THE ROMAN ARMY.
While Rome was trembling for the issue of the war with the Cimbri, she
was forced to send an army elsewhere. [Sidenote: Slave revolts.] There
was at this time another general stir among the slave population.
There were risings at Nuceria, at Capua, in the silver mines of
Attica, and at Thurii, and the last was headed by a Roman eques, named
Minucius or Vettius. He wanted to buy a female slave; and, failing to
raise the money which was her price, armed his own slaves, was joined
by others, assumed the state and title of king, and fortified a camp,
being at the head of 3,500 men. Lucullus, the praetor, marched against
him with 4,400 men; but though superior in numbers, he preferred
Jugurthine tactics, and bribed a Greek to betray Vettius, who
anticipated a worse fate by suicide. [Sidenote: Second slave rebellion
in Sicily.] But, as before, the fiercest outbreak was in Sicily.
Marius had applied for men for his levies to Nicomedes, king of
Bithynia, who replied that he had none to send, because the Roman
publicani had carried off most of his subjects and sold them as
slaves. Thereupon the Senate issued orders that no free member of an
allied state should be kept as a slave in a Roman province. [Sidenote:
Weakness of Licinius Nerva.] P. Licinius Nerva, governor of Sicily, in
accordance with these orders, set free a number of Sicilian slaves;
but, worked on by the indignation of the proprietors, he backed out of
what he had begun to do, and, having raised the hopes of the slaves,
caused an insurrection by disappointing them. He suppressed the first
rebels by treachery. But he was a weak man, and delayed so long in
attacking another body near Heraclea, that when he sent a lieutenant
to attack them with 600 men they were strong enough to beat him.
[Sidenote: Salvius elected king.] By this success they supplied
themselves with arms, and then elected Salvius as their king, who
found himself at the head of 20,000 infantry and 2,000 horse. With
these troops he attacked Morgantia, and, on the governor coming to
relieve it, turned on him and routed him; and by proclaiming that
anyone who threw down his arms should be spared, he got a fresh supply
for his men. [Sidenote: Athenion heads the slaves in the west.] Then
the slaves of the west rose near Lilybaeum, headed by Athenion, a
Cilician robber-captain before he was a slave, and a man of great
courage and capacity, who pretended to be a magician and was elected
king. [Sidenote: Salvius takes the name of Tryphon.] Salvius took the
name of Tryphon, a usurper of the Syrian throne in 149. Athenion,
deferring to his authority, became his general, and Triocala, supposed
to be near the modern Calata Bellotta, was their head-quarters. In
some respects this second slave revolt was a repetition of the first.
As the Cilician Cleon submitted to the impostor Eunous, who called
himself Antiochus, so now the Cilician Athenion submitted to the
impostor Salvius, who called himself Tryphon. [Sidenote: Lucullus sent
to Sicily, 103 B.C.] The outbreak had probably begun in 105, but it
was not till 103 that Lucullus, who had put down Vettius, was sent
to Sicily with 1,600 or 1,700 men. [Sidenote: Battle of Scirthaea.]
Tryphon, distrusting Athenion, had put him in prison. But he released
him now, and at Scirthaea a great battle was fought, in which 20,000
slaves were slain, and Athenion was left for dead. Lucullus, however,
delayed to attack Triocala, and did nothing more, unless he destroyed
his own military stores in order to injure his successor C. Servilius.
To say that if he did so, such mean treason could only happen in
a government where place depends on a popular vote, is a random
criticism, for, though nominally open to all, the consulship was
virtually closed, except to a few families, which retained now, as
they had always done, the high offices in their own hands, and, when
Marius forced this close circle, Metellus is said to have acted much
as Lucullus did.
Servilius was incapable. Athenion, who at Tryphon's death became
king, surprised his camp, and nearly captured Messana. [Sidenote: M'.
Aquilius ends the war.] But, in 101, M'. Aquilius was sent out, and
defeated Athenion and slew him with his own hand. A batch of 1,000
still remained under arms, but surrendered to Aquilius. He sent them
to Rome to fight with wild beasts in the arena. They preferred to die
by each other's swords there. Satyrus and one other were left last,
and Satyrus after killing his comrade slew himself. The misery caused
in Sicily by this long war, which ended in 100 B.C., may be estimated
by the fact that, whereas Sicily usually supplied Rome with corn, it
was now desolated by famine, and its towns had to be supplied with
grain from Rome.
After this narration of the military events of the period to the
beginning of the second century B.C., it is natural to consider the
changes which Marius had effected in the army--the instrument of his
late conquests. [Sidenote: Changes in the Roman army.] We cannot tell
how many of the innovations now introduced were initiated by him, but
they were introduced about this date. Before his time the Hastati,
Principes, and Triarii, ranked according to length of service,
had superseded the Servian classes. From his time this second
classification also ceased. [Sidenote: Arms of the legionary.] Every
legionary was armed alike with the heavy pilum--an iron-headed javelin
6 feet 9 inches long, the light pilum, a sword, and a coat of armour.
