A History of Rome, Vol 1 by A H.J. Greenidge (page 9)

rendered light by acts of occasional severity; the world must be made to see the consequences of rebellion against a sovereign. But the true justification for Roman rigour was not dependent on such considerations, which are often of a highly disputable kind, nearly so much as on the normal attitude of the Roman mind itself. Cruelty was but an expression of Roman patriotism; with characteristic consistency they applied much the same views to their citizens and their subjects, and their treatment of captured enemies was but one expression of the spirit which found utterance in their own terrible law of treason.

When Marius celebrated his triumph on the 1st of January in the year which followed the close of the Numidian war,[1194] Jugurtha and his two sons walked before his chariot. While the pageant lasted, the king still wore his royal robes in mockery of his former state; when it had reached its bourne on the Capitol, the degradation and the punishment were begun. But it was believed by some that neither could now be felt, and that it was a madman that was pushed down the narrow stair which leads to the rock-hewn dungeon below the hill.[1195] His tunic was stripped from him, the golden rings wrested from his ears, and, as the son of the south[1196] stepped shivering into the well-like cavern, the cry “Oh! what a cold bath!” burst from his lips. Of the stories as to how the end was reached, the more detailed speaks of a protracted agony of six days until the prisoner had starved to death, his weakened mind clinging ever to the hope that his life might yet be spared.[1197]

The minor prize of the Numidian war was a quantity of treasure including more than three thousand pounds’ weight of gold and over five thousand of silver[1198]–which was shown in the triumph of Marius before it was deposited in the treasury. It was indeed the only permanent prize of the war which could be exhibited to the people; if one excepted two triumphs and the recognition of the merit of three officials, there was nothing else to show. It was difficult to justify the war even on defensive grounds, for it would have required a courageous advocate to maintain that the mere recognition of Jugurtha as King of Numidia would have imperilled the Roman possessions in Africa; and, if the struggle had assumed an anti-Roman character, this result had been assisted, if not secured, by the tactics of the opposition which had systematically foiled every attempt at compromise. But a war, which it is difficult to justify and still more difficult to remember with satisfaction, may be the necessary result of a radically unsound system of administration: and the disasters which it entails may be equally the consequence of a military system, excellent in itself but ill-adapted to the circumstances of the country in which the struggle is waged. These are the only two points of view from which the Numidian war is remarkable on strategic or administrative grounds. The strategic difficulties of the task do nothing more than exhibit the wisdom of the majority of the senate, and of the earlier generals engaged in the campaign, in seeking to avoid a struggle at almost any cost. A military system is conditioned by the necessities of its growth; even that of an empire is seldom sufficiently elastic to be equally adapted to every country and equally capable of beating down every form of armed resistance. The Roman system had been evolved for the type of warfare which was common to the civilised nations around the Mediterranean basin–nations which employed heavily armed and fully equipped soldiers as the main source of their fighting strength, and which were forced to operate within a narrow area, on account of the possession of great centres of civilisation which it was imperative to defend. Its mobility was simply the mobility of a heavy force of infantry with a circumscribed range of action; in the days of its highest development it was still strikingly weak in cavalry. It had already shown itself an imperfect instrument for putting down the guerilla warfare of Spain; it had never been intended for the purposes of desert warfare, or to effect the pacification of nomad tribes extending over a vast and desolate territory. Even as the Parthian war of Trajan required the formation of what was practically a new army developed on unfamiliar lines, so the complete reorganisation of the Republican system would have been essential to the effective conquest of Numidia. The slight successes of this war, such as the taking of Thala and of Capsa and the victories near Cirta, were attained by judicious adaptations to the new conditions, by the employment of light infantry and the increased use of cavalry; but even these improvements were of little avail, for effective pursuit was still impossible, and without pursuit the conflict could not be brought to a close. The unkindness of the conditions almost exonerates the generals who blundered during the struggle, and to an unprejudiced observer the record of incompetence is slight. The fact that the inconclusive proceedings of Metellus and Marius were deemed successes, almost justifies the exploits of a Bestia, and even the crowning disaster of the war–the surprise of the army of Aulus Albinus–might have been the lot of a better commander opposed to an enemy so far superior in mobility and knowledge of the land. Most wars of this type are destructive of military reputations; the general is fortunate who can emerge as the least incapable of the host of blunderers. If we adopt this relative standard, one fortunate issue of the campaign may be held to be the discovery that Marius was not unworthy of his military reputation. The verdict, it is true, was not justified by positive results; but it was the verdict of the army that he led and as incapable of being ignored as all such judgments are. His leadership had been characterised at least by efficiency in detail, and this efficiency had been secured by gentle measures, by unceasing vigilance, by the cultivation of a true soldierly spirit, and by the untiring example of the commander. The courage of the innovator–a courage at once political and military–had also given Rome, in the mass of the unpropertied classes, a fathomless source from which she could draw an army of professional soldiers, if she possessed the capacity to use her opportunities.

