Ancient States and Empires Part 29

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE WARS WITH JUGURTHA AND THE CIMBRI.-MARIUS.

The fall of the Gracchi restored Rome to the rule of the oligarchy. The government of the Senate was resumed, and a war of prosecution was carried on against the followers of Gracchus. His measures were allowed to drop.

The claims of the Italian allies were disregarded, the n.o.blest of all the schemes of the late tribune, that of securing legal equality between the Roman burgesses and their Italian allies. The restoration of Carthage was set aside. Italian colonies were broken up. The allotment commission was abolished, and a fixed rent was imposed on the occupants of the public domains, but the proletariate of the capital continued to have a distribution of corn, and jurymen or judges (_judices_) were still selected from the mercantile cla.s.ses. The Senate continued to be composed of effeminated n.o.bles, and insignificant persons were raised to the highest offices.

The administration, under the restoration, was feeble and unpopular.

Social evils spread with alarming rapidity. Both slavery and great fortunes increased. The provinces were miserably governed, while pirates and robbers pillaged the countries around the Mediterranean. There was a great revolt of slaves in Sicily, who gained, for a time, the mastery of the island.

(M954) While public affairs were thus disgracefully managed, a war broke out between Numidia and Rome. That African kingdom extended from the river Molochath to the great Syrtis on the one hand, and to Cyrene and Egypt on the other, and included the greatest part of the ancient Carthaginian territories. Numidia, next to Egypt, was the most important of the Roman client States. On the fall of Carthage, it was ruled by the eldest son of Masina.s.sa, Micipsa, a feeble old man, who devoted himself to the study of philosophy, rather than affairs of State. The government was really in the hands of his nephew, Jugurtha, courageous, sagacious, and able. He was adopted by Micipsa, to rule in conjunction with his two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal. In the year B.C. 118 Micipsa died, and a collision arose, as was to be expected, among his heirs. Hiempsal was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the struggle for the Numidian crown lay between Adherbal and Jugurtha. The latter seized the whole territory, and Adherbal escaped to Rome, and laid his complaint before the Senate. Jugurtha's envoys also appeared, and the Senate decreed that the two heirs should have the kingdom equally divided between them, but Jugurtha obtained the more fertile western half.

Then war arose between the two kings, and Adherbal was defeated, and retired to his capital, Aita, where he was besieged by Jugurtha. Adherbal made his complaints to Rome, and a commission of aristocratic but inexperienced young men came to the camp of Jugurtha to arrange the difficulties. Jugurtha rejected their demands, and the young men returned home. Adherbal sent again messengers to Rome, being closely pressed, demanding intervention. The Senate then sent Marcus Scaurus, who held endless debates with Jugurtha, at Utica, to which place he was summoned.

These were not attended with any results. Scaurus returned to Rome, and Jugurtha pressed the siege of Aita, which soon capitulated. Adherbal was executed with cruel torture, and the adult population was put to the sword.

A cry of indignation arose in Italy. The envoys of Jugurtha were summarily dismissed, and Scaurus was sent to Africa with an army, but a peace with Rome was purchased by the African prince through the bribery of the generals. The legal validity of the peace was violently a.s.sailed in the Senate, and Ma.s.siva, a grandson of Masinissa, then in Rome, laid claim to the Numidian throne. But this prince was a.s.sa.s.sinated by one of the confidants of Jugurtha, which outrage, perpetrated under the eyes of the Roman government, led to a renewed declaration of war, and Spurius Albinus was intrusted with the command of an army. But Jugurtha bribed the Roman general into inaction, and captured the Roman camp. This resulted in the evacuation of Numidia, and a second treaty of peace.

(M955) Such an ign.o.ble war created intense dissatisfaction at Rome, and the Senate was obliged to cancel the treaty, and renewed the war in earnest, intrusting the conduct of it to Quintus Metellus, an aristocrat, of course, but a man of great ability. Selecting for his lieutenants able generals, he led over his army to Africa. Jugurtha made proposals of peace, which were refused, and he prepared for a desperate defense.

