The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - A.H. Beesley
EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY
* * * * *
THE GRACCHI MARIUS AND SULLA
BY
A.H. BEESLEY
WITH MAPS
1921
PREFACE
It would be scarcely possible for anyone writing on the period
embraced in this volume, to perform his task adequately without making
himself familiar with Mr. Long's 'History of the Decline of the Roman
Republic' and Mommsen's 'History of Rome.' To do over again (as though
the work had never been attempted) what has been done once for all
accurately and well, would be mere prudery of punctiliousness. But
while I acknowledge my debt of gratitude to both these eminent
historians, I must add that for the whole period I have carefully
examined the original authorities, often coming to conclusions widely
differing from those of Mr. Long. And I venture to hope that from
the advantage I have had in being able to compare the works of two
writers, one of whom has well-nigh exhausted the theories as the
other has the facts of the subject, I have succeeded in giving a more
consistent and faithful account of the leaders and legislation of the
revolutionary era than has hitherto been written. Certainly there
could be no more instructive commentary on either history than the
study of the other, for each supplements the other and emphasizes
its defects. If Mommsen at times pushes conjecture to the verge of
invention, as in his account of the junction of the Helvetii and
Cimbri, Mr. Long, in his dogged determination never to swerve from
facts to inference, falls into the opposite extreme, resorting to
somewhat Cyclopean architecture in his detestation of stucco. But
my admiration for his history is but slightly qualified by such
considerations, and to any student who may be stimulated by the
volumes of this series to acquire what would virtually amount to an
acquaintance first-hand with the narratives of ancient writers, I
would say 'Read Mr. Long's history.' To do so is to learn not only
knowledge but a lesson in historical study generally. For the writings
of a man with whom style is not the first object are as refreshing as
his scorn for romancing history is wholesome, and the grave irony with
which he records its slips amusing.
A.H.B.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ANTECEDENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.
Previous history of the Roman orders--The Ager Publicus--Previous
attempts at agrarian legislation--Roman slavery--The first Slave
War--The Nobiles, Optimates, Populares, Equites--Classification of the
component parts of the Roman State--State of the transmarine provinces
CHAPTER II.
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS.
Scipio Aemilianus--Tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus--His agrarian
proposals--Wisdom of them--Grievances of the possessors--Octavius
thwarts Gracchus--Conduct of Gracchus defended--His other intended
reforms--He stands again for the tribunate--His motives--His murder
CHAPTER III.
CAIUS GRACCHUS.
Blossius spared--The law of T. Gracchus carried out--Explanation
of Italian opposition to it--Attitude of Scipio Aemilianus--His
murder--Quaestorship of Caius Gracchus--The Alien Act of
Pennus--Flaccus proposes to give the Socii the franchise--Revolt and
extirpation of Fregellae--Tribunate of Caius Gracchus--Compared to
Tiberius--His aims--His Corn Law defended--His Lex Judiciaria--His law
concerning the taxation of Asia--His conciliation of the equites--His
colonies--He proposes to give the franchise to the Italians--Other
projects--Machinations of the nobles against him--M. Livius Drusus
outbids him--Stands again for the tribunate, but is rejected--His
murder--Some of his laws remain in force--The Maria Lex--Reactionary
legislation of the Senate--The Lex Thoria--All offices confined to a
close circle
CHAPTER IV.
THE JUGURTHINE WAR.
Legacy of Attalus--Aristonicus usurps his kingdom--Settlement of
Asia--Jugurtha murders Hiempsal and attacks Adherbal--His intrigues
at Rome and the infamy of M. Aemilius Scaurus and the other Roman
nobles--Three commissions bribed by Jugurtha--Adherbal murdered--Rome
declares war and Jugurtha bribes the Roman generals, Bestia and
Scaurus--Memmius denounces them at Rome--Jugurtha summoned to Rome,
where he murders Massiva--He defeats Aulus Albinos--Metellus sent
against him Jugurtha defeated on the Muthul--Keeps up a guerilla
warfare--Marius stands for the consulship, and succeeds
Metellus--Bocchus betrays Jugurtha to Sulla--Settlement of Numidia
CHAPTER V.
THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.
Recommencement of the Social struggle at Rome--Marius the popular
hero--Incessant frontier-warfare of the Romans--The Cimbri defeat
Carbo and Silanus--Caepio and 'The Gold of Tolosa'--The Cimbri defeat
Scaurus and Caepio--Marius elected consul--The Cimbri march towards
Spain--Their nationality--Their plan of operations--Plan of
Marius--Battle of Aquae Sextiae--Battle of Vercellae
CHAPTER VI.
THE ROMAN ARMY.
Second Slave War--Aquillius ends it--Changes in the Roman
army--Uniform equipment of the legionary--Mariani muli--The cohort
the tactical unit--The officers--Numbers of the legion--The pay--The
praetorian cohort--Dislike to service--The army becomes professional
CHAPTER VII.
SATURNINUS AND DRUSUS.
Saturninus takes up the Gracchan policy, in league with Glaucia and
Marius--The Lex Servilia meant to relieve the provincials, conciliate
the equites, and throw open the judicia to all citizens--Agrarian law
of Saturninus--His laws about grain and treason--Murder of Memmius,
Glaucia's rival--Saturninus is attacked and deserted by Marius--The
Lex Licinia Minucia heralds the Social War--Drusus attempts
reform--Obliged to tread in the steps of the Gracchi--His proposals
with regard to the Italians, the coinage, corn, colonies and the
equites--Opposed by Philippus and murdered
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SOCIAL WAR.
Interests of Italian capitalists and small farmers opposed--The Social
War breaks out at Asculum--The insurgents choose Corfinium as their
capital--In the first year they gain everywhere--Then the Lex Julia is
passed and in the second year they lose everywhere--The star of Sulla
rises, that of Marius declines--The Lex Plautia Papiria--First year
of the war--The confederates defeat Perperna, Crassus, Caesar,
Lupus, Caepio, and take town after town--The Umbrians and Etruscans
Revolt--Second year--Pompeius triumphs in the north, Cosconius in
the south-east, Sulla in the south-west--Revolution at Rome--The
confederates courted by both parties--The rebellion smoulders on till
finally quenched by Sulla after the Mithridatic War
CHAPTER IX.
SULPICIUS.
Financial crisis at Rome--Sulpicius Rufus attempts to reform the
government, and complete the enfranchisement of the Italians--His laws
forcibly carried by the aid of Marius--Sulla driven from Rome flies to
the army at Nola, and marches at their head against Marius--Sulpicius
slain--Marius outlawed--Sulla leaves Italy after reorganizing the
Senate and the comitia
CHAPTER X.
MARIUS AND CINNA.
Flight of Marius--His romantic adventures at Circeii, Minturnae,
Carthage--Cinna takes up the Italian cause--Driven from Rome by
Octavius, he flies to the army in Campania and marches on Rome--Marius
lands in Etruria--Octavius summons Pompeius from Etruria and
their armies surround the city--Marius and Cinna enter Rome--The
proscriptions--Seventh consulship and death of Marius--Cinna supreme
CHAPTER XI.
THE FIRST MITHRIDATIC WAR.
Sertorius in Spain--Cyrene bequeathed to Rome--Previous history of
Mithridates--His submission to Aquillius--Aquillius forces on a
war--He is defeated and killed by Mithridates--Massacre of Romans in
Asia--Mithridates repulsed at Rhodes
CHAPTER XII.
SULLA IN GREECE AND ASIA.
Aristion induces Athens to revolt--Sulla lands in Epirus, and besieges
Athens and the Piraeus--His difficulties--He takes Athens and the
Piraeus, and defeats Archelaus at Chaeroneia and Orchomenus--Terms
offered to Mithridates--Tyranny of the latter--Flaccus comes to Asia
and is murdered by Fimbria, who is soon afterwards put to death by
Sulla
CHAPTER XIII.
SULLA IN ITALY.
Sulla lands at Brundisium and is joined by numerous adherents--Battle
of Mount Tifata--Sertorius goes to Spain--Sulla in 83 is master of
Picenum, Apulia, and Campania--Battle of Sacriportus--Sulla blockades
young Marius in Praeneste--Indecisive war in Picenum between Carbo
and Metellus--Repeated attempts to relieve Praeneste--Carbo flies
to Africa--His lieutenants threaten Rome--Sulla comes to the rescue
--Desperate attempt to take the city by Pontius--Battle of the
Colline Gate--Sulla's danger--Death of Carbo, of Domitius
Ahenobarbus--Exploits of Pompeius in Sicily and Africa--His
vanity--Murena provokes the second Mithridatic War--Sertorius in
Spain--His successes and ascendency over the natives
CHAPTER XIV.
PERSONAL RULE AND DEATH OF SULLA.
The Sullan proscriptions--Sulla and Caesar--The Cornelii--Sulla's
horrible character--His death and splendid obsequies
CHAPTER XV.
SULLA'S REACTIONARY MEASURES.
