rather by having no address at all, for he had no fixed residence; and
there was, consequently, much difficulty in finding him. At length he
fought a battle, in which he was so far successful that a peace was
concluded, in which he was acknowledged as the friend and ally of Rome;
but having no one to save him from his friends, he was basely murdered
in his sleep by some Lusitanian assassins that the Roman general had
hired. The instigators of this barbarous act refused to pay when the
sanguinary work was done; and the murderers, in making a demand on
account of their crime, may be said to have, figuratively, cut their own
throats, for they were threatened with punishment for the iniquity they
confessed themselves guilty of. After the death of Viriathus, the
Lusitanians having lost their head, were without the brains necessary to
defend themselves, and fell an easy prey into the hands of Q. Pompeius.
This individual was the son of a musician; but instead of following his
father's profession, he had become the leader of a warlike band, and he
found the soldiers willing instruments to play into his hands, or act in
concert with him, for the gratification of his personal ambition. He
attacked Numantia, though with so little success, that he was compelled
to conclude a peace; but treacherously declaring that the conclusion of
a peace meant the beginning of a war, he renewed hostilities at the
first convenient opportunity. Subsequently, C. Hostilius Mancinus
commenced an attack, but 10,000 of his men having been killed, and
20,000 more being blocked up in a ravine, he could not exactly see his
way out of it without a surrender. The Numantines refused to treat with
him, until young Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, whom they trusted, came
forward to pledge his honour that Numantia should be fairly treated. The
Senate, however, repudiated the arrangement, and the honour of young
Tib. remains among the enormous stock of unredeemed pledges which
history has handed down to us.
The Romans began to feel that none but the best man was likely to win,
and they accordingly looked out for the best man, whom they found in
Scipio Africanus, the destroyer of Carthage. He was sent against
Numantia, which he surrounded by fortifications, in order that he might
starve out the inhabitants by keeping them in, and he did his utmost to
restore the discipline of the Roman army. He hardened the soldiers by
making them carry loads of wood, a novel plan of providing them with a
billet; he forced them to sleep on the ground, which they complained of
as hard; and he allowed them no other cooking utensils than a saucepan,
which caused the indignation of many to boil over.
Numantia stood upon a lofty rock, and its inhabitants displayed a
courage worthy of its high position. The river Durius (now the Douro)
washed its feet; there were forests on either hand; while the mounds and
ditches abounding in the vale before it, rendered any attempt to
approach it in the front almost unavailable. Scipio Africanus soon
perceived the hopelessness of succeeding by a direct attack, and he
proceeded, therefore, to raise round the place a double stockade, to
prevent any aid in the form of a stock of provisions being carried into
it. He impeded the navigation of the river by throwing across it large
beams, perforated with swords, which, revolving with the tide, cut off
all communication by means of water.
Notwithstanding all the precautions that had been taken, a party of
about half-a-dozen young men, having slipped through the lines--and very
hard lines they were--succeeded in reaching the town of Lutia. The head
of the party, holding an olive-branch, begged for assistance with such
effect, that the Lutians offered to lend him a hand in his terrible
emergency. Scipio, who had been in pursuit, no sooner heard of the
Lutians having offered to lend a hand, than he savagely declared that
they should have no hands to spare, and he barbarously ordered the
cutting off of the hands of four hundred citizens.
The Numantines being completely hemmed in, were unable to obtain
provisions; but though reduced at last to eat cats, they became only the
more dogged in their resistance to the enemy. Eventually, they begged
for a truce of three days, which they employed in destroying their wives
and children--a species of heroism not easily understood; for to kill
those who are dear, by way of protecting them, is a mode of insurance of
which we must dispute the policy. The men were so sadly dispirited, and
so fearfully cut up by their own or each other's swords, that the
conquerors had only a remnant to take, in the shape of population, when
they entered the city.
In conformity with the custom of the period, Scipio Africanus Minor,
whose atrocities, in connexion with the siege of Numantia, have branded
his name for ever with disgrace, proceeded to make arrangements for a
triumph. Instead of feeling a decent shame, he manifested a most
unbecoming pride in what he had done; and to identify himself more
completely with the horrors of the siege, he took the name of
Numantinus. So thoroughly had starvation done its work, that of the few
citizens who were found alive, only fifty were in sufficiently good
condition to appear in the show got up in celebration of his
dishonourable victory.
