The History of Rome, Book IV - Theodor Mommsen
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The Cinnans in Italy
Landing of Marius
Beyond doubt nothing further would have come of the movement, had
not the senate on the one hand with its usual remissness omitted to
compel the fugitives at least rapidly to quit Italy, and had the
latter on the other hand been, as champions of the emancipation of
the new burgesses, in a position to renew to some extent in their
own favour the revolt of the Italians. Without obstruction they
appeared in Tibur, in Praeneste, in all the important communities
of new burgesses in Latium and Campania, and asked and obtained
everywhere money and men for the furtherance of the common cause.
Thus supported, they made their appearance at the army besieging
Nola, The armies of this period were democratic and revolutionary
in their views, wherever the general did not attach them to himself
by the weight of his personal influence; the speeches of the
fugitive magistrates, some of whom, especially Cinna and Sertorius,
were favourably remembered by the soldiers in connection with the
last campaigns, made a deep impression; the unconstitutional
deposition of the popular consul and the interference of the senate
with the rights of the sovereign people told on the common soldier,
and the gold of the consul or rather of the new burgesses made the
breach of the constitution clear to the officers. The Campanian
army recognized Cinna as consul and swore the oath of fidelity to
him man by man; it became a nucleus for the bands that flocked in
from the new burgesses and even from the allied communities; a
considerable army, though consisting mostly of recruits, soon moved
from Campania towards the capital. Other bands approached it from
the north. On the invitation of Cinna those who had been banished
in the previous year had landed at Telamon on the Etruscan coast.
There were not more than some 500 armed men, for the most part
slaves of the refugees and enlisted Numidian horsemen; but, as
Gaius Marius had in the previous year been willing to fraternize
with the rabble of the capital, so he now ordered the -ergastula-
in which the landholders of this region shut up their field-
labourers during the night to be broken open, and the arms which
he offered to these for the purpose of achieving their freedom were
not despised. Reinforced by these men and the contingents of the
new burgesses, as well as by the exiles who flocked to him with
their partisans from all sides, he soon numbered 6000 men under his
eagles and was able to man forty ships, which took their station
before the mouth of the Tiber and gave chase to the corn-ships
sailing towards Rome. With these he placed himself at the disposal
of the "consul" Cinna. The leaders of the Campanian army
hesitated; the more sagacious, Sertorius in particular, seriously
pointed out the danger of too closely connecting themselves with
a man whose name would necessarily place him at the head of
the movement, and who yet was notoriously incapable of any
statesmanlike action and haunted by an insane thirst for revenge;
but Cinna disregarded these scruples, and confirmed Marius in the
supreme command in Etruria and at sea with proconsular powers.
Dubious Attitude of Strabo
The Cinnans around Rome
Thus the storm gathered around the capital, and the government
could no longer delay bringing forward their troops to protect
it.(1) But the forces of Metellus were detained by the Italians
in Samnium and before Nola; Strabo alone was in a position to hasten
to the help of the capital. He appeared and pitched his camp at
the Colline gate: with his numerous and experienced army he might
doubtless have rapidly and totally annihilated the still weak bands
of insurgents; but this seemed to be no part of his design. On the
contrary he allowed Rome to be actually invested by the insurgents.
Cinna with his corps and that of Carbo took post on the right bank
of the Tiber opposite to the Janiculum, Sertorius on the left bank
confronting Pompeius over against the Servian wall. Marius with
his band which had gradually increased to three legions, and in
possession of a number of war-vessels, occupied one place on the
coast after another till at length even Ostia fell into his hands
through treachery, and, by way of prelude as it were to the
approaching reign of terror, was abandoned by the general to
the savage band for massacre and pillage. The capital was placed,
even by the mere obstruction of traffic, in great danger; by command
of the senate the walls and gates were put in a state of defence and
the burgess-levy was ordered to the Janiculum. The inaction of
Strabo excited among all classes alike surprise and indignation.
The suspicion that he was negotiating secretly with Cinna was
natural, but was probably without foundation. A serious conflict
in which he engaged the band of Sertorius, and the support which
he gave to the consul Octavius when Marius had by an understanding
with one of the officers of the garrison penetrated into the
Janiculum, and by which in fact the insurgents were successfully
beaten off again with much loss, showed that he was far from
intending to unite with, or rather to place himself under, the
leaders of the insurgents. It seems rather to have been his design
to sell his assistance in subduing the insurrection to the alarmed
government and citizens of the capital at the price of the
consulship for the next year, and thereby to get the reins
of government into his own hands.