Besides these he had to carry food and other burdens, which would vary
according to the length and object of the march, such as stakes for
encampment, tools, &c. [Sidenote: The 'Marian mules.'] Marius invented
what were called 'Mariani muli' to ease the soldier--forked sticks,
with a board at the end to bear the bundle, carried over the
shoulders. Before his time the army had ceased to be recruited solely
from Roman citizens. Not only had Italians been drafted into it,
but foreign mercenaries were employed, such as Thracians, Africans,
Ligurians, and Balearians. [Sidenote: The light troops auxiliaries.]
After his time the Velites are not mentioned, and all the light-armed
troop were auxiliaries. [Sidenote: The cohort the tactical unit.]
Before his time the maniple had been the tactical unit. Now it was the
cohort. [Sidenote: Composition of the legion.] A legion consisted of
ten cohorts, each cohort containing three maniples, and each maniple
two centuries. The legion's standard was the eagle, borne by the
oldest centurion of the first cohort. Each cohort had its 'signum,'
or ensign. [Sidenote: Standards.] Each maniple had its 'vexillum,' or
standard. [Sidenote: Officers.] There were two centurions for each
maniple, one commanding the first and the other the second century,
and taking rank according to the cohort to which they belonged, which
might be from the first to the tenth. The youngest centurion officered
the second century of the third maniple of the tenth cohort. The
oldest officered the first century of the first maniple of the first
cohort, and was called 'primus-pilus,' and the 'primi ordines,' or
first class of centurions, consisted of the six centurions of the
first cohort. These corresponded to our non-commissioned officers,
were taken from the lower classes of society, and were seldom made
tribunes. [Sidenote: The tribunes.] The tribunes were six to each
legion, were taken from the upper class, and after being attached
to the general's suite, received the rank of tribune, if they were
supposed to be qualified for it. The tribunes were originally
appointed by the consuls. Afterwards they had been elected, partly by
the people and partly by the consuls. Caesar superseded the tribunes
by 'legati' of his own, to one of whom he would entrust a legion, and
appointed some, but probably not all, of the tribunes, and Marius, it
seems likely, did the same. [Sidenote: Numbers of the legion.] The
normal number of a legion had been 4,200 men and 300 horse, but was
often larger. [Sidenote: The pay.] The pay of a legionary was in
the time of Polybius two obols a day for the private, four for a
centurion, and six for a horse soldier, besides an allowance of corn.
But deductions were made for clothing, arms, and food. Hence the law
of Caius Gracchus (cf. p. 51); but from the first book of the Annals
of Tacitus we find that such deductions long continued to be the
soldier's grievance. Auxiliary troops received an allowance of corn,
but no pay from Rome. [Sidenote: The engineers.] The engineers of the
army were called Fabri, under a 'praefectus,' the 'Fabri Lignarii'
having the woodwork, and the 'Fabri Ferrarii' the ironwork of the
enginery under their special charge, [Sidenote: The staff.] and all
were attached to the staff of the army, which consisted of the general
and certain officers, such as the legati, or generals of division, and
the quaestors, or managers of the commissariat. [Sidenote: The Cohors
Praetoria.] One of the most significant changes that had sprung up
of late years was one which was introduced by Scipio Aemilianus at
Numantia--the institution of a body-guard, or Cohors Praetoria. It
consisted of young men of rank, who went with the general to learn
their profession, or as volunteers of troops specially enlisted for
the post, who would often be veterans from his former armies. The term
Evocati was applied to such veterans strictly, but also to any men
specially enlisted for the purpose. [Sidenote: The equites.] It is
probable that the equites no longer formed the cavalry of a legion,
but only served in the general's body-guard, as tribunes and
praefects, or on extraordinary commissions. The cavalry in Caesar's
time appears to have consisted entirely of auxiliaries.
[Sidenote: Disinclination for service at Rome.] There had been for a
long time among the wealthier classes a growing disinclination for
service, and as the middle class was rapidly disappearing, there
had been great difficulty in filling the ranks. The speeches of the
Gracchi alluded to this, and it had been experienced in the wars with
Viriathus, with Jugurtha, with Tryphon, and with the Cimbri. One
device for avoiding it we have seen, by the orders issued to the
captains of ships in Italian ports. Among Roman citizens, if not
among the allies, some property qualification had been required in a
soldier. [Sidenote: Marius enrols the Capite Censi.] Marius tapped a
lower stratum, and allowed the Capite Censi to volunteer. To such men
the prospect of plunder would be an object, and they would be far more
at the bidding of individual generals than soldiers of the old stamp.
Thus though obligation to service was not abolished, volunteering was
allowed, and became the practice; and the army, with a new drill, and
no longer consisting of Romans or even Italians, but of men of all
nations, became as effective as of old, if not more so, and at the
same time a body detached from the State. [Sidenote: The army ceases
to be a citizen army.] The citizen was lost in the professional, and
patriotism was superseded by the personal attachment of soldiers of
fortune, who knew no will but that of their favourite commander or
their own selfishness. Their general could reward them with money, and
extort land for them from the State; and when Marius after Vercellae
gave the franchise to two Italian cohorts, saying that he could not
hear the laws in the din of arms, he was giving to what was becoming a
standing army privileges which could not be conferred by a consul, but
only by a king.
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