The Two Great Republics: Rome and the United States Part 11

The historians of the reactionary and aristocratic school, while they are able to find much to praise in the life and work of this bitterest of the enemies of human lives and liberty, are nevertheless compelled to qualify their praise because of the many features of his character and the many acts of his life which even they are compelled to condemn. The historian Charles Merivale has made perhaps as strong a plea for Sulla as it is possible to make, in the following words:

"The personal rivalry of her two most fortunate generals becomes now the main channel of the history of Rome herself.

In the year which closed the contest of the republic with her dependent allies (88), Sulla was forty-nine years old, Marius was about seventy. The former was enjoying the full breeze of popularity and renown, while the latter, wearied but not sated with acc.u.mulated honours, was moodily throwing away the advantages he had earned in his earlier career.

From campaign to campaign Sulla, as we have seen, had dogged the steps of the elder warrior, always ready to step in and seize the opportunities which the other cast recklessly in his way. Not that Marius in his exalted station was even from the first indifferent to this incipient rivalry. He was deeply jealous of his subordinate. He felt chagrin at the contrast presented by their respective birth and origin; for Sulla, though needy in point of fortune, was a scion of the ill.u.s.trious house of the Cornelii, and plumed himself on the distinction and advantage such a lineage conferred. Sulla, moreover, was trained in the accomplishments of h.e.l.lenic education, which Marius, conscious of his want of them, vainly affected to despise. Sulla wrote and spoke Greek; his memoirs of his own life became the text-book of the Greek historians of Rome, from whom we princ.i.p.ally derive our acquaintance with him. But this varnish of superior culture seems to have failed in softening a rough plebeian nature.

Sulla was one of many n.o.ble Romans who combined with pretensions to literary taste the love of gross debauchery, and pleasure in the society of mimes and vulgar jesters. He was a coa.r.s.e sensualist, and by his disregard of the nuptial tie offended even the lax morality of his age. His eyes, we are told, were of a pure and piercing blue, and their sinister expression was heightened by the coa.r.s.eness of his complexion and a countenance disfigured by pimples and blotches, compared by the raillery of the Greeks to a mulberry sprinkled with meal. His manners, except when he unbent in the society of his inferiors, were haughty and morose; nor is there any act of kindliness or generosity recorded of him. The n.o.bles who accepted him as their champion had no personal liking for him. But selfish and ambitious though he was, the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of his party and order was with Sulla a species of fanaticism. He despised the isolated ascendency of a Marius, and aspired to rule in Rome at the head of a dominant oligarchy....

"Slowly and with many a painful struggle the Roman commonwealth had outgrown the narrow limits of a rustic munic.i.p.ality. The few hundred families which formed the original nucleus of her citizenship, and which in her earliest and simplest days had sufficed to execute all the functions of her government, had been compelled to incorporate allies and rivals in their own body, to enlarge their views, and to expand their inst.i.tutions. The main object of Sulla's policy was to revive at least the spirit of the old restrictions. The old families themselves had perished almost to a man; he replaced them by a newer growth; but he strove to pare away the accretions of ages, and restore the government of the vast empire of Rome to a small section of her children. It contravened the essential principle of national growth; while the career of conquest, to which the Romans devoted themselves, required the most perfect freedom of development.

"Nevertheless the legislation of Sulla was undoubtedly supported by a vast ma.s.s of existing prejudice. He threw himself into the ideas of his time, as far as they were interpreted by history, by tradition, and by religious usage. The attempt to enlarge the limits of the const.i.tution was in fact opposed to every acknowledged principle of polity. It was regarded equally by its opponents and its promoters as anomalous and revolutionary. It had as yet no foundation in argument, or in any sense of right, as right was then understood. Society at Rome was in a highly artificial state; and Sulla, with many of his ablest contemporaries, mistook for the laws of nature the inst.i.tutions of an obsolete and forgotten expediency. But nature was carrying on a great work, and proved too strong for art. Ten years sufficed to overthrow the whole structure of this reactionary legislation, and to launch the republic once more upon the career of growth and development. The champions of a more liberal policy sprang up in constant succession, and contributed, perhaps unconsciously, to the great work of union and comprehension, which was now rapidly in progress. The spirit of isolation which had split Greece and Italy into hundreds of separate communities was about to give way to a general yearning for social and moral unity.