Intrenched on a ridge of hills in the wide plain of Muthul, he awaited the attack of his enemies, but was signally defeated by Metellus, a.s.sisted by Marius, a brave plebeian, who had arisen from the common soldiers. After this battle Jugurtha contented himself with a guerrilla warfare, while his kingdom was occupied by the conquerors. Metellus even intrigued to secure the a.s.sa.s.sination of the king.

(M956) The war continued to be prosecuted without decisive results, as is so frequently the case when civilized nations fight with barbarians. Like the war of Charlemagne against the Saxons, victories were easily obtained, but the victors gained unsubstantial advantages. Jugurtha retired to inaccessible deserts with his children, his treasures, and his best troops, to await better times. Numidia was seemingly reduced, but its king remained in arms.

(M957) It was then, in the third year of the renewed war, that Metellus was recalled, and Marius, chosen consul, was left with the supreme command. But even he did not find it easy, with a conquering army, to seize Jugurtha, and he was restricted to a desultory war. At last Bocchus, king of Mauritania, slighted by the Romans, but in alliance with Jugurtha, effected by treachery what could not be gained by arms. He entered into negotiations with Marius to deliver up the king of Numidia, who had married his daughter, and had sought his protection. Marius sent Sulla to consummate the treachery. Jugurtha, the traitor, was thus in turn sacrificed, and became a Roman prisoner.

(M958) This miserable war lasted seven years, and its successful termination secured to Marius a splendid triumph, at which the conquered king, with his two sons, appeared in chains before the triumphal car, and was then executed in the subterranean prison on the Capitoline Hill.

(M959) Numidia was not converted into a Roman province, but into a client State, because the country could not be held without an army on the frontiers. The Jugurthan war was important in its consequences, since it brought to light the venality of the governing lords, and made it evident that Rome must be governed by a degenerate and selfish oligarchy, or by a tyrant, whether in the form of a demagogue, like Gracchus, or a military chieftain, like Marius.

(M960) But a more difficult war than that waged against the barbarians of the African deserts was now to be conducted against the barbarians of European forests. The war with the Cimbri was also more important in its political results. There had been several encounters with the northern nations of Spain, Gaul, and Italy, under different names, with different successes, which it would be tedious to describe. But the contest with the Cimbri has a great and historic interest, since they were the first of the Germanic tribes with which the Romans contended. Mommsen thinks these barbarians were Teutonic, although, among older historians, they were supposed to be Celts. The Cimbri were a migratory people, who left their northern homes with their wives and children, goods and chattels, to seek more congenial settlements than they had found in the Scandinavian forests. The wagon was their house. They were tall, fair-haired, with bright blue eyes. They were well armed with sword, spear, shield, and helmet. They were brave warriors, careless of danger, and willing to die.

They were accompanied by priestesses, whose warnings were regarded as voices from heaven.

(M961) This homeless people of the Cimbri, prevented from advancing south on the Danube by the barrier raised by the Celts, advanced to the pa.s.ses of the Carnian Alps, B.C. 113, protected by Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, not far from Aquileia. An engagement took place not far from the modern Corinthia, where Carbo was defeated. Some years after, they proceeded westward to the left bank of the Rhine, and over the Jura, and again threatened the Roman territory. Again was a Roman army defeated under Sila.n.u.s in Southern Gaul, and the Cimbri sent envoys to Rome, with the request that they might be allowed peaceful settlements. The Helvetii, stimulated by the successes of the Cimbri, also sought more fertile settlements in Western Gaul, and formed an alliance with the Cimbri. They crossed the Jura, the western barrier of Switzerland, succeeded in decoying the Roman army under Longinus into an ambush, and gained a victory.

