Chapter M: Livius Drusus (1)

The republic was shaken to its very centre, the great point of contest being the administration of justice. The _equites_ had so abused their power as judges, that they had public opinion against them: this was partly owing to their jealousy against the senate, and partly on account of their quarrels with individual senators in the provinces. The system of general farmers of the revenue had become more and more developed; the companies had leases of the mines, customs, tithes, and such like things, and some of them put their money out to usury; and they exacted from the people in the provinces much more than these were bound to give. They had again their sub-farmers; thus for instance, the _publicans_ in the gospel were the agents of the _publicani_. The same thing is done to this day. The contract for feeding the galley slaves, was only a short time since given by the Roman government to an actress, who had a very fair price paid to her for it, so much a head being allowed her; but she sublet the contract to others, each making a trifling profit on it, down to the very last of them, and the prisoners were literally all but starved. If a consul or proconsul had ground the people in the provinces, and screened the _publicani_, he was safe at Rome when prosecuted; but if a man who was just and blameless thwarted the revenue farmers in their exactions, they would revenge themselves by charging him with extortion, and get a verdict against him by means of false witnesses. This was the fate of P. Rutilius, and it excited universal indignation. It was impossible to find any check for this, as each one always supported the rest. The ill-blood which there was at that time between the senate and the knights, is to be found among all nations, at a certain stage of their progress, between the land-owners and the monied men; as is now the case throughout Europe. The senate, the _optimates_, held the great bulk of the landed property; the _equites_, on the other hand, possessed the capital with which the great commercial speculations were carried on. Moreover there were in Rome many circumstances under which monied property might be abused to the detriment of the nation, and every one who belonged to the government, was, owing to the ways in which the courts of justice were constituted, at the mercy of the _equites_. With regard to all these matters, Montesquieu, admirable as he generally is, is mistaken; and on the whole, they have not been well explained by modern writers, though they may be brought very clearly before our mind’s eye. There was now an open war against the judicial power, stirred up by the tyranny of the latter.

The happy ending of the war with the Cimbri and Teutones, and the putting down of the rebellion of Saturninus, were followed by a season of precarious tranquillity in which no thinking man could indeed have been blind to the real state of Rome, though the common herd might have felt as if all was going on right. Yet the symptoms of its being necessary to bring the great questions of the age to a definitive decision, showed themselves more and more. Things had come to that pass, that no one seems to have thought of a reform which could have given relief, though many changes were made; and it is one of the signs of the times, that those who wanted to rise in the world, had to begin by making themselves popular, after which they went over to the opposite side. Thus it was that Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus transferred the nomination to the pontificate and the other priestly offices, from the colleges, which used to fill up their own numbers, to the tribes; and this was indeed so managed that the smaller half of the tribes was chosen by lot to be the electors. In the earliest times, the right of choice undoubtedly belonged to the patricians alone; when, however, the patricians and plebeians shared these offices between them, plebeians also were added to the voters; but afterwards, when the curies were no longer assembled, but were become altogether changed, it was quite natural, that the election should be left to the colleges themselves. The clause that the lesser half of the tribes was to elect, seems to have been based on an old form of expression, the patricians, when they were still in existence, having been called (perhaps in the twelve tables) _minor pars populi_; a different meaning was now given to it. This was the last trace which remained of the old constitution.

The two questions which filled the minds of every one, were the courts of justice and the citizenship of the allies. The want of a change in the former, was strongly felt by the best men as well as the worst. People like Mucius Scævola, whose behaviour in the provinces had been quite exemplary--he came to the Asiatics like an angel from heaven, his conduct was really most touching--ran the greatest risk of being condemned though altogether guiltless; the worst men, from quite opposite motives, had the same wish for a reform of the courts, as they would then be acquitted by the senators. The question of the citizenship of the Italians bore the closest analogy with that of the emancipation of the Roman Catholics in Ireland. Every one was well inclined to it: but then things would take an unfavourable turn; a great many interests came in the way, and people again would have nothing to do with it. This is one of the most melancholy conditions in which a free state can be, when there is no knowing how to heal an evil which is manifest to every one. The allies had, even from the days of the tribuneship of Tib. Gracchus, been taught to ask for the Roman citizenship, which was their “emancipation.” Thirty years had now passed since then; they had often had great hopes, which had been blighted over and over again. Whereas in former times, the relations of Rome towards her allies had been more friendly than those of any ruling city, the most bitter hatred now arose. The very people who sometimes had held out hopes to the Italians, inveighed against it, when those allies put forth their claims too insolently. As far as we can judge of all the facts, nothing had been done for them with the exception of one law, by which the tithe from the _ager publicus_ was abolished; this, however, we only know from Appian. They now urged their demands more strongly than ever, and the right of Roman citizenship was even becoming more valuable in their eyes; for they were getting more and more like the Romans, they had learned to speak the same language, and yet in war and in peace they were to be subject to the sway of Roman masters. In this fermentation, the rulers at Rome were greatly terrified; but whenever they came to a decision, they only increased the irritation. Thus some Italians had quietly taken to themselves the right of citizenship; one of them, M. Peperna,[87] had even attained to the consulate and the censorship, and now it was found out that he was not lawfully a citizen. In the general breaking up, everything at Rome fell into confusion: the calendar was in the time of Cæsar, owing to arbitrary intercalations, more than eighty days behindhand; and in a like manner, the census had been disturbed by the admission of allies, as they had assumed the character of citizens, and the censors had classed them in the tribes. Now in the _lex Mucia Licinia_, the mad resolution was suddenly come to, of making strict inquiries into this matter, and striking off all those who were not citizens in the fullest sense of the word. This could not but have exasperated an immense number of people: but the infatuation which then prevailed everywhere was inconceivable.

