spirit of repentance and indignation could be awakened at the reckless

and selfish use which the knights had made of the judicial power

entrusted to their keeping, that the Mamilian commission could be

represented as an outrage on the public conscience, and the ordinary

cognisance of public crimes as a reign of terror intended merely to

ensure the security of investments.[1207] The knights were to be

attacked in their stronghold, and Caepio came forward with a new

judiciary law. Two accounts of the scope of this measure have come down

to us. According to the one, the bill proposed that jurisdiction in the

standing criminal courts should be shared between the senators and the

equites;[1208] according to the other, this jurisdiction was to be given

to the senate.[1209] That the latter result was meant to be attained in

some way by the law, is perhaps shown by the intense dislike which the

equestrian order entertained in later times to any laudatory reference

to the hated Servilian proposal:[1210] and, although a class which has

possessed and perhaps abused a monopoly of jurisdiction, may object to

seeing even a share of it given to their enemies and their victims, yet

this resentment would be still more natural if the threatened

transference of jurisdiction from their order was to be complete. But,

in any case, we cannot afford to neglect the express testimony to the

fact that the senate was to have possession of the courts; and the only

method of reconciling this view with the other tradition of a partition

of jurisdiction between the orders, is to suppose that Caepio attempted

the effort suggested by Tiberius Gracchus, once advocated by his brother

Caius,[1211] and subsequently taken up by the younger Livius Drusus, of

increasing the senate by admitting a certain number of knights into that

body, and giving the control of the courts to the members of this

enlarged council. It may seem a strange and revolutionary step to

attempt such a reform of the governing body of the State, whose

membership and whose privileges were so jealously guarded, for the

purpose of securing a single political end; it may seem at first sight

as though the admission of a considerable number of the upper middle

class to the power and prizes possessed by the privileged few, would be

a shock even to a mildly conservative mind that had fed upon the

traditions of the past. Yet a closer examination will reveal the truth

that such a change would have meant a very slight modification in the

temper and tendencies of the senate, and would have insured a very great

increase in its security, whether it meant to govern well or ill, to

secure its own advantages or those of its suffering subjects. In reality

a very thin line parted the interests of the senators from those of the

more distinguished members of the equestrian order. It was only when

official probity or official selfishness came into conflict with

capitalistic greed, that recrimination was aroused between the two heads

of the body politic. But what if official power, under either of its

aspects, could make a compromise with greed? The rough features of both

might be softened; but, at the worst, a stronger, more permanent and, in

the long run, more profitable monopoly of the good things of the empire

would be the result of the union. The admission of wealthy capitalists

could not be considered a very marked social detraction to the dignity

of the order. The question of pedigree might be sunk in an amiable

community of taste. In point of lavish expenditure and exotic

refinement, in the taste that displayed itself in the patronage of

literature, the collection of objects of art, the adornment of country

villas, there was little to choose between the capitalist and the noble.

And community of taste is an easy passage to community of political

sentiment. Any one acquainted with the history of the past must have

known that all efforts to temper the exclusiveness of the senatorial

order had but resulted in an increase of the spirit of exclusiveness.

The patrician council had in old days been stormed by a horde of

plebeian chiefs; but these chiefs, when they had once stepped within the

magic circle, had shown not the least inclination to permit their poorer

followers to do the same. The successful Roman, practical, grasping,

commercial and magnificently beneficent, ranking the glory of patronage

as second only in point of worth to the possession and selfish use of

power, scarcely attached a value even to the highest birth when deprived

of its brilliant accessories, and had always found his bond of

fellowship in a close community of interest with others, who helped him

to hold a position which he might keep against the world. How much more

secure would this position be, if the front rank of the assailants were

enticed within the fortress and given strong positions upon the walls!

They would soon drink into their lungs the strong air of possession,

they would soon be stiffened by that electric rigidity which falls on a

man when he becomes possessed of a vested interest. There was little

probability that the knights admitted to the senate would continue to be

in any real sense members of the equestrian order.

