The History of Rome, Book IV - Theodor Mommsen
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The fact that afterwards, when Norbanus was impeached, his impeachment
proceeded on the very ground of the law which he had taken part in
suggesting, was an ironical incident common in the Roman political
procedure of this period (Cic. Brut. 89, 305) and should not mislead
us into the belief that the Appuleian law was, like the later
Cornelian, a general law of high treason.
24. The view here presented rests in the main on the comparatively
trustworthy account in the Epitome of Livy (where we should read
-reversi in Gallium in Vellocassis se Teutonis coniunxerunt) and in
Obsequens; to the disregard of authorities of lesser weight, which
make the Teutones appear by the side of the Cimbri at an earlier date,
some of them, such as Appian, Celt. 13, even as early as the battle of
Noreia. With these we connect the notices in Caesar (B. G. i. 33; ii.
4, 29); as the invasion of the Roman province and of Italy by the Cimbri
can only mean the expedition of 652.
25. It is injudicious to deviate from the traditional account
and to transfer the field of battle to Verona: in so doing the fact
is overlooked that a whole winter and various movements of troops
intervened between the conflicts on the Adige and the decisive
engagement, and that Catulus, according to express statement (Plut. Mar.
24), had retreated as far as the right bank of the Po. The statements
that the Cimbri were defeated on the Po (Hier. Chron.), and that they
were defeated where Stilicho afterwards defeated the Getae, i. e. at
Cherasco on the Tanaro, although both inaccurate, point at least to
Vercellae much rather than to Verona.
Chapter VI
1. IV. IV. The Domain Question under the Restoration
2. I. VI. The Servian Constitution, II. III. Its Composition
3. III. XI. Reforms in the Military Service
4. III. XI. The Nobility in Possession of the Equestrian Centuries
5. IV. IV. Treaty between Rome and Numidia
6. IV. V. Warfare of Prosecutions
7. It is not possible to distinguish exactly what belongs to the first
and what to the second tribunate of Saturninus; the more especially,
as in both he evidently followed out the same Gracchan tendencies.
The African agrarian law is definitely placed by the treatise De Viris Ill.
73, 1 in 651; and this date accords with the termination, which had
taken place just shortly before, of the Jugurthine war. The second
agrarian law belongs beyond doubt to 654. The treason-law and the corn-
law have been only conjecturally placed, the former in 651 (p. 442
note), the latter in 654.
8. All indications point to this conclusion. The elder Quintus Caepio
was consul in 648, the younger quaestor in 651 or 654, the former
consequently was born about or before 605, the latter about 624 or 627.
The fact that the former died without leaving sons (Strabo, iv. 188) is
not inconsistent with this view, for the younger Caepio fell in 664,
and the elder, who ended his life in exile at Smyrna, may very well
have survived him.
9. IV. IV. Treaty between Rome and Numidia
10. IV. V. Warfare of Prosecutions
11. IV. IV. Rival Demagogism of the Senate. The Livian Laws
12. IV. V. And Reach the Danube
13. IV. IV. Administration under the Restoration
14. IV. VI. Collision between the Senate and Equites in
the Administration of the Provinces
Chapter VII
1. IV. III. Modifications of the Penal Law
2. I. VII. Relation of Rome to Latium, II. V. As to the Officering
of the Army
3. II. VII. Furnishing of Contingents; III. XI. Latins
4. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition
5. III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition
6. IV. III. Democratic Agitation under Carbo and Flaccus,
IV. III. Overthrow of Gracchus
7. These figures are taken from the numbers of the census of 639 and
684; there were in the former year 394, 336 burgesses capable of bearing
arms, in the latter 910,000 (according to Phlegon Fr. 12 Mull., which
statement Clinton and his copyists erroneously refer to the census of
668; according to Liv. Ep. 98 the number was--by the correct reading--
900,000 persons). The only figures known between these two--those of
the census of 668, which according to Hieronymus gave 463,000 persons--
probably turned out so low only because the census took place amidst
the crisis of the revolution. As an increase of the population of Italy
is not conceivable in the period from 639 to 684, and even the Sullan
assignations of land can at the most have but filled the gaps which the
war had made, the surplus of fully 500,000 men capable of bearing arms
may be referred with certainty to the reception of the allies which had
taken place in the interval. But it is possible, and even probable,
that in these fateful years the total amount of the Italian population
may have retrograded rather than advanced: if we reckon the total
deficit at 100,000 men capable of bearing arms, which seems not
excessive, there were at the time of the Social War in Italy three non-
burgesses for two burgesses.
