General History for Colleges and High Schools Part 28

We can here take s.p.a.ce to give simply the results of Sulla's campaigns in the East. After driving the army of Mithridates out of Greece, Sulla crossed the h.e.l.lespont, and forced the king to sue for peace. He gave up his conquered territory, surrendered his war ships, and paid a large indemnity to cover the expenses of the war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SULLA.]

With the Mithridatic War ended, Sulla wrote to the Senate, saying that he was now coming to take vengeance upon the Marian party,--his own and the republic's foes.

The terror and consternation produced at Rome by this letter were increased by the accidental burning of the Capitol. The Sibylline books, which held the secrets of the fate of Rome, were consumed. Such an event, it was believed, could only foreshadow the most direful calamities to the state.

THE PROSCRIPTIONS OF SULLA.--The returning army from the East landed in Italy. With his veteran legions at his back, Sulla marched into Rome with all the powers of a dictator. The leaders of the Marian party were proscribed, rewards were offered for their heads, and their property was confiscated. Sulla was implored to make out a list of those he designed to put to death, that those he intended to spare might be relieved of the terrible suspense in which all were now held. He made out a list of eighty, which was attached to the Rostrum. The people murmured at the length of the roll. In a few days it was extended to over three hundred, and grew rapidly, until it included the names of thousands of the best citizens of Italy. Hundreds were murdered, not for any offence, but because some favorites of Sulla coveted their estates. A wealthy n.o.ble coming into the Forum, and reading his own name in the list of the proscribed, exclaimed, "Alas! my villa has proved my ruin." The infamous Catiline, by having the name of a brother placed upon the fatal roll, secured his property. Julius Caesar, at this time a mere boy of eighteen, was proscribed on account of his relationship to Marius; but, upon the intercession of friends, Sulla spared him: as he did so, however, he said warningly, and, as the event proved, prophetically, "There is in that boy many a Marius."

Senators, knights, and wealthy land-owners fell by hundreds and by thousands; but the poor Italians who had sided with the Marian party were simply slaughtered by tens of thousands. Nor did the provinces escape. In Sicily, Spain, and Africa the enemies of the dictator were hunted and exterminated like noxious animals. It is estimated that the civil war of Marius and Sulla cost the republic over one hundred and fifty thousand lives.

When Sulla had sated his revenge, he celebrated a splendid triumph at Rome, and the Senate enacted a law declaring all that he had done legal and right, caused to be erected in the Forum a gilded equestrian statue of the dictator, which bore the legend, "To Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Commander Beloved by Fortune," and made him dictator for life. Sulla used his position and influence in recasting the const.i.tution in the interest of the aristocratic party. After enjoying the unlimited power of an Asiatic despot for three years, he suddenly resigned the dictatorship, and retired to his villa at Puteoli, where he gave himself up to the grossest dissipations. He died the year following his abdication (78 B.C.).

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE LAST CENTURY OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (_concluded_). (133-31 B.C.)

POMPEY THE GREAT IN SPAIN.--The fires of the Civil War, though quenched in Italy, were still smouldering in Spain. Sertorius, an adherent of Marius, had there stirred up the martial tribes of Lusitania, and incited a general revolt against the power of the aristocratic government at Rome.

Cnaeus Pompey, a rising young leader of the oligarchy, upon whom the t.i.tle of Great had already been conferred as a reward for crushing the Marian party in Sicily and Africa, was sent into Spain to perform a similar service there.

For several years the war was carried on with varying fortunes. At times the power of Rome in the peninsula seemed on the verge of utter extinction. Finally, the brave Sertorius was a.s.sa.s.sinated, and then the whole of Spain was quickly regained. Pompey boasted of having forced the gates of more than eight hundred cities in Spain and Southern Gaul.

Throughout all the conquered regions he established military colonies, and reorganized the local governments, putting in power those who would be, not only friends and allies of the Roman state, but also his own personal adherents. How he used these men as instruments of his ambition, we shall learn a little later.