(M962) In the year B.C., 105 the Cimbrians, under their king Boiorix, advanced to the invasion of Italy. They were opposed on the right bank of the Rhone by the proconsul Caepio, and on the left by the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, and the consular Marcus Aurelius Scaurus. The first attack fell on the latter general, who was taken prisoner and his corps routed. Maximus then ordered his colleague to bring his army across the Rhone, where the Roman force stood confronting the whole Cimbrian army, but Caepio refused. The mutual jealousy of these generals, and refusal to co-operate, led to one of the most disastrous defeats which the Romans ever suffered. No less than eighty thousand soldiers, and half as many more camp followers, perished. The battle of Aransio (Orange) filled Rome with alarm and fear, and had the Cimbrians immediately advanced through the pa.s.ses of the Alps to Italy, overwhelming disasters might have ensued.

(M963) In this crisis, Marius was called to the supreme command, hated as he was by the aristocracy, which still ruled, and in defiance of the law which prohibited the holding of the consulship more than once. He was accompanied by a still greater man, Lucius Sulla, destined to acquire great distinction. Marius maintained a strictly defensive att.i.tude within the Roman territories, training and disciplining his troops for the contest which was yet to come with the most formidable antagonists the Romans had ever encountered, and who were destined in after times to subvert the empire.

(M964) The Cimbri formed a confederation with the Helvetii and the Teutons, and after an unsuccessful attempt to sweep away the Belgae, who resisted them, concluded to invade Italy, through Roman Gaul and the Western pa.s.ses of the Alps. They crossed the Rhone without difficulty, and resumed the struggle with the Romans. Marius awaited them in a well-chosen camp, well fortified and provisioned, at the confluence of the Rhone and the Isere, by which he intercepted the pa.s.sage of the barbarians, either over the Little St. Barnard-the route Hannibal had taken-or along the coast. The barbarians attacked the camp, but were repulsed. They then resolved to pa.s.s the camp, leaving an enemy in the rear, and march to Italy. Marius, for six days, permitted them to defile with their immense baggage, and when their march was over, followed in the steps of the enemy, who took the coast road. At Aquae s.e.xtiae the contending parties came into collision, and the barbarians were signally defeated; the whole horde was scattered, killed, or taken prisoners. It would seem that these barbarians were Teutons or Germans; but on the south side of the Alps, the Cimbri and Helvetii crossed the Alps by the Brenner Pa.s.s, and descended upon the plains of Italy. The pa.s.ses had been left unguarded, and the Roman army, under Catulus, on the banks of the Adige, suffered a defeat, and retreated to the right bank of the Po. The whole plain between the Po and the Alps was in the hands of the barbarians, who did not press forward, as they should have done, but retired into winter quarters, where they became demoralized by the warm baths and abundant stores of that fertile and lovely region. Thus the Romans gained time, and the victorious Marius, relinquishing all attempts at the conquest of Gaul, conducted his army to the banks of the Po, and formed a junction with Catulus.

(M965) The two armies met at Vercillae, not far from the place where Hannibal had fought his first battle on the Italian soil. The day of the battle was fixed beforehand by the barbaric general and Marius, on the 30th of June, B.C. 101. A complete victory was gained by the Romans, and the Cimbri were annihilated. The victory of the rough plebeian farmer was not merely over the barbarians, but over the aristocracy. He became, in consequence, the leading man in Rome. He had fought his way from the ranks to the consulship, and had distinguished himself in all the campaigns in which he fought. In Spain, he had arisen to the grade of an officer. In the Numantine war he attracted, at twenty-three, the notice of Scipio. On his return to Rome, with his honorable scars and military _eclat_, he married a lady of the great patrician house of the Julii. At forty, he obtained the praetorship; at forty-eight, he was made consul, and terminated the African war, and his victories over the Cimbri and Teutons enabled him to secure his re-election five consecutive years, which was unexampled in the history of the republic. As consul he administered justice impartially, organized the military system, and maintained in the army the strictest discipline. He had but little culture; his voice was harsh, and his look wild. But he was simple, economical, and incorruptible. He stood aloof from society and from political parties, exposed to the sarcasms of the aristocrats into whose ranks he had entered.