8. The form of oath is preserved (in Diodor. Vat. p. 116); it runs
thus: "I swear by the Capitoline Jupiter and by the Roman Vesta and by
the hereditary Mars and by the generative Sun and by the nourishing
Earth and by the divine founders and enlargers (the Penates) of the City
of Rome, that he shall be my friend and he shall be my foe who is friend
or foe to Drusus; also that I will spare neither mine own life nor the
life of my children or of my parents, except in so far as it is for the
good of Drusus and those who share this oath. But if I should become a
burgess by the law of Drusus, I will esteem Rome as my home and Drusus
as the greatest of my benefactors. I shall tender this oath to as many
of my fellow-citizens as I can; and if I swear truly, may it fare with
me well; if I swear falsely, may it fare with me ill." But we shall do
well to employ this account with caution; it is derived either from
the speeches delivered against Drusus by Philippus (which seems to
be indicated by the absurd title "oath of Philippus" prefixed by the
extractor of the formula) or at best from the documents of criminal
procedure subsequently drawn up respecting this conspiracy in Rome; and
even on the latter hypothesis it remains questionable, whether this form
of oath was elicited from the accused or imputed to them in the inquiry.
9. II. VII. Dissolution of National Leagues
10. IV. VI. Discussions on the Livian Laws
11. IV. IV. Dissatisfaction in the Capital, IV. V. Warfare
of Prosecutions
12. Even from our scanty information, the best part of which is
given by Diodorus, p. 538 and Strabo, v. 4, 2, this is very distinctly
apparent; for example, the latter expressly says that the burgess-body
chose the magistrates. That the senate of Italia was meant to be formed
in another manner and to have different powers from that of Rome,
has been asserted, but has not been proved. Of course in its first
composition care would be taken to have a representation in some degree
uniform of the insurgent cities; but that the senators were to be
regularly deputed by the communities, is nowhere stated. As little
does the commission given to the senate to draw up a constitution exclude
its promulgation by the magistrates and ratification by the assembly
of the people.
13. The bullets found at Asculum show that the Gauls were very
numerousalso in the army of Strabo.
14. We still have a decree of the Roman senate of 22 May 676, which
grants honours and advantages on their discharge to three Greek ship-
captains of Carystus, Clazomenae, and Miletus for faithful services
renderedsince the commencement of the Italian war (664). Of the same
nature is the account of Memnon, that two triremes were summoned from
Heraclea on the Black Sea for the Italian war, and that they returned
in the eleventh year with rich honorary gifts.
15. That this statement of Appian is not exaggerated, is shown
by the bullets found at Asculum which name among others the
fifteenth legion.
16. The Julian law must have been passed in the last months of 664,
for during the good season of the year Caesar was in the field;
the Plautian was probably passed, as was ordinarily the rule with
tribunician proposals, immediately after the tribunes entered on office,
consequently in Dec. 664 or Jan. 665.
17. Leaden bullets with the name of the legion which threw them, and
sometimes with curses against the "runaway slaves"--and accordingly
Roman--or with the inscription "hit the Picentes" or "hit Pompeius"--
the former Roman, the latter Italian--are even now sometimes found,
belonging to that period, in the region of Ascoli.
18. The rare -denarii- with -Safinim- and -G. Mutil- in Oscan
characters must belong to this period; for, as long as the designation
-Italia- was retained by the insurgents, no single canton could, as a
sovereign power, coin money with its own name.
19. I. VII. Servian Wall
20. Licinianus (p. 15) under the year 667 says: -dediticiis omnibus
[ci]vita[s] data; qui polliciti mult[a] milia militum vix XV... cohortes
miserunt-; a statement in which Livy's account (Epit. 80): -Italicis
populis a senatu civitas data est- reappears in a somewhat more precise
shape. The -dediticii- were according to Roman state-law those
-peregrini liberi- (Gaius i. 13-15, 25, Ulp. xx. 14, xxii. 2) who
had become subject to the Romans and had not been admitted to alliance.
They not merely retain life, liberty, and property, but may be formed
into communities with a constitution of their own. --Apolides--,
-nullius certae civitatis cives- (Ulp. xx. 14; comp. Dig. xlviii. 19, 17,
i), were only the freedmen placed by legal fiction on the same footing
with the -dediticii qui dediticiorum numero sunt-, only by erroneous
usage and rarely by the better authors called directly -dediticii-; (Gai.
i. 12, Ulp. i. 14, Paul. iv. 12, 6) as well as the kindred -liberti
Latini Iuniani-. But the -dediticii-nevertheless were destitute of
rights as respected the Roman state, in so far as by Roman state-law
every -deditio- was necessarily unconditional (Polyb, xxi. 1; comp. xx.