SPARTACUS: WAR OF THE GLADIATORS.--While Pompey was subduing the Marian faction in Spain, a new danger broke out in the midst of Italy.

Gladiatorial combats had become, at this time, the favorite sport of the amphitheatre. At Capua was a sort of training-school, from which skilled fighters were hired out for public or private entertainments. In this seminary was a Thracian slave, known by the name of Spartacus, who incited his companions to revolt. The insurgents fled to the crater of Vesuvius, and made that their stronghold. There they were joined by gladiators from other schools, and by slaves and discontented men from every quarter. Some slight successes enabled them to arm themselves with the weapons of their enemies. Their number at length increased to one hundred thousand men. For three years they defied the power of Rome, and even gained control of the larger part of Southern Italy. Four Roman armies sent against them were cut to pieces. But at length Spartacus himself was slain, and the insurgents were crushed.

The rebellion was punished with Roman severity. The slaves that had taken part in the revolt were hunted through the mountains and forests, and exterminated like dangerous beasts. The Appian Way was lined with six thousand crosses, bearing aloft as many bodies--a terrible warning of the fate awaiting slaves that should dare to strike for freedom.

THE ABUSES OF VERRES.--Terrible as was the state of society in Italy, still worse was the condition of affairs outside the peninsula. At first the rule of the Roman governors in the provinces, though severe, was honest and prudent. But during the period of profligacy and corruption upon which we have now entered, the administration of these foreign possessions was shamefully dishonest and incredibly cruel and rapacious.

The prosecution of Verres, the propraetor of Sicily, exposed the scandalous rule of the oligarchy, into whose hands the government had fallen. For three years Verres plundered and ravaged that island with impunity. He sold all the offices, and all his decisions as judge. He demanded of the farmers the greater part of their crops, which he sold, to swell his already enormous fortune. Agriculture was thus ruined, and the farms were abandoned. Verres had a taste for art, and when on his tours through the island confiscated gems, vases, statues, paintings, and other things that struck his fancy, whether in temples or private dwellings. He even caused a Roman trader, for a slight offence, to be crucified, "the cross being set on the beach within sight of Italy, that he might address to his native sh.o.r.es the ineffectual cry 'I am a Roman citizen.'"

Verres could not be called to account while in office; and it was doubtful whether, after the end of his term, he could be convicted, so corrupt and venal had become the members of the Senate, before whom all such offenders must be tried. Indeed, Verres himself openly boasted that he intended two thirds of his gains for his judges and lawyers, while the remaining one third would satisfy himself.

At length, after Sicily had come to look as though it had been ravaged by barbarian conquerors, the infamous robber was impeached. The prosecutor was Marcus Tullius Cicero, the brilliant orator, who was at this time just rising into prominence at Rome. The storm of indignation raised by the developments of the trial caused Verres to flee into exile to Ma.s.silia, whither he took with him much of his ill-gotten wealth.

WAR WITH THE MEDITERRANEAN PIRATES (66 B.C.).--The Roman republic was now threatened by a new danger from the sea. The Mediterranean was swarming with pirates. Roman conquests in Africa, Spain, and especially in Greece and Asia Minor, had caused thousands of adventurous spirits from those maritime countries to flee to their ships, and seek a livelihood by preying upon the commerce of the seas. The cruelty and extortions of the Roman governors had also driven large numbers to the same course of life.

These corsairs had banded themselves into a sort of government, and held possession of numerous strongholds--four hundred, it is said--in Cilicia, Crete, and other countries. With a full thousand swift ships they scoured the waters of the Mediterranean, so that no merchantman could spread her sails in safety. They formed a floating empire, which Michelet calls "a wandering Carthage, which no one knew where to seize, and which floated from Spain to Asia."

These buccaneers, the Vikings of the South, made descents upon the coast everywhere, plundered villas and temples, attacked and captured cities, and sold the inhabitants as slaves in the various slave-markets of the Roman world. They carried off merchants and magistrates from the Appian Way itself, and held them for ransom. At last the grain-ships of Sicily and Africa were intercepted, and Rome was threatened with the alternative of starvation or the paying of an enormous ransom.

