MARIUS AND CINNA.
[Sidenote: Flight of Marius.] Meanwhile what had become of Marius?
Already a halo of legend was gathering round his name, and all Italy
was ringing with his adventures. When he had fled from Rome (not sorry
now, we may be sure, that he had gone through his late exhibitions
in the Campus Martius), he had sent his son to some of his
father-in-law's farms to get necessary provisions. Young Marius was
overtaken by daylight, before he could get to his father-in-law's
farm, and pack the things up, and was nearly caught by those on his
track. But the farm-bailiff saw them in time, and, hiding him in a
cart full of beans, yoked the teams, and drove him to Rome. [Sidenote:
Ostia.] There young Marius went to his wife's house, and, getting
what he wanted, set out at nightfall for Ostia, and finding a ship
starting for Africa, went aboard. His father had not waited for his
return. He too had embarked at Ostia for Africa with his son-in-law.
But now in his old age the sea was not so kind to him as when, in
his bold and confident youth, he had sailed to sue for his first
consulship from the very land to which he was now flying. A storm came
on, and the ship was blown southwards along the coast. Marius begged
the captain to keep clear of Tarracina, because Geminius, a leading
man there, was his bitter foe. [Sidenote: Circeii.] But the storm
increased; Marius was sea-sick, and they were forced to go ashore at
Circeii (Monte Circello). Some herdsmen told them that horsemen had
just been there in pursuit; so they spent the night in a thick wood,
hungry, and tortured by anxiety. Next day they went to the coast
again, and Marius implored the men to stand by him, telling them that
when he was a child an eagle's nest fell into his lap, with seven
young ones in it, and the soothsayers had said that it meant that
he should attain to the highest honours seven times. [Sidenote:
Minturnae.] About two miles and a half from Minturnae they spied some
horsemen making towards them; and, plunging into the sea, they swam
towards some merchantmen near the shore. Two slaves swam with Marius,
keeping him up, and he got into one ship, and his son-in-law into the
other, while the horsemen shouted to the crew to put ashore, or throw
Marius overboard. The captains consulted together, and a terrible
moment it must have been for the fugitives. But the spell of the
Cimbric victories was potent still, and the captains replied that they
would not give up Marius. So the soldiers rode off in a rage. But the
sailors, having so far acted generously, were anxious to get rid of
their dangerous guest, and, landing at the mouth of the Liris, on
pretence of waiting for a fair wind, told Marius to go ashore and get
some rest, and, while he was lying down, sailed away. Half stupified,
he scrambled through bogs, and dykes, and mud, till he came to an
old man's cottage, and begged the owner to shelter a man who, if he
escaped, would reward him beyond his hopes. The man told him that he
could hide him in a safer place than his cottage; and, showing him a
hole by the riverside, covered him up in it with some rushes. But he
was soon rudely disturbed. Geminius was on his trail, and Marius heard
some of his emissaries loudly threatening the old man for hiding an
outlaw. In his terror Marius stripped and plunged into the river, and
so betrayed himself to the pursuers, who hauled him out naked and
covered with mud, and gave him up to the magistrates of Minturnae. By
these he was placed under a strong guard in the house of a woman named
Fannia. She, like Geminius, had a personal grudge against him, for in
his sixth consulship he had fined her four drachmas for ill-conduct.
But now when she saw his misery she forgot her resentment, and did
her best to cheer him. Nor was this difficult, for the stout heart of
Marius had never failed him. He told Fannia that, as he was coming to
her house, an ass had come out to drink at a neighbouring fountain,
and, fixing its eyes steadily on him, had brayed aloud and frisked
vivaciously, whence he augured that he would find safety by sea. The
magistrates, however, had resolved to kill him, and sent a Cimbrian
to do the deed, for no citizen would do it. The man went armed with
a sword into the gloomy room where Marius lay. But soon he ran out
crying, 'I cannot slay Marius.' He had seen eyes glaring in the
darkness, and had heard a terrible voice say, 'Darest thou slay Caius
Marius?' His heart had failed him; he had thrown down the sword and
fled. Either the magistrates now changed their minds, or the people
forced them to let Marius go, or perhaps Fannia connived at his
escape. Plutarch says that the people escorted him to the coast, and,
when they came to a sacred grove, called the Marician Grove, which no
man might enter, but which it would take a long time to go round, an
old man had led the way into it, saying that no place was so sacred
but that it might be entered to save Marius. [Sidenote: Aenaria.] In
some way he reached the coast where a friend had secured a vessel,
and being driven by the wind to Aenaria (Ischia), he there found his
son-in-law and sailed for Africa.