9, 10, xxxvi. 2) and all the privileges expressly or tacitly conceded to
them were conceded only -precario- and therefore revocable at pleasure
(Appian, Hisp. 44); so that the Roman state, what ever it might
immediately or afterwards decree regarding its -dediticii-, could never
perpetrate as respected them a violation of rights. This destitution of
rights only ceased on the conclusion of a treaty of alliance (Liv.
xxxiv. 57). Accordingly -deditio- and -foedus- appear in constitutional
law as contrasted terms excluding each other (Liv. iv. 30, xxviii. 34;
Cod. Theod. vii. 13, 16 and Gothofr. thereon), and of precisely the same
nature is the distinction current among the jurists between the -quasi-
dediticii- and the -quasi Latini-, for the Latins are just the
-foederati- in an eminent sense (Cic. pro Balb. 24, 54).
According to the older constitutional law there were, with the exception
of the not numerous communities that were declared to have forfeited
their treaties in consequence of the Hannibalic war (p. 24), no Italian
-dediticii-; in the Plautian law of 664-5 the description: -qui
foederatis civitatibus adscripti fuerunt- (Cic. pro Arch. 4, 7)
still included in substance all Italians. But as the -dediticii-
who received the franchise supplementary in 667 cannot reasonably
be understood as embracing merely the Bruttii and Picentes, we may
assume that all the insurgents, so far as they had laid down their
arms and had not acquired the franchise under the Plautio-Papirian
law were treated as -dediticii-, or--which is the same thing--
that their treaties cancelled as a matter of course by the insurrection
(hence -qui foederati fuerunt- in the passage of Cicero cited) were
not legally renewed to them on their surrender.
21. II. III. Laws Imposing Taxes
22. IV. VI. The Equestrian Party
23. II. XI. Squandering of the Spoil
24. It is not clear, what the -lex unciaria- of the consuls Sulla and
Rufus in the year 666 prescribed in this respect; but the simplest
hypothesis is that which regards it as a renewal of the law of 397 (i.
364), so that the highest allowable rate of interest was again 1 1/12th
of the capital for the year of ten months or 10 per cent for the year
of twelve months.
25. III. XI. Reform of the Centuries
26. II. III. Powers of the Senate
27. IV. II. Death of Gracchus, IV. III. Attack on The Transmarine
Colonization. Downfall of Gracchus, IV. VI. Saturninus Assailed
28. II. III. The Tribunate of the People As an Instrument of Government
Chapter VIII
1. IV. VIII. Occupation of Cilicia
2. III. IX. Armenia
3. IV. I. Western Asia
4. The words quoted as Phrygian --Bagaios-- = Zeus and the old
royal name --Manis-- have been beyond doubt correctly referred to
the Zend -bagha- = God and the Germanic -Mannus-, Indian -Manus-
(Lassen, -Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenland-. Gesellschaft,
vol. x. p. 329 f.).
5. They are here grouped together, because, though they were in
part doubtless not executed till between the first and the second
war with Rome, they to some extent preceded even the first (Memn.
30; Justin, xxxviii. 7 ap. fin.; App. Mithr. 13; Eutrop. v. 5) and
a narrative in chronological order is in this case absolutely
impracticable. Even the recently found decree of Chersonesus
(p. 17) has given no information in this respect According to it
Diophantus was twice sent against the Taurian Scythians; but that
the second insurrection of these is connected with the decree of
the Roman senate in favour of the Scythian princes (p. 21) is not
clear from the document, and is not even probable.
6. It is very probable that the extraordinary drought, which
is the chief obstacle now to agriculture in the Crimea and in
these regions generally, has been greatly increased by the
disappearance of the forests of central and southern Russia,
which formerly to some extent protected the coast-provinces
from the parching northeast wind.
7. The recently discovered decree of the town of Chersonesus in
honour of this Diophantus (Dittenberger, Syll. n. 252) thoroughly
confirms the traditional account. It shows us the city in the
immediate vicinity--the port of Balaclava must at that time have
been in the power of the Tauri and Simferopol in that of the
Scythians--hard pressed partly by the Tauri on the south coast of
the Crimea, partly and especially by the Scythians who held in
their power the whole interior of the peninsula and the mainland
adjoining; it shows us further how the general of king Mithradates
relieves on all sides the Greek city, defeats the Tauri, and erects
in their territory a stronghold (probably Eupatorion), restores the
connection between the western and the eastern Hellenes of the
peninsula, overpowers in the west the dynasty of Scilurus, and in
the east Saumacus prince of the Scythians, pursues the Scythians
even to the mainland, and at length conquers them with the
Reuxinales--such is the name given to the later Roxolani here,
where they first appear--in the great pitched battle, which is
mentioned also in the traditional account. There does not seem to
have been any formal subordination of the Greek city under the king;
Mithradates appears only as protecting ally, who fights the battles
against the Scythians that passed as invincible (--tous anupostatous
dokountas eimen--), on behalf of the Greek city, which probably
stood to him nearly in the relation of Massilia and Athens to Rome.