But even to a senator who reckoned the increase of profit-sharers,

whatever their present or future sentiments might be, as a loss to

himself, the sacrifice involved in the proposed increase of the members

of his order may have seemed well worthy of the cost. For how could

power be exercised or enjoyed in the face of a hostile judicature? The

knights had recently made foreign administration on the accepted lines

not only impossible in itself, but positively dangerous to the

administrator, and in all the details of provincial policy they could,

if they chose, enforce their views by means of the terrible instrument

which Caius Gracchus had committed to their hands. Even if the business

men, shorn of their most distinguished members, might still have the

power to offer transitory opposition to the senate by coalition with the

mob, the more dangerous, because more permanent, possibilities of harm

which the control of the courts afforded them, would be wholly

swept away.

The attraction of Caepio's proposal to the senatorial mind is,

therefore, perfectly intelligible; but it is very probable that there

were many members of the nobility who were wholly insensible to this

attraction. The men who would descend a few steps in order to secure a

profitable concord between the orders, may have been in the majority;

but there must have been a considerable number of stiff-backed nobles

who, even if they believed that concord could be secured by a measure

which gave away privileges and did not conciliate hostility, were

exceedingly unwilling to descend at all. Caepio is the first exponent of

a fresh phase of the new conservatism which had animated the elder

Drusus. That statesman had sought to win the people over to the side of

the senate by a series of beneficent laws, which should be as attractive

as those of the demagogue and perhaps of more permanent utility than the

blessings showered on them by the irresponsible favourite of the moment;

but he had done nothing for the mercantile class; and his greater son

was left to combine the scheme of conciliation transmitted to him by his

father with that enunciated by Caepio.

The moderation and the tactical utility of the new proposal fired the

imagination of a man, whose support was of the utmost importance for the

success of a measure which was to be submitted to a popular body that

was divided in its allegiance, uncertain in its views, and therefore

open to conviction by rhetoric if not by argument. It was characteristic

of the past career of the young orator Lucius Crassus that he should now

have thrown himself wholly on the side of Caepio and the progressive

members of the senate.[1212] His past career had committed him to no

extremes. He had impeached Carbo, known to have been a radical and

believed to be a renegade, and he had championed the policy of

provincial colonisation as illustrated by the settlement of Narbo

Martius. His action in the former case might have been equally pleasing

to either side; his action in the latter might have been construed as

the work, less of an advanced liberal, than of an imperialist more

enlightened than his peers. He had evidently not compromised his chances

of political success; he was still but thirty-four and had just

concluded his tenure of the tribunate. In the opposite camp stood

Memmius, striving with all his might to keep alive the coalition, which

he had done so much to form, between the popular party and the merchant

class. The knights mustered readily under his banner, for they had no

illusions as to the meaning of the bill; it was impossible to conciliate

an order by the bribery of a few hundreds of its members, whose very

names were as yet unknown. To keep the people faithful to the coalition

was a much more difficult task. It was soon patent to all that the

agitators had not been wrong in supposing that a serious cleft had

opened between the late allies, and in the war of words with which the

Forum was soon filled, Memmius seems to have been no match for his

opponent. Crassus surpassed himself, and the keen but humorous invective

with which he held Memmius up to the ridicule of his former

followers,[1213] was balanced by the grand periods in which he

formulated his detailed indictment of the methods pursued by the

existing courts of justice, and of the terrible dangers to the public

security produced by their methods of administration. He did not merely

impugn the verdicts which were the issue of a jury system so degraded as

to have become the sport of a political "faction," but he dwelt on the

public danger which sprang from the parasites of the courts, the gloomy

brood of public accusers which is hatched by a rotten system, feeds on

the impurities of a diseased judicature, and terrifies the commonwealth

by the peril that lurks in its poisonous sting. This speech was to be

studied by eager students for years to come as a master work in the art

of declamatory argument.[1214] But its momentary efficacy seems to have

been as great as its permanent value. Caepio's bill was acclaimed and

carried.[1215] Then began the turn of the tide. It is practically

certain that the authors of the measure never had the courage, or

perhaps the time, to carry a single one of its proposals Into effect.