Negotiations of Parties with the Italians
Death of Strabo
The senate was not, however, inclined to throw itself into the
arms of one usurper in order to escape from another, and sought
help elsewhere. The franchise was by decree of the senate
supplementarily conferred on all the Italian communities involved
in the Social war, which had laid down their arms and had in
consequence thereof forfeited their old alliance.(2) It seemed as
it were their intention officially to demonstrate that Rome in the
war against the Italians had staked her existence for the sake not
of a great object but of her own vanity: in the first momentary
embarrassment, for the purpose of bringing into the field an
additional thousand or two of soldiers, she sacrificed everything
which had been gained at so terribly dear a cost in the Social war.
In fact, troops arrived from the communities who were benefited by
this concession; but instead of the many legions promised, their
contingent on the whole amounted to not more than, at most, ten
thousand men. It would have been of more moment that an agreement
should be come to with the Samnites and Nolans, so that the troops
of the thoroughly trustworthy Metellus might be employed for the
protection of the capital. But the Samnites made demands which
recalled the yoke of Caudium--restitution of the spoil taken from
the Samnites and of their prisoners and deserters, renunciation of
the booty wrested by the Samnites from the Romans, the bestowal of
the franchise on the Samnites themselves as well as on the Romans
who had passed over to them. The senate rejected even in this
emergency terms of peace so disgraceful, but instructed Metellus to
leave behind a small division and to lead in person all the troops
that could at all be dispensed with in southern Italy as quickly as
possible to Rome. He obeyed. But the consequence was, that the
Samnites attacked and defeated Plautius the legate left behind by
Metellus and his weak band; that the garrison of Nola marched out
and set on fire the neighbouring town of Abella in alliance with
Rome; that Cinna and Marius, moreover, granted to the Samnites
everything they asked--what mattered Roman honour to them!--and a
Samnite contingent reinforced the ranks of the insurgents. It was
a severe loss also, when after a combat unfavourable to the troops
of the government Ariminum was occupied by the insurgents and thus
the important communication between Rome and the valley of the Po,
whence men and supplies were expected, was interrupted. Scarcity
and famine set in. The large populous city numerously garrisoned
with troops was but inadequately supplied with provisions; and
Marius in particular took care to cut off its supplies more and
more. He had already blocked up the Tiber by a bridge of ships;
now by the capture of Antium, Lanuvium, Aricia, and other townships
he gained control over the means of land communication still open,
and at the same time appeased temporarily his revenge by causing
all the citizens, wherever resistance was offered, to be put to
the sword with the exception of those who had possibly betrayed
to him the town. Contagious diseases followed on the distress and
committed dreadful ravages among the masses of soldiers densely
crowded round the capital; of Strabo's veteran army 11,000, and of
the troops of Octavius 6000 are said to have fallen victims to
them. Yet the government did not despair; and the sudden death of
Strabo was a fortunate event for it. He died of the pestilence;(3)
the masses, exasperated on many grounds against him, tore his
corpse from the bier and dragged it through the streets.
The remnant of his troops was incorporated by the consul
Octavius with his army.
Vacillation of the Government
Rome Capitulates
After the arrival of Metellus and the decease of Strabo the army
of the government was again at least a match for its antagonists,
and was able to array itself for battle against the insurgents at
the Alban Mount. But the minds of the soldiers of the government
were deeply agitated; when Cinna appeared in front of them, they
received him with acclamation as if he were still their general and
consul; Metellus deemed it advisable not to allow the battle to
come on, but to lead back the troops to their camp. The Optimates
themselves wavered, and fell at variance with each other. While
one party, with the honourable but stubborn and shortsighted consul
Octavius at their head, perseveringly opposed all concession,
Metellus more experienced in war and more judicious attempted to
bring about a compromise; but his conference with Cinna excited
the wrath of the extreme men on both sides: Cinna was called by
Marius a weakling, Metellus was called by Octavius a traitor.
The soldiers, unsettled otherwise and not without cause distrusting
the leadership of the untried Octavius, suggested to Metellus that
he should assume the chief command, and, when he refused, began
in crowds to throw away their arms or even to desert to the enemy.