The nations were to be trained by the steady development of the Roman administration.

"But though Sulla's main policy was thus speedily overthrown, he had not lived in vain. As dictator he wasted his strength in attempting what, if successful, would have destroyed his country; but as proconsul he has saved her.

The tyranny of the Roman domination had set the provinces in a blaze. Mithridates had fanned the flame. Greece and Asia had revolted. The genius of the king of Pontus might have consolidated an empire, such as Xerxes might have envied, on either sh.o.r.e of the aegean Sea. But at this crisis of her fate, hardly less imminent than when Hannibal was wresting from her allies and subjects within the Alps, Rome had confided her fortunes to the prowess of Sulla. The great victory of Chaeronea checked the dissolution of her empire.

The invader was hurled back across the aegean; the cities of Greece returned reluctantly to their obedience, never more to be tempted to renounce it. Sulla followed Mithridates into Asia; one by one he recovered the provinces of the republic. He bound his foe by treaties to abstain from fomenting their discontents. He left his officers to enforce submission to his decrees, and quartered the armies of Rome upon the wretched populations of the East. The pressing danger of the moment was averted, though it took twenty years more to subdue the power of Mithridates, and reduce Asia to pa.s.sive submission. Rome was relieved from the last of her foreign invaders; and this was the great work of Sulla, which deserved to immortalise his name in her annals."

CHAPTER IX

POMPEY

Sulla had hoped by his proscriptions to so completely crush the popular party in Rome that the aristocratic party would be able to enjoy a long period of undisputed authority and absolute power. Hardly was Sulla buried, however, before the popular party began to show signs of life and renewed resistance. The consuls at the time of Sulla's death were Lepidus and Catulus, both of them elected on account of their supposed absolute loyalty to the policies of Sulla and their disregard of popular rights. The first named, however, soon began to manifest symptoms of justice and humanity, and the Senate, alarmed at these views and his increasing popularity, sought to remove him from partic.i.p.ation in Roman politics by sending him as proconsul to govern the (then considered) remote province of Cisalpine Gaul.

This move only strengthened the position of Lepidus, however, by providing him with an army. This army being augmented by recruits consisting partly of enthusiastic adherents of the popular cause and partly of desperate adventurers, Lepidus considered himself strong enough to brave the chances of war, and began a march toward Rome. His army, however, was intercepted by the senatorial army sent to meet him, and Lepidus, completely defeated, fled to Sardinia, where he soon died.

One of the leading lieutenants of Lepidus in this campaign was Brutus, the father of the Brutus who was to be one of the a.s.sa.s.sins of Julius Caesar. The elder Brutus was taken prisoner at this time and put to death.

In the meantime another rebellion broke out in Spain, where Sertorius had a.s.sumed the government. Neither Metellus nor Pompey was able to reduce him to submission, and the rebellion was put to an end only by the murder of Sertorius in 72 B.C.

The epoch of civil wars had now fully begun for Rome, and the same year which witnessed the murder of Sertorius saw also the breaking out of the rebellion of the gladiators under Spartacus. This rebellion, starting in the mere uprising of a handful of gladiators, reached very large proportions and occasioned the greatest fear at Rome before it was put down by Cra.s.sus in the south of Italy and Pompey in the north.

The credit for putting down this insurrection clearly belonged to Cra.s.sus rather than to Pompey, whose share in the work had been merely the destruction of a band of fugitives who had fled to the north of Italy. Nevertheless, the Senate gave the highest honors to Pompey, who was voted a triumph, while only an ovation was granted to Cra.s.sus.

Pompey and Cra.s.sus both sought election to the consulship, although both were ineligible, since Cra.s.sus was still a praetor and under the laws should have waited two years before being a candidate for consul, and Pompey was only thirty-five years old and had not even been quaestor. Each of the candidates, however, had an army under his control at the very gates of Rome, and the two illegal elections were secured from the people by fear. Pompey and Cra.s.sus, the two most powerful men in Rome at this time, were thus consuls together in the year 70 B.C.