While Rome was thus extending her arms, she may be said to have been
painfully on the stretch; and Scipio, during his consulship, seeing the
republic was likely to outgrow its strength, caused prayers to be said
for its safety. Rome was certainly in danger, though from a different
cause than that which had been apprehended; for the free population had
been greatly reduced by war, and the captives, or slaves to
circumstances, had been vastly multiplied. The office of the latter was
to tend flocks; and they were so thoroughly regarded as a portion of the
stock, that they were treated like brutes by their masters.
The system of slavery which existed at Rome, had so much influence upon
her fate, and is calculated to afford such an insight into her morals,
that the fetters she placed upon others may be regarded as so many links
in her history. We will, therefore, break for a moment the chain of
narrative, and proceed to a brief consideration of the Roman system of
slavery and chains, to which we cannot hope that the attention of the
reader can remain long riveted.
According to the strict letter of the Roman law, a master could treat,
or maltreat, his slave in any way he pleased, either by death, sale, or
punishment. Though the slave could hold no property, he had the power of
taking anything he could get, but simply as a medium for conveying it to
his master. So thoroughly were the slaves looked upon as articles of
traffic, that they were liable to be pledged or put into pawn--a
position in which they were the subjects of a melancholy sort of
interest.
The demand for slave labour in Rome was caused by the annual consumption
of the free population in war, at whose bidding many who should have
remained to cultivate the land, were sent forth to plough the ocean. The
result was a redundancy of slave population, accustomed to agricultural
labour of every kind, and which, having been already brought under the
yoke, had become sufficiently brutalised to do the work of oxen. The
chief supply of slaves was drawn from the prisoners taken in war, and an
army was generally attended by dealers, who, in case of a glut, could
frequently buy a lot cheap; and at the camp of Lucullus they were being
picked up for about three shillings and three-pence of our money--or
four drachmas. In Rome it was usual to sell slaves by auction, and, as
if the poor wretches were not already low enough, they were knocked down
by the hammer. The dealers were in the habit of practising the same sort
of tricks to conceal the defects of a slave, as are, in these days,
employed to hide the faults of a horse, and it was customary therefore,
in purchasing, to require a warranty. The character was often suspended
on a scroll round the neck, and their chief recommendation consisted in
a guarantee that they would neither commit suicide, nor steal--having no
tendency to make away with either themselves or their master's property.
There was a considerable variation in the value of slaves, and fancy
prices have been known to be given for some curious specimens of captive
humanity. A fool has been known to fetch 20,000 sesterces--about one
hundred and seventy pounds--a sum that would seem to show that folly was
scarce; but when we remember how wise a man is required to make a fool,
we may take it for granted that the wisdom comprised in the subject of
the bargain was the rare and costly part of it. Literary men were often
exposed for sale like cattle when they happened to be slaves, and the
useful hack, or occasionally the literary lion, might be seen chained to
a pen in the public market-place. Slaves had no distinctive dress; and
when it was once proposed to give them one, the measure was rejected, on
the ground that it might show them their numerical strength, and that if
they once saw their power by obtaining their livery, they might attempt
to take up their freedom. It was deemed better to keep them in the dark,
by clothing them in sombre colours, and their numbers not being
manifested to them by any peculiar dress, it was not likely they would
unite in order to redress their grievances.