The temper of the burgesses became daily more depressed and
troublesome. On the proclamation of the heralds of Cinna
guaranteeing freedom to the slaves who should desert, these flocked
in troops from the capital to the enemy's camp. But the proposal
that the senate should guarantee freedom to the slaves willing to
enter the army was decidedly resisted by Octavius. The government
could not conceal from itself that it was defeated, and that
nothing remained but to come to terms if possible with the leaders
of the band, as the overpowered traveller comes to terms with
the captain of banditti. Envoys went to Cinna; but, while they
foolishly made difficulties as to recognizing him as consul, and
Cinna in the interval thus prolonged transferred his camp close to
the city-gates, the desertion spread to so great an extent that it
was no longer possible to settle any terms. The senate submitted
itself unconditionally to the outlawed consul, adding only a
request that he would refrain from bloodshed, Cinna promised this,
but refused to ratify his promise by an oath; Marius, who kept by
his side during the negotiations, maintained a sullen silence.
Marian Reign of Terror
The gates of the capital were opened. The consul marched in with
his legions; but Marius, scoffingly recalling the law of outlawry,
refused to set foot in the city until the law allowed him to do
so and the burgesses hastily assembled in the Forum to pass the
annulling decree. He then entered, and with him the reign of
terror. It was determined not to select individual victims, but
to have all the notable men of the Optimate party put to death and
to confiscate their property. The gates were closed; for five days
and five nights the slaughter continued without interruption; even
afterwards the execution of individuals who had escaped or been
overlooked was of daily occurrence, and for months the bloody
persecution went on throughout Italy. The consul Gnaeus Octavius
was the first victim. True to his often-expressed principle, that
he would rather suffer death than make the smallest concession to
men acting illegally, he refused even now to take flight, and in
his consular robes awaited at the Janiculum the assassin, who was
not slow to appear. Among the slain were Lucius Caesar (consul in
664) the celebrated victor of Acerrae;(4) his brother Gaius, whose
unseasonable ambition had provoked the Sulpician tumult,(5) well
known as an orator and poet and as an amiable companion; Marcus
Antonius (consul in 655), after the death of Lucius Crassus beyond
dispute the first pleader of his time; Publius Crassus (consul
in 657) who had commanded with distinction in the Spanish and in
the Social wars and also during the siege of Rome; and a multitude
of the most considerable men of the government party, among whom
the wealthy were traced out with especial zeal by the greedy
executioners. Peculiarly sad seemed the death of Lucius Merula,
who very much against his own wish had become Cinna's successor,
and who now, when criminally impeached on that account and cited
before the comitia, in order to anticipate the inevitable
condemnation opened his veins, and at the altar of the Supreme
Jupiter whose priest he was, after laying aside the priestly
headband as the religious duty of the dying Flamen required,
breathed his last; and still more the death of Quintus Catulus
(consul in 652), once in better days the associate of the most
glorious victory and triumph of that same Marius who now had no
other answer for the suppliant relatives of his aged colleague
than the monosyllabic order, "He must die."
The Last Days of Marius
The originator of all these outrages was Gaius Marius.
He designated the victims and the executioners--only in exceptional
cases, as in those of Merula and Catulus, was any form of law
observed; not unfrequently a glance or the silence with which he
received those who saluted him formed the sentence of death, which
was always executed at once. His revenge was not satisfied even
with the death of his victim; he forbade the burial of the dead
bodies: he gave orders--anticipated, it is true, in this respect
by Sulla--that the heads of the senators slain should be fixed to
the rostra in the Forum; he ordered particular corpses to be dragged
through the Forum, and that of Gaius Caesar to be stabbed afresh
at the tomb of Quintus Varius, whom Caesar presumably had once
impeached;(6) he publicly embraced the man who delivered to him
as he sat at table the head of Antonius, whom he had been with
difficulty restrained from seeking out in his hiding-place,
an slaying with his own hand. His legions of slaves, and in
particular a division of Ardyaeans,(7) chiefly served as his
executioners, and did not neglect, amidst these Saturnalia of
their new freedom, to plunder the houses of their former masters
and to dishonour and murder all whom they met with there. His own
associates were in despair at this insane fury; Sertorius adjured
the consul to put a stop to it at any price, and even Cinna was
alarmed. But in times such as these were, madness itself becomes
a power; man hurls himself into the abyss, to save himself from
giddiness. It was not easy to restrain the furious old man and
his band, and least of all had Cinna the courage to do so; on the
contrary, he chose Marius as his colleague in the consulship for
the next year. The reign of terror alarmed the more moderate of
the victors not much less than the defeated party; the capitalists
alone were not displeased to see that another hand lent itself to
the work of thoroughly humbling for once the haughty oligarchs,
and that at the same time, in consequence of the extensive
confiscations and auctions, the best part of the spoil came to
themselves--in these times of terror they acquired from the people
the surname of the "hoarders."
Death of Marius
Fate had thus granted to the author of this reign of terror,
the old Gaius Marius, his two chief wishes. He had taken vengeance
on the whole genteel pack that had embittered his victories and
envenomed his defeats; he had been enabled to retaliate for every
sarcasm by a stroke of the dagger. Moreover he entered on the new
year once more as consul; the vision of a seventh consulate, which
the oracle had promised him, and which he had sought for thirteen
years to grasp, had now been realized. The gods had granted to him
what he wished; but now too, as in the old legendary period, they
practised the fatal irony of destroying man by the fulfilment of
his wishes. In his early consulates the pride, in his sixth the
laughing-stock, of his fellow-citizens, he was now in his seventh
loaded with the execration of all parties, with the hatred of the
whole nation; he, the originally upright, capable, gallant man, was
branded as the crackbrained chief of a reckless band of robbers.
He himself seemed to feel it. His days were passed as in delirium,
and by night his couch denied him rest, so that he grasped the
wine-cup in order merely to drown thought. A burning fever seized
him; after being stretched for seven days on a sick bed, in the
wild fancies of which he was fighting on the fields of Asia Minor
the battles of which the laurels were destined for Sulla, he
expired on the 13th Jan. 668. He died, more than seventy years
old, in full possession of what he called power and honour, and in
his bed; but Nemesis assumes various shapes, and does not always
expiate blood with blood. Was there no sort of retaliation in the
fact, that Rome and Italy now breathed more freely on the news of
the death of the famous saviour of the people than at the tidings
of the battle on the Raudine plain?
Even after his death individual incidents no doubt occurred, which
recalled that time of terror; Gaius Fimbria, for instance, who more
than any other during the Marian butcheries had dipped his hand in
blood, made an attempt at the very funeral of Marius to kill the
universally revered -pontifex maximus- Quintus Scaevola (consul in
659) who had been spared even by Marius, and then, when Scaevola
recovered from the wound he had received, indicted him criminally
on account of the offence, as Fimbria jestingly expressed it, of
having not been willing to let himself be murdered. But the orgies
of murder at any rate were over. Sertorius called together the
Marian bandits, under pretext of giving them their pay, surrounded
them with his trusty Celtic troops, and caused them to be cut down
en masse to the number, according to the lowest estimate, of 4000.
Government of Cinna
Along with the reign of terror came the -tyrannis-. Cinna not
only stood at the head of the state for four years in succession
(667-670) as consul, but he regularly nominated himself and his
colleagues without consulting the people; it seemed as if these
democrats set aside the sovereign popular assembly with intentional
contempt. No other chief of the popular party, before or
afterwards, possessed so perfectly absolute a power in Italy
and in the greater part of the provinces for so long a time almost
undisturbed, as Cinna; but no one can be named, whose government
was so utterly worthless and aimless. The law proposed by
Sulpicius and thereafter by Cinna himself, which promised to
the new burgesses and the freedmen equality of suffrage with the
old burgesses, was naturally revived; and it was formally confirmed
by a decree of the senate as valid in law (670). Censors were
nominated (668) for the purpose of distributing all the Italians,
in accordance with it, into the thirty-five burgess-districts--by a
singular conjuncture, in consequence of a want of qualified
candidates for the censorship the same Philippus, who when consul
in 663 had chiefly occasioned the miscarriage of the plan of Drusus
for bestowing the franchise on the Italians,(8) was now selected
as censor to inscribe them in the burgess-rolls. The reactionary
institutions established by Sulla in 666 were of course overthrown.