The political issues of the war were bound up with those which were strategic, both in so far as the hesitancy of the senate to enter on hostilities was based on a just estimate of the difficulties of the campaign, and in so far as the policy of smoothing over difficulties in a client state by diplomatic means, in preference to stirring up a hornet’s nest by the thrust of the sword, was one of the traditional maxims of the Roman protectorate. But this second issue raised the whole of the great administrative question of the limits of the duties which Rome owed to her client kings. Such a question not infrequently suggests a conflict of duty with interest. The claims of Adherbal for protection against his aggressive cousin might be just, but even to many moderate men, not wholly vitiated by the maxims of a Machiavellian policy, they may have appeared intolerable. Was Rome to waste her own strength and stake the peace of the empire on a mere question of dynastic succession? Might it not be better to allow the rivals to fight out the question amongst themselves, and then to see whether the man who emerged victorious from the contest was likely to prove a client acceptable and obedient to Rome? There was danger in the course, no doubt: the danger inherent in a vicious example which might spread to other protected states; but might it not be a slighter peril than that involved in dethroning a ruler, who had proved his energy and ability, his familiarity with Roman ways, and his knowledge of Roman methods, above all, his possession of the confidence of the great mass of the Numidian people? Nay, it might be argued that Adherbal had by his weakness proved his unfitness to be an efficient agent of Rome. It might be asked whether such a man was likely to be an adequate representative of Roman interests in Africa, an adequate protector of the frontiers of the province. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the advocates of interference had something more than the claim of justice and the claim of prestige on their side. It was an undisputed fact that the division of power in Numidia, at the time when the question was presented to Rome, showed that Adherbal stood for civilisation and Jugurtha for barbarism. This was an issue that might not have been manifest at first, although any one who knew Numidia must have been aware that the military spirit of the country which was embodied in Jugurtha, was not represented in the coast cities with their trading populations drawn from many towns, but in the remote agricultural districts and the deserts of the west and south; but it was an issue recognised by the commissioners when they assigned the more civilised portion of the kingdom to Adherbal, and the territories, whose strength was the natural wealth and the manhood which they yielded, to his energetic rival; and it was one that became painfully apparent when Jugurtha led his barbarous hordes against Cirta, and when these hordes in the hour of victory slew every merchant and money-lender whom they could find in the town. It was this aspect of the question that ultimately proved the decisive factor in bringing on the war; for the claims of justice could now be reinforced by those of interest, and the interest which was at stake was that of the powerful moneyed class at Rome. It was this class that not only forced the government to war, but insisted on seeing the war through to its bitter end. It was this class that systematically hindered all attempts at compromise, that brandished its control of the courts in the face of every one who strove to temper war with hopes of peace, that tolerated Metellus until he proved too dilatory, and sent out Marius in the vain hope that he might show greater expedition. The close of the war was a singular satire on their policy, a remarkable proof of the justice of the official view. The end came through diplomacy, not through battle, through an unknown quaestor who belonged to the old nobility and possessed its best gifts of facile speech and suppleness in intrigue, not through the great “new man” who was to be a living example of what might be done, if the middle class had the making of the ministers of the State.