By degrees however, a considerable party in the senate became convinced that a reform must take place; and these were the sons of the very men who had baffled the plans of the Gracchi. They wanted to make an attempt to remedy the evil, the reform most urgently called for being a change in the judicial system. But this was opposed by all the immense influence of the _equites_, which was so great as to make even Polybius say that, in his times, few people only had nothing to do with them. To carry this out, men now thought of giving the full franchise to the Latins and allies; and this ought to have been done at any rate. Under these circumstances, M. Livius Drusus, the son of him who during the tribuneship of Gracchus had gotten an unhappy celebrity, a man of uncommon talent, whose hands were clean, became tribune, and thought upon remedies: all sensible people and the chief persons in the state joined with him to hinder a revolution by means of a reform. Here again much is obscure; for in what belongs to these later ages, we are sometimes much more under the necessity of guessing, than with regard to the earlier times: then the form was a reality, being based upon numbers; now, it had wholly lost its meaning. What is most likely, is that a statement of Appian after all is correct, according to which it was the chief aim of Drusus to bring in a mixed system, and not to give back the administration of justice to the senators alone, which would have caused a revolution. By the _lex Servilia_, the rule had already been laid down, that the judges in the courts should be divided between the knights and the senators; but this did not last long. The senate consisted of three hundred men, and to these, it is said, he meant to add three hundred knights; from both of them combined, the jury was to be chosen by lot: for ever since the days of C. Gracchus, there was really a system like that of trial by jury. The English antiquaries have wanted to find it even at an earlier period; but they were wrong: in civil cases there were still single _arbitri_; but for political offences, and also for felony, there were _quæstiones perpetuæ_ which were analogous to the modern jury courts. It is probable that by this measure of reform, one half of the jury must have been made up of senators, and the other of knights. Thus M. Livius offered to these last an advantage which they might have as a compensation, instead of the exclusive exercise of the judicial power. To this another law was tacked, by which _quæstiones_ were to be appointed, to inflict punishment on any one who should be convicted of having given wrong judgment for the sake of a bribe, or from favour. What was to be the form of these _quæstiones_, is more than we can tell; in all likelihood they were to be held by the tribes. But there were very many knights, who had no wish whatever to be in the senate: it was much more agreeable to them to stand highest among those who did not belong to that body, and instead of sharing its moral responsibility, to be always able to find fault and to judge. It seems moreover that the law of Drusus did not enact that the three hundred of each class were to be kept distinct for ever; it is more likely that this filling up of the senate was only thought of as a transitory measure, and that eventually the judicial power was to rest again with the senate. The knights now said that this was neither more nor less than a scheme to outwit them; that they would afterwards have a senate of six hundred, into which more knights were admitted than there used to be, but that the courts of justice would be taken out of their hands. Yet the plan of Drusus seems after all to have been the best thing that could have been done at that time; as he also meant to give the citizenship to the Italians, thus renewing the strength of the higher classes by bringing in a fresh aristocracy, and enlarging the Roman state into a nation. He likewise aimed at restoring the middle classes, and carrying through a new agrarian law in favour of the Romans and Italians: but about this we know very little indeed. Yet as the Italians were more closely connected with the Romans, than with the Umbrians and Etruscans from whom they were politically severed; the same split showed itself between these two masses, which there had been in the time of C. Gracchus between the Romans, on the one hand, and the Latins and Italians, on the other. The Latins were in the colonies scattered all over Italy from Valentia in Bruttium to the foot of the Alps, and in the few old Latin towns which had not yet got the right of citizenship, as Tibur and Præneste; by Italians were meant the Sabellian peoples, the Sabines, the Marsians and their confederates, the Picentines, Samnites, and perhaps also the Lucanians, unless the condition of these had been made worse by the war of Hannibal. Very likely the boon was not intended to be given to Apulians and Sallentines, where the Greek element was paramount. All the rest were looked upon as foreigners; and therefore nothing was said in this matter about the Umbrians, Etruscans, Bruttians, and the Greek maritime towns. Yet we may learn from the history of every free state, how the growth of such claims will keep spreading wider and wider. At Geneva, there had long been a struggle between the _citoyens_ and _bourgeois_,[88] and the latter of these won for themselves the same rights as the former. Then started up the claims of the _natifs_, who had been born in Geneva of foreign parents, and had sided with the _representants_ in their quarrel with the _negatifs_; and in the revolution of 1789 they were granted the full franchise. But then came also the _habitants_, the strangers, and demanded the same rights. Such a succession of claimants is to be found in all republics, whenever there is any stagnation in them. The history of Drusus is the _crux historicorum_, unless one speculates on the state of things in a thoroughly practical spirit. Freinsheim, who lived entirely among his books, and who never thought of looking at what had happened in his own city of Strasburg, was not able to understand those relations; he was quite bewildered by them. Without this kind of knowledge, the tribuneship of Drusus is a riddle: he is said to have been an aristocrat, and still to have been popular.