There is, however, something elastic in human nature, which causes it to
rise after being trodden on. Such was the case with the slaves, who
began to swell with indignation, which was rendered particularly tumid
by the inflated and inflating eloquence of one Eunus, a Syrian, who was
a member of their own body. This individual possessed the art of oratory
in a high degree, and there is nothing more stimulating to the breeze of
discontent than the breath of an enthusiastic demagogue. He persuaded
the slaves to revolt, and while preaching to them the doctrine of
equality, he claimed to be not only their leader, but their prince and
ruler--a species of practice which is not uncommon with the propounders
of the most levelling theories. Pretending to possess the gift of
prophecy, he predicted that he would be a king one day; and the rich,
putting a mimic crown on his head for a few hours, jeeringly told him
that he had been a king one day--or at least half a day, and that his
prediction had been therefore verified. The slaves, however, put faith
in him, and shouldering their spades, axes, poles, and hatchets, made
themselves, as well as their implements, the tools of Eunus. No less
than 70,000 slaves acknowledged as their head the man who taught them
that they ought to have no head at all, and he urged them to a merciless
massacre of their vanquished foes, while inculcating the doctrines of
humanity. Rage without restraint, and revenge without reason, were,
however, of no permanent avail, and the slaves under Eunus were soon
routed by the disciplined forces of the Consul, Rupilius. He besieged
Tauromenium; and the slaves, by being completely shut in, were
altogether shut out from the chance of obtaining provisions. Their
condition from day to day was so desperate and monotonous, that, with
nothing to eat, they furnish but sorry food to the historian. Having
swallowed their last morsel, the inhabitants could not satisfy their
hunger by bolting the gates, and Rupilius was admitted within the city.
Eunus escaped into a cutting in the rocks; but when he relied on the
friendly shelter of the cave, he found it a hollow mockery. His retreat
was discovered, and he was taken into custody with his cook, his
confectioner, his butler, and his buffoon, who, with the exception of
the last, must have held sinecures in their master's limited
establishment. The buffoon must have been worked the hardest of the
party, for the pursuit of mirth under difficulties is one of the most
melancholy tasks that can be imposed on the professed humorist. Eunus
himself was transferred from his subterranean cellar to an underground
cell, where it is said he was devoured by rats; but happily this horrid
tale receives no authentic ratification at the hands of history.
The Servile War had not yet ceased, when Attalus, the King of Pergamus,
died, and left no sign; for there was no succeeding king's head for the
crown of Pergamus to rest upon. It was fortunate, perhaps, that Attalus
left no heir; for had there been any inheritor of his qualities as well
as his title, the perpetuation of a nuisance would have been the
deplorable consequence. The man was so thoroughly wicked that it is
charity to pronounce him mad, and we accordingly set him down as a
lunatic, though we feel scarcely justified in acquitting him of his many
crimes on the single ground of insanity. He is said to have been so much
addicted to the practice of poisoning his relations, that he found it
cheaper to grow his own plants; and he cultivated the hemlock, or the
night-shade, as others grew their own faba or cicer, their beans and
chickweed. Death lurked at the root of everything his garden contained,
and it is probable that he sent many a present of putative mushrooms to
his unsuspecting kindred. So odious had he become, that it is said he
would have been murdered, if he had not died a little too soon for the
arrangements of the assassins to be completed. Having been in the habit
of expressing his will very briefly in his lifetime, it is not
surprising that he should have left at his death a will, so short, that
it purported to say in four letters all he desired. His last testament
was comprised in the characters P. R. H. E.; and all his property was
supposed to be represented in this small collection of capitals. The
Romans affecting to be initiated in the meaning of these initials,
declared them to signify, _Populus Romanus hæres est_, Let the Roman
people be the heirs of my property. Regarding these letters as letters
of administration, the Romans possessed themselves of all the effects of
Attalus; but the will was disputed by the next of kin, one Aristonicus,
a natural brother, whose claim to succeed, as a member of the testator's
line, was stifled by a rope, with which the unfortunate claimant was
cruelly strangled.
[Illustration: Arrest of Eunus.]
Pergamus became a Roman province under the name of Asia Proper--a
species of appropriation which there was nothing to justify.
Rome was now in the position of a man who had outgrown his strength, or
rather of an adult still wearing the clothes of its infancy. Its
measures had been adapted to a social body which had since spread itself
in all directions, while the constitution, with which it was clothed,
had not been extended to the new growth; and the extreme points of the
Republic were therefore reduced to all sorts of extremities. The people
at large had become so miserably poor, that they were easily bribed to
become the tools of their own further abasement; and they were not only
ready to sell themselves for a mere nothing, but to lend themselves to
almost anything.