But the moneyed class could hardly have developed the power to force the hand of the council of state, had it not been in union with the third great factor in the commonwealth, that disorganised mass of fluctuating opinion and dissipated voting power which was known as “the people.” How came the Populus Romanus to be stirred to action in this cause, with the result that the balance of power projected by Caius Gracchus was again restored? Much of their excitement may have been the result of misrepresentation, of the persistent efforts made by the opposition to prove that all parleying with the enemy was tantamount to treason; more must have been due to the dishonouring news of positive disaster which marked a later stage of the war; but the mingled attitude of resentment and suspicion with which the people was taught to regard its council and its ministers, seems to have been due to the genuine belief that many of the former and nearly all of the latter were hopelessly corrupt. This darkest aspect of the Numidian war is none the less a reality if we believe that the individual charges of corruption were not well founded, and that they were mere party devices meant to mask a policy which would have been impossible without them. The proceedings of the Mamilian commission certainly commanded little respect even from the democrat of a later day; but it is with the suspicion of corruption, rather than with the justice of that suspicion in individual cases, that we are most intimately concerned. A political society must be tainted to the core, if bribery can be given and accepted as a serious and adequate explanation of the proceedings of its leading members. The suspicion was a condemnation of the State rather than of a class. It might be tempting to suppose that the disease was confined to a narrow circle (by a curious accident to the circle actually in power); but of what proof did such a supposition admit? The leaders of the people were themselves members of the senatorial order and scions of the nobility of office. Marius the “new man” might thunder his appeal for a purer atmosphere and a wider field; but it would be long, if ever, before the councils of the State would be administered by men who might be deemed virtuous because their ancestors were unknown.

But for a time the view prevailed that the interests of the State could best be served by a combination of powerful directors of financial corporations with patriotic reformers, invested with the tribunate, struggling for higher office, and expressing their views of statecraft chiefly in the form of denunciations of the government. Such a coalition might form a powerful and healthy organ of criticism; but it could only become more by serving as a mere basis for a new executive power. As regards the nature of this power and even the necessity for its existence, the views of the discontented elements of the time were probably as indefinite as those of the adherents of Caius Gracchus. The Republican constitution was an accepted fact, and the senate must at least be tolerated as a necessary element in that constitution; for no one could dream of finding a coherent administration either in the Comitia or in the aggregate of the magistrates of the people. Now, as at all times since the Roman constitution had attained its full development, the only mode of breaking with tradition in order to secure a given end which the senate was supposed to have neglected, was to employ the services of an individual. There was no danger in this employment if the individual could be overthrown when his work had been completed, or when the senate had regained its old prestige. The leader elevated to a purely civil magistracy by the suffrages of the people was ever subject to this risk; if his personal influence outgrew the necessities of his task, if he ceased to be an agent and threatened to be a master, the mere suspicion of an aspiration after monarchy would send a shudder of reaction through the mass of men which had given him his greatness. As long as the cry for reform was based on the existence of purely internal evils, which the temporary power of a domestic magistracy such as the tribunate might heal, the breast even of the most timid constitutionalist did not deserve to be agitated by alarm for the security of the Republican government. But what if external dangers called for settlement, if the eyes of the mercantile classes and the proletariate were turned on the spectacle of a foreign commerce in decay and an empire in disorder, if the grand justification for the senate’s authority–its government of the foreign dependencies of Rome–were first questioned, then tossed aside? Would not the Individual makeshift have in such a case as this to be invested with military authority? Might not his power be defended and perpetuated by a weapon mightier than the voting tablet? Might not his supporters be a class of men, to whom the charms of civil life are few, whose habits have trained them to look for inspiration to an individual, not to a corporation, still less to that abstraction called a constitution–of men not subjected to the dividing influences, or swayed by the momentary passions, of their fellows of the streets? In such a case might not the power of the individual be made secure, and what was this but monarchy?

Such were the reflections suggested to posterity by the power which popularly-elected generals began to hold from the time of the Numidian war. But such were not the reflections of Marius and his contemporaries. There was no precedent and no contemporary circumstance which could suggest a belief in any danger arising from the military power. The experiment of bearding the senate by entrusting the conduct of a campaign to a popular favourite had been tried before, and, whether its immediate results were beneficial or the reverse, it had produced no ulterior effects. Whether the people had pinned its faith on men of the nobility such as the two Scipios, or on a man of the people like Varro, such agents had either retired from public life, confessed their incapacity, or returned to serve the State. The armies which such generals had led were composed of well-to-do men who, apart from the annoyance of the levy, had no ground of complaint against the commonwealth: and the change in the recruiting system which had been introduced by Marius, was much too novel and too partial for its consequences to be forecast. Nor could any one be expected to see the fundamental difference between the Rome of but two generations past and the Rome of the day–the difference which sprang from the increasing divergence of the interests of classes, and the consequent weakening of confidence in the one class which had “weathered the storm and been wrecked in a calm”. Aristocracy is the true leveller of merit, but, if it lose that magic power by ceasing to be an aristocracy, then the turn of the individual has come.