[Sidenote: Eryx.] Want of water forced them to put in at Eryx on the
N.W. of Sicily; but the Roman quaestor there was on the look-out, and
killing sixteen of the crew nearly took Marius. Landing at Meninx
(Jerbah), the fugitive heard that his son was in Africa too, and had
gone to Hiempsal, King of Numidia, to ask for aid, upon which he set
sail again and landed at Carthage. [Sidenote: Carthage.] The Roman
governor there sent to warn him off from Africa. Marius was dumb with
indignation, but on being asked what answer he had to send, replied,
so ran the story, 'Go and say you have seen Caius Marius sitting on
the ruins of Carthage.'
Hiempsal meanwhile had been keeping young Marius in a sort of
honourable captivity. But, according to a story similar to that told
of Thomas à Becket's father, a damsel of the country had fallen in love
with his handsome face, and helped him to escape. [Sidenote: Circina.]
Father and son now retired to Circina (Kerkennah), where news soon
reached him which brought him back to Italy.
[Sidenote: Counter-revolutions at Rome.] Hardly had Sulla left
Brundusium when the truce which he had patched up was broken. Cinna
being bribed, as was said probably without foundation, with 300
talents, had demanded that the Italians lately enfranchised should be
enrolled in the old tribes. [Sidenote: Cinna.] We do not know very
much about Cinna, but we do seem to gather that he was bold, resolute,
not ungenerous or bloodthirsty; and it cannot be too strongly insisted
on that, like Saturninus, and Sulpicius, and Drusus, he was only
demanding justice. [Sidenote: Street-fighting. Cinna driven from
Rome.] Octavius opposed him, and, hearing that Cinna's partisans were
threatening the tribunes in the Forum, he charged down the Via Sacra
with a band of followers, and dispersed them, and a great number of
Cinna's followers were slain. On this Cinna left Rome, and, joined by
Sertorius, whom we shall hear of again, went round the towns mustering
his friends. The Senate declared his consulship to be void, and
elected L. Cornelius Merula in his place. [Sidenote: His cause
espoused by the Campanian army.] Cinna, with characteristic audacity,
instantly hastened to the army in Campania; and, rending his clothes
and throwing himself on the ground, so worked on the pity of the
soldiers that they lifted him up, and told him he was consul still,
and might lead them where he pleased. [Sidenote: Marius lands in
Etruria.] Then, visiting the Italian towns, he obtained many recruits;
and, hearing that Marius had landed in Etruria (perhaps on his
invitation), he agreed to act in concert with him, in spite of the
opposition of Sertorius.
[Sidenote: The Senate summons Pompeius from Picenum.] Meanwhile
Octavius and Merula had fortified the city, had sent for troops from
Cisalpine Gaul, and had summoned the proconsul Pompeius from Picenum.
Pompeius came and halted at the Colline Gate. It was suspected that
he was waiting to join the successful side. With him was his son,
afterwards called 'the Great,' who now showed of what stuff he was
made by putting down a mutiny against his father and baffling a plot
for his own assassination. [Sidenote: Marius sacks Ostia, and he,
Sertorius, and Cinna hem Rome in.] Marius, with a band of Moors, and
the slaves whom he had collected from the Etrurian field-gangs, was
admitted by treachery into Ostia and sacked the town. Cinna marched to
the right bank of the Tiber, opposite the Janiculum. Sertorius held
the river above the city, and a corps was sent to Ariminum to prevent
any help coming from North Italy. [Sidenote: The Senate summons
Metellus, and courts the alliance of the Samnites.] At this crisis the
Senate sent for Metellus and tried to obtain the aid of the Samnites,
who, as we have seen, joined Marius and Cinna. The treachery of a
tribune in command of the Janiculum gave the Marians admission to
the city. But they were driven out again, and might even have been
dislodged from the Janiculum had not Pompeius persuaded Octavius to
check the pursuit. Pompeius was playing a waiting game, ready to join
the strongest, or crush both parties, as he saw his chance. And now
within the city starvation set in, and a pestilence spread. Marius had
blocked up the Tiber, and occupied the outlying towns on which the
communications of the capital depended. Nor could the Senate trust its
own troops. [Sidenote: Death of Pompeius.] Pompeius was killed by a
thunder-bolt--not less suspicious than that which slew Romulus--and
his body had been torn from the bier, and dragged through the streets
by the people. [Sidenote: Disaffection in the Senate's troops.] The
soldiers of Octavius cheered Cinna when he marshalled his troops
opposite them near the Alban Mount. Moreover the leaders themselves
were at variance. Octavius, seeing the humour of his men, was afraid
to fight, but would concede nothing. Metellus wished for a compromise.