Pompey, although he had been an ardent supporter of Sulla and a great favorite of this leader, nevertheless, upon his election as consul, began to depart from Sulla's policies. The proposals made by Pompey were the removal of the restrictions placed upon the tribunes by Sulla and a reform of the judicial system. The first proposal was consented to by the Senate after some slight protest, but the second met with bitter opposition. The complete control possessed by the Senate over the law courts was of such great value to them that they were determined to retain it, although the administration of the courts while under their control had been one long-continued scandal. The administration of justice under the knights, however, had been almost as corrupt as that of the Senate, and to avoid giving the complete control of the trials to either of these orders, the new law prepared by Pompey and proposed by the praetor urba.n.u.s Aurelius Cotta provided that one third of the jurymen should be furnished by the Senate, one third by the knights, and one third by the tribunes of the treasury.

It was evident that the law was popular and would be adopted if it came to a vote. To prevent this, the senatorial party again prepared to engage in civil war. On this occasion, however, the resistance of the Senate was broken by the result of the still famous Verres trial.

In connection with this trial it is necessary to go back and speak of the work of another of the great men in the new generation of Roman politicians. As early as the year 79 B.C. Cicero had won considerable reputation by his defense of s.e.xtius Roscius. From 77 B.C. down to the period of which we are now writing Cicero had been actively engaged in the work of an advocate at Rome, except during the single year 75 B.C., when he served as a quaestor in Sicily, and during this period had risen in his profession until his reputation in the courts was second only to that of the greatest lawyer of the age, Hortensius.

Cicero was now a candidate for aedile and tried to aid his candidacy by some signal achievements. Just at this time a number of the Sicilians, to whom Cicero had endeared himself by the honesty and ability with which he had exercised his duty as quaestor in their island, besought Cicero to undertake the prosecution of C. Cornelius Verres, who had just returned from three years' service as praetor in Sicily, in which province he had been guilty of the most extreme extortions, dishonesty, and cruelty. The evidence Cicero was able to produce against Verres, and the impa.s.sioned eloquence of the orations against him which he prepared (for the evidence against Verres was so unanswerable that his counsel, the great Hortensius, threw up the case, and Verres fled into exile, thus depriving Cicero of an opportunity of delivering all the carefully prepared speeches orally in court) so demoralized the senatorial party that opposition to Cotta's bill now ceased, and the law was pa.s.sed without further difficulty.

In the same year, 70 B.C., censors were again appointed, after the office had been suspended for sixteen years, and the corruption of the times, and particularly of the Senate, was shown by the fact that by the action of the censors sixty-four members of the Senate were degraded from their office.

The greatest military triumphs in the life of Pompey were in the years following his consulship. In 67 B.C. he was sent to subdue the Sicilian pirates, armed with more complete powers than had ever before been voluntarily given by Roman citizens to any Roman general.

"The terms of the proposal are extraordinary, and require close attention. First, a generalissimo was to be appointed by the senate from the consulars, to hold supreme command over the whole Mediterranean and over all the coast for fifty miles inland, concurrently with the ordinary governors, for three years. Second, he might select from the men of senatorial rank twenty-five lieutenants with praetorian powers, and two treasurers with questorian power.

Third, he might raise an army of 120,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry, and a fleet of 500 ships, and for this purpose might dispose absolutely of all the resources of the provinces. Besides this, a large sum of money and a considerable force of men and ships were at once handed over to him.

"By the introduction of this law the government was practically taken out of the hands of the senate; it was the final collapse of the oligarchic rule. But it was more than this--it was practically the inst.i.tution of an unlimited dictatorship.

"Like all extraordinary commands, this new office no doubt required the confirmation of the people; but it was an undoubted prerogative of the senate to define the sphere of every command, and, in fact, to control and limit it in all ways. The people had hitherto interfered only on the proposition of the senate, or at any rate of a magistrate himself qualified for the office of general. Even during the Jugurthine War, when the command was transferred to Marius by popular vote, it was only to Marius as consul for the year. But now a private man was to be invested by the tribes with extraordinary authority, and the sphere of his office was defined by themselves. The new commander was empowered to confer praetorian powers--that is, the highest military and civil authority--upon adjutants chosen by himself, though hitherto such authority could only be conferred with the cooperation of the burgesses; while the office of general, which was usually conferred for one year only, with strict limitations as to forces and supplies, was now committed almost without reserve to one man, who could draw upon the whole resources of the state.

"Thus at one stroke the government was taken out of the hands of the senate, and the fortunes of the empire committed for the next three years to a dictator."

The pa.s.sage of this measure was one of the greatest triumphs in the life of Pompey. The success of Pompey against the pirates was complete and immediate, and appeared in striking contrast with the ill-success which had attended the Roman armies in Asia during the previous few years.

In 66 B.C. Gaius Manilius, one of the tribunes, introduced a bill recalling the Roman generals then conducting the war in Asia Minor and transferring the control of the Roman armies in this section to Pompey, giving also to Pompey the full power to make peace and alliances. This proposed law brought about a most peculiar condition of affairs in Roman politics. Few, if any, truly favored the procedure, which was in direct violation of all the principles of the Roman const.i.tution--a greater violation even than the law which had conferred upon Pompey his extraordinary powers as proconsul of the seas. But while everybody feared the pa.s.sage of this law, everybody, with the exception of the extreme aristocratic party led by Catulus, feared more to oppose it, and the law was pa.s.sed with little opposition.

From a military standpoint this grant of power to Pompey was justified by the results. Inside of three years he succeeded in completely overthrowing both Mithridates, the old king of Pontus, Rome's most dreaded enemy, and Tigranes, the king of Armenia. These successes of Pompey were followed by the conquest of the greater part of Syria.

From the conquests of Pompey in the East four new Roman provinces were formed: (1) Pontus and Bithynia; (2) Cilicia, including Isauria and Pamphylia; (3) Syria; (4) Crete.

The demoralizing effect of these laws conferring such powers upon Pompey were soon to manifest themselves. Rome was rapidly becoming accustomed to the disregard of the forms of government and of law, and to the sight of vast and irresponsible powers being granted to a single individual. These were the two things needed to prepare Rome to quietly acquiesce in the abandonment of the republic and the creation of a despotism. There is never a time in any country where too great a responsibility or power can be given to a single individual without the greatest danger to the future of the country. The right of the people to rule is both meaningless and valueless if such right is merely to consist in the right to delegate all the duties and powers of government to the custody of a single individual. A government can continue free only where the active control of public affairs is widely distributed, and where the ma.s.ses of the people are not afraid to accept responsibility and do not attempt to throw the responsibility for their safety and welfare upon the shoulders of a single individual. Where a single individual becomes indispensable to any free people it is a sign of the degeneracy of the people rather than of the greatness of the man.

CHAPTER X

CICERO AND CATILINE

Political honors under the Roman republic were generally to be won only by military success, or by aggressive leadership in the factional politics of the city. The single instance of a man's rise to a leading place in Roman politics solely through the power of his oratory is found in the case of Marcus Tullius Cicero. His success in the defense of Roscius and in the prosecution of Verres, as well as his growing reputation as a lawyer and orator, have already been referred to.

In 65 B.C. Cicero was a successful candidate for the consulship. His letters written to his friend Atticus at Athens, during his campaign, give a most vivid insight into the practical Roman politics of the times, and show us the striking similarity, in many respects, between the political battles of the Roman republic and our own election contests.

In one of his early letters Cicero wrote: "Let me tell you that there is no cla.s.s of people so hara.s.sed by every kind of unreasonable difficulty as candidates for office."

In a later letter he discusses the details of his campaign as follows:

"The state of things in regard to my candidature, in which I know that you are supremely interested, is this, as far as can be as yet conjectured. The only person actually canva.s.sing is P. Sulpicius Galba. He meets with a good old-fashioned refusal without reserve or disguise. In the general opinion this premature canva.s.s of his is not unfavorable to my interests; for the voters generally give as a reason for their refusal that they are under obligations to me. So I hope my prospects are to a certain degree improved by the report getting about that my friends are found to be numerous. My intention was to begin my own canva.s.s just at the very time that Cincius tells me that your servant starts with this letter, namely, in the campus at the time of the tribunician election, on the 17th of July. My fellow candidates, to mention only those who seem certain, are Galba and Antonius, and Q. Cornificius. At this I imagine you smiling or sighing. Well, to make you positively smite your forehead, there are people who actually think that Caesonius will stand. I do not think Aquitius will, for he openly disclaims it and has alleged as an excuse his health and his leading position at the bar.

Catiline will certainly be a candidate, if you can imagine a jury finding that the sun does not shine at noon. As for Aufidius and Polica.n.u.s, I do not think you will expect to hear from me about them. Of the candidates for this year's election, Caesar is considered certain. Thermus is looked upon as the rival of Sila.n.u.s. These latter are so weak both in friends and reputation that it seems possible to me to bring in Curius over both. But no one else seems to think so. What seems most to my interests is that Thermus should get in with Caesar. For there is none of those at present canva.s.sing who, if left over to my year, seems likely to be a stronger candidate, from the fact that he is commissioner of the via Flaminia, and when that has been finished I shall be greatly relieved to have seen him elected consul this election. Such in outline is the position of affairs in regard to candidates up to date. For myself I shall take the greatest pains to carry out all the duties of a candidate, and perhaps, as Gaul seems to have a considerable voting power, as soon as business at Rome has come to a standstill I shall obtain a _libera legatio_ and make an excursion in the course of September to visit Piso, but so as not to be back later than January. When I have ascertained the feelings of the n.o.bility, I shall let you know. You must undertake to secure for me the support of our friend Pompey, since you are nearer to him than I. Tell him I shall not be annoyed if he does not come to my election."

The year of Cicero's consulship (64 B.C.) was disturbed by the famous conspiracy of Lucius Sergius Catiline. It was in this conspiracy, and during this consulship, that the culmination was reached of the discontent and plotting which had been fermenting at Rome for a number of years among a large cla.s.s of the Roman n.o.bility. The most discontented men in any community are generally to be found among those who, while belonging by birth to the upper cla.s.ses of society, and accustomed to and desirous of the luxuries of life, have lost their fortunes and are unable to live in the style to which they consider themselves as of right ent.i.tled. Rome, at this time, was filled with this cla.s.s of malcontents, the extravagant and wasteful style of living, combined with the reckless gambling of the age, having reduced great numbers among the young n.o.bles almost to beggary.

The overthrow of Sulla's system of government, resulting from the defection of Pompey and the consequential loss of power and prestige by the Senate, had also roused a bitter feeling of resentment among the whole aristocratic party. The effect of this resentment upon the more solid and substantial element of this party had been to lead them to make preparations for the overthrow of Pompey upon his return to Rome; while the effect upon the ruined young n.o.bles was to render them more than ever ready for any desperate undertaking by which they stood a chance of repairing their fortunes.

No cause, whether good or bad, ever lacks a leader; and the leader at this time was found in Catiline, a young n.o.ble of the most profligate character, but of some degree of ability and possessed of boundless audacity and ambition.

Catiline was descended from one of the oldest families in Rome, and his loyalty to the cause of the aristocracy was proved by the ferocity with which he had served under Sulla and had a.s.sisted in carrying into execution his most bloodthirsty orders. Catiline did not fail to derive some profit from these terrible times, as he secured the proscription and murder of his brother and the grant to himself of his brother's forfeited estate.

In spite of these and many other equally heinous crimes, Catiline had been elected praetor in 68 B.C. and had then spent two years in the government of Africa. Returning to Rome in 66 B.C., he at once offered himself as a candidate for the consulship. His political hopes on this occasion, however, were wrecked by an accusation of misconduct in the government of his province, brought against him by Publius Clodius. In revenge, Catiline then conspired with Autronius Paetus, who had just been deprived of the consulship for bribery, and other profligate and reckless n.o.bles, to murder Cotta and Manilius, the successful candidates for consul, and to seize the government. According to rumor, both Cra.s.sus and Caesar were connected with the conspiracy. The conspiracy was discovered and the enterprise was abandoned; but the proceedings against the suspected conspirators were stopped by the interposition of one of the tribunes, and the facts of the matter were never definitely ascertained.

It is a peculiar fact that Cicero was ready, at this time, to defend Catiline against the charges of Clodius; which charges, however, were dropped, without being brought to trial. Two years later, Catiline was again a candidate for consul, but was defeated by Cicero and Antonius.

Catiline now began to make preparations for civil war. The plot was betrayed by a woman. Curius, one of Catiline's adherents, boasted of the plot to his mistress Fulvia, and she not only gave information of the plot to Cicero but entered into his employ as a spy upon the conspirators.

In spite of the overwhelming character of the evidence against him, Catiline continued on his course with the utmost a.s.surance and insolence. He even took his place in the Senate, and upon being attacked by Cicero replied, "There are two parties in the commonwealth; the n.o.bles, weak in both head and body; the people, strong in body, but headless. I intend to supply this body with a head."