The Romans now bestirred themselves. Pompey was invested with dictatorial power for three years over the Mediterranean and all its coasts for fifty miles inland. An armament of five hundred ships and one hundred thousand men was intrusted to his command. The great general acted with his characteristic energy. Within forty days he had swept the pirates from the Western Mediterranean, and in forty-nine more hunted them from all the waters east of Italy, captured their strongholds in Cilicia, and settled the twenty thousand prisoners that fell into his hands in various colonies in Asia Minor and Greece. Pompey's vigorous and successful conduct of this campaign against the pirates gained him great honor and reputation.

POMPEY AND THE MITHRIDATIC WAR.--In the very year that Pompey suppressed the pirates (66 B.C.), he was called to undertake a more difficult task.

Mithridates the Great, led on by his ambition and encouraged by the discontent created throughout the Eastern provinces by Roman rapacity and misrule, was again in arms against Rome. He had stirred almost all Asia Minor to revolt. The management of the war was eventually intrusted to Pompey, whose success in the war of the pirates had aroused unbounded enthusiasm for him.

In a great battle in Lesser Armenia, Pompey almost annihilated the army of Mithridates. The king fled from the field, and, after seeking in vain for a refuge in Asia Minor, sought an asylum beyond the Caucasus Mountains, whose bleak barriers interposed their friendly shield between him and his pursuers. Desisting from the pursuit, Pompey turned south and conquered Syria, Phoenicia, and Coele-Syria, which countries he erected into a Roman province. Still pushing southward, the conqueror entered Palestine, and after a short siege captured Jerusalem (63 B.C.).

[Ill.u.s.tration: MITHRIDATES VI. (The Great) ]

While Pompey was thus engaged, Mithridates was straining every energy to raise an army among the Scythian tribes with which to carry out a most daring project. He proposed to cross Europe and fall upon Italy from the north. A revolt on the part of his son Pharnaces ruined all his plans and hopes; and the disappointed monarch, to avoid falling into the hands of the Romans, took his own life (63 B.C.). His death removed one of the most formidable enemies that Rome had ever encountered. Hamilcar, Hannibal, and Mithridates were the three great names that the Romans always p.r.o.nounced with respect and dread.

POMPEY'S TRIUMPH.--After regulating the affairs of the different states and provinces in the East, Pompey set out on his return to Rome, where he enjoyed such a triumph as never before had been seen since Rome had become a city. The spoils of all the East were borne in the procession; 322 princes walked as captives before the triumphal chariot of the conqueror; legends upon the banners proclaimed that he had conquered 21 kings, captured 1000 strongholds, 900 towns, and 800 ships, and subjugated more than 12,000,000 people; and that he had put into the treasury more than $25,000,000, besides doubling the regular revenues of the state. He boasted that three times he had triumphed, and each time for the conquest of a continent--first for Africa, then for Europe, and now for Asia, which completed the conquest of the world.

THE CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE.--While the legions were absent from Italy with Pompey in the East, a most daring conspiracy against the government was formed at Rome. Catiline, a ruined spendthrift, had gathered a large company of profligate young n.o.bles, weighed down with debt and desperate like himself, and had deliberately planned to murder the consuls and the chief men of the state, and to plunder and burn the capital. The offices of the new government were to be divided among the conspirators. They depended upon receiving aid from Africa and Spain, and proposed to invite to their standard the gladiators in the various schools of Italy, as well as slaves and criminals. The proscriptions of Sulla were to be renewed, and all debts were to be cancelled.

Fortunately, all the plans of the conspirators were revealed to the consul Cicero, the great orator. The Senate immediately clothed the consuls with dictatorial power with the usual formula, that they should take care that the republic received no harm. The gladiators were secured; the city walls were manned; and at every point the capital and state were armed against the "invisible foe." Then in the Senate-chamber, with Catiline himself present, Cicero exposed the whole conspiracy in a famous philippic, known as "The First Oration against Catiline." The senators shrank from the conspirator, and left the seats about him empty. After a feeble effort to reply to Cicero, overwhelmed by a sense of his guilt, and the cries of "traitor" and "parricide" from the senators, Catiline fled from the chamber, and hurried out of the city to the camp of his followers, in Etruria. In a desperate battle fought near Pistoria (62 B.C.), he was slain with many of his followers. His head was borne as a trophy to Rome.