The senate was not enlarged, nor was the right of judicature wrested

from the hands of its existing holders.[1216] The bill may have been

repealed within a few months of its acceptance by the people. Caepio

went to Gaul to stake his military reputation on a conflict with the

German hordes; he was to return as the best hated man in Rome, to

receive no mercy from an indignant people. There was probably more than

one cause for this sudden change in political sentiment. The knights may

have been thrown off their guard by the suddenness of Caepio's attack

upon their privileges, and a few months of organisation and canvassing

may have been all that they needed to restore the majority required for

effacing the blot upon their name. But the chief reason is doubtless to

be sought in the external circumstances of the moment, and can only be

fully illustrated by the description which we shall soon be giving of

the great events that were taking place on the northern frontiers of the

empire. It is sufficient for the present to remember that, in the very

year in which Caepio's measure had received the ratification of the

people, Caius Popillius Laenas, a legate of one of the consuls of the

previous year, had been put on his trial before that very people for

making a treaty which was considered still more disgraceful than the

defeat which had preceded it.[1217] The Comitia now heard the whole

story of the conduct of the Roman arms against the barbarians of the

North. The story immediately revived the coalition of the early days of

the Numidian war, and there was no longer any hope for the success of

even moderate counsels proceeding from the senate. Popillius was a

second Aulus Albinus, and a new Marius was required to restore the

fortunes of the day. It was, however, certain that the only Marius could

not be withdrawn from Africa, and men looked eagerly to see what the

consular elections for the next year would produce. We hear of no

candidate belonging to the highest ranks of the nobility who was deemed

to have been defrauded of his birthright on this occasion; but the

disappointment of Quintus Lutatius Catulus was deemed wholly legitimate,

when Cnaeus Mallius Maximus defeated him at the poll. Catulus belonged

to a plebeian family that had been ennobled by the possession of the

consulship at least as early as the First Punic War; but the distinction

had not been perpetuated in the later annals of the house, and if

Catulus received the support of the official nobility, it was because

his tastes and temperament harmonised with theirs, and because it may

have seemed impolitic to advance a man of better birth and more

pronounced opinions in view of the prevailing temper of the people.

Catulus was a man of elegant taste and polished learning, one of the

most perfect Hellenists of the day, and distinguished for the grace and

purity of the Latin style that was exhibited in his writings and

orations.[1218] He was one day to write the history of his own momentous

consulship and of the final struggle with the Cimbri, in which he played

a not ignoble part. Much of our knowledge of those days is due to his

pen, and the modern historian is perhaps likely to congratulate himself

on the blindness of the people, which thrice refused Catulus the

consulship and reserved him to be an actor and a witness in the crowning

victory of the great year of deliverance. He had already been defeated

by Serranus; he was now subordinated to the claims of Maximus. But what

were those claims? Posterity found it difficult to give an answer,[1219]

and the reason for that difficulty was that this second experiment in

the virtues of a "new man" was anything but successful. The family to

which Maximus belonged seems to have been wholly undistinguished, and he

himself is the only member of his clan who is known to have attained the

consulship. An explanation of his present prominence could only be

gathered from a knowledge of his past career, and of this knowledge we

are wholly deprived; but it is manifest that he must have done much,

either in the way of positive service to the State in subordinate

capacities, or in the way of invective against its late administrators,

which caused him to be regarded as a discovery by the leaders of the

multitude. The colleague given to Maximus was a man such as the people

in the present emergency could not well refuse. Publius Rutilius Rufus

was a kind of Cato with a deeper philosophy, a higher culture, and a far

less bewildering activity. As a soldier he had been trained by Scipio in

Spain, and he possessed a theoretical interest in military matters which

issued in practical results of the most important kind.[1220] His tenure

of the urban praetorship seems to have been marked by reforms which

materially improved the condition of the freedmen in matters of private

law, and limited the right of patrons to impose burdensome conditions of

personal service as the price of manumission.[1221] It was he too who

may have introduced the humane system of granting the possession of a

debtor's goods to a creditor, if that creditor was willing to waive his

claim to the debtor's person.[1222] Rutilius, therefore, may have had

strong claims on the gratitude of the lower orders; and his personality

was one that could more readily command a grateful respect than a warm

affection. He was a learned adherent of the Stoic system, the cold and

stern philosophy of which imbued his speeches, already rendered somewhat

unattractive by their author's devotion to the forms of the civil

law.[1223] He was much in request as an advocate, his learning commanded

deep respect, but he lacked or would not condescend to the charm which

would have made him a great personal force with the people at a time

when there was a sore need of men who were at the same time great

and honest.