The knights opposed the two laws with the utmost fury; notwithstanding which they were carried, as the Italians came in crowds to Rome, ready to take up arms, if need be. As this had therefore been brought about by the most unlawful means, the majority of the senate, with an infatuation which is beyond belief, resolved, when the Italians were gone, that the promise to the allies should not be kept; and on Drusus’ urging it, he met with a refusal. This gave rise to the most deadly hatred between him and the faithless senate, which accounts for Cicero’s words, _tribunatus Drusi pro senatus auctoritate susceptus infringi jam debilitarique videbatur_.[89] He appeared either in the light of a liar, or a dupe. And even as the knights were displeased with Drusus, so likewise, on the other hand, was the stupid party of the oligarchs then uppermost. They said, “Shall we then for ever place on the same footing with ourselves those three hundred knights who are thorns in our side?” Such people are blind to the inevitable necessity of making some concessions: by merely saying “no!” they think that they can keep everything in its old place. Thus there now happened what, from the nature of the human heart must have come to pass: Drusus, who until then had been a zealous partisan of the government, henceforth began an opposition against the senate which was quite at variance with his former ways. The ruling faction in the senate, as well as the _equites_, wished for the death of Drusus; the consul Philippus was his sworn foe. It was this man who first uttered that terrible saying, that there were not more than two thousand families in Rome which possessed unimpaired property. The unhappy Drusus at once saw himself forsaken. He was a man of a violent temper, and yet he had undertaken that most perilous task of negotiating as a mediator with the Italians; (the Latin colonies were quiet; for as they were sure of being the first enfranchised, they let the others urge their claims, and but few of them had entered into the interests of the Italians.) That curious fragment from the Vatican, which the editor did not understand, and entitled Ὅρκος φιλίππου,[90] gives us the oath which the Italians took. It betokens an association of a very peculiar kind; they bound themselves to obey his orders unconditionally, and to enrol in their districts partisans who would stand by him, as was done thirty years ago in Ireland. Drusus was in such a state, that he could hardly be said any longer to have a will of his own; he was in a perfect fever: had he been fairly supported by those who were in power, he might still have found a way out of his difficulties. But he was already goaded into frenzy; and his behaviour towards Philippus, in which he did things that he ought never to have ventured on, strongly shows in what a fever he must have been. When on the eve of a great debate, he was now walking up and down with his friends in the lobby of his house,--in these corridors which had no windows, and were lit up with candelabras, the men of rank would move about among a throng of people who were assembled there, and give audience,--he was stabbed in the side by an assassin. The man who did it was never discovered, and it is even uncertain by whom he was hired. He had scarcely been dead a few hours, when all his laws, with the exception of those which related to the courts of justice, were annulled; and in doing this, the senate arrogated to itself a power hitherto unheard of.

Drusus’ death fell out at a most unfortunate moment. The Italians were excited to the highest pitch, and yet there was no one to take their part: public opinion at Rome was against them, as if they were rebels; just as perhaps in England the great body of the people were hostile to the emancipation of the Irish Roman Catholics, or, when the American war broke out, to the North Americans. The party of Drusus, which now showed itself again in the senate, was entirely without a head: Crassus had just died; the two Scævolas, M. Antonius, and the wisest men, knew no longer what to advise, and were intimidated. Instead of allaying the storm, people rashly dared it, the knights charging the senate with treason. The former had at their beck a tribune, Q. Varius,--whose right of citizenship was not even certain, as he was born in Spain of a Spanish mother, though his father was a Roman: this was a brutal man, _vastus homo et fœdus_, as Cicero calls him, whose impudence served him instead of talent. He moved that a court should be established to discover the traitors who had negotiated with the Italians about their emancipation; and the bill was carried against the strongest opposition of the first men in the senate, the knights joining for this purpose with the rabble, who indeed were most furious. They appeared in the forum in arms when the question was put to the vote. There sprang up now a vast number of impeachments; several of the very noblest were convicted of having given traitorous encouragement to the Italians. A very remarkable state of feeling had at this time arisen in Rome: the senate acted the part of democrats; the people, headed by the knights, that of the aristocrats; and whereas the former wished to emancipate the Italians, the latter would not do it.

THE SOCIAL WAR. MITHRIDATES. CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE PARTIES OF MARIUS AND SYLLA. L. CORNELIUS CINNA.

The Social War is one of those periods of Roman history in which the scantiness of our information is particularly annoying. Livy had described the events of those two years in four books; but the only connected narrative which we have, is the scanty one of Appian, and besides this there are some exceedingly brief notices.[91] And yet the Social War is one of the very greatest, not only on account of the passions which were displayed in it on both sides, but also because of the changes in its fortunes, and the excellent generalship which was to be found in both armies.

The first symptoms of a tendency of the allies to separate themselves, are met with even as early as the second Punic war, when the allies in the camp of Scipio mutinied, and chose two consuls from among themselves;[92] the insurrection of Fregellæ followed soon afterwards. The war was not begun by those who had originally planned it, but by the peoples which lived farther off. Which of these was the first to resolve upon it, is more than we know; but it is stated that in the year 662, during the tribuneship of M. Livius Drusus, there was a plot to kill the Roman consuls (Philippus especially) and the senate at the Latin Feast. At that solemnity indeed, the whole of the Roman magistracy (συναρχία), consuls, prætors, and even tribunes of the people, were present; so that there remained behind but a _præfectus urbi Latinarum causa_, who was a young man of rank. Now as the Latins mustered there in strong numbers, it is very probable that it was they who had entertained that design, especially the men of Tibur and Præneste; at the same time, it may have happened that so many Italians came thither, that they on their part, deemed the thing feasible. Drusus heard of this atrocious project, and denounced it: for, even if he had not been a man of honour, he was still a Roman, and he did what he wanted to do, just as much for the advantage of his own country, as from any love which he bore to the allies. After the death of Drusus, the Italians, making no secret of their unmitigated rage, sent round ambassadors, and gave each other hostages for mutual security. The Roman government, on the other hand, appointed commissioners with proconsular power for Picenum, where the commotion was fiercest, to remind the allies of their duty. There being what we would call a diet of the Picentines at Asculum, the proconsul Q. Servilius Cæpio, accompanied by M. or C. Fonteius (I do not exactly remember his _prænomen_[93]), came forward, and ventured to address the people, so as to induce them, either by exhortation or by threats, to desist from their intention. But their minds were so exasperated, that a rash word made them break out; and he and his companion were murdered in the theatre at Asculum. The Italians now wished no longer for the Roman franchise; but they wanted to form a sovereign Italian people, in which all who got out of the grasp of the Romans were to be received. All the Romans who were at Asculum were seized, and most of them slain. In the fragments of Diodorus, among the _excerpta de sententiis_, there is a little story of a harlequin, who was a great favourite with the Romans, and who just then made his appearance in the games at Asculum; the people, believing him to be a Roman, were going to kill him, when he only saved himself by proving that he was a Latin. (In this passage, instead of Σαυνίων, we are to read Σαννίων, the old name for Pulcinella; and this is the first mention of that mask.[94])

The insurrection now broke out everywhere; but the same atrocities do not seem to have been perpetrated among the other peoples as were done by the Picentines at Asculum, who were a cowardly abject race; the Marsians and other nations were quite equal to the Romans in refinement. The Italian peoples who at that time revolted, are mentioned in the Epitome of Livy, and by Orosius: they are the Picentines, Marsians, Marrucinians, Vestinians and Pelignians, the Samnites and Lucanians. Appian speaks also of the Apulians, who indeed were in arms; but it is very likely that they had no share in the Italian state. Those peoples in fact were all of them Sabellians, or Sabine colonies; the others, as well as the Apulians who were Oscans, may have joined them merely as being their dependents. Some of the towns also round the bay of Naples were among those which rebelled; of the Latin colonies, Venusia sided with them. Afterwards, the Umbrians likewise took up arms, and for a short time, the Etruscans as well; but they too did not belong to the republic.

The Italian peoples, according to Appian,[95] who alone has recorded this fact, had established a senate of five hundred persons, and chosen two consuls and twelve prætors, thus altogether adopting the forms of the Roman republic. One consul was Pompædius Silo, the soul of the undertaking, who was a Marsian and the guest-friend of Drusus, with whom he had formerly negotiated; the second was C. Papius Mutilus, a Sabine. And not to speak of this constitution, the nations were very widely distinct from each other: they had been parted for centuries, each standing by itself; so that when they now made themselves independent of Rome, there could not but have been a great temptation to be independent of each other, their principles and pursuits being different. The Samnites, whom afterwards C. Pontius Telesinus led against Rome, that he might, as he said, destroy the den of the wolf, had from of old entertained an implacable hatred against Rome; and indeed Pontius Telesinus himself, who in this war with Sylla showed such undaunted resolution, and whose thoughts were ever bent on Rome’s annihilation, may have sprung from the _Gens Pontia_ of that C. Pontius who had so terribly humbled the Romans at Caudium. The Marsians, on the other hand, had never had a fierce and protracted war with the Romans, as the latter had always faithfully fulfilled their honourable conditions with them. These therefore were quite a heterogeneous element of the league. The seat of the government was Corfinium, in the country of the Pelignians, a small but valiant people, and the town now assumed the name of Italica: denarii are not unseldom found, which have the inscription _Italia_ and _Viteliu_. The latter, which is the Oscan way of writing, belongs to the Samnites; the former, the Latin one, to the Marsians, who had a language of their own, but Latin letters: from this we see that those nations differed also in their languages. Among the Samnites, the Oscan was indeed the prevailing language; the Marsians and their allies were of far purer race than the Sabines, although in a wider sense of the word they were all of them Sabines. There are also coins still existing with the likeness of C. Papius Mutilus.

At the outbreak of the war, the allies had decidedly the advantage. The only thing which saved the Romans, was that the Latin colonies remained true to them; as there is no doubt but that as soon as ever the struggle began, the Romans granted the full franchise to the Latins by the _lex Julia_, which was so called from the consul L. Julius Cæsar. It is a common, but yet an incorrect way of speaking, to say that the Italians had got the rights of citizenship through the _lex Julia_; for they did not get these all at once by one law, but by several distinct enactments which were successively enlarged. Unhappily we know of none of their details. The _lex Julia_ applied to the forty or fifty Latin colonies; and not only to those in Italy, but also to Narbo and Aquæ Sextiæ (the former is mentioned at a later period as _colonia civium Romanorum_), and without doubt to Tibur and Præneste as well, besides those other old Latin towns which had not received all the rights of citizenship in the year 417.[96] To this last class the Hernican towns especially belonged; and perhaps also Venafrum, Atina, and some others, in which at that time there was a _præfectura_. This gave a great increase to the strength of the Romans, who even in the war with Hannibal had thus brought into the field eighty thousand men able to bear arms, all of whom spoke Latin, Roman citizens likewise being mingled with them. It was now seen how foolish it was in the Romans to have let things go so far; for had they turned a deaf ear to the Latins also, Rome would have been lost. This grant of the franchise dates from the beginning of the year.

Although Hiero in his day had still said that the Romans employed none but Italian troops, yet they now carried on the war with soldiers raised from whatever country they could get them, with Gauls, Mauritanians, Numidians, Asiatics: not a place was spared in the levy. Thus by degrees the preponderance of the Italians was balanced by the Latins, and outweighed at last by the foreigners. Moreover, Rome had an immense advantage from her central position, and her colonies which were scattered all over Italy. By her position, she cut off the North from the South; by her colonies, which it was everywhere necessary to beset with troops, the resources of the allies were frittered away.

The history of the war is chiefly to be found in Diodorus and Appian. I have been at much pains about it, and have tried to put the materials in order; yet I have only just barely succeeded in getting anything like a clear notion of it. The scene of the war was in three different districts: there was an army of the south, a central, and a northern army. The southern army of the allies was in Campania as far as the Liris; that of the centre, was from the Liris, all through the country of the Sabines, to the neighbourhood of Picenum; that of the north, in Picenum: here was the utmost boundary of the operations, whilst the Greek towns in the rear of the Italians kept neutral. Nothing whatever is now said of the Bruttians; so much had that unfortunate nation suffered in the war of Hannibal: nor is there any mention of the Messapians, who may already have been entirely hellenized. The Roman colony of Venusia, as we remarked above, took the side of the allies, its population having at length almost become Apulian and Lucanian, so that indeed the Latin language was scarcely any longer the one most in use. In the army of the South, C. Papius Mutilus held the command against the Roman consul L. Julius Cæsar. Mutilus conquered Nola, Muceria, Pompeii, and Stabiæ, and carried the war into Campania. Capua was kept by the Romans; Naples and the Greek cities remained faithful, acting as if the war was no concern of theirs. The struggle was very sharp around Acerræ: at the end of the year, the allies had the best of it.

With the army of the centre, Pompædius, or Poppædius, Silo opposed P. Rutilius Lupus: the former showed himself to have been a great general, and the Roman commander, who was no match for him, lost his life in the battle. But Sylla and Marius were with the army there, which was the main one, as lieutenant-generals; and Rome owed it to these, that limits were put to the success of the enemy. The Latin colony of Æsernia in the midst of Samnium, was conquered by the Samnites. Here was seen the hatred of the colonies against the Italians; for the people of Æsernia, who seem to have had faith in the lucky star of Rome, held out until they were reduced by hunger: the Samnites in the beginning of the siege had certainly offered them a free retreat. The first who had any brilliant success, was Cn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of him who afterwards was called _Magnus_, a _prætor proconsulari potestate_: he had all the profligacy of his age, notwithstanding which he was a distinguished man. He defeated the Picentines in a battle near Asculum, where there were 75,000 Italians against 65,000 Romans: the Romans gained a decisive victory, and a terrible chastisement was inflicted upon Asculum. The Picentines, on the whole, had to suffer most grievously for their conduct. Cn. Pompeius now advanced from the north: the Italian peoples lost their feeling of confidence in victory, and owing to the want of hearty union among themselves, were no longer able to stand their ground. First of all, the Vestinians separated from the rest; and now the Romans held out allurements to the nations singly, granting them peace and the franchise. What the conditions were we know not, though there must have been more than the _civitas sine suffragio_: the Romans, however, must have taken care not to lay down a distinct rule; for afterwards there is a dispute about the meaning of the grant. Velleius Paterculus, a very ingenious writer who was perfectly master of his subject, whatever objections one may have to the man himself, tells us that nearly three hundred thousand Italians who were able to bear arms, perished in this war; and that the Romans had not yielded the citizenship to the Italians, until they had spent the last drop of blood which they had to shed. We may, therefore, take it for granted, that half of the whole number of men engaged on both sides were killed, and that therefore the struggle was carried on with the greatest fury, as in a civil war: hence Appian also places it in his work as such.

In the second year, the war is still less to be made out than in the first: thus much only is certain, that the northern Sabellian peoples also, the Marsians, Marrucinians, and Pelignians, had now a separate peace, even as early perhaps as the end of the first year. These new citizens were not distributed among the old tribes, but others were formed out of them: this was quite in keeping with the system of the ancients, as otherwise the old citizens would have been outnumbered in the assemblies of the people, and in the elections, by the new ones. It is not known for certain how many fresh tribes were created: according to a passage in Velleius, there were eight of them. Another statement in Appian[97] is evidently written wrong: there we find δεκατεύοντες ὰπέφηναν ἑτέρας (viz. φυλάς), from which δέκα φυλάς, has been gathered, though perhaps it would then have been better to read δέκα ἐξ αὐτῶν. Yet, from Appian’s usual way of speaking, it seems to have been δεκαπέντε. My reasons for this, are from a feeling of symmetry: if we add 15 to 35, we have 50; 35 is quite an awkward number, which had grown up by degrees, and at which one would not wish to stop; 15 is to 35 as 3 to 7, and is therefore somewhat less than half of the original number, which was now of necessity to be changed. That Velleius has eight, I account for by the circumstance that the Latins had eight tribes given them, and afterwards the Etruscans and Umbrians got seven.

The number of battles fought in this war, is even beyond belief. Corfinium took again its old name, and the seat of government was transferred to Æsernia; the Samnites now formed the real centre of the war, and they carried it on with the same perseverance as they had done in former times: this was at least the case with the three cantons of the Hirpinians, the Caudines, and the Pentrians. The Romans marched into Apulia, and entirely surrounded the Samnites; so that already by the end of the year 663, the war was well nigh decided. The Samnites indeed still held out; yet there were none in arms besides them, but a part of the Apulians and Lucanians. These peoples went on with the war from despair alone: they either reckoned on the movement in Asia caused by the war of Mithridates, or they had made up their minds to perish.

In this second year of the war, there was also a rising of the Etruscans and the Umbrians: but they soon made their peace with the Romans. Their rebellion took quite a different character from that of the Italians:--a prætor conquers the Etruscans, and they get the franchise at once. The Etruscans had formerly furnished no troops for the Roman army: yet now they were ready to take up arms for an honour to which they had not hitherto attached any value. The Roman of rank had in the Marsian a very dangerous rival for all the offices; whereas, on the other hand, the Etruscan, being as a foreigner quite distinct from the Roman, had far less chance of getting these places. The Marsians were to the Romans very much like what the Germans of the North are to those of the South; and therefore they readily blended with the Romans, whilst the Etruscans were to these, as the French, or the Slavonians are to the Germans. The Samnites, as in olden times, wished for the destruction of Rome.

The Italian war had raised the glory of Sylla to its highest point, and now his aversion and enmity against Marius showed itself conspicuously. In the year 664, Sylla had been elected consul at the age of forty-nine, while Marius was already past seventy: Sylla therefore decidedly belonged to a later generation. This utterly widened the breach which in everything had existed between them. Sylla (_Sulla_) is a most original character, and it is difficult to give a cut and dry opinion about him. He was a great general, and also a favourite of fortune, a circumstance on which he himself laid great stress, and which also drew the attention of the crowd upon him; nor is it a delusion, that some men are favoured by luck, either always, or for a long run. When still a very young man, being much under forty, he had distinguished himself in the war of Jugurtha, serving as quæstor under Marius; and he had had the good fortune to carry on the negotiations with Bocchus, so that he looked upon the ending of it as his own work. He had likewise won renown in the Cimbric, and still more so in the Italian war, in the which he far outshone Marius, as he was the only Roman who played a brilliant part in it. He was of the illustrious _gens_ of the Cornelii, and was descended in the sixth generation from that P. Cornelius Rufinus who is honourably mentioned in the war with Pyrrhus; yet the family to which he belonged was undistinguished. The name of _Sulla_ has been rightly derived by Gronovius from _Sura_ (_Surula_, by contraction _Sulla_); consequently it is an apparent diminutive which has the same meaning as the root itself. _Sura_ was a surname of the Lentuli and others. He was in every respect the opposite of Marius. The latter had risen from the ranks, and was a soldier of fortune; Sylla, on the contrary, was a refined man of the world: for his chief delight was in Greek literature; he was quite a master of the Greek language, and a writer of elegant taste. His family being poor, he rose from under as great difficulties as if he had been of humble parentage: the patrician ties were broken, and the Scipios and Lentuli were of no help to him. Marius had all the unhappy feelings of an old man against a younger one who is making his way: this rising sun troubled him, and made him ill at ease; and by treating that extraordinary man with envy and jealousy, he provoked him to an opposition, which--certainly from Marius’ own fault at first--gave birth to their mutual dislike. Ever since the time of the war with Jugurtha, Marius had done his best to keep his rival down; and Sylla must also have said to himself, “had I been in Marius’ place, I should have done just as he did.” Notwithstanding his old age, Marius was insatiable of ruling and commanding, and demanded for himself the conduct of the war against Mithridates, which had been given to Sylla as the consul of that year.

The motive for this war was the very justest on the side of Mithridates, the wrong done by the Romans being too glaring. Mithridates had sprung from a Persian family, which even as early as under the Persian kings had its satrapy in Pontus: the first whom we know of it, in all likelihood was Ariobarzanes, governor of those countries under Ochus. Perhaps it was one of the seven noble families which alone had freedom, being in some sort _sacrosancti_, and invested with the hereditary dignity of governors of those parts. The nation consisted of Syrians and Assyrians; that is to say, the great mass may originally have been Armenian, but as early as in the times of the Assyrian rule over Asia, a colony of Assyrians may have settled here, who called themselves Leuco-Syrians. It was their good fortune, that Alexander did not devastate their country; it was only under his successors, that they got involved in the Macedonian wars: Mithridates the son of the then governor, who arrogated to himself the dignity of a tributary prince, escaped by the friendship of Demetrius Poliorcetes from the jealousy of Antiochus the One-eyed, the father of Demetrius. These countries afterwards established their power on so firm a footing, that even in the fifth century of Rome, their governors already took the title of kings. During the long wars of the successors of Alexander, particularly those of the Syrian kings with Egypt, their strength was completely consolidated; but they were divided by inheritance into two kingdoms, Cappadocia and Pontus proper: they were either under the same dynasty, or at least both of them subject to Persian families. This separation still continued in the beginning of the seventh century (about the year 620), when a Mithridates ruled over Pontus proper and part of Paphlagonia: he gave help to the Romans against Aristonicus, and had before that sent galleys against Carthage; and as a reward they yielded up to him Great Phrygia, which until then had belonged to the kingdom of Pergamus. From a fragment of a speech of C. Gracchus, we find, however, that he had bought this grant from those, who were in power at Rome. Thus then his kingdom was of great extent, and its strength and its revenues were considerable, on quite a different scale from that of our poor Europe. At that time, Lesser Asia was divided into the kingdoms of Pontus and Bithynia, of which the former was the largest; into the Roman province; and into Cappadocia and the southern coast, where Cilicia, Caria, Pamphylia, and a number of small independent states, were then in a chaotic confusion.

Mithridates, justly called the Great, had at the death of his father--the Mithridates mentioned above--been left an infant, and had come to the throne after hard trials. Though he had given no provocation, he had very early been injured by the Romans, who, we know not why, took back from him that highly important possession of Great Phrygia which his father had gained. This treachery awakened in him an implacable feeling of revenge. Besides his many other remarkable qualities, Mithridates had an extraordinary talent for dissimulation; and thus while he seemed to be altogether quiet, but was silently making his preparations, he sought to widen his dominions without doing any mischief to the Romans. He conquered the Cimmerian Bosporus, the Crimea, and the south of the Ukraine as far as the Dnieper; which gave him a great accession of strength. Soon afterwards he found an opportunity of gaining Cappadocia, where there were quarrels about the succession, the reigning king having been declared supposititious: he now placed his own son or brother on that throne. This aroused the jealousy of the Romans, and they set up against him another pretender. Ever since he had become of age, he had done his utmost to collect a fleet and a large army, evidently against Rome; and in the meanwhile he reckoned on the war which was raging in Italy, nor is there any doubt of his being connected with the allies. Yet he had not completed his preparations at the right moment; and this circumstance, as in so many other cases, saved Rome, this time also, from the impending danger. Had he engaged in this undertaking two years earlier, at the beginning of the Social War, things might indeed have taken a different turn; but he made too sure of the success of the Italians, and he believed that they would render his conquests only still more easy.

Rome in the meanwhile recovered herself from the Marsian war, which lingered on but feebly. In the second year of the struggle, she had sent commissioners to Asia to prescribe laws to Mithridates; and this may have overawed him: for, much as they had fallen off, their political weight was still the same, and threatened as they were by the greatest dangers in Italy, they did not yet lose sight of Asia. Moreover Mithridates then abetted the designs of a brother of king Nicomedes of Bithynia, in whose worthless race parricide and fratricide were quite common occurrences. Nicomedes was expelled, and Mithridates became the ally of the new king; yet he allowed himself to be so far daunted by the Romans as to put up with the restoration of Nicomedes in Bithynia, and of Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia, though he did not indeed give up his plan of revenge. The Romans, however, might if they had wished it, have still kept off the war much longer, and the government would perhaps have liked to have done it; but individuals who governed the provinces, and hoped to gain booty, would not hear of peace, but forced Nicomedes into hostilities against Mithridates, that they might have an opportunity of coming to his assistance. Cappadocia was not allied to the Romans, and Nicomedes foreboded ill of the result. Mithridates, of course, revenged himself by invading Bithynia; and there, when he had defeated the king, he again set up against him his brother as a pretender: the Roman senate now thought it high time to interfere. Treating him as if he were the aggressor, they demanded that he should abstain from all hostilities against Bithynia, and acknowledge as king of Cappadocia the man of their own choice. Mithridates bitterly complained of this injustice, saying that the Romans had indeed already taken away Great Phrygia from him. In the meanwhile, the war in Italy was all but decided, as the Samnites only and the men of Nola were still in arms, all the rest having obtained the citizenship; but the Romans were so exhausted, that they could hardly make war. They opposed to him three armies, in which very few could have been Romans, chiefly consisting of Asiatic troops. The result of this undertaking was just what it deserved. After having utterly routed two armies, Mithridates overran the neighbouring countries, conquered Bithynia, placed his son again on the throne of Cappadocia, and took the whole of the Roman province, the inhabitants of which, to a man, welcomed him with enthusiasm as their liberator. The rage against the Romans was here so great, that the people in all the towns in Asia Minor, which were quite hellenized, looking upon the war as finished, slew on one and the same day, as a proof of their fidelity to Mithridates, all the Romans and Italians who were among them. The number of these is said to have been seventy thousand, which is almost beyond belief, as after all none but those who were well off, and men of business, could have resided there: the massacre was carried out with the greatest cruelty. Thus the many usurers and bloodsuckers perished, who after the hard wars of Aristonicus had wrung the highest rates of interest from the people which was in need of money; and who, backed by the cohort and the protection of the Roman præfect, had ventured upon every sort of outrage, and had raised the tolls and taxes in a most arbitrary and overbearing way. Mithridates met with scarcely any opposition on the peninsula; some maritime towns also surrendered to him. And thus, as he was brought up entirely in the Greek manner,--there are no traces of the Magian doctrines to be found in him, except on his coins on which the sun and the moon are to be seen,--the Greeks looked upon him as a fellow countryman in spite of his Persian descent, and he was received with rapture even in Greece itself. Athens unhappily allowed herself to be beguiled by a sophist of the name of Aristion, to open her gates to him, and this fellow set himself up as tyrant. The Peloponnesus and Bœotia went over to Mithridates; the whole of Greece, with the exception of a few places, and likewise the isles of Mitylene and Chios, began to waver. Cyzicus and Rhodes remained true to the Romans: the latter in its wisdom foresaw the issue of the war, and by unshaken fidelity made amends for the faults of which, in the opinion of the Romans, it had been guilty in the war of Perseus. Mithridates occupied all the Roman province but Magnesia, and laid siege to Rhodes. In Rome, these events called forth unbounded rage, and stirred men up to go on with the war in right earnest; but the debate to whom the command in it should be entrusted, gave rise to the first civil war.

By the Sempronian law, the decision lay with the senate, and it appointed Sylla. But Marius, who could not have kept up his great name by distinguishing himself in peace, wanted likewise to have the command in this war. Twelve years had elapsed since his triumph, and he had lost ground in the public opinion: besides which, he had grown old. He might perhaps have been still an able general, although, in the Social War, he distinguished himself but once. The older indeed he grew, the lower he sank in moral worth: he had no more those great qualities which in former days had thrown his faults into the background; but he had still a party, and was the man whom the foes of the aristocracy put forward. Yet all the commotions of that time are not to be accounted for by the feelings of the contending factions, as everything was soon resolved into a mere question of persons.