Some steps were taken to please the proletariate--for instance,
the restrictions on the distribution of grain introduced some years
ago,(9) were probably now once more removed; the design of Gaius
Gracchus to found a colony at Capua was in reality carried out
in the spring of 671 on the proposal of the tribune of the people,
Marcus Junius Brutus; Lucius Valerius Flaccus the younger
introduced a law as to debt, which reduced every private claim to
the fourth part of its nominal amount and cancelled three fourths
in favour of the debtors. But these measures, the only positive
ones during the whole Cinnan government, were without exception the
dictates of the moment; they were based--and this is perhaps the
most shocking feature in this whole catastrophe--not on a plan
possibly erroneous, but on no political plan at all. The populace
were caressed, and at the same time offended in a very unnecessary
way by a meaningless disregard of the constitutional arrangements
for election. The capitalist party might have furnished a support,
but it was injured in the most sensitive point by the law as to
debt. The true mainstay of the government was--wholly without
any cooperation on its part--the new burgesses; their assistance
was acquiesced in, but nothing was done to regulate the strange
position of the Samnites, who were now nominally Roman citizens,
but evidently regarded their country's independence as practically
the real object and prize of the struggle and remained in arms
to defend it against all and sundry. Illustrious senators were
struck down like mad dogs; but not the smallest step was taken to
reorganize the senate in the interest of the government, or even
permanently to terrify it; so that the government was by no means
sure of its aid. Gaius Gracchus had not understood the fall of the
oligarchy as implying that the new master might conduct himself on
his self-created throne, as legitimate cipher-kings think proper to
do. But this Cinna had been elevated to power not by his will, but
by pure accident; was there any wonder that he remained where the
storm-wave of revolution had washed him up, till a second wave came
to sweep him away again?
Cinna and Sulla
Italy and the Provinces in Favour of the Government
The same union of the mightiest plenitude of power with the most
utter impotence and incapacity in those who held it, was apparent
in the warfare waged by the revolutionary government against the
oligarchy--a warfare on which withal its existence primarily
depended. In Italy it ruled with absolute sway. Of the old
burgesses a very large portion were on principle favourable to
democratic views; and the still greater mass of quiet people, while
disapproving the Marian horrors, saw in an oligarchic restoration
simply the commencement of a second reign of terror by the opposite
party. The impression of the outrages of 667 on the nation at
large had been comparatively slight, as they had chiefly affected
the mere aristocracy of the capital; and it was moreover somewhat
effaced by the three years of tolerably peaceful government that
ensued. Lastly the whole mass of the new burgesses--three-fifths
perhaps of the Italians--were decidedly, if not favourable to the
present government, yet opposed to the oligarchy.
Like Italy, most of the provinces adhered to the oligarchy--
Sicily, Sardinia, the two Gauls, the two Spains. In Africa
Quintus Metellus, who had fortunately escaped the murderers, made
an attempt to hold that province for the Optimates; Marcus Crassus,
the youngest son of the Publius Crassus who had perished in the
Marian massacre, resorted to him from Spain, and reinforced him
by a band which he had collected there. But on their quarrelling
with each other they were obliged to yield to Gaius Fabius Hadrianus,
the governor appointed by the revolutionary government. Asia
was in the hands of Mithradates; consequently the province of
Macedonia, so far as it was in the power of Sulla, remained the
only asylum of the exiled oligarchy. Sulla's wife and children
who had with difficulty escaped death, and not a few senators
who had made their escape, sought refuge there, so that a sort
of senate was soon formed at his head-quarters.
Measures against Sulla
The government did not fail to issue decrees against the oligarchic
proconsul. Sulla was deprived by the comitia of his command and of
his other honours and dignities and outlawed, as was also the case
with Metellus, Appius Claudius, and other refugees of note; his
house in Rome was razed, his country estates were laid waste.
But such proceedings did not settle the matter. Had Gaius Marius
lived longer, he would doubtless have marched in person against Sulla
to those fields whither the fevered visions of his death-bed drew him;
the measures which the government took after his death have been
stated already. Lucius Valerius Flaccus the younger,(10) who after
Marius' death was invested with the consulship and the command in
the east (668), was neither soldier nor officer; Gaius Fimbria who
accompanied him was not without ability, but insubordinate; the
army assigned to them was even in numbers three times weaker than
the army of Sulla. Tidings successively arrived, that Flaccus, in
order not to be crushed by Sulla, had marched past him onward to
Asia (668); that Fimbria had set him aside and installed himself
in his room (beg. of 669); that Sulla had concluded peace with
Mithradates (669-670). Hitherto Sulla had been silent so far as
the authorities ruling in the capital were concerned. Now a letter
from him reached the senate, in which he reported the termination
of the war and announced his return to Italy; he stated that he
would respect the rights conferred on the new burgesses, and that,
while penal measures were inevitable, they would light not on the
masses, but on the authors of the mischief. This announcement
frightened Cinna out of his inaction: while he had hitherto taken
no step against Sulla except the placing some men under arms and
collecting a number of vessels in the Adriatic, he now resolved to
cross in all haste to Greece.