By a singular irony of fortune it chanced that the province of Gaul fell

to Maximus and not to Rutilius. The strong-headed soldier was left at

home to indulge his schemes of army reform while the new man went to his

post in the north, to quarrel with the aristocratic Caepio, who was now

serving as proconsul in those regions, and to share in the crushing

disaster which this dissension drew upon their heads. The search for

genius had to be renewed at the close of this melancholy year.[1224]

Another "new man" was found in Caius Flavius Fimbria, a product of the

forensic activity of the age, a clever lawyer, a bitter and vehement

speaker, but with a power that secured his efforts a transitory

circulation as types of literary oratory.[1225] He is not known to have

shown any previous ability as a soldier, and his election, so far as it

was not due to his own unquestioned merit, may have been but a symbol of

the continued prevalence of the distrust of the people in aristocratic

influence and qualifications. His competitor was Catulus who was for the

third time defeated. For the other place in the consulship there could

be no competition. The close of the Numidian war had freed the hands of

the man who was still believed to be the greatest soldier of the day.

There was, it is true, a legal difficulty in the way of the appointment

of Marius to the command in the north. Such a command should belong to a

consul, but nearly fifty years before this date a law had been passed

absolutely prohibiting re-election to the consulship.[1226] Yet the

dispensation granted to the younger Africanus could be quoted as a

precedent, and indeed the danger that now threatened the very frontiers

of Italy was an infinitely better argument for the suspension of the law

than the reverses of the Numantine war.[1227] The people were in no mood

to listen to legal quibbles. They drove the protestant minority from the

assembly, and raised Marius to the position which they deemed necessary

for the salvation of the State.[1228] The formal act of dispensation may

have been passed by the Comitia either before or after the election, but

the senate must have been easily coerced into giving its assent, if its

adherence were thought requisite to the validity of the act. The

province of Gaul was assigned him as a matter of course,[1229] whether

by the senate or the people is a matter of indifference. For the Roman

constitution was again throwing off the mask of custom and uncovering

the bold lineaments which spoke of the undisputed sovereignty of the

people. Certainly, if a sovereign has a right to assert himself, it is

one who is _in extremis_, who stands between death and revolution.

Personality had again triumphed in spite of the meshes of Roman law and

custom. It remained to be seen whether the net could be woven again with

as much cunning as before, or whether the rent made by Marius was

greater than that which had been torn by the Gracchi.

TITLES OF MODERN WORKS REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES

L'ANNÉE ÉPIGRAPHIQUE; revue des publications épigraphiques relatives a

l'antiquité Romaine (1896, pp. 30, 31, _Fragmentum Tarentinum_).

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römischen Verfassungsgeschichte_. Brandenburg-a.-d.-H., 1884.

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BELOCH, J.--_Der Italische Bund unter Roms Hegemonie; staatsrechtliche

und statistische Forschungen_. Leipzig, 1880.

BERGMANN, R.--_De Asiae Romanorum provinciae praesidibus_ (Philologus,

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BETHMANN-HOLLWEG, M.A. VON.--_Der römische Civilprozess_ (Der

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BIEREYE, J.--_Res Numidarum et Maurorum annis inde ab a. DCXLVIII.

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BOISSIER, GASTON.--_L'Afrique Romaine; promenades archéologiques en

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----_Roman Public Life_. London, 1901.

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KRAUSE, J. H.--_Deinokrates oder Hütte, Haus und Palast, Dorf, Stadt

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LAU, T.--_Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Eine Biografie_, Hamburg, 1855.

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MAHAFFY, J. P.--_The Slave Wars against Rome_ (Hermathena, 1890).

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----_Römische Staatsverwaltung_. Bd. i., 2te Aufl., 1881. Bd. ii.,

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MEYER, P.--_Der römische Konkubinat, nach den Rechtsquellen und den

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MIDDLETON, J. H., and SMITH, W.--_Domus_ (Smith, Dictionary of Greek

and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed., i., p. 604. London, 1890).

MITTEIS, L.--_Zur Geschichte der Erbpacht im Alterthum_ (Abhandlungen

der philologisch-historischen Classe der Königl. Sächsischen

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----_Geschichte des römischen Münzwesens_. Berlin, 1860.

----_The History of Rome_, translated by W. P. Dickson, London

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----_Römische Forschungen_, Bde. i, ii. (Bd. i., 2te Aufl.). Berlin,

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----_Römisches Staatsrecht_. Leipzig, 1887-8.

----_Die römischen Tribus in administrativer Beziehung_. Altona, 1844.

----_Zama_ (Hermes, xx., 1885, p, 144).