Both armies were now outside the city, the pestilence probably having
driven the Marians to withdraw. But Marius had command of the Via
Appia, the Tiber, and most of the neighbourhood; and the famine became
sorer in Rome. [Sidenote: Incompetence of Octavius and Metellus.] The
soldiers wished Metellus to take the command from Octavius, and, on
his refusal, deserted in crowds to the enemy. So also did the slaves,
to whom Octavius would not promise freedom, as Cinna gladly did.
[Sidenote: The Senate submits to Cinna.] At last the Senate sent
to make terms with Cinna; but while they were stickling about
acknowledging his title of consul, he advanced to the gates. Then they
surrendered at discretion, only begging him to swear to shed no blood.
Cinna, refusing to be bound by this condition, promised that he would
not voluntarily do so. For he saw by his side the grim figure of the
man to whom he had given pro-consular powers, who had already taunted
him with weakness for conferring with the Senate at all, and in whose
sullen, unshorn face he read a craving for vengeance which nothing but
blood would satisfy.
[Sidenote: A massacre at Rome.] When Cinna entered the city, Marius,
with savage irony, said that an outlaw had no business within the
walls, and he would not come in till the sentence had been formally
rescinded by a meeting of the people in the Forum. But the gates,
when once he had passed them, were closed, and for five days and five
nights Rome became a shambles. Appian says that Marius and Cinna had
both sworn to spare the life of Octavius. But Marius was never a liar,
and the story is false on the face of it; for just before this Appian
relates how, when Cinna had promised to be merciful, Marius would
make no sign. [Sidenote: Death of Octavius.] Octavius is said to have
seated himself in his official chair, dressed in his official robes,
on the Janiculum, and to have awaited the assassins there. His head
was fastened up in front of the Rostra in emulation of the ghastly
precedent set by Sulla. He was an obstinate, dull man; and if this
burlesque of the conduct of the senators when the Gauls took Rome was
really enacted, the theatrical display must have been cold comfort for
those of his party on whom his incapacity brought ruin. [Sidenote:
Chief victims of the massacre.] [Sidenote: The Caesars.] Among the
latter were the brothers Caesar, Caius, who had sought to be consul
before he was praetor, and had been denounced for it by Sulpicius,
and Lucius, the conqueror at Acerrae and author of the Julian law.
[Sidenote: Publius Crassus.] Publius Crassus, consul in 97, and one of
Caesar's lieutenants in the Social War, fled with his son, and when
overtaken first stabbed his son and then himself. [Sidenote: Marcus
Antonius.] Marcus Antonius, the great forensic orator, was so odious
to Marius that the latter, on hearing that he was taken, wished, so
the story runs, to go and kill him with his own hand. Antonius was in
hiding, and was betrayed by the indiscretion of a slave, who, being
questioned by a wine-seller why he was buying more or better wine
than usual, whispered to him that it was for Marcus Antonius. On the
soldiers coming to kill him, he pleaded so eloquently for his life
that they wept and would not touch him. But their officer, who was
waiting below, impatiently came up and cut off his head with his own
hand. Lucius Merula opened his veins, and so bled to death. His crime
was that he had been made consul when Cinna was deposed. His last act
seems odd to us, but pathetically bespoke the man's piety and recalls
the last scene in the life of Demosthenes. He wrote on a tablet that
he had taken off his official cap when opening his veins, so as to
avoid the sacrilege of a flamen of Jupiter dying with it on his head.