The fact that it was already coming may justify us in descending from the general to the particular and remarking that the question “Who deserved the credit of bringing the war with Jugurtha to an end?” soon excited an interest which appealed equally to the two parties in the State and the two personalities whom the close of the episode had revealed. It was natural that the success of Sulla should be exploited by resentful members of the nobility as the triumph of the aristocrat over the parvenu, of the old diplomacy and the old bureaucracy over the coarse and childish methods of the opposition; it was tempting to circulate the view that the humiliation of Metellus had been avenged, that the man who had slandered and superseded him had found an immediate nemesis in a youthful member of the aristocracy.[1199] Such a version, if it ever reached the ears of the masses, was heard only to be rejected; the man who had brought Jugurtha in chains to Rome must be his conqueror, and, even had this evidence been lacking, they did not intend to surrender the glory which was reflected from the champion whom they had created. Nor even in the circles of the governing class could this controversy be for the moment more than a matter for idle or malicious speculation. Hard fighting had to be done against the barbarians of the north, a reorganisation of the army was essential, and for both these purposes even they admitted that Marius was the necessary man. Even the two men who were most interested in the verdict were content to stifle for the time, the one the ambitious claim which was strengthened by a belief in its justice, the other the resentful repudiation, which would have been rendered all the more emphatic from the galling sense that it could not be absolute. In the coming campaigns against the Germans Sulla served first as legate and afterwards as military tribune in the army of his old commander.[1200] But his own conviction of the part which he had played in the Numidian war was expressed in a manner not the less irritating because it gave no reasonable ground for offence. He began wearing a signet ring, the seal of which showed Bocchus delivering Jugurtha into his hand.[1201] This emblem was destined to grate on the nerves of Marius in a still more offensive form, for thirteen years later, when his work had been done and his glory had begun to wane, Rome was given an unexpected confirmation of the truthfulness of the scene which it depicted. The King of Mauretania, eager to conciliate the people of Rome while he showed his gratitude to Sulla, sent as a dedicatory offering to the Capitol a group of trophy-bearing Victories who guarded a device wrought in gold, which showed Bocchus surrendering to Sulla the person of the Numidian king. Marius would have had it removed, but Sulla’s supporters could now loudly assert the claim, which had been only whispered when the dark cloud of barbaric invasion hung over the State and the loyal belief of the people in Marius was quickened by their fears.[1202]

Yet, although at the close of the Numidian war an appalling danger to the empire tended to perpetuate the coalition that had been formed between the mercantile classes and the proletariate, and to wring from the senate an acceptance of the new military genius with his plans for reform, there are clear indications which prove that an ebb of political feeling had been witnessed, even during the last three years–a turn of the tide which shows how utterly unstable the coalition against the senate would have been, had it not been reinforced by the continuance of disasters abroad. The first sign of the reaction was the flattering reception and the triumph of Metellus; and it may have been this current of feeling which decided the consular elections for the following year. The successful candidates were Caius Atilius Serranus and Quintus Servilius Caepio. Of these Serranus could trace his name back to the great Reguli of Carthaginian fame;[1203] the family to which he belonged, although plebeian, had figured amongst the ranks of the official nobility since the close of the fourth century, although it is known to have furnished the State with but five consuls since the time of Caius Regulus. The merit which Serranus possessed in the eyes of the voters who elevated him to his high office, was a puzzle to posterity; for such nobility as he could boast seemed the only compensation for the lack of intelligence which was supposed to characterise his utterances and his conduct.[1204] But, if we may judge from the resolution which he subsequently displayed in combating revolution at Rome,[1205] he was known to be a supporter of the authority of the senate, and his aristocratic proclivities may have led to his association with his more distinguished colleague Caepio. The latter belonged to a patrician clan, and to a branch of that clan which had lately clung to the highest political prizes with a tenacity second only to that of the Metelli. Caepio’s great-grandfather, his grandfather, his father and his two uