A History of Rome to 565 A. D Part 12

*The province of Narbonese Gaul.* In 121 B. C. both these peoples were decisively beaten in a great battle near the junction of the Isere and the Rhone by the consul Fabius Maximus and the proconsul Domitius. The Romans were now masters of all southern Gaul, except Ma.s.salia, and organized it as a province. In 118 B. C. a Roman colony was established at Narbo, which was with the exception of the abandoned settlement of Junonia, the first colony of Roman citizens sent beyond the Italian peninsula, although colonies with Latin rights had been founded in Spain long before. To link Italy with Spain there was constructed the _via Domitia_, a military road traversing the new province.

*The Jugurthine War.* It was not long before Rome became involved in a much more serious conflict that was destined to reveal to the world the rottenness and incapacity of its ruling cla.s.s, and to reawaken internal political strife. In 118 B. C. occurred the death of Micipsa, who had succeeded Masinissa as king of Numidia. Micipsa left his kingdom to be ruled jointly by his two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal, and a nephew, Jugurtha. The latter was an able, energetic, but ambitious and unscrupulous prince, who had gained a good knowledge of Roman society through serving in the Roman army before Numantia. However, the three soon quarreled and divided the kingdom. It was not long before Jugurtha caused Hiempsal to be a.s.sa.s.sinated and drove Adherbal from the country. The latter fled to Rome to appeal for aid, on the basis of the alliance with Rome which he had inherited from his ancestors. Thereupon Jugurtha sent his agents, with well filled purses, to plead his case before the Senate.

So successful was he that a Roman commission appointed to divide Numidia between himself and Adherbal gave him the western or richest part of the kingdom. But Jugurtha's aim was to rule over the whole of Numidia, and so he provoked Adherbal to war. In 113 B. C. he succeeded in besieging him in his capital, Cirta, which was defended chiefly by Italians who had settled there for commercial reasons. Two Roman commissions sent to investigate the situation succ.u.mbed to Jugurtha's diplomacy, and Cirta was forced to surrender. Adherbal and all its defenders were put to death.

*Rome declares war.* The slaughter of so many Italians raised a storm in Rome, where the business elements and populace forced the Senate, which was inclined to wink at Jugurtha's disregard of its African settlement, to declare war. In 111 a Roman army under the consul Bestia invaded Numidia.

Again Jugurtha resorted to bribes and secured terms of peace from the consul after a sham submission. However, the opponents of the Senate saw through the trick and forced an investigation. Jugurtha was summoned to come to Rome under safe conduct to give evidence as to his relations with the Roman officials in Numidia. He came and contrived to buy the intervention of two tribunes who prevented his testimony from being taken.

But, relying too much upon his ability to buy immunity for any action, he ventured to procure the a.s.sa.s.sination in Rome itself of a rival claimant to the Numidian throne (110 B. C.). His friends in the Senate dared protect him no longer and he had to leave Italy.

*A Roman defeat, 109 B. C.* The war reopened but the first operations ended in the early part of 109 B. C. with the defeat and capitulation of a Roman army, which was forced to pa.s.s under the yoke, to be released when its commander consented to a recognition of Jugurtha's position and an alliance between him and Rome. In this shameful episode bribery and treachery had played their part. The terms were rejected at Rome, and a tribunician proposal to try those guilty of misconduct with Jugurtha was ratified by the a.s.sembly. In the same year the consul Metellus took command in Africa. One of his officers was Caius Marius. Marius was born of an equestrian family at Arpinum; he served in the cavalry under Scipio Aemilia.n.u.s in the Numantine War; engaged with success in the handling of state contracts; became tribune in 119, praetor in 116, and propraetor in Spain in 115 B. C. He was able and ambitious and chafed under the disdain with which he as a "new man" was treated by the senatorial aristocrats.

*Marius, consul: 107 B. C.* Metellus, in contrast to the former commanders against Jugurtha, was both energetic and honorable. He began a methodical devastation of Numidia, and forced Jugurtha to abandon the field and resort to guerilla warfare. He also tried to stir up disloyalty among the king's followers. But he failed to kill or capture the latter, which alone would terminate the war. Hence when he scornfully refused the request of Marius to be allowed to return and stand for the consuls.h.i.+p in 108, Marius intrigued to get the command transferred to himself, alleging that Metellus was purposely prolonging the campaign. Finally, Metellus saw fit to let him go and he was elected consul for the following year. However, the Senate, wis.h.i.+ng to keep Metellus in command, had not designated Numidia as a consular province. And so the popular party pa.s.sed a law in the a.s.sembly of the Tribes which conferred the command against Jugurtha upon Marius. The Senate yielded to this encroachment upon its prerogatives and Marius superseded Metellus in 107. His quaestor was Lucius Cornelius Sulla, scion of a decayed patrician family, who was destined to become the bitter rival of his chief.

*The end of the war: 107105 B. C.* Marius continued the methodical subjugation of Numidia, but Jugurtha was strengthened by an alliance with his father-in-law Bocchus, king of Mauretania. However, Marius won several hard fought battles over the forces of both kings, and finally, through the agency of Sulla, detached Bocchus from the cause of Jugurtha. Bocchus treacherously seized his son-in-law and handed him over to the Romans.

This brought the war to an end. Numidia was divided among princes friendly to Rome, and Marius returned to triumph in Rome, and to find himself elected consul for the year 104 in defiance of precedent, owing to the fear of a barbarian invasion of Italy from the north and the popular confidence in him engendered by his African successes. Jugurtha, after gracing his victor's triumph, perished in a Roman dungeon.

*Consequences of the war.* The corruptibility and incapacity, combined with an utter lack of public responsibility, displayed by the senators in this war contributed to further weaken the already diminished prestige of their order. Besides it had again been demonstrated that a coalition of the equestrians and the city populace could control the public policy, and in the person of Marius, the war had produced a leader upon whom they could unite.

IV. THE INVASION OF THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONS

*The movements of the Cimbri and Teutons.* The fear of a barbarian invasion of Italy which caused Marius to be elected to his second consuls.h.i.+p was occasioned by the wanderings of a group of Germanic and Celtic peoples, chief of which were the Cimbri and the Teutons. In 113 B. C. the former, a Germanic tribe, invaded the country of the Taurisci, allies of Rome, who dwelt north of the Alps. A Roman army sent to the rescue was defeated. The Cimbri then moved westwards to the Rhine, where they were joined by the Teutons (Toygeni), who were probably a branch of the Celtic Helvetii, by the Tigurini, another division of the same people, and by the Ambrones, a tribe of uncertain origin. In 111, the united peoples crossed the Rhine into Gaul and came into conflict with the Romans in the new province. Two years later the consul Julius Sila.n.u.s was defeated by the Cimbri, who demanded lands for settlement within Roman territory. Their demand was refused and hostilities continued. In 107 another consul, Lucius Ca.s.sius, was defeated and slain by the Tigurini. In 106 Quintus Servilius Caepio recovered the town of Tolosa, which had deserted the Roman cause, and carried off its immense temple treasures.

Three years later he was tried and condemned for defrauding the state of this booty. In 105, two Roman armies were destroyed by the united tribes in a battle at Arausio (Orange), in which 60,000 Romans were said to have fallen. This disaster, the greatest suffered by Rome since Cannae, was largely brought about by friction between the two Roman commanders. The way to Italy lay open but the barbarians failed to take advantage of their opportunity. The Cimbri invaded Spain and the rest remained in Gaul.

*The army reforms of Marius.* In this crisis Marius was appointed to the command against the Cimbri and their allies, and at once set to work to create an army for the defence of Italy. The increasing luxury and refinements of civilization in Italy had begun to undermine the military spirit among the Romans, especially the propertied cla.s.ses, and this had led to a decline of discipline and efficiency in the Roman armies.

Furthermore, the universal obligation to military service was no longer rigidly enforced, partly because of the residence abroad of so many citizens. Appeals to volunteers became more and more frequent. No longer were recruits enrolled for one year only, but took the oath of service for sixteen years. In building up his new army Marius recognized these new tendencies. He relied mainly upon voluntary enlistments, admitting to the ranks, as he had done already in the Jugurthine War, those whose lack of property had previously disqualified them for service in the legions. The soldiers now became recognized professionals, who upon their discharge looked to their commanders to provide for their future. Among the troops loyalty to the state was supplanted by devotion to a successful general, and the latter could rely upon his veterans to support him in his political career. Marius also introduced changes in the arms and equipment of the soldiers, and he is also credited, although with less certainty, with the increase in the size of the legion to 6000 men and its division into ten cohorts as tactical units.

*Marius in Gaul.* During the years 104 and 103 Marius kept his army in Gaul guarding the pa.s.sage to Italy, while he completed the training of his troops and dug a new channel at the mouth of the Rhone to facilitate the pa.s.sage of his transports into the river. He was re-elected to the consuls.h.i.+p for 103 and again for 102 since the danger from the barbarians was not over. In 102 the Cimbri returned from Spain and, joining the other tribes, prepared to invade Italy. The Teutons and Ambrones followed the direct route from southern Gaul, while the Cimbri and Tigurini moved to the north of the Alps to enter Italy by the eastern Alpine pa.s.ses. Marius permitted the Teutons and Ambrones to march by him, then he overtook and annihilated them at Aquae s.e.xtiae. In the meantime, the Cimbri had forced the other consul, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, to abandon the defence of the eastern pa.s.ses and had crossed the Adige into the Po Valley, where they wintered. Marius returned to Italy to join his colleague and face the new peril. In the next year, while consul for the fifth time, he met and destroyed the Cimbri on the Raudine plains near Vercellae. Thus Italy was saved from a repet.i.tion of the Gallic invasion of the fourth century B. C.

The vitality of the Roman state was by no means exhausted as the defeat of the barbarians shows, and men of energy and ability were not lacking, but under the existing regime it required a crisis to bring them to the front.

*The Second Sicilian Slave War, 104101 B. C.* While the barbarians were knocking at the gates of Italy, Rome was called upon to suppress a series of disorders in other parts of her empire, some of which were only quelled after considerable effort. In 104 B. C. occurred a serious rebellion of the slaves in Sicily, headed by two leaders Salvius and Anthenion, the former of whom took the t.i.tle of King Typhon. The rebels became masters of the open country, defeated the forces sent against them, reduced the Sicilian cities to the verge of starvation, and were only subdued by a consular army under Manius Aquillius in 101 B. C.

*War with the Pirates.* Before the slave war in Sicily had been brought to a close the Romans were forced to make an effort to suppress piracy in the Mediterranean. Piracy had been on the increase ever since the decline of the Rhodian sea power, following the Second Macedonian War, for as there were no longer any rival maritime powers Rome had neglected to maintain a navy adequate even for policing the seas. The pirates were at the same time slave traders, who made a business of kidnapping all over the Mediterranean but particularly in the east to supply the slave mart at Delos. In 104 B. C. the king of Bithynia complained to the Senate that one-half of his ablebodied men had been carried into slavery. This traffic was winked at by the Romans, since they needed slaves in great numbers for their plantations, and their business interests profited by the trade.

However the depredations of the pirates at length became too serious to be ignored, and in 102 B. C. the praetor Marcus Antonius was given a special command against them. They had their chief strongholds on the Cilician coast and the island of Crete, and Antonius proceeded to Cilicia, where he destroyed several of their towns and annexed some territory, which became the province of Cilicia.

Besides these troubles the Romans had to face revolts in Spain which broke out spasmodically down to 95 B. C., as well as continual inroads of barbarians from Thrace into the provinces of Macedonia and Illyric.u.m.

V. SATURNINUS AND GLAUCIA

*Popular **triumphs** in Rome.* The successes of their champion, Marius, emboldened the populares to undertake the prosecution of the corrupt and incapable generals of the _optimates_, a number of whom were brought to trial and convicted. Another popular victory was won in 104 B. C. when the _lex Domitia_ transferred the election of new members of the colleges of augurs and pontiffs from the colleges themselves to a Comitia of seventeen tribes chosen by lot.

*The sixth consuls.h.i.+p of Marius, 100 B. C.* Upon Marius himself his present prestige had an unwholesome effect. In spite of the fact that he had violated the const.i.tution by his five consuls.h.i.+ps, four of which were held in succession, he determined to seek a sixth term, although there was now no military danger to excuse his ambition. He leagued himself with the leaders of the _populares_, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, who as tribune had supported Marius in 103, and Caius Servilius Glaucia. Both were ambitious demagogues, who sought to imitate the role of the Gracchi by introducing a legislative program catering to the popular party. For the moment they were successful. Marius secured his sixth consuls.h.i.+p for 100 B. C., Saturninus became tribune a second time, and Glaucia praetor. But violence had to be resorted to in order to carry the elections. Saturninus then introduced bills for the distribution of grain to the city proletariat at much less than half the market price, for the allotment of the lands in north Italy which had been ravaged by the Cimbri, and for the founding of colonies in the provinces. His corn law failed, but the others were forced through by the aid of the disbanded Marian soldiers. However, this appeal to mob violence caused the equestrians to desert the popular leaders, who also lost the sympathy of Marius. Saturninus then sought the consuls.h.i.+p for the next year, and, when it seemed that he would be defeated, caused one of his most influential rivals to be killed. The Senate thereupon proclaimed a state of martial law and called upon Marius to restore order. Saturninus, Glaucia, and their followers occupied the Capitol, where they were attacked and forced to surrender upon promise that their lives would be spared. But Marius was unable to protect them from the vengeance of their foes who ma.s.sacred all the captives. Again the Senate had conquered by a resort to force, but this time their opponents had first appealed to the same means. For the time Marius suffered a political eclipse; he had shown no political capacity and had been unable to control or protect his own party which was now divided and discredited.

VI. THE TRIBUNATE OF MARCUS LIVIUS DRUSUS, 91 B. C.

*The **trial** of Rutilius Rufus: 93 B. C.* The senators and the equestrians had combined for the moment against the terrorism inst.i.tuted by the popular demagogues but the coalition was not lasting. As Caius Gracchus had foreseen the control of the law courts proved a standing bone of contention between the two orders. Especially aggravating to the senators was the use of the court established for the trial of cases of extortion to force the provincial governors to administer the provinces in the interest of the Roman financiers. A scandalous instance of this abuse was the case of Rutilius Rufus in 93 B. C. He had been quaestor under Mucius Scaevola, in 98 B. C. governor of Asia, where both had sternly checked any unjust exactions by the agents of the _publicani_. A trumped-up charge of extortion was now brought against Rutilius, and he was tried and adjudged guilty. His fate was to serve as a warning to officers who took their provincial obligations seriously. Rutilius retired to Asia and lived in great esteem among the people whom he was condemned for having oppressed.

*The **legislative program** of Livius Drusus: 91 B. C.* Two years later Marcus Livius Drusus, a tribune, of a prominent senatorial house, brought forward a proposal for the reform of the juries. He proposed to increase the number of the Senate to six hundred by the inclusion of three hundred prominent equestrians, and to have the juries chosen half from the new Senate and half from the remaining equestrians.(10) Equestrian _jurors_ were to be made liable to prosecution for accepting bribes. To secure support for his judiciary law, Drusus introduced a bill to found new colonies and another to provide cheaper grain for the city populace.

However, when he encountered serious opposition to his judicial reform in the Senate as well as among the _equites_, Drusus combined this and his other reforms with a law for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the Italian allies. He contrived to carry his measures through the a.s.sembly, which was probably coerced by the presence of large numbers of Italians in the city, but since he had included several distinct proposals in one bill, which was unconst.i.tutional, the Senate declared his law invalid. Drusus yielded but prepared to introduce the franchise bill to be voted on a second time.

Before this could be done he was mysteriously a.s.sa.s.sinated, doubtless by an agent of his political opponents. Thus died the last civilian reformer of Roman history. Later reforms were carried by the power of the sword.

VII. THE ITALIAN OR MARSIC WAR, 9088 B. C.

*The Italian Confederacy.* The death of Drusus was the signal for a revolt of the Italian allies. They had been in close alliance with him, and had taken steps for concerted action in arms if his bill should fail to pa.s.s.

A confederacy was organized, the government of which was vested in a Senate of five hundred members with absolute powers, having as executive officers two annual consuls and twelve praetors. The capital of the confederacy was at Corfinium, in the territory of the Paeligni, which was renamed Italia. A federal coinage was issued. Before opening hostilities the Italians made a formal demand for Roman citizens.h.i.+p, which the Senate definitely refused. Thereupon they declared their independence.

*The resources of the rivals.* The Italian Confederacy embraced practically all the warlike peoples of central and southern Italy. Of particular importance were the Marsi who gave their name to the war. In numbers the Italians were a match for the Romans, and they had acquired Roman military tactics, organization and discipline through long service in the Roman armies. They also could count on leaders of approved ability.

But the Latin colonies and the Greek cities in the south remained true to their allegiance, and thus the Italians were cut off from the coast.

Furthermore Umbria and Etruria, although disaffected, did not at once take up arms. Rome's control of the sea enabled her to draw upon the resources of the provinces in men, money, and supplies, and consequently she was in a much better position to sustain a prolonged struggle.

*The first year of the war: 90 B. C.* Hostilities opened in 90 B. C. with the Italian forces attempting to reach Etruria in the north and occupy Campania in the south and the Romans trying to forestall them by invading the territory of the allies. In the south the year's campaign resulted in numerous Roman disasters. Much of Campania was won by the allies who succeeded in penetrating to the coast. In the north the Romans also suffered defeats, but were able to maintain themselves and win several successes. Here Marius, in the capacity of a _legatus_, rendered valuable service.

Before the close of the year the revolt began to spread to Etruria and Umbria. Thereupon the Romans, with the object of securing the support of their still faithful allies and of weakening the ranks of the rebels, pa.s.sed the Julian Law which granted Roman citizens.h.i.+p to all who had not joined the revolt and all who should at once lay down their arms. In this way the Umbrians and Etrurians were quieted, the Latins and the Greek allies rewarded, and many communities, which sought Roman citizens.h.i.+p but not independence, induced to surrender.

*The second year of the war.* In the following year the fortune of war changed. The Romans were everywhere successful. The consul Pompeius practically pacified the north, and the _legatus_ Sulla broke the power of the allies in south Italy. A second franchise law, the _lex Plautia Papiria_, helped thin the ranks of the allies by offering Roman citizens.h.i.+p to all citizens of Italian federate communities who would claim it within sixty days. A third, the Pompeian Law, gave the franchise to all non-Romans in Gaul south of the Po, and Latin rights to those north of the Po river. The Senate was now anxious to bring the war to a close because affairs in the East had a.s.sumed a threatening aspect.

*The end of the war and its significance.* In the course of the year 88 B. C. organized resistance among the rebels died out. The new citizens were not to be enrolled in all of the thirty-five Roman tribes, a step which might make them dominate the a.s.semblies, but they were to vote in certain tribes only, so that their influence could be restricted.(11) Naturally, they were dissatisfied with this arrangement and their enrollment became a burning question of Roman politics. Henceforth all Italians were Romans and in the course of the next generation the various racial elements of Italy were gradually welded into a Latin nation. As it was impossible for the magistrates of Rome to oversee the administration throughout so wide an area, the Romans organized the Italian towns into locally self-governing munic.i.p.alities of the type previously established on Roman territory. At first these munic.i.p.alities retained many of their ancestral laws, customs and inst.i.tutions, but in time they conformed to a uniform type, the government of which was modelled upon that of the capital city Rome. The munic.i.p.alities were powerful agents in the Latinization of the peninsula.

VIII. THE FIRST MITHRADATIC WAR

*Mithradates VI., Eupator, King of Pontus.* The danger which in 89 B. C.

directed the attention of the Senate to the eastern Mediterranean was the result of the establishment of the Kingdom of Pontus under an able and ambitious ruler, Mithradates Eupator, who challenged the supremacy of Rome in Asia Minor. In 121 B. C. Mithradates had succeeded to the throne of northern Cappadocia, a small kingdom on the south sh.o.r.e of the Black Sea, whose Asiatic population was imbued with h.e.l.lenistic culture and whose rulers claimed descent from the ancient royal house of Persia and from Seleucus, the founder of the Macedonian kingdom of Syria. For seven years Mithradates shared the throne with his brother, under his mother's regency, but in 114 when eighteen years of age, he seized the reins of government for himself. Subsequently he extended his power over the eastern and northern sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea as far west as the Danube and thus built up the kingdom of Pontus, i. e. the coast land of the Black Sea, a name which later was applied to his native state of north Cappadocia.

*His **conflict** with Rome.* However, Mithradates also sought to extend his sway in Asia Minor, where Greater Cappadocia became the object of his ambitions. This brought him into conflict with Rome, whose policy was to prevent the rise of any dangerous neighbor in the East and who refused to suffer her settlement of Asia Minor to be disturbed. No less than five times did Mithradates, between 112 and 92 B. C., attempt to bring this district under his control, but upon each occasion he was forced by Roman interference to forego the fruits of his victories, since he was not yet prepared for war with Rome. In 91 B. C. he occupied the kingdom of Bithynia, which lay between Pontus and the Roman province of Asia, but again he yielded to Rome's demands and withdrew. However, when Roman agents encouraged the King of Bithynia to raid his territory and refused him satisfaction he decided to challenge the Roman arms, seeing that Rome was now involved in the war with her Italian allies. War began late in 89 B. C.

*The conquests of Mithradates in Asia, 8988 B. C.* Mithradates was well prepared; he had a trained army and a fleet of three hundred s.h.i.+ps. He experienced no difficulty in defeating the local levies raised by the Roman governor of Asia, and speedily overran Bithynia and most of the Roman province. Meanwhile his fleet swept the Aegean Sea. The Roman provincials who had been unmercifully exploited by tax gatherers and money-lenders greeted Mithradates as a deliverer. At his order on a set date in 88 B. C. they ma.s.sacred the Romans and Italians resident in Asia, said to have numbered 80,000, a step which bound them firmly to the cause of the king.

*Athens and Delos.* In the same year, 88 B. C. the populace of Athens, in the hope of overthrowing the oligarchic government which had been set up in the city with the support of Rome, seized control of the state and threw themselves into the hands of Mithradates. One of the king's generals, Archelaus, while on his way to Athens, exterminated the Italian colony at Delos, the center of the Roman commercial and banking interests in the East. From this blow the island port never fully recovered.

Archelaus soon won over most of southern Greece to his master's cause, while Mithradates sent a large army to enter h.e.l.las by the northerly route through Thrace and Macedonia.

*Disorders in Rome.* This situation produced a crisis in Rome. Sulla, who had been elected consul for 88 B. C., was allotted the command in the East upon the outbreak of hostilities. However, he had been unable to leave Italy where he was conducting the siege of Nola in Campania. Marius, although in his sixty-eighth year, was as ambitious as ever and schemed to secure the command against Mithradates for himself. In this he was supported by the equestrians, who knew Sulla to be a firm upholder of the Senate. Accordingly the Marians joined forces with the tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus, who had brought forward a bill to enroll the new citizens and freedmen equally in each of the thirty-five tribes. Sulpicius organized a body-guard of equestrians and inst.i.tuted a reign of terror. He pa.s.sed his law by force in spite of the opposition of the consuls. When Sulla had left the city to join his army, a law was pa.s.sed in the a.s.sembly transferring his command in the East to Marius. But Sulla refused to admit the legality of the act, and, relying upon the support of his troops, marched on Rome. Having taken the city by surprise, he caused Sulpicius, Marius, and others of their party to be outlawed. Sulpicius was slain; but Marius made good his escape to Mauretania. The Sulpician Laws were abrogated, and Sulla introduced a number of reforms, with the object of strengthening the position of the Senate. The most significant of these reforms was the revival of the Senatorial veto over laws proposed in the a.s.sembly of the Tribes. This done, upon the conclusion of his consulate, Sulla embarked with his army for Greece early in 87 B. C.

*Siege of Athens and Piraeus, 8786 B. C.* Driving the forces of Archelaus and the Athenians from the open country, Sulla began the siege of Athens and of its harbor town Piraeus in the autumn of 87. Athens was completely invested, but in spite of hunger the resistance was prolonged until March, 86, when Sulla's troops penetrated an unguarded spot on the walls and the city was sacked. A large number of the inhabitants were ma.s.sacred but the public buildings were spared. Soon after Piraeus was taken by storm at terrific cost to the victors, but its citadel Munychia held out until evacuated by Archelaus.