The History of Rome, Book IV - Theodor Mommsen
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THE HISTORY OF ROME, BOOK IV
The Revolution
by
THEODOR MOMMSEN
Translated with the Sanction of the Author
by
William Purdie Dickson, D.D., LL.D.
Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow
Preparer's Note
This work contains many literal citations of and references to words,
sounds, and alphabetic symbols drawn from many languages, including
Gothic and Phoenician, but chiefly Latin and Greek. This English
language Gutenberg edition, constrained within the scope of 7-bit
ASCII code, adopts the following orthographic conventions:
1) Words and phrases regarded as "foreign imports", italicized in the
original text published in 1903; but which in the intervening century
have become "naturalized" into English; words such as "de jure",
"en masse", etc. are not given any special typographic distinction.
2) Except for Greek, all literally cited non-English words that do
not refer to texts cited as academic references, words that in the
source manuscript appear italicized, are rendered with a single
preceding, and a single following dash; thus, -xxxx-.
3) Greek words, first transliterated into Roman alphabetic equivalents,
are rendered with a preceding and a following double-dash; thus, --xxxx--.
Note that in some cases the root word itself is a compound form such as
xxx-xxxx, and is rendered as --xxx-xxx--
4) Simple non-ideographic references to vocalic sounds, single letters,
or alphabeic dipthongs; and prefixes, suffixes, and syllabic references
are represented by a single preceding dash; thus, -x, or -xxx.
5) The following refers particularly to the complex discussion of
alphabetic evolution in Ch. XIV: Measuring And Writing). Ideographic
references, meaning pointers to the form of representation itself rather
than to its content, are represented as -"id:xxxx"-. "id:" stands for
"ideograph", and indicates that the reader should form a mental picture
based on the "xxxx" following the colon. "xxxx" may represent a single
symbol, a word, or an attempt at a picture composed of ASCII characters.
E. g. --"id:GAMMA gamma"-- indicates an uppercase Greek gamma-form
Followed by the form in lowercase. Some such exotic parsing as this
is necessary to explain alphabetic development because a single symbol
may have been used for a number of sounds in a number of languages,
or even for a number of sounds in the same language at different
times. Thus, -"id:GAMMA gamma" might very well refer to a Phoenician
construct that in appearance resembles the form that eventually
stabilized as an uppercase Greek "gamma" juxtaposed to another one
of lowercase. Also, a construct such as --"id:E" indicates a symbol
that in graphic form most closely resembles an ASCII uppercase "E",
but, in fact, is actually drawn more crudely.
6) The numerous subheading references, of the form "XX. XX. Topic"
found in the appended section of endnotes are to be taken as "proximate"
rather than topical indicators. That is, the information contained
in the endnote indicates primarily the location in the main text
of the closest indexing "handle", a subheading, which may or may not
echo congruent subject matter.
The reason for this is that in the translation from an original
paged manuscript to an unpaged "cyberscroll", page numbers are lost.
In this edition subheadings are the only remaining indexing "handles"
of sub-chapter scale. Unfortunately, in some stretches of text these
subheadings may be as sparse as merely one in three pages. Therefore,
it would seem to make best sense to save the reader time and temper
by adopting a shortest path method to indicate the desired reference.
7) Dr. Mommsen has given his dates in terms of Roman usage, A.U.C.;
that is, from the founding of Rome, conventionally taken to be 753 B. C.
To the end of each volume is appended a table of conversion between
the two systems.
CONTENTS
BOOK IV: The Revolution
CHAPTER
I. The Subject Countries Down to the Times of the Gracchi
II. The Reform Movement and Tiberius Gracchus
III. The Revolution and Gaius Gracchus
IV. The Rule of the Restoration
V. The Peoples of the North
VI. The Attempt of Marius at Revolution and the Attempt
of Drusus at Reform
VII. The Revolt of the Italian Subjects, and the Sulpician
Revolution
VIII. The East and King Mithradates
IX. Cinna and Sulla
X. The Sullan Constitution
XI. The Commonwealth and Its Economy
XII. Nationality, Religion, and Education
XIII. Literature and Art
BOOK FOURTH
The Revolution
"-Aber sie treiben's toll;
Ich furcht', es breche."
Nicht jeden Wochenschluss
Macht Gott die Zeche-.
Goethe.
Chapter I
The Subject Countries Down to the Times of the Gracchi
The Subjects
With the abolition of the Macedonian monarchy the supremacy of Rome
not only became an established fact from the Pillars of Hercules to
the mouths of the Nile and the Orontes, but, as if it were the final
decree of fate, it weighed on the nations with all the pressure of
an inevitable necessity, and seemed to leave them merely the choice
of perishing in hopeless resistance or in hopeless endurance.
If history were not entitled to insist that the earnest reader
should accompany her through good and evil days, through landscapes
of winter as well as of spring, the historian might be tempted to shun
the cheerless task of tracing the manifold and yet monotonous turns
of this struggle between superior power and utter weakness, both in
the Spanish provinces already annexed to the Roman empire and in the
African, Hellenic, and Asiatic territories which were still treated
as clients of Rome. But, however unimportant and subordinate the
individual conflicts may appear, they have collectively a deep
historical significance; and, in particular, the state of things
in Italy at this period only becomes intelligible in the light of
the reaction which the provinces exercised over the mother-country.
Spain
Except in the territories which may be regarded as natural appendages
of Italy--in which, however, the natives were still far from being
completely subdued, and, not greatly to the credit of Rome, Ligurians,
Sardinians, and Corsicans were continually furnishing occasion for
"village triumphs"--the formal sovereignty of Rome at the commencement
of this period was established only in the two Spanish provinces,
which embraced the larger eastern and southern portions of the
peninsula beyond the Pyrenees. We have already(1) attempted to
describe the state of matters in the peninsula. Iberians and Celts,
Phoenicians, Hellenes, and Romans were there confusedly intermingled.
The most diverse kinds and stages of civilization subsisted there
simultaneously and at various points crossed each other, the ancient
Iberian culture side by side with utter barbarism, the civilized
relations of Phoenician and Greek mercantile cities side by side with
an incipient process of Latinizing, which was especially promote
by the numerous Italians employed in the silver mines and by the
large standing garrison. In this respect the Roman township of
Italica (near Seville) and the Latin colony of Carteia (on the bay
Of Gibraltar) deserve mention--the latter being the first transmarine
urban community of Latin tongue and Italian constitution. Italica
was founded by the elder Scipio, before he left Spain (548), for
his veterans who were inclined to remain in the peninsula--probably,
however, not as a burgess-community, but merely as a market-place.(2)
Carteia was founded in 583 and owed its existence to the multitude of
camp-children--the offspring of Roman soldiers and Spanish slaves--who
grew up as slaves de jure but as free Italians de facto, and were now
manumitted on behalf of the state and constituted, along with the old
inhabitants of Carteia, into a Latin colony. For nearly thirty years
after the organizing of the province of the Ebro by Tiberius Sempronius
Gracchus (575, 576)(3) the Spanish provinces, on the whole, enjoyed the
blessings of peace undisturbed, although mention is made of one or two
expeditions against the Celtiberians and Lusitanians.
Lusitanian War
But more serious events occurred in 600. The Lusitanians, under the
leadership of a chief called Punicus, invaded the Roman territory,
defeated the two Roman governors who had united to oppose them, and
slew a great number of their troops. The Vettones (between the Tagus
and the Upper Douro) were thereby induced to make common cause with
the Lusitanians; and these, thus reinforced, were enabled to extend
their excursions as far as the Mediterranean, and to pillage even
the territory of the Bastulo-Phoenicians not far from the Roman
capital New Carthage (Cartagena). The Romans at home took the matter
seriously enough to resolve on sending a consul to Spain, a step
which had not been taken since 559; and, in order to accelerate the
despatch of aid, they even made the new consuls enter on office two
months and a half before the legal time. For this reason the day for
the consuls entering on office was shifted from the 15th of March
to the 1st of January; and thus was established the beginning of the
year, which we still make use of at the present day. But, before
the consul Quintus Fulvius Nobilior with his army arrived, a very
serious encounter took place on the right bank of the Tagus between
the praetor Lucius Mummius, governor of Further Spain, and the
Lusitanians, now led after the fall of Punicus by his successor
Caesarus (601). Fortune was at first favourable to the Romans; the
Lusitanian army was broken and their camp was taken. But the Romans,
partly already fatigued by their march and partly broken up in the
disorder of the pursuit, were at length completely beaten by their
already vanquished antagonists, and lost their own camp in addition
to that of the enemy, as well as 9000 dead.
Celtiberian War
The flame of war now blazed up far and wide. The Lusitanians on
the left bank of the Tagus, led by Caucaenus, threw themselves on
the Celtici subject to the Romans (in Alentejo), and took away their
town Conistorgis. The Lusitanians sent the standards taken from
Mummius to the Celtiberians at once as an announcement of victory
and as a warning; and among these, too, there was no want of ferment.
Two small Celtiberian tribes in the neighbourhood of the powerful
Arevacae (about the sources of the Douro and Tagus), the Belli and
the Titthi, had resolved to settle together in Segeda, one of their
towns. While they were occupied in building the walls, the Romans
ordered them to desist, because the Sempronian regulations prohibited
the subject communities from founding towns at their own discretion;
and they at the same time required the contribution of money and men
which was due by treaty but for a considerable period had not been
demanded. The Spaniards refused to obey either command, alleging
that they were engaged merely in enlarging, not in founding, a city,
and that the contribution had not been merely suspended, but
remitted by the Romans. Thereupon Nobilior appeared in Hither
Spain with an army of nearly 30,000 men, including some Numidian
horsemen and ten elephants. The walls of the new town of Segeda
still stood unfinished: most of the inhabitants submitted. But the
most resolute men fled with their wives and children to the powerful
Arevacae, and summoned these to make common cause with them against
the Romans. The Arevacae, emboldened by the victory of the
Lusitanians over Mummius, consented, and chose Carus, one of the
Segedan refugees, as their general. On the third day after his
election the valiant leader had fallen, but the Roman army was
defeated and nearly 6000 Roman burgesses were slain; the 23rd day of
August, the festival of the Volcanalia, was thenceforth held in sad
remembrance by the Romans. The fall of their general, however,
induced the Arevacae to retreat into their strongest town Numantia
(Guarray, a Spanish league to the north of Soria on the Douro),
whither Nobilior followed them. Under the walls of the town a second
engagement took place, in which the Romans at first by means of their
elephants drove the Spaniards back into the town; but while doing
so they were thrown into confusion in consequence of one of the
animals being wounded, and sustained a second defeat at the hands of
the enemy again issuing from the walls. This and other misfortunes--
such as the destruction of a corps of Roman cavalry despatched to
call forth the contingents--imparted to the affairs of the Romans in
the Hither province so unfavourable an aspect that the fortress of
Ocilis, where the Romans had their chest and their stores, passed
over to the enemy, and the Arevacae were in a position to think,
although without success, of dictating peace to the Romans. These
disadvantages, however, were in some measure counterbalanced by the
successes which Mummius achieved in the southern province. Weakened
though his army was by the disaster which it had suffered, he yet
succeeded with it in defeating the Lusitanians who had imprudently
dispersed themselves on the right bank of the Tagus; and passing
over to the left bank, where the Lusitanians had overrun the whole
Roman territory, and had even made a foray into Africa, he cleared
the southern province of the enemy.
Marcellus
To the northern province in the following year (602) the senate sent
considerable reinforcements and a new commander-in-chief in the place
of the incapable Nobilior, the consul Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who
had already, when praetor in 586, distinguished himself in Spain, and
had since that time given proof of his talents as a general in two
consulships. His skilful leadership, and still more his clemency,
speedily changed the position of affairs: Ocilis at once surrendered
to him; and even the Arevacae, confirmed by Marcellus in the hope
that peace would be granted to them on payment of a moderate fine,
concluded an armistice and sent envoys to Rome. Marcellus could thus
proceed to the southern province, where the Vettones and Lusitanians
had professed submission to the praetor Marcus Atilius so long as he
remained within their bounds, but after his departure had immediately
revolted afresh and chastised the allies of Rome. The arrival of
the consul restored tranquillity, and, while he spent the winter
in Corduba, hostilities were suspended throughout the peninsula.
Meanwhile the question of peace with the Arevacae was discussed at
Rome. It is a significant indication of the relations subsisting
among the Spaniards themselves, that the emissaries of the Roman
party subsisting among the Arevacae were the chief occasion of the
rejection of the proposals of peace at Rome, by representing that,
if the Romans were not willing to sacrifice the Spaniards friendly
to their interests, they had no alternative save either to send a
consul with a corresponding army every year to the peninsula or to
make an emphatic example now. In consequence of this, the ambassadors
of the Arevacae were dismissed without a decisive answer, and it was
resolved that the war should be prosecuted with vigour. Marcellus
accordingly found himself compelled in the following spring (603) to
resume the war against the Arevacae. But--either, as was asserted,
from his unwillingness to leave to his successor, who was to be
expected soon, the glory of terminating the war, or, as is perhaps
more probable, from his believing like Gracchus that a humane
treatment of the Spaniards was the first thing requisite for a lasting
peace--the Roman general after holding a secret conference with the
most influential men of the Arevacae concluded a treaty under the
walls of Numantia, by which the Arevacae surrendered to the Romans
at discretion, but were reinstated in their former rights according
to treaty on their undertaking to pay money and furnish hostages.
Lucullus
When the new commander-in-chief, the consul Lucius Lucullus, arrived
at head-quarters, he found the war which he had come to conduct already
terminated by a formally concluded peace, and his hopes of bringing
home honour and more especially money from Spain were apparently
frustrated. But there was a means of surmounting this difficulty.
Lucullus of his own accord attacked the western neighbours of the
Arevacae, the Vaccaei, a Celtiberian nation still independent which
was living on the best understanding with the Romans. The question
of the Spaniards as to what fault they had committed was answered by
a sudden attack on the town of Cauca (Coca, eight Spanish leagues to
the west of Segovia); and, while the terrified town believed that it
had purchased a capitulation by heavy sacrifices of money, Roman
troops marched in and enslaved or slaughtered the inhabitants without
any pretext at all. After this heroic feat, which is said to have
cost the lives of some 20,000 defenceless men, the army proceeded
on its march. Far and wide the villages and townships were abandoned
or, as in the case of the strong Intercatia and Pallantia (Palencia)
the capital of the Vaccaei, closed their gates against the Roman army.
Covetousness was caught in its own net; there was no community
That would venture to conclude a capitulation with the perfidious
commander, and the general flight of the inhabitants not only
rendered booty scarce, but made it almost impossible for him
to remain for any length of time in these inhospitable regions.
In front of Intercatia, Scipio Aemilianus, an esteemed military tribune,
the son of the victor of Pydna and the adopted grandson of the victor
of Zama, succeeded, by pledging his word of honour when that of the
general no longer availed, in inducing the inhabitants to conclude an
agreement by virtue of which the Roman army departed on receiving a
supply of cattle and clothing. But the siege of Pallantia had to
be raised for want of provisions, and the Roman army in its retreat
was pursued by the Vaccaei as far as the Douro. Lucullus thereupon
proceeded to the southern province, where in the same year the
praetor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, had allowed himself to be defeated
by the Lusitanians. They spent the winter not far from each other--
Lucullus in the territory of the Turdetani, Galba at Conistorgis--
And in the following year (604) jointly attacked the Lusitanians.
Lucullus gained some advantages over them near the straits of Gades.
Galba performed a greater achievement, for he concluded a treaty with
three Lusitanian tribes on the right bank of the Tagus and promised
to transfer them to better settlements; whereupon the barbarians,
who to the number of 7000 came to him for the sake of the expected
lands, were separated into three divisions, disarmed, and partly
carried off into slavery, partly massacred. War has hardly ever
been waged with so much perfidy, cruelty, and avarice as by these
two generals; who yet by means of their criminally acquired treasures
escaped the one from condemnation, and the other even from impeachment.
The veteran Cato in his eighty-fifth year, a few months before his
death, attempted to bring Galba to account before the burgesses;
but the weeping children of the general, and the gold which he had
brought home with him, proved to the Roman people his innocence.
Variathus
It was not so much the inglorious successes which Lucullus and Galba
had attained in Spain, as the outbreak of the fourth Macedonian
and of the third Carthaginian war in 605, which induced the Romans
again to leave Spanish affairs in the first instance to the ordinary
governors. Accordingly the Lusitanians, exasperated rather than
humbled by the perfidy of Galba, immediately overran afresh the rich
territory of the Turdetani. The Roman governor Gaius Vetilius
(607-8?)(4) marched against them, and not only defeated them, but
drove the whole host towards a hill where it seemed lost irretrievably.
The capitulation was virtually concluded, when Viriathus--a man of
humble origin, who formerly, when a youth, had bravely defended
his flock from wild beasts and robbers and was now in more serious
conflictsa dreaded guerilla chief, and who was one of the few that had
accidentally escaped from the perfidious onslaught of Galba--warned his
countrymen against relying on the Roman word of honour, and promised
them deliverance if they would follow him. His language and his
example produced a deep effect: the army entrusted him with the
supreme command. Viriathus gave orders to the mass of his men to
proceed in detached parties, by different routes, to the appointed
rendezvous; he himself formed the best mounted and most trustworthy
into a corps of 1000 horse, with which he covered the departure of
his men. The Romans, who wanted light cavalry, did not venture to
disperse for the pursuit under the eyes of the enemy's horsemen.
After Viriathus and his band had for two whole days held in check
the entire Roman army he suddenly disappeared during the night and
hastened to the general rendezvous. The Roman general followed him,
but fell into an adroitly-laid ambush, in which he lost the half of
his army and was himself captured and slain; with difficulty the
rest of the troops escaped to the colony of Carteia on the Straits.
In all haste 5000 men of the Spanish militia were despatched from the
Ebro to reinforce the defeated Romans; but Viriathus destroyed the
corps while still on its march, and commanded so absolutely the whole
interior of Carpetania that the Romans did not even venture to seek
him there. Viriathus, now recognized as lord and king of all the
Lusitanians, knew how to combine the full dignity of his princely
position with the homely habits of a shepherd. No badge distinguished
him from the common soldier: he rose from the richly adorned marriage-
table of his father-in-law, the prince Astolpa in Roman Spain, without
having touched the golden plate and the sumptuous fare, lifted his bride
on horseback, and rode back with her to his mountains. He never took
more of the spoil than the share which he allotted to each of his
comrades. The soldier recognized the general simply by his tall
figure, by his striking sallies of wit, and above all by the fact
that he surpassed every one of his men in temperance as well as in toil,
sleeping always in full armour and fighting in front of all in battle.
It seemed as if in that thoroughly prosaic age one of the Homeric
heroes had reappeared: the name of Viriathus resounded far and wide
through Spain; and the brave nation conceived that in him it had
at length found the man who was destined to break the fetters
of alien domination.
His Successors
Extraordinary successes in northern and in southern Spain marked the
next years of his generalship. After destroying the vanguard of the
praetor Gaius Plautius (608-9), Viriathus had the skill to lure him
over to the right bank of the Tagus, and there to defeat him so
emphatically that the Roman general went into winter quarters in
the middle of summer--on which account he was afterwards charged
before the people with having disgraced the Roman community, and was
compelled to live in exile. In like manner the army of the governor--
apparently of the Hither province--Claudius Unimanus was destroyed,
that of Gaius Negidius was vanquished, and the level country was
pillaged far and wide. Trophies of victory, decorated with the insignia
of the Roman governors and the arms of the legions, were erected on the
Spanish mountains; people at Rome heard with shame and consternation
of the victories of the barbarian king. The conduct of the Spanish
war was now committed to a trustworthy officer, the consul Quintus
Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, the second son of the victor of Pydna
(609). But the Romans no longer ventured to send the experienced
veterans, who bad just returned from Macedonia and Asia, forth anew
tothe detested Spanish war; the two legions, which Maximus brought
with him, were new levies and scarcely more to be trusted than the
old utterly demoralized Spanish army. After the first conflicts had
again issued favourably for the Lusitanians, the prudent general
kept together his troops for the remainder of the year in the camp
at Urso (Osuna, south-east from Seville) without accepting the
enemy's offer of battle, and only took the field afresh in the
following year (610), after his troops had by petty warfare become
qualified for fighting; he was then enabled to maintain the
superiority, and after successful feats of arms went into winter
quarters at Corduba. But when the cowardly and incapable praetor
Quinctius took the command in room of Maximus, the Romans again
suffered defeat after defeat, and their general in the middle of
summer shut himself up in Corduba, while the bands of Viriathus
overran the southern province (611).