(M966) He made great military reforms, changing the burgess levy into a system of enlistments, and allowing every free-born citizen to enlist. He abolished the aristocratic cla.s.sification, reduced the infantry of the line to a level, and raised the number of the legion from four thousand two hundred to six thousand, to which he gave a new standard-the silver eagle, which proclaims the advent of emperors. The army was changed from a militia to a band of mercenaries.

After effecting these military changes, he sought political supremacy by taking upon himself the const.i.tutional magistracies. In effecting this he was supported by the popular, or democratic party, which now regained its political importance. He, therefore, obtained the consulship for the sixth time, while his friends among the popular party were made tribunes and praetors. He was also supported at the election by his old soldiers who had been discharged.

But the whole aristocracy rallied, and Marius was not sufficiently a politician to cope with experienced demagogues. He made numerous blunders, and lost his political influence. But he accepted his position, and waited for his time. Not in the field of politics was he to arise to power, but in the strife and din of arms. An opportunity was soon afforded in the convulsions which arose from the revolt of the Roman allies in Italy, soon followed by civil wars. It is these wars which next claim our notice.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE REVOLT OF ITALY, AND THE SOCIAL WAR.-MARIUS AND SULLA.

Great discontent had long existed among the Italian subjects of Rome. They were not only oppressed, but they enjoyed no political privileges. They did not belong to the cla.s.s of burgesses.

With the view of extending the Roman franchise, a movement was made by the tribune, M. Livius Drusus, an aristocrat of great wealth and popular sympathies. He had, also, projected other reforms, which made him obnoxious to all parties; but this was peculiarly offensive to the order to which he belonged, and he lost his life while attempting to effect the same reforms which were fatal to Gracchus.

On his a.s.sa.s.sination, the allies, who outnumbered the Roman burgesses, and who had vainly been seeking citizenship, found that they must continue without political rights, or fight, and they made accordingly vast preparations for war. Had all the Italian States been united, they would, probably, have obtained their desire without a conflict in the field, but in those parts where the moneyed cla.s.ses preponderated, the people remained loyal to Rome. But the insurgents embraced most of the people in Central and Southern Italy, who were chiefly farmers.

(M967) The insurrection broke out in Asculum in Picenum, and spread rapidly through Samnium, Apulia, and Lucania. All Southern and Central Italy was soon in arms against Rome. The Etruscans and Umbrians remained in allegiance as they had before taken part with the equestrians, now a most powerful body, against Drusus. Italy was divided into two great military camps. The insurgents sent envoys to Rome, with the proposal to lay down their arms if citizenship were granted them, but this was refused. Both sides now made extensive preparations, and the forces were nearly balanced. One hundred thousand men were in arms, in two divisions, on either side, the Romans commanded by the consul, Publius Rutilius Lupus, and the Italians by Quintus Silo and Gaius Papius Mutilus. Gaius Marius served as a lieutenant-commander. The war was carried on with various successes, for "Greek met Greek." The first campaign proved, on the whole, to the disadvantage of the Romans, who suffered several defeats. In a political point of view, also, the insurgents were the gainers. Great despondency reigned in the capital, for the war had become serious. At length, it was resolved to grant the political franchise to such Italians as had remained faithful, or who had submitted. This concession, great as it was, did not include the actual insurgents, but it operated in strengthening wavering communities on the side of Rome.

Etruria and Umbria were tranquilized.

(M968) The second campaign, B.C. 89, was opened in Bicenum. Marius was not in the field. His conduct in the previous campaign was not satisfactory, and the conqueror of the Cimbri, at sixty-six, was thought to be in his dotage. Asculum was besieged and taken by the Romans, who had seventy-five thousand troops under the walls. The Sabellians and Marsians were next subjugated, and all Campania was lost to the insurgents, as far as Nola.