The Leges Corneliae--Sulla remodels the Senate, the quaestorship,
the censorship, the tribunate, the comitia, the consulship, the
praetorship, the augurate and pontificate, the judicia--Minor laws
attributed to him--Effects of his legislation the best justification
of the Gracchi
LIST OF PHRASES
INDEX
MAPS.
MARCH OF SULLA AND ARCHELAUS BEFORE CHAERONEIA
BATTLE OF CHAERONEIA
THE
GRACCHI, MARIUS AND SULLA.
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CHAPTER I.
ANTECEDENTS OF THE REVOLUTION.
During the last half of the second century before Christ Rome was
undisputed mistress of the civilised world. A brilliant period of
foreign conquest had succeeded the 300 years in which she had overcome
her neighbours and made herself supreme in Italy. In 146 B.C. she had
given the death-blow to her greatest rival, Carthage, and had annexed
Greece. In 140 treachery had rid her of Viriathus, the stubborn
guerilla who defied her generals and defeated her armies in Spain.
In 133 the terrible fate of Numantia, and in 132 the merciless
suppression of the Sicilian slave-revolt, warned all foes of the
Republic that the sword, which the incompetence of many generals had
made seem duller than of old, was still keen to smite; and except
where some slave-bands were in desperate rebellion, and in Pergamus,
where a pretender disputed with Rome the legacy of Attalus, every land
along the shores of the Mediterranean was subject to or at the mercy
of a town not half as large as the London of to-day. Almost exactly a
century afterwards the Government under which this gigantic empire had
been consolidated was no more.
Foreign wars will have but secondary importance in the following
pages. [Sidenote: The history will not be one of military events.] The
interest of the narrative centres mainly in home politics; and though
the world did not cease to echo to the tramp of conquering legions,
and the victorious soldier became a more and more important factor in
the State, still military matters no longer, as in the Samnite and
Punic wars, absorb the attention, dwarfed as they are by the great
social struggle of which the metropolis was the arena. In treating of
the first half of those hundred years of revolution, which began
with the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus and ended with the battle of
Actium, it is mainly the fall of the Republican and the foreshadowing
of the Imperial system of government which have to be described.
[Sidenote: In order to understand the times of the Gracchi it is
necessary to understand the history of the orders at Rome.] But, in
order to understand rightly the events of those fifty years, some
survey, however brief, of the previous history of the Roman orders is
indispensable.
[Sidenote: The patres.] When the mists of legend clear away we see a
community which, if we do not take slaves into account, consisted
of two parts--the governing body, or patres, to whom alone the term
Populus Romanus strictly applied, and who constituted the Roman State,
and the governed class, or clientes, who were outside its pale. The
word patrician, more familiar to our ear than the substantive from
which it is formed, came to imply much more than its original meaning.
[Sidenote: The clients.] In its simplest and earliest sense it was
applied to a man who was sprung from a Roman marriage, who stood
towards his client on much the same footing which, in the mildest form
of slavery, a master occupies towards his slave. As the patronus was
to the libertus, when it became customary to liberate slaves, so in
some measure were the Fathers to their retainers, the Clients. That
the community was originally divided into these two sections is known.
What is not known is how, besides this primary division of patres and
clientes, there arose a second _political_ class in the State, namely
the plebs. The client as client had no political existence. [Sidenote:
The plebeians.] But as a plebeian he had. Whether the plebs was formed
of clients who had been released from their clientship, just as slaves
might be manumitted; or of foreigners, as soldiers, traders, or
artisans were admitted into the community; or partly of foreigners and
partly of clients, the latter being equalised by the patres with the
former in self-defence; and whether as a name it dated from or was
antecedent to the so-called Tullian organization is uncertain. But we
know that in one way or other a second political division in the State
arose and that the constitution, of which Servius Tullius was the
reputed author, made every freeman in Rome a citizen by giving him a
vote in the Comitia Centuriata. Yet though the plebeian was a citizen,
and as such acquired 'commercium,' or the right to hold and devise
property, it was only after a prolonged struggle that he achieved
political equality with the patres. [Sidenote: Gradual acquisition
by the plebs of political equality with the patres.] Step by step he
wrung from them the rights of intermarriage and of filling offices of
state; and the great engine by which this was brought about was the
tribunate, the historical importance of which dates from, even though
as a plebeian magistracy it may have existed before, the first
secession of the plebs in 494 B.C. [Sidenote: Character of the
tribunate.] The tribunate stood towards the freedom of the Roman
people in something of the same relation which the press of our time
occupies towards modern liberty: for its existence implied free
criticism of the executive, and out of free speech grew free action.
[Sidenote: The Roman government transformed from oligarchy into a
plutocracy.]
Side by side with those external events which made Rome mistress first
of her neighbours, then, of Italy, and lastly of the world, there went
on a succession of internal changes, which first transformed a pure
oligarchy into a plutocracy, and secondly overthrew this modified form
of oligarchy, and substituted Caesarism. With the earlier of these
changes we are concerned here but little. The political revolution was
over when the social revolution which we have to record began. But the
roots of the social revolution were of deep growth, and were in fact
sometimes identical with those of the political revolution. [Sidenote:
Parallel between Roman and English history.] Englishmen can understand
such an intermixture the more readily from the analogies, more or less
close, which their own history supplies. They have had a monarchy.
They have been ruled by an oligarchy, which has first confronted and
then coalesced with the moneyed class, and the united orders have been
forced to yield theoretical equality to almost the entire nation,
while still retaining real authority in their own hands. They have
seen a middle class coquetting with a lower class in order to force
an upper class to share with it its privileges, and an upper class
resorting in its turn to the same alliance; and they may have noted
something more than a superficial resemblance between the tactics
of the patres and nobiles of Rome and our own magnates of birth and
commerce. Even now they are witnessing the displacement of political
by social questions, and, it is to be hoped, the successful solution
of problems which in the earlier stages of society have defied the
efforts of every statesman. Yet they know that, underlying all the
political struggles of their history, questions connected with
the rights and interests of rich and poor, capitalist and toiler,
land-owner and land-cultivator, have always been silently and
sometimes violently agitated. Political emancipation has enabled
social discontent to organize itself and find permanent utterance, and
we are to-day facing some of the demands to satisfy which the Gracchi
sacrificed their lives more than 2,000 years ago. [Sidenote: The
struggle between the orders chiefly agrarian.] With us indeed the
wages question is of more prominence than the land question, because
we are a manufacturing nation; but the principles at stake are much
the same. At Rome social agitation was generally agrarian, and the
first thing necessary towards understanding the Gracchan revolution is
to gain a clear conception of the history of the public land.
[Sidenote: Origin of the Ager Publicus.] The ground round a town like
Rome was originally cultivated by the inhabitants, some of whom, as
more food and clothing were required, would settle on the soil. From
them the ranks of the army were recruited; and, thus doubly oppressed
by military service and by the land tax, which had to be paid in coin,
the small husbandman was forced to borrow from some richer man in the
town. Hence arose usury, and a class of debtors; and the sum of debt
must have been increased as well as the number of the debtors by the
very means adopted to relieve it. [Sidenote: Fourfold way of dealing
with conquered territory.] When Rome conquered a town she confiscated
a portion of its territory, and disposed of it in one of four ways.
[Sidenote: Colonies.] 1. After expelling the owners, she sent some of
her own citizens to settle upon it. They did not cease to be Romans,
and, being in historical times taken almost exclusively from the
plebs, must often have been but poorly furnished with the capital
necessary for cultivating the ground. [Sidenote: Sale.] 2. She sold
it; and, as with us, when a field is sold, a plan is made of its
dimensions and boundaries, so plans of the land thus sold were made on
tablets of bronze, and kept by the State. [Sidenote: Occupation.] 3.
She allowed private persons to 'occupy' it on payment of 'vectigal,'
or a portion of the produce; and, though not surrendering the title to
the land, permitted the possessors to use it as their private property
for purchase, sale, and succession. [Sidenote: Commons.] 4. A portion
was kept as common pasture land for those to whom the land had been
given or sold, or by whom it was occupied and those who used it paid
'scriptura,' or a tax of so much per head on the beasts, for whose
grazing they sent in a return. This irregular system was fruitful in
evil. It suited the patres with whom it originated, for they were
for a time the sole gainers by it. Without money it must have been
hopeless to occupy tracts distant from Rome. The poor man who did so
would either involve himself in debt, or be at the mercy of his richer
neighbours, whose flocks would overrun his fields, or who might oust
him altogether from them by force, and even seize him himself and
enroll him as a slave. The rich man, on the other hand, could use
such land for pasture, and leave the care of his flocks and herds
to clients and slaves. [Sidenote: This irregular system the germ of
latifundia.] So originated those 'latifundia,' or large farms, which
greatly contributed to the ruin of Rome and Italy. The tilled land
grew less and with it dwindled the free population and the recruiting
field for the army. Gangs of slaves became more numerous, and were
treated with increased brutality; and as men who do not work for their
own money are more profuse in spending it than those who do, the
extravagance of the Roman possessors helped to swell the tide of
luxury, which rose steadily with foreign conquest, and to create in
the capital a class free in name indeed, but more degraded, if less
miserable, than the very slaves, who were treated like beasts through
Italy. It is not certain whether anyone except a patrician could claim
'occupation' as a right; but, as the possessors could in any case
sell the land to plebeians, it fell into the hands of rich men,
to whichever class they belonged, both at Rome, and in the Roman
colonies, and the Municipia; and as it was never really their
property--'dominium'--but the property of the State, it was a constant
source of envy and discontent among the poor.
[Sidenote: Why complaints about the Public Land became louder at the
close of the second century B.C.] As long as fresh assignations of
land and the plantations of colonies went on, this discontent could
be kept within bounds. But for a quarter of a century preceding our
period scarcely any fresh acquisitions of land had been made in Italy,
and, with no hope of new allotments from the territory of their
neighbours, the people began to clamour for the restitution of their
own. [Sidenote: Previous agrarian legislation. Spurius Cassius.] The
first attempt to wrest public land from possessors had been made long
before this by Spurius Cassius; and he had paid for his daring with
his life. [Sidenote: The Licinian Law.] More than a century later the
Licinian law forbade anyone to hold above 500 'jugera' of public land,
for which, moreover, a tenth of the arable and a fifth of the grazing
produce was to be paid to the State. The framers of the law are said
to have hoped that possessors of more than this amount would shrink
from making on oath a false return of the land which they occupied,
and that, as they would be liable to penalties for exceeding the
prescribed maximum, all land beyond the maximum would be sold at a
nominal price (if this interpretation of the [Greek: kat' oligon] of
Appian may be hazarded) to the poor. It is probable that they did not
quite know what they were aiming at, and certain that they did not
foresee the effects of their measure. In a confused way the law
may have been meant to comprise sumptuary, political, and agrarian
objects. It forbade anyone to keep more than a hundred large or five
hundred small beasts on the common pasture-land, and stipulated for
the employment of a certain proportion of free labour. The free
labourers were to give information of the crops produced, so that
the fifths and tenths might be duly paid; and it may have been
the breakdown of such an impossible institution which led to the
establishment of the 'publicani.' [Sidenote: Composite nature of the
Licinian law.] Nothing, indeed, is more likely than that Licinius and
Sextius should have attempted to remedy by one measure the specific
grievance of the poor plebeians, the political disabilities of the
rich plebeians and the general deterioration of public morals; but,
though their motives may have been patriotic, such a measure could no
more cure the body politic than a man who has a broken limb, is blind,
and in a consumption can be made sound at every point by the heal-all
of a quack. Accordingly the Licinian law was soon, except in its
political provisions, a dead letter. Licinius was the first man
prosecuted for its violation, and the economical desire of the nation
became intensified. [Sidenote: The Flaminian law.] In 232 B.C.
Flaminius carried a law for the distribution of land taken from the
Senones among the plebs. Though the law turned out no possessors, it
was opposed by the Senate and nobles. Nor is this surprising, for any
law distributing land was both actually and as a precedent a blow to
the interests of the class which practised occupation. What is at
first sight surprising is that small parcels of land, such as must
have been assigned in these distributions, should have been so
coveted. [Sidenote: Why small portions of land were so coveted.] The
explanation is probably fourfold. Those who clamoured for them were
wretched enough to clutch at any change; or did not realise to
themselves the dangers and drawbacks of what they desired; or intended
at once to sell their land to some richer neighbour; or, lastly,
longed to keep a slave or two, just as the primary object of the 'mean
white' in America used to be to keep his negro. [Sidenote: Failure
of previous legislation.] On the whole, it is clear that legislation
previous to this period had not diminished agrarian grievances, and it
is clear also why these grievances were so sorely felt. The general
tendency at Rome and throughout Italy was towards a division of
society into two classes--the very rich and the very poor, a tendency
which increased so fast that not many years later it was said that out
of some 400,000 men at Rome only 2,000 could, in spite of the city
being notoriously the centre to which the world's wealth gravitated,
be called really rich men. To any patriot the progressive extinction
of small land-owners must have seemed piteous in itself and menacing
to the life of the State. On the other hand, the poor had always one
glaring act of robbery to cast in the teeth of the rich. A sanguine
tribune might hope permanently to check a growing evil by fresh
supplies of free labour. His poor partisan again had a direct
pecuniary interest in getting the land. Selfish and philanthropic
motives therefore went hand in hand, and in advocating the
distribution of land a statesman would be sure of enlisting
the sympathies of needy Italians, even more than those of the
better-provided-for poor of Rome.