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NIESE, B.--_Das sogenannte Licinisch-sextische Ackergesetz_ (Hermes,

xxiii., 1888).

NITZSCH, K. W.--_Die Gracchen und ihre nächsten Vorgänger, vier Bücher

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PETER, C. _Geschichte Roms_. 4te verbesserte Aufl. Halle-a.-S., 1881.

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REIN, W.--_Das Criminalrecht der Römer von Romulus bis auf

Justinianus_, Leipzig, 1844.

REINACH, TH.--_Mithridate Eupator, roi du Pont_. Paris, 1890.

RICHTER, O.--_Topographie der Stadt Rom_. 2te Aufl. München, 1901.

RUDORFF, A.A.F.--_Das Ackergesetz des Sp. Thorius wiederhergestellt und

erläutert_ (Zeitschr. für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft. Bd. x.

Berlin, 1839).

SCHAEFER, A.--On Orosius, v., 9, 6 (_Mamertium oppidum_) (Jahrbücher für

classische Philologie, 1873, p. 71).

----On Plutarch, _Ti. Gracch_. II ([Greek: _Mallios kai phoulbios_])

(ibid.).

SCHMIDT, J.--_Zama_ (Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. N. F. Bd.

xliv., 1889, p. 397).

SMITH, W. and WILKINS, A.S.--_Frumentariae Leges_ (Smith, Dictionary of

Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd. ed., i. p. 877. London, 1890).

SOLTAU, W.--_Das Aechtheit des licinischen Ackergesetzes von 367 v.

Chr_. (Hermes, xxx., 1895),

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] The average, or at least the most powerful, type of a race is

stamped on its history. It is perhaps needless to say that no

generalisations on character apply to all its individual members.

[2] Even the Hellenes of the West are only a partial exception. It is

true that their cities clung to the coast; but the vast inland

possessions of states like Sybaris are scarcely paralleled elsewhere in

the history of Greek colonisation.

[3] The Latin colony of Aquileia was settled in the former year (Liv.

xl. 34 Vellei. 1. 15), the Roman colony of Auximum in the latter

(Vellei. l.c.).

[4] Cic. _de Leg. Agr_. ii. 27. 73 Est operae pretium diligentiam

majorum recordari, qui colonias sic idoneis in locis contra suspicionem

periculi collocarunt, ut esse non oppida Italiae, sed propugnacula

imperii viderentur.

[5] Liv. xxvii. 38; xxxvi. 3; cf. Marquardt _Staatsverwaltung_ 1. p. 51.

[6] The Roman citizen, who entered his name for a Latin colony, suffered

the derogation of _caput_ which was known to the later jurists as

_capitis deminutio minor_ and expressed the loss of _civitas_ (Gaius i.

161; iii. 56). That a fine was the alternative of enrolment, hence

conceived as voluntary, we are told by Cicero (_pro Caec_. 33. 98 Aut

sua voluntate aut legis multa profecti sunt: quam multam si sufferre

voluissent, manere in civitate potuissent. Cf. _pro Domo_ 30. 78 Qui

cives Romani in colonias Latinas proficiscebantur, fieri non poterant

Latini, nisi erant auctores acti nomenque dederant).

[7] Liv. xxxix. 23.

[8] Liv. xxxvii. 4.

[9] Liv. xlii. 32 Multi voluntate nomina dabant, quia locupletes

videbant, qui priore Macedonico bello, aut adversus Antiochum in Asia,

stipendia fecerant.

[10] For the assignations _viritim_ in the times of the Kings see Varro

_R.R_. i. 10 (Romulus); Cic. _de Rep_. ii. 14. 26 (Numa); Liv. 1. 46

(Servius Tullius). That the Cassian distribution was to be [Greek: _kat

andra_] is stated by Dionysius (viii. 72, 73). On the whole subject see

Mommsen in C.I.L. i. p. 75. He has made out a good case for the land

thus assigned being known by the technical name of _viritanus ager_. See

Festus p. 373; Siculus Flaccus p. 154 Lachm. We shall find that this was

the form of distribution effected by the Gracchi.

[11] For the settlement in the land of the Volsci see Liv. v. 24; for

that made by M. Curius in the Sabine territory, Colum. i. praef. 14;

[Victor] _de Vir. Ill_. 33.

