The History of Rome, Book IV - Theodor Mommsen
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Warlike Preparations
Thus began, a few months after the death of Drusus, in the winter of
663-4, the struggle--as one of the coins of the insurgents represents
it--of the Sabellian ox against the Roman she-wolf. Both sides made
zealous preparations: in Italia great stores of arms, provisions, and
money were accumulated; in Rome the requisite supplies were drawn from
the provinces and particularly from Sicily, and the long-neglected walls
were put in a state of defence against any contingency. The forces
were in some measure equally balanced. The Romans filled up the
blanks in their Italian contingents partly by increased levies from
the burgesses and from the inhabitants--already almost wholly Romanized--
of the Celtic districts on the south of the Alps, of whom 10,000
served in the Campanian army alone,(13) partly by the contingents
of the Numidians and other transmarine nations; and with the aid
of the free cities in Greece and Asia Minor they collected a war
fleet.(14) On both sides, without reckoning garrisons, as many as
100,000 soldiers were brought into the field,(15) and in the ability
of their men, in military tactics and armament, the Italians were
nowise inferior to the Romans.
Subdivision of the Armies on Either Side
The conduct of the war was very difficult both for the insurgents and
for the Romans, because the territory in revolt was very extensive and
a great number of fortresses adhering to Rome were scattered up and
down in it: so that on the one hand the insurgents found themselves
compelled to combine a siege-warfare, which broke up their forces
and consumed their time, with the protection of an extended frontier;
and on the other hand the Romans could not well do otherwise than
combat the insurrection, which had no proper centre, simultaneously
in all the insurgent districts. In a military point of view the
insurgent country fell into two divisions; in the northern, which
reached from Picenum and the Abruzzi to the northern border of
Campania and embraced the districts speaking Latin, the chief command
was held on the Italian side by the Marsian Quintus Silo, on the Roman
side by Publius Rutilius Lupus, both as consuls; in the southern,
which included Campania, Samnium, and generally the regions speaking
Sabellian, the Samnite Gaius Papius Mutilus commanded as consul of the
insurgents, and Lucius Julius Caesar as the Roman consul. With each
of the two commanders-in-chief there were associated on the Italian
side six, on the Roman side five, lieutenant-commanders, each of whom
conducted the attack or defence in a definite district, while the
consular armies were destined to act more freely and to strike the
decisive blow. The most esteemed Roman officers, such as Gaius
Marius, Quintus Catulus, and the two consulars of experience in the
Spanish war, Titus Didius and Publius Crassus, placed themselves at
the disposal of the consuls for these posts; and though the Italians
had not names so celebrated to oppose to them, yet the result
showed that their leaders were in a military point of view nowise
inferior to the Romans.
The offensive in this thoroughly desultory war was on the whole on the
side of the Romans, but was nowhere decisively assumed even on their
part. It is surprising that the Romans did not collect their troops
for the purpose of attacking the insurgents with a superior force,
and that the insurgents made no attempt to advance into Latium and to
throw themselves on the hostile capital. We are how ever too little
acquainted with their respective circumstances to judge whether or
how they could have acted otherwise, or to what extent the remissness
of the Roman government on the one hand and the looseness of the
connection among the federate communities on the other contributed
to this want of unity in the conduct of the war. It is easy to see
that with such a system there would doubtless be victories and defeats,
but the final settlement might be very long delayed; and it is no less
plain that a clear and vivid picture of such a war--which resolved
itself into a series of engagements on the part of individual corps
operating at the same time, sometimes separately, sometimes in
combination--cannot be prepared out of the remarkably fragmentary
accounts which have come down to us.
Commencement of the War
The Fortresses
Caesar in Campania and Samnium
Aesernia Taken by the Insurgents
As also Nola
Campania for the Most Part Lost to the Romans
The first assault, as a matter of course, fell on the fortresses
adhering to Rome in the insurgent districts, which in all haste
closed their gates and carried in their moveable property from the
country. Silo threw himself on the fortress designed to hold in
check the Marsians, the strong Alba, Mutilus on the Latin town of
Aesernia established in the heart of Samnium: in both cases they
encountered the most resolute resistance. Similar conflicts probably
raged in the north around Firmum, Atria, Pinna, in the south around
Luceria, Beneventum, Nola, Paestum, before and while the Roman armies
gathered on the borders of the insurgent country. After the southern
army under Caesar had assembled in the spring of 664 in Campania which
for the most part held by Rome, and had provided Capua--with its
domain so important for the Roman finances--as well as the more
important allied cities with garrisons, it attempted to assume the
offensive and to come to the aid of the smaller divisions sent on
before it to Samnium and Lucania under Marcus Marcellus and Publius
Crassus. But Caesar was repulsed by the Samnites and Marsians under
Publius Vettius Scato with severe loss, and the important town of
Venafrum thereupon passed over to the insurgents, into whose hands
it delivered its Roman garrison. By the defection of this town,
which lay on the military road from Campania to Samnium, Aesernia was
isolated, and that fortress already vigorously assailed found itself now
exclusively dependent on the courage and perseverance of its defenders
and their commandant Marcellus. It is true that an incursion, which
Sulla happily carried out with the same artful audacity as formerly
his expedition to Bocchus, relieved the hard-pressed Aesernians for a
moment; nevertheless they were after an obstinate resistance compelled
by the extremity of famine to capitulate towards the end of the year.
In Lucania too Publius Crassus was defeated by Marcus Lamponius, and
compelled to shut himself up in Grumentum, which fell after a long
and obstinate siege. With these exceptions, they had been obliged
to leave Apulia and the southern districts totally to themselves.
The insurrection spread; when Mutilus advanced into Campania at the
head of the Samnite army, the citizens of Nola surrendered to him
their city and delivered up the Roman garrison, whose commander was
executed by the orders of Mutilus, while the men were distributed
through the victorious army. With the single exception of Nuceria,
which adhered firmly to Rome, all Campania as far as Vesuvius was lost
to the Romans; Salernum, Stabiae, Pompeii, Herculaneum declared for
the insurgents; Mutilus was able to advance into the region to the
north of Vesuvius, and to besiege Acerrae with his Samnito-Lucanian
army. The Numidians, who were in great numbers in Caesar's army,
began to pass over in troops to Mutilus or rather to Oxyntas, the son
of Jugurtha, who on the surrender of Venusia had fallen into the hands
of the Samnites and now appeared among their ranks in regal purple;
so that Caesar found himself compelled to send home the whole
African corps. Mutilus ventured even to attack the Roman camp;
but he was repulsed, and the Samnites, who while retreating were
assailed in the rear by the Roman cavalry, left nearly 6000 dead on
the field of battle. It was the first notable success which the Romans
gained in this war; the army proclaimed the general -imperator-, and
the sunken courage of the capital began to revive. It is true that
not long afterwards the victorious army was attacked in crossing a
river by Marius Egnatius, and so emphatically defeated that it had
to retreat as far as Teanum and to be reorganized there; but the
exertions of the active consul succeeded in restoring his army to
a serviceable condition even before the arrival of winter, and he
reoccupied his old position under the walls of Acerrae, which the
Samnite main army under Mutilus continued to besiege.
Combats with the Marsians
Defeat and Death of Lupus
At the same time operations had also begun in Central Italy, where
the revolt of the Abruzzi and the region of the Fucine lake threatened
the capital in dangerous proximity. An independent corps under Gnaeus
Pompeius Strabo was sent into Picenum in order that, resting for
support on Firmum and Falerio, it might threaten Asculum; but the
main body of the Roman northern army took its position under the
consul Lupus on the borders of the Latin and Marsian territories,
where the Valerian and Salarian highways brought the enemy nearest to
the capital; the rivulet Tolenus (Turano), which crosses the Valerian
road between Tibur and Alba and falls into the Velino at Rieti,
separated the two armies. The consul Lupus impatiently pressed for
a decision, and did not listen to the disagreeable advice of Marius
that he should exercise his men--unaccustomed to service--in the first
instance in petty warfare. At the very outset the division of Gaius
Perpenna, 10,000 strong, was totally defeated. The commander-in-
chief deposed the defeated general from his command and united the
remnant of the corps with that which was under the orders of Marius,
but did not allow himself to be deterred from assuming the offensive
and crossing the Tolenus in two divisions, led partly by himself,
partly by Marius, on two bridges constructed not far from each other.
Publius Scato with the Marsians confronted them; he had pitched his
camp at the spot where Marius crossed the brook, but, before the
passage took place, he had withdrawn thence, leaving behind the mere
posts that guarded the camp, and had taken a position in ambush
farther up the river. There he attacked the other Roman corps under
Lupus unexpectedly during the crossing, and partly cut it down, partly
drove it into the river (11th June 664). The consul in person and
8000 of his troops fell. It could scarcely be called a compensation
that Marius, becoming at length aware of Scato's departure, had crossed
the river and not without loss to the enemy occupied their camp.
Yet this passage of the river, and a victory at the same time obtained
over the Paelignians by the general Servius Sulpicius, compelled the
Marsians to draw their line of defence somewhat back, and Marius, who
by decree of the senate succeeded Lupus as commander-in-chief, at least
prevented the enemy from gaining further successes. But, when Quintus
Caepio was soon afterwards associated in the command with equal powers,
not so much on account of a conflict which he had successfully
sustained, as because he had recommended himself to the equites then
leading the politics of Rome by his vehement opposition to Drusus,
he allowed himself to be lured into an ambush by Silo on the pretext
that the latter wished to betray to him his army, and was cut to
pieces with a great part of his force by the Marsians and Vestinians.
Marius, after Caepio's fall once more sole commander-in-chief, through
his tenacious resistance prevented his antagonist from profiting by
the advantages which he had gained, and gradually penetrated far into
the Marsian territory. He long refused battle; when he at length
gave it, he vanquished his impetuous opponent, who left on the battle--
field among other dead Herius Asinius the chieftain of the Marrucini.
In a second engagement the army of Marius and the corps of Sulla
which belonged to the army of the south co-operated to inflict on
the Marsians a still more considerable defeat, which cost them 6000 men;
but the glory of this day remained with the younger officer, for, while
Marius had given and gained the battle, Sulla had intercepted the retreat
of the fugitives and destroyed them.
Picenian War
While the conflict was proceeding thus warmly and with varying success
at the Fucine lake, the Picenian corps under Strabo had also fought
with alternations of fortune. The insurgent chiefs, Gaius Iudacilius
from Asculum, Publius Vettius Scato, and Titus Lafrenius, had
assailed it with their united forces, defeated it, and compelled it
to throw itself into Firmum, where Lafrenius kept Strabo besieged,
while Iudacilius moved into Apulia and induced Canusium, Venusia, and
the other towns still adhering to Rome in that quarter to join the
insurgents. But on the Roman side Servius Sulpicius by his victory
over the Paeligni cleared the way for his advancing into Picenum and
rendering aid to Strabo; Lafrenius was attacked by Strabo in front
and taken in rear by Sulpicius, and his camp was set on fire; he
himself fell, the remnant of his troops fled in disorder and threw
themselves into Asculum. So completely had the state of affairs
changed in Picenum, that the Italians now found themselves confined
to Asculum as the Romans were previously to Firmum, and the war was
thus once more converted into a siege.
Umbro-Etruscan Conflicts
Lastly, there was added in the course of the year to the two difficult
and straggling wars in southern and central Italy a third in the
north. The state of matters apparently so dangerous for Rome after
the first months of the war had induced a great portion of the
Umbrian, and isolated Etruscan, communities to declare for the
insurrection; so that it became necessary to despatch against the
Umbrians Aulus Plotius, and against the Etruscans Lucius Porcius Cato.
Here however the Romans encountered a far less energetic resistance
than in the Marsian and Samnite countries, and maintained a most
decided superiority in the field.
Disadvantageous Aggregate Result of the First Year of the War
Thus the severe first year of the war came to an end, leaving behind
it, both in a military and political point of view, sorrowful
memories and dubious prospects. In a military point of view both
armies of the Romans, the Marsian as well as the Campanian, had been
weakened and discouraged by severe defeats; the northern army had
been compelled especially to attend to the protection of the capital,
the southern army at Neapolis had been seriously threatened in its
communications, as the insurgents could without much difficulty break
forth from the Marsian or Samnite territory and establish themselves
between Rome and Naples; for which reason it was found necessary to
draw at least a chain of posts from Cumae to Rome. In a political
point of view, the insurrection had gained ground on all sides during
this first year of the war; the secession of Nola, the rapid
capitulation of the strong and large Latin colony of Venusia, and
the Umbro-Etruscan revolt were suspicious signs that the Roman symmachy
was tottering to its very base and was not in a position to hold out
against this last trial. They had already made the utmost demands on
the burgesses; they had already, with a view to form that chain of
posts along the Latino-Campanian coast, incorporated nearly 6000
freedmen in the burgess-militia; they had already required the
severest sacrifices from the allies that still remained faithful;
it was not possible to draw the string of the bow any tighter
without hazarding everything.
Despondency of the Romans
The temper of the burgesses was singularly depressed. After the
battle on the Tolenus, when the dead bodies of the consul and the
numerous citizens of note who had fallen with him were brought back
from the neighbouring battlefield to the capital and were buried there;
when the magistrates in token of public mourning laid aside their
purple and insignia; when the government issued orders to the
inhabitants of the capital to arm en masse; not a few had resigned
themselves to despair and given up all as lost. It is true that the
worst despondency had somewhat abated after the victories achieved by
Caesar at Acerrae and by Strabo in Picenum: on the news of the former
the wardress in the capital had been once more exchanged for the dress
of the citizen, on the news of the second the signs of public mourning
had been laid aside; but it was not doubtful that on the whole the
Romans had been worsted in this passage of arms: and above all the
senate and the burgesses had lost the spirit, which had formerly
borne them to victory through all the crises of the Hannibalic war.
They still doubtless began war with the same defiant arrogance as then,
but they knew not how to end it as they had then done; rigid obstinacy,
tenacious persistence had given place to a remiss and cowardly
disposition. Already after the first year of war their outward and
inward policy became suddenly changed, and betook itself to compromise.
There is no doubt that in this they did the wisest thing which could
be done; not however because, compelled by the immediate force of
arms, they could not avoid acquiescing in disadvantageous conditions,
but because the subject-matter of dispute--the perpetuation of the
political precedence of the Romans over the other Italians--was
injurious rather than beneficial to the commonwealth itself.
It sometimes happens in public life that one error compensates another;
in this case cowardice in some measure remedied the mischief which
obstinacy had incurred.
Revolution in Political Processes
The year 664 had begun with a most abrupt rejection of the
compromise offered by the insurgents and with the opening of a war
of prosecutions, in which the most passionate defenders of patriotic
selfishness, the capitalists, took vengeance on all those who were
suspected of having counselled moderation and seasonable concession.
On the other hand the tribune Marcus Plautius Silvanus, who entered
on his office on the 10th of December of the same year, carried a
law which took the commission of high treason out of the hands
of the capitalist jurymen, and entrusted it to other jurymen who
were nominated by the free choice of the tribes without class--
qualification; the effect of which was, that this commission was
converted from a scourge of the moderate party into a scourge of the
ultras, and sent into exile among others its own author, Quintus
Varius, who was blamed by the public voice for the worst democratic
outrages--the poisoning of Quintus Metellus and the murder of Drusus.
Bestowal of the Franchise on the Italians Who Remained Faithful--
or Submitted
Of greater importance than this singularly candid political
recantation, was the change in the course of their policy toward
the Italians. Exactly three hundred years had passed since Rome had
last been obliged to submit to the dictation of peace; Rome was now
worsted once more, and the peace which she desired could only be got
by yielding in part at least to the terms of her antagonists. With
the communities, doubtless, which had already risen in arms to subdue
and to destroy Rome, the feud had become too bitter for the Romans to
prevail on themselves to make the required concessions; and, had they
done so, these terms would now perhaps have been rejected by the other
side. But, if the original demands were conceded under certain
limitations to the communities that had hitherto remained faithful,
such a course would on the one hand preserve the semblance of voluntary
concession, while on the other hand it would prevent the otherwise
inevitable consolidation of the confederacy and thereby pave the way
for its subjugation. Accordingly the gates of Roman citizenship, which
had so long remained closed against entreaty, now suddenly opened when
the sword knocked at them; yet even now not fully and wholly, but in
a manner reluctant and annoying even for those admitted. A law carried
by the consul Lucius Caesar(16) conferred the Roman franchise on the
burgesses of all those communities of Italian allies which had not up
to that time openly declared against Rome; a second, emanating from
the tribunes of the people Marcus Plautius Silvanus and Gaius Papirius
Carbo, laid down for every man who had citizenship and domicile in
Italy a term of two months, within which he was to be allowed to acquire
the Roman franchise by presenting himself before a Roman magistrate.
But these new burgesses were to be restricted as to the right of
voting in a way similar to the freedmen, inasmuch as they could only
be enrolled in eight, as the freedmen only in four, of the thirty-five
tribes; whether the restriction was personal or, as it would seem,
hereditary, cannot be determined with certainty.
Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts
This measure related primarily to Italy proper, which at that time
extended northward little beyond Ancona and Florence. In Cisalpine
Gaul, which was in the eye of the law a foreign country, but in
administration and colonization had long passed as part of Italy,
all the Latin colonies were treated like the Italian communities.
Otherwise on the south side of the Po the greatest portion of the
soil was, after the dissolution of the old Celtic tribal communities,
not organized according to the municipal system, but remained withal in
the ownership of Roman burgesses mostly dwelling together in market-
villages (-fora-). The not numerous allied townships to the south of
the Po, particularly Ravenna, as well as the whole country between the
Po and the Alps was, in consequence of a law brought in by the consul
Strabo in 665, organized after the Italian urban constitution, so that
the communities not adapted for this, more especially the townships in
the Alpine valleys, were assigned to particular towns as dependent and
tributary villages. These new town-communities, however, were not
presented with the Roman franchise, but, by means of the legal fiction
that they were Latin colonies, were invested with those rights which
had hitherto belonged to the Latin towns of inferior legal position.
Thus Italy at that time ended practically at the Po, while the
Transpadane country was treated as an outlying dependency. Here
to the north of the Po, with the exception of Cremona, Eporedia
and Aquileia, there were no burgess or Latin colonies, and even
the native tribes here had been by no means dislodged as they were
to the south of the Po. The abolition of the Celtic cantonal, and
the introduction of the Italian urban, constitution paved the way
for the Romanizing of the rich and important territory; this was the
first step in the long and momentous transformation of the Gallic stock--
which once stood contrasted with Italy, and the assaults of which
Italy had rallied to repel--into comrades of their Italian masters.
Considerable as these concessions were, if we compare them with the
rigid exclusiveness which the Roman burgess-body had retained for
more than a hundred and fifty years, they were far from involving a
capitulation with the actual insurgents; they were on the contrary
intended partly to retain the communities that were wavering and
threatening to revolt, partly to draw over as many deserters as
possible from the ranks of the enemy. To what extent these laws and
especially the most important of them--that of Caesar--were applied,
cannot be accurately stated, as we are only able to specify in general
terms the extent of the insurrection at the time when the law was
issued. The main matter at any rate was that the communities hitherto
Latin--not only the survivors of the old Latin confederacy, such as
Tibur and Praeneste, but more especially the Latin colonies, with the
exception of the few that passed over to the insurgents--were thereby
admitted to Roman citizenship. Besides, the law was applied to the
allied cities that remained faithful in Etruria and especially in
Southern Italy, such as Nuceria and Neapolis. It was natural that
individual communities, hitherto specially privileged, should hesitate
as to the acceptance of the franchise; that Neapolis, for example,
should scruple to give up its former treaty with Rome--which
guaranteed to its citizens exemption from land-service and their
Greek constitution, and perhaps domanial advantages besides--for
the restricted rights of new burgesses. It was probably in virtue of
conventions concluded on account of these scruples that this city, as
well as Rhegium and perhaps other Greek communities in Italy, even
after their admission to Roman citizenship retained unchanged their
former communal constitution and Greek as their official language.
At all events, as a consequence of these laws, the circle of Roman
burgesses was extraordinarily enlarged by the merging into it of
numerous and important urban communities scattered from the Sicilian
Straits to the Po; and, further, the country between the Po and the
Alps was, by the bestowal of the best rights of allies, as it were
invested with the legal expectancy of full citizenship.