[Sidenote: Catulus.] Marius had behaved generously once to Q. Lutatius
Catulus, his old colleague against the Cimbri; but Catulus had helped
to drive him into exile, and there was to be no second mistake of that
sort. 'He must die,' he said, when the relatives of Catulus pleaded
for his life. It is not unlikely that disease, and drinking, and his
late hardships had made the old man insane. He had been occasionally
good-natured in former days; now he seemed to gloat in carnage. For
every sneer cast at him, for every wrong done to him in past years, he
took a horrible revenge. When Cinna had summoned him, he had said that
he would settle the question of enrolment in the tribes once for all.
He wished not to select victims, but to massacre all the leading
optimates. Sertorius begged Cinna to check the slaughter. Cinna did
try to curb the outrages of the slave bands; but he dared not break
with Marius, whom he named as joint consul with himself for the year
86. But as soon as his colleague was dead, he and Sertorius surrounded
the ruffians and killed them to a man.
[Sidenote: Death of Marius.] Marius did not live much longer. He had
had his revenge. He had gained his seventh consulship. It is said
that, telling his friends that after such vicissitudes it would be
wrong to tempt fate further, he took to his bed and after seven days
died. He drank hard, was seized with pleurisy, and in his last hours
became delirious. He fancied that he was in Asia, and by shouts and
gestures cheered on the army of his dreams, and with 'such a stern and
iron-clashing close' died January 13 or 17. He was more than seventy
years old, and had enjoyed his seventh consulship for either thirteen
or seventeen days.
Lucius Valerius Flaccus succeeded Marius as consul, and passed a
law making one-fourth of a debt legal tender for payment of it; and
probably in the same year the denarius was restored to its standard
value. A census was also held, which would include the new Italian
citizens, and Philippus, whose opposition to Drusus on this very
question had helped to kindle the Social War, was censor. [Sidenote:
Settlement of Italian disabilities by Cinna.] Cinna, as he was pledged
to do so, must have carried some measure for enrolling the Italians
in the old tribes; but we can only conjecture what was actually done.
Sulpicius had already carried such a measure, but it had been probably
revoked by Sulla before he left Italy. In 84, just before his return,
the Senate, it is said, gave the Italians the right of voting, and
distributed the libertini, or freed slaves, among the thirty-five
tribes. Perhaps this was a formal ratification of what had been passed
before under Cinna's coercion.
[Sidenote: Cinna's supremacy.] Cinna was now all-powerful at Rome.
For four successive years, 87 to 84 B.C., he was consul; and with the
exception of Asia, Macedonia, Greece, and Africa, where Metellus had
escaped and was in arms, the whole Roman world was at his feet. But
he did not know how to use his power. He may have removed the
restrictions on grain, and did proclaim Sulla and Metellus outlaws;
but, though he should have bent every energy to hinder Sulla's return,
he did worse than nothing, and, instead of Sertorius, sent the
incapable Flaccus and the ruffian Fimbria against the general who had
just taken Athens and defeated Archelaus. The miscarriage of their
enterprise will be told in the next chapter. When Cinna suddenly
became alive to the fact that the avenger was at hand, and that either
he must act promptly or Sulla would be in Rome, he hastened to Ancona,
where he sent one division of the army across to the opposite coast.
But the second division was driven back by a storm; and the soldiers
then dispersed, saying that they would not fight against their own
countrymen. On this the rest of the army refused to embark. Cinna went
to harangue them, and one of his lictors in clearing a way struck
a soldier. Another soldier struck him. [Sidenote: Cinna slain at
Ancona.] Cinna told his lictors to seize this second mutineer, and in
the tumult that arose Cinna was slain. Plutarch says that the troops
murdered him because he was suspected of having killed Pompeius, and
that, when he tried to bribe a centurion with a signet-ring to spare
him, the centurion replied that he was not going to seal a bond but
slay a tyrant. But Cinna probably died as he lived, a brave man, and
one who could not have held ascendency for so long, and over men like
Sertorius, had he not been an able as well as a brave man.
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