[12] Cato ap. Varr. _R.R_. i. 2. 7 Ager Gallicus Romanus vocatur, qui

viritim cis Ariminum datus est ultra agrum Picentium; cf. Cic. _Brut_.

14. 57; _de Senect_. 4. 11; Val. Max. v. 4. 5.

[13] Liv. xlii. 4 (173 B.C.); cf. xli. 16.

[14] The other sources were the _portoria_ and the _vicesima libertatis_.

Even at a period when the revenues from the provinces were infinitely

larger than they were at the present time Cicero could write, with

reference to Caesar's proposal for distributing the Campanian land,

Portoriis Italiae sublatis, agro Campano divisor, quid vectigal superest

domesticum praeter vicensimam? (Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 16. i).

[15] See the map attempted by Beloch in his work _Der Italische Bund

unter Roms Hegemonie_.

[16] Vellei. ii. 7. See ch. iv., where the attitude of the senate

towards the proposals for transmarine settlement made by Caius Gracchus

is described.

[17] Polyb. xxxii. 11.

[18] Besides the continued war in Spain from 145 to 133 there were

troubles in Macedonia (in 142) and in Sicily during this period of

comparative peace. _Circa_ 140-135 commences the great slave rising in

that island, and in the latter year the long series of campaigns against

the free Illyrian and Thracian peoples begins.

[19] The _officia_ of the _villicus_ have become very extensive even in

Cato's time (Cato _R.R_. 5). Their extent implies the assumption of

very prolonged absences on the part of the master.

[20] Lucullus paid 500,200 drachmae for the house at Misenum which had

once belonged to Cornelia. She had purchased it for 75,000 (Plut. _Mar_.

34). Marius had been its intermediate owner. Even during his occupancy

it is described as [Greek: _polytelaes oikia tryphas echousa kai diaitas

thaelyteras hae kat andra polemon tosouton kai strateion autourgon_.]

[21] Diod. xxxvii. 3.

[22] Sulla rented one of the lower floors for 3000 sesterces (Plut.

_Sulla_ 1).

[23] The _coenaculum_ is mentioned by Livy (xxxix. 14) in connection

with the year 186 B.C. It is known both to Ennius (ap. Tertull. _adv_.

Valent. 7) and to Plautus (_Amph_. iii. 1. 3).

[24] Festus p. 171. The _insula_ resembled a large hotel, with one or

more courts, and bounded on all sides by streets. See Smith _Dict. of

Antiq_. (3rd ed.) i. p. 665.

[25] Val. Max. viii. 1. damn. 7 Admodum severae notae et illud populi

judicium, cum M. Aemilium Porcinam (consul 137 B.C.) a L. Cassio (censor

125 B.C.) accusatum crimine nimis sublime extructae villae in Alsiensi

agro gravi multa affecit. The author does not sufficiently distinguish

between the censorian initiative and the operation of the law. The

passage is important as showing the existence of an enactment on the

height of buildings. See Voigt in Iwan-Müller's _Handbuch_ iv. 2, p.

394, and cf. Vellei. ii. 10. Augustus limited the height of houses to

70 feet (Strabo v. p. 235).

[26] Diodor. v. 40 (The Etruscans) [Greek: _en ... tais oikiais ta

peristoa pros tas ton therapeuonton ochlon tarachas exeuron

euchraestian_.] See Krause _Deinokrates_ p. 528.

[27] In spite of the plural form _fauces_ (Vitruv. vi. 3. 6) may denote

only a single passage. See Marquardt _Privatl_. p. 240; Smith and

Middleton in Smith _Dict. of Antiq_. i. p. 671.

[28] For this _atriensis_, the English butler, the continental porter,

see the frequent references in Plautus (e.g., _Asin_. ii. 2. 80 and 101;

_Pseud_. ii. 2. 15), Krause _Deinokrates_ p. 534 and Marquardt

_Privatl_. p. 140.

[29] Plin. _H.N_. xxxv. 6 Stemmata vero lineis discurrebant ad imagines

pictas. It is not known at what period the _imagines_ were transferred

from the Atrium to the Alae.

[30] Overbeck _Pompeii_ p. 192; Krause _Deinokrates_ p. 539.

[31] For the practice started, or developed, by Caius Gracchus of

receiving visitors, some singly, others in smaller or larger groups, see

Seneca _de Ben_. vi. 34. 2 and the description of Gracchus' tribunate in

chapter iv.