The Scythians on the other band in the Crimea become subjects
(--upakooi--) of Mithradates.
8. The chronology of the following events can only be determined
approximately. Mithradates Eupator seems to have practically
entered on the government somewhere about 640; Sulla's intervention
took place in 662 (Liv. Ep. 70) with which accords the calculation
assigning to the Mithradatic wars a period of thirty years (662-691)
(Plin. H. N. vii. 26, 97). In the interval fell the quarrels as to
the Paphlagonian and Cappadocian succession, with which the bribery
attempted by Mithradates in Rome (Diod. 631) apparently in the first
tribunate of Saturninus in 651 (IV. VI. Saturninus) was probably
connected. Marius, who left Rome in 665 and did not remain long
in the east, found Mithradates already in Cappadocia and negotiated
with him regarding his aggressions (Cic. ad Brut. i. 5; Plut. Mar. 31);
Ariarathes VI had consequently been by that time put to death.
9. IV. III. Character of the Constitution of Gaius Gracchus
10. A decree of the senate of the year 638 recently found in the
village Aresti to the south of Synnada (Viereck, -Sermo Graecus quo
senatus Romanus usus sit-, p. 51) confirms all the regulations made
by the king up to his death and thus shows that Great Phrygia after
the death of the father was not merely taken from the son, as Appian
also states, but was thereby brought directly under Roman allegiance.
11. III. IX. Rupture between Antiochus and the Romans
12. Retribution came upon the authors of the arrest and surrender
of Aquillius twenty-five years afterwards, when after Mithradates'
death his son Pharnaces handed them over to the Romans.
13. IV. VII. Economic Crisis
14. We must recollect that after the outbreak of the Social War
the legion had at least not more than half the number of men which it
had previously, as it was no longer accompanied by Italian contingents.
15. The chronology of these events is, like all their details,
enveloped in an obscurity which investigation is able to dispel,
at most, only partially. That the battle of Chaeronea took place,
if not on the same day as the storming of Athens (Pausan, i. 20),
at any rate soon afterwards, perhaps in March 668, is tolerably certain.
That the succeeding Thessalian and the second Boeotian campaign took
up not merely the remainder of 668 but also the whole of 669, is in
itself probable and is rendered still more so by the fact that Sulla's
enterprises in Asia are not sufficient to fill more than a single
campaign. Licinianus also appears to indicate that Sulla returned to
Athens for the winter of 668-669 and there took in hand the work of
investigation and punishment; after which he relates the battle of
Orchomenus. The crossing of Sulla to Asia has accordingly been
placed not in 669, but in 670.
16. The resolution of the citizens of Ephesus to this effect has
recently been found (Waddington, Additions to Lebas, Inscr. iii.
136 a). They had, according to their own declaration, fallen into
the power of Mithradates "the king of Cappadocia," being frightened
by the magnitude of his forces and the suddenness of his attack;
but, when opportunity offered, they declared war against him "for
the rule (--egemonia--) of the Romans and the common weal."
17. The statement that Mithradates in the peace stipulated for
impunity to the towns which had embraced his side (Memnon, 35)
seems, looking to the character of the victor and of the
vanquished, far from credible, and it is not given by Appian
or by Licinianus. They neglected to draw up the treaty of
peace in writing, and this neglect afterwards left room far
various misrepresentations.
18. Armenian tradition also is acquainted with the first
Mithradatic war. Ardasches king of Armenia--Moses of Chorene tells
us--was not content with the second rank which rightfully belonged
to him in the Persian (Parthian) empire, but compelled the Parthian
king Arschagan to cede to him the supreme power, whereupon he had a
palace built for himself in Persia and had coins struck there with
his own image. He appointed Arschagan viceroy of Persia and his
son Dicran (Tigranes) viceroy of Armenia, and gave his daughter
Ardaschama in marriage to the great-prince of the Iberians
Mihrdates (Mithradates) who was descended from Mihrdates satrap
of Darius and governor appointed by Alexander over the conquered
Iberians, and ruled in the northern mountains as well as over the
Black Sea. Ardasches then took Croesus the king of the Lydians
prisoner, subdued the mainland between the two great seas (Asia
Minor), and crossed the sea with innumerable vessels to subjugate
the west. As there was anarchy at that time in Rome, he nowhere
encountered serious resistance, but his soldiers killed each other
and Ardasches fell by the hands of his own troops. After
Ardasches' death his successor Dicran marched against the army of
the Greeks (i. e. the Romans) who now in turn invaded the Armenian
land; he set a limit to their advance, handed over to his brother-
in-law Mihrdates the administration of Madschag (Mazaca in
Cappadocia) and of the interior along with a considerable force,
and returned to Armenia. Many years afterwards there were still
pointed out in the Armenian towns statues of Greek gods by well-
known masters, trophies of this campaign.