The tribuneship, which had been originally a purely popular institution,
had changed, or rather lost, its character. Instead of being stationed
outside the entrance of the Senate House, to prevent the door from being
opened to abuse, the Tribunes were, by a law of C. Atinius, constituted
_ex-officio_ members of that aristocratic body. The design of the
tribuneship was to insure to the people a certain number of friends
invested with high authority; but the people were eventually anxious to
be saved from their friends--a result that is by no means rare in
ancient or modern history. As the bitterest vinegar can be made from the
most generous wine, the sharpest of despots is often created out of the
blandest of demagogues.
So great had the power of the Tribunes become, and so much had it been
abused, that even the Senate grew jealous of it; and a law was enacted
to bring the tribuneship under the operation of signs and omens. These
were interpreted by the Augurs, who of course had the power of reading
in the lightning, and hearing in the reports of the thunder, whatever it
suited their purpose to circulate.
Aristocracy had lost its exclusive privileges; but these had only become
more objectionable by being spread over a larger surface; for they were
now extended to a certain portion of the plebeians, who went by the name
of _novi homines_, or upstarts. These were distinguished from the
Nobiles, or, to speak shortly, the nobs, who enjoyed the right of having
the images of their ancestors in wax; but this _jus imaginum_, as it was
termed, conferred only an imaginary dignity. There was no legal
privilege attached to the sort of nobility above described; but those
persons who were qualified by the possession of the waxen forms of their
fathers, were looked upon as men making in society a highly respectable
figure.
Notwithstanding the liberty which is declared by republicans to be
inseparable from the Republican form of Government, laws were passed to
restrain the liberty of private action in the days of the Roman
Commonwealth. By the Orchian law, made in the year of the city 572 (B.C.
181), the number of guests that might sit down to dinner was limited:
and as a further illustration of republican freedom, it may be mentioned
that the entertainer was obliged to keep open his doors, so that all
who were freely-and-easily inclined might enter his house to see that
the law was complied with. Twenty years later, it was decreed by the law
of Fannius, that no entertainment should cost more than one hundred
asses, or six shillings and five-pence farthing, on high days and
holidays; on ten other days in the month, the meal was not to exceed
thirty asses, or one and eleven-pence farthing; but on ordinary
occasions seven-pence farthing was the figure to which even the richest
man was to limit the cost of his dinner. The law not only interfered
with the bill of expenses, but with the bill of fare; and, under the
Consulship of M. Scaurus, the dormouse was excluded from the
dinner-table as an enervating luxury. Vegetables were allowed to any
extent, and bread might be eaten at--or even beyond--discretion.
To such a ridiculous extent did the Romans carry their interference with
the private expenditure of each other, that when Crassus and Cn.
Demetrius were Censors, they endeavoured in the most absurd manner to
damage each other's popularity. Demetrius publicly charged Crassus with
having been guilty of extravagance for going into mourning on the death
of a favourite fish; and Crassus retorted by declaring that Demetrius
had lost three wives without exhibiting signs of mourning for any one of
them.[64]
FOOTNOTE:
[64] Macrobius, Saturnal., lib. ii., c. 1.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD
THE GRACCHI AND THEIR MOTHER. RISE AND FALL OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS
GRACCHUS.
A people trained to live chiefly on spoils taken from others must be
continually spoiling itself for any peaceful occupation; and those whose
chief support is the sword, must be always destroying the food they live
upon. When foreign means are exhausted, it becomes necessary to look at
home, and those who have existed by robbing strangers, are no sooner
deprived of their external sources of support, than they begin to rob
each other. Such was the order--or rather the disorder--of things in
Rome, where wealth had got into the hands of the few, and the social
fabric, like a building too heavy at the top, was in immediate danger of
a downfall. There were large classes of persons who were assured that
they were perfectly free; but, though enjoying the freedom of air
itself, they found in it no element of comfort, when they had nothing
more substantial than the air to live upon. Deprived of every inch of
land, there was but a flatulent sort of satisfaction in the enjoyment of
the atmosphere, nor could the most long-winded of orators impress the
people with the idea that life could be maintained by simply imbibing
the breath of liberty. They were informed that they were the lords of
the earth;[65] but this mockery of respect was simply insulting the
emptiness of their mouths by a scarcely less empty title. The plebeians
were like a number of ciphers without a preliminary figure, and, though
possessing all the materials of strength in their vast body, were
powerless until a head could be found for them. This at length appeared
in the person of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, the grandson of the elder
Scipio, and as two heads are said to be better than one, Tib. united his
brother Caius with him in the office of leader to the great plebeian
movement.
The elder Gracchus had been tutored by his mother Cornelia--one of the
earliest members of the ancient and honourable order of blue-stockings.
She had superintended the education of her children, and had personally
tutored them in eloquence; an art of which the female tongue is
peculiarly capable. Her own house was the resort of some of the first
philosophers of the day, who, like many modern philosophers, were
thoroughly impressed with the idea that the way to penetrate the
youthful mind, is to continue for ever boring it. In this manner the
understandings of the young Gracchi had been thoroughly drilled, and the
treasures of science had been admitted at so many apertures, that the
only fear was lest the treasures, through some of the numerous
openings by which they had got into the mind, might find their way out
again.
[Illustration: _The Mother of the Gracchi._]
Tib. had already won some reputation in Spain, and was returning home,
when he saw the Etrurian estates of the wealthy being cultivated by
foreign slaves in chains, whose bonds not only bore the seal of
degradation for themselves, but were the means of fettering native
industry. These slaves were housed and huddled together in places called
Ergastula, which were literally workhouses, but practically, prisons.
They are said to have been built under-ground in the shape of vaults;
but, in giving this account of their construction, there has perhaps
been some misconstruction on the part of Columella, who is the chief
authority for the statement.
We must now return to Tib. Gracchus, who had, by this time, returned to
Rome, and had formed the noble resolution of remedying abuses, though he
knew that loud abuse of himself would be the inevitable consequence. He
had seen that the aristocracy had got possession of nearly all the land,
allowing the plebeians to have no share in it, except the ploughshare,
and even this was often denied them by the employment of slaves instead
of the free agricultural labourer. Tib. was learned in the law, and
recollected the existence in the books of the old statute of Licinius,
which had fallen into disuse, and the renewal of which he thought might
put new life into the plebeian body. By this law, no one was allowed to
occupy more than 500 jugera--about 330 English acres--of the land of the
state; but the state of the land exhibited a very different distribution
of the public property.
The poorer occupants of the soil had been compelled by their necessities
to sell to the richer, and Tiberius made the popular but scarcely honest
proposal, that those who had bought should give back to those who had
sold--a suggestion which was hailed by the masses as the happy
inspiration of a patriot. The idea was simple enough, and if simplicity
is an element of grandeur, the notion was so far a great one; though, as
it is based on the principle, that when a man has sold everything he
possesses, the purchaser or the possessor should hand the property back
to the original vendor, the project is not well adapted to business
purposes. The suggestion was, however, one which enabled a patriot to go
to the country with a "cry," and though the end proposed was laudable
enough, the means, which involved an interference with the means of the
wealthy, could not command the general approval. It is true that much of
the property had been unfairly obtained, and that much more was held in
illegal quantities; but some had been the subject of regular sale, and
the general confiscation proposed was but a Procrustean measure of
justice.
The plan was of course opposed, and the term of "selfish aristocrat" was
liberally, or illiberally--for they are unfortunately too much alike,
sometimes, in their political sense--bestowed on every one who did his
utmost to protect what the law had allowed him to regard for years as
his own property. Common sense, however, began so far to prevail over
clamour, that the proposal of Tib. Gracchus was modified to some extent,
and the distribution of the surplus land was confided to a permanent
commission of three men, who were called the Triumviri. In order to give
something like consistency to the measure, it provided, that the land
which had been taken away from its old possessors should not be sold by
the new; and thus a sort of uniformity was observed by robbing the
former, and restricting the latter; so that the principle of not being
able to do what one likes with one's own, was affirmed in each instance.
The injustice of the whole proceeding was so palpable, notwithstanding
the "popularity" of the scheme, that a compensation clause was
introduced to indemnify those who had built houses at their own expense
upon the ground; but nothing was awarded to those who had only built
upon it their hopes of being allowed to continue in quiet possession of
the property.