The Southern army was under the command of the consul, Lucius Sulla, whose great career had commenced in Africa, under Marius. Sulla advanced into the Samnite country and took its capital, Bovianum. Under his able generalship, the position of affairs greatly changed. At the close of the campaign, most of the insurgent regions were subdued. The Samnites were almost the only people which held out.

(M969) It was fortunate for Rome that the rebellion was so far suppressed when the flames of war were rekindled in the East. A great reaction against the Roman domination had taken place, and the eastern nations seemed determined to rally once more for independent dominion. This was the last great Asiatic rising till the fall of the Roman empire. The potentate under whom the Oriental forces rallied, was Mithridates, king of Pontus.

(M970) The army of Sulla, in Campania, was destined to embark for Asia as soon as the state of things in Southern Italy should allow his departure.

So the third campaign of the Social war, as it is called, began favorably for Rome, when events transpired in the capital which gave fresh life to the almost extinguished insurrection. The attack of Drusus on the equestrian courts, and his sudden downfall, had sown the bitterest discord between the aristocracy and the burgess cla.s.s. The Italian communities, received into Roman citizenship, were fettered by restrictions which had an odious stigma, which led to great irritation, for the aristocracy had conferred the franchise grudgingly. And this franchise was moreover withheld from the insurgent communities which had again submitted. A deep indignation also settled in the breast of Marius, on his return from the first campaign, to find himself neglected and forgotten. To these discontents were added the distress of debtors, who, amid the financial troubles of the war, were unable to pay the interest on their debts, and were yet inexorably pressed by creditors.

(M971) It was then, in this state of fermentation and demoralization, that the tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus proposed that every senator who owed more than two thousand denarii (82) should forfeit his seat in the Senate; that burgesses condemned by non-free jury courts should have liberty to return home; and that the new burgesses should be distributed among all the tribes, in which the freed men should also have the privilege of voting. These proposals, although made by a patrician, met with the greatest opposition from the Senate, but were pa.s.sed amid riots and tumults. Sulla was on the best terms with the Senate, and Sulpicius feared that he might return from his camp at Nola, and take vengeance for these popular measures. The tribune, therefore, conceived the plan of taking the command from Sulla, who was then consul, and transfer it upon Marius, who was also to conduct the war against Mithridates, in Asia.

(M972) Sulla disobeyed the mandate, and marched to Rome with his army-little more than a body of mercenaries devoted to him. In his eyes, the sovereign Roman citizens were a rabble, and Rome itself a city without a garrison. Sulla had an army of thirty-five thousand men, and before the Romans could organize resistance he appeared at the gate, and crossed the sacred boundary which the law had forbidden war to enter. In a few hours Sulla was the absolute master of Rome. Marius and Sulpicius fled. It was the conservative party which exchanged the bludgeon for the sword. Sulla at once made null the Sulpician laws, punished their author and his adherents, as Sulpicius had feared. The gray-haired conqueror of the Cimbri fled, and found his way to the coast and embarked on a trading-vessel, but the timid mariners put him ash.o.r.e, and Marius stole along the beach with his pursuers in the rear. He was found in a marsh concealed in reeds and mud, seized and imprisoned by the people of Minturnae, and a Cimbrian slave was sent to put him to death, The ax, however, fell from his hands when the old hero demanded in a stern voice if he dared to kill Gaius Marius. The magistrates of the town, ashamed, then loosed his fetters, gave him a vessel, and sent him to aenaria (Ischia). There, in those waters, the proscribed met, and escaped to Numidia, and Sulla was spared the odium of putting to death his old commander, who had delivered Rome from the Cimbrians.

(M973) Sulla, master of Rome, did not destroy her liberties. He suggested a new series of legislative enactments in the interests of the aristocracy. He created three hundred new senators, and brought back the old Servian rule of voting in the Comitia Centuriata. The poorer cla.s.ses were thus virtually again disfranchised. He also abolished the power of the tribune to propose laws to the people, and the initiatory of legislation was submitted to the Senate. The absurd custom by which a consul, praetor, or tribune, could propose to the burgesses any measure he pleased, and carry it without debate, was in itself enough to overturn any const.i.tution.

Having settled these difficulties, and made way with his enemies, Sulla, still consul, embarked with his legion for the East, where the presence of a Roman army was imperatively needed. But before he left, he extorted a solemn oath from Cinna, consul elect, that he would attempt no alteration in the recent changes which had been made. Cinna took the oath, but Sulla had scarcely left before he created new disturbances.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

THE MITHRIDATIC AND CIVIL WARS.-MARIUS AND SULLA.

There reigned at this time in Pontus, the northeastern State of Asia Minor, bordered on the south by Cappadocia, on the east by Armenia, and the north by the Euxine, a powerful prince, Mithridates VI., surnamed Eupator, who traced an unbroken lineage to Darius, the son of the Hystaspes, and also to the Seleucidae. He was a great eastern hero, whose deeds excited the admiration of his age. He could, on foot, overtake the swiftest deer; he accomplished journeys on horseback of one hundred and twenty miles a day; he drove sixteen horses in hand at the chariot races; he never missed his aim in hunting; he drank his boon companions under the table; he had as many mistresses as Solomon; he was fond of music and poetry; he collected precious works of art; he had philosophers and poets in his train; he was the greatest jester and wit of his court. His activity was boundless; he learned the antidotes for all poisons; he administered justice in twenty-two languages; and yet he was coa.r.s.e, tyrannical, cruel, superst.i.tious, and unscrupulous. Such was this extraordinary man who led the great reaction of the Asiatics against the Occidentals.

(M974) The resources of this Oriental king were immense, since he bore rule over the sh.o.r.es of the Euxine to the interior of Asia Minor. His field for recruits to his armies stretched from the mouth of the Danube to the Caspian Sea. Thracians, Scythians, Colchians, Iberians, crowded under his banners. When he marched into Cappadocia, he had six hundred scythed chariots, ten thousand horse, and eighty thousand foot. A series of aggressions and conquests made this monarch the greatest and most formidable Eastern foe the Romans ever encountered. The Romans, engrossed with the war with the Cimbri and the insurrection of their Italian subjects, allowed his empire to be silently aggrandized.

(M975) The Roman Senate, at last, disturbed and jealous, sent Lucius Sulla to Cappadocia with a handful of troops to defend its interests. On his return, Mithridates continued his aggressions, and formed an alliance with his father-in-law, Tigranes, king of Armenia, but avoided a direct encounter with the great Occidental power which had conquered the world.

Things continued for awhile between war and peace, but, at last, it was evident that only war could prevent the aggrandizement of Mithridates, and it was resolved upon by the Romans.

(M976) The king of Pontus made immense preparations to resist his powerful enemies. He strengthened his alliance with Tigranes. He made overtures to the Greek cities. He attempted to excite a revolt in Thrace, in Numidia, and in Syria. He encouraged pirates on the Mediterranean. He organized a foreign corps after the Roman fashion, and took the field with two hundred and fifty thousand infantry and forty thousand cavalry-the largest army seen since the Persian wars. He then occupied Asia Minor, and the Roman generals retreated as he advanced. He made Ephesus his head-quarters, and issued orders to all the governors dependent upon him to ma.s.sacre, on the same day, all Italians, free or enslaved-men, women, and children, found in their cities. One hundred and fifty thousand were thus barbarously slaughtered in one day. The States of Cappadocia, Sinope, Phrygia, and Bithynia were organized as Pontic satrapies. The confiscation of the property of the murdered Italians replenished his treasury, as well as the contributions of Asia Minor. He not only occupied the Asiatic provinces of the Romans, but meditated the invasion of Europe. Thrace and Macedonia were occupied by his armies, and his fleet appeared in the aegean Sea.