We have no difficulty in recognizing here various facts of
the first Mithradatic war, but the whole narrative is evidently
confused, furnished with heterogeneous additions, and in particular
transferred by patriotic falsification to Armenia. In just the
same way the victory over Crassus is afterwards attributed to
the Armenians. These Oriental accounts are to be received with all
the greater caution, that they are by no means mere popular legends;
on the contrary the accounts of Josephus, Eusebius, and other
authorities current among the Christians of the fifth century have been
amalgamated with the Armenian traditions, and the historical romances
of the Greeks and beyond doubt the patriotic fancies also of Moses
himself have been laid to a considerable extent under contribution.
Bad as is cur Occidental tradition in itself, to call in the aid of
Oriental tradition in this and similar cases--as has been attempted
for instance by the uncritical Saint-Martin--can only lead to
still further confusion.
19. III. X. Intervention in the Syro-Egyptian War
Chapter IX
1. The whole of the representation that follows is based in
substance on the recently discovered account of Licinianus, which
communicates a number of facts previously unknown, and in
particular enables us to perceive the sequence and connection of
these events more clearly than was possible before.
2. IV. VII. The Bestowal of the Franchise and Its Limitations.
That there was no confirmation by the comitia, is clear from
Cic. Phil. xii. 11, 27. The senate seems to have made use of
the form of simply prolonging the term of the Plautio- Papirian
law (IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts),
a course which by use and wont (i. 409) was open to it and
practically amounted to conferring the franchise on all Italians.
3. "-Ad flatus sidere-," as Livy (according to Obsequens, 56)
expresses it, means "seized by the pestilence" (Petron. Sat. 2;
Plin. H. N. ii. 41, 108; Liv. viii. 9, 12), not "struck by
lightning," as later writers have misunderstood it.
4. IV. VII. Combats with the Marsians
5. IV. VII. Sulpicius Rufus
6. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts
7. IV. V. In Illyria
8. IV. VI. Discussions on the Livian Laws
9. IV. VII. Energetic Decrees
10. Lucius Valerius Flaccus, whom the Fasti name as consul in 668,
was not the consul of 654, but a younger man of the same name,
perhaps son of the preceding. For, first, the law which prohibited
re-election to the consulship remained legally in full force from
c. 603 (IV. II. Attempts at Reform) to 673, and it is not probable
that what was done in the case of Scipio Aemilianus and Marius was
done also for Flaccus. Secondly, there is no mention anywhere, when
either Flaccus is named, of a double consulship, not even where it
was necessary as in Cic. pro Flacc. 32, 77. Thirdly, the Lucius
Valerius Flaccus who was active in Rome in 669 as -princeps
senatus- and consequently of consular rank (Liv. 83), cannot have
been the consul of 668, for the latter had already at that time
departed for Asia and was probably already dead. The consul of
654, censor in 657, is the person whom Cicero (ad Att. viii. 3, 6)
mentions among the consulars present in Rome in 667; he was in 669
beyond doubt the oldest of the old censors living and thus fitted
to be -princeps senatus-; he was also the -interrex- and the
-magister equitum- of 672. On the other hand, the consul of 668,
who Perished at Nicomedia (p. 47), was the father of the Lucius
Flaccus defended by Cicero (pro Flacc. 25, 61, comp. 23, 55. 32, 77).
11. IV. VI. The Equestrian Party
12. IV. VII. Sulla Embarks for Asia
13. We can only suppose this to be the Brutus referred to, since
Marcus Brutus the father of the so-called Liberator was tribune of
the people in 671, and therefore could not command in the field.
14. IV. IV. Prosecutions of the Democrats
15. It is stated, that Sulla occupied the defile by which alone
Praeneste was accessible (App. i. 90); and the further events
showed that the road to Rome was open to him as well as to the
relieving army. Beyond doubt Sulla posted himself on the cross
road which turns off from the Via Latina, along which the Samnites
advanced, at Valmontone towards Palestrina; in this case Sulla
communicated with the capital by the Praenestine, and the enemy by
the Latin or Labican, road.