Cicero was hailed as the "Saviour of his Country."

CaeSAR, CRa.s.sUS, AND POMPEY.--Although the conspiracy of Catiline had failed, it was very easy to foresee that the downfall of the Roman republic was near at hand. Indeed, from this time on only the name remains. The basis of the inst.i.tutions of the republic--the old Roman virtue, integrity, patriotism, and faith in the G.o.ds--was gone, having been swept away by the tide of luxury, selfishness, and immorality produced by the long series of foreign conquests and robberies in which the Roman people had been engaged. The days of liberty at Rome were over.

From this time forward the government was really in the hands of ambitious and popular leaders, or of corrupt combinations and "rings." Events gather about a few great names, and the annals of the republic become biographical rather than historical.

There were now in the state three men--Caesar, Cra.s.sus, and Pompey--who were destined to shape affairs. Caius Julius Caesar was born in the year 100 B.C. Although descended from an old patrician family, still his sympathies, and an early marriage to the daughter of Cinna, one of the adherents of Marius, led him early to identify himself with the Marian, or democratic party. In every way Caesar courted public favor. He lavished enormous sums upon public games and tables. His debts are said to have amounted to 25,000,000 sesterces ($1,250,000). His popularity was unbounded. A successful campaign in Spain had already made known to himself, as well as to others, his genius as a commander.

Cra.s.sus belonged to the senatorial, or aristocratic party. He owed his influence to his enormous wealth, being one of the richest men in the Roman world. His property was estimated at 7100 talents (about $7,500,000).

With Pompey and his achievements we are already familiar. His influence throughout the Roman world was great; for, in settling and reorganizing the many countries he subdued, he had always taken care to reconstruct them in his own interest, as well as in that of the republic. The offices, as we have seen, were filled with his friends and adherents (see p. 285).

This patronage had secured for him incalculable authority in the provinces. His veteran legionaries, too, were naturally devoted to the general who had led them so often to victory.

THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE.--What is known as the First Triumvirate rested on the genius of Caesar, the wealth of Cra.s.sus, and the achievements of Pompey. It was a coalition or private arrangement entered into by these three men for the purpose of securing to themselves the control of public affairs. Each pledged himself to work for the interests of the others.

Caesar was the manager of the "ring," and through the aid of his colleagues secured the consulship (59 B.C.).

CaeSAR'S CONQUESTS IN GAUL AND BRITAIN.--At the end of his consulship, the administration of the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul was a.s.signed to Caesar. Already he was revolving in his mind plans for seizing supreme power. Beyond the Alps the Gallic and Germanic tribes were in restless movement. He saw there a grand field for military exploits, which should gain for him such glory and prestige as, in other fields, had been won and were now enjoyed by Pompey. With this achieved, and with a veteran army devoted to his interests, he might hope easily to attain that position at the head of affairs towards which his ambition was urging him.

In the spring of 58 B.C. alarming intelligence from beyond the Alps caused Caesar to hasten from Rome into Transalpine Gaul. Now began a series of eight brilliant campaigns directed against the various tribes of Gaul, Germany, and Britain. In his _Commentaries_ Caesar himself has left us a faithful and graphic account of all the memorable marches, battles, and sieges that filled the years between 58 and 50 B.C. The year 55 B.C.

marked two great achievements. Early in the spring of this year Caesar constructed a bridge across the Rhine, and led his legions against the Germans in their native woods and swamps. In the autumn of the same year he crossed, by means of hastily constructed ships, the channel that separates the mainland from Britain, and after maintaining a foothold upon that island for two weeks withdrew his legions into Gaul for the winter.

The following season he made another invasion of Britain; but, after some encounters with the fierce barbarians, recrossed to the mainland without having established any permanent garrisons in the island. Almost one hundred years pa.s.sed away before the natives of Britain were again molested by the Romans (see p. 311).

In the year 52 B.C., while Caesar was absent in Italy, a general revolt occurred among the Gallic tribes. It was a last desperate struggle for the recovery of their lost independence. Vercingetorix, chief of the Arverni, was the leader of the insurrection. For a time it seemed as though the Romans would be driven from the country. But Caesar's despatch and military genius saved the province to the republic.

In his campaigns in Gaul, Caesar had subjugated three hundred tribes, captured eight hundred cities, and slain a million of barbarians--one third of the entire population of the country. Another third he had taken prisoners. Great enthusiasm was aroused at Rome by these victories. "Let the Alps now sink," exclaimed Cicero: "the G.o.ds raised them to shelter Italy from the barbarians: they are now no longer needed."

RESULTS OF THE GALLIC WARS.--The most important result of the Gallic wars of Caesar was the Romanizing of Gaul. The country was opened to Roman traders and settlers, who carried with them the language, customs, and arts of Italy.

Another result of the conquest was the checking of the migratory movements of the German tribes, which gave Graeco-Roman civilization time to become thoroughly rooted, not only in Gaul, but also in Spain and other lands.

RIVALRY BETWEEN CaeSAR AND POMPEY: CaeSAR CROSSES THE RUBICON.--While Caesar was in the midst of his Transalpine wars, Cra.s.sus was leading an army against the Parthians, hoping to rival there the brilliant conquests of Caesar in Gaul. But his army was almost annihilated by the Parthian cavalry, and he himself was slain (54 B.C.). His captors, so it is said, poured molten gold down his throat, that he might be sated with the metal which he had so coveted during life. In the death of Cra.s.sus, Caesar lost his stanchest friend, one who had never failed him, and whose wealth had been freely used for his advancement.

The world now belonged to Caesar and Pompey. That the insatiable ambition of these two rivals should sooner or later bring them into collision was inevitable. Their alliance in the triumvirate was simply one of selfish convenience, not of friendship. While Caesar was carrying on his campaigns in Gaul, Pompey was at Rome watching jealously the growing reputation of his great rival. He strove, by a princely liberality, to win the affections of the common people. On the Field of Mars he erected an immense theatre with seats for forty thousand spectators. He gave magnificent games, and set public tables; and when the interest of the people in the sports of the Circus flagged, he entertained them with gladiatorial combats. In a similar manner Caesar strengthened himself with the people for the struggle which he plainly foresaw. He sought in every way to ingratiate himself with the Gauls; increased the pay of his soldiers; conferred the privileges of Roman citizenship upon the inhabitants of different cities in his province; and sent to Rome enormous sums of gold to be expended in the erection of temples, theatres, and other public structures, and in the celebration of games and shows that should rival in magnificence those given by Pompey.

The terrible condition of affairs at the capital favored the ambition of Pompey. So selfish and corrupt were the members of the Senate, so dead to all virtue and to every sentiment of patriotism were the people, that even such patriots as Cato and Cicero saw no hope for the maintenance of the republic. The former favored the appointment of Pompey as sole consul for one year, which was about the same thing as making him dictator. "It is better," said Cato, "to choose a master than to wait for the tyrant whom anarchy will impose upon us." The "tyrant" in his and everybody's mind was Caesar.

Pompey now broke with Caesar, and attached himself again to the old aristocratic party, which he had deserted for the alliance and promises of the triumvirate. The death at this time of his wife Julia, the daughter of Caesar, severed the bonds of relationship at the same moment that those of ostensible friendship were broken.

The Senate, hostile to Caesar, now issued a decree that he should resign his office, and disband his Gallic legions by a stated day. The crisis had now come. Caesar ordered his legions to hasten from Gaul into Italy.

Without waiting for their arrival, at the head of a small body of veterans that he had with him at Ravenna, he crossed the Rubicon, a little stream that marked the boundary of his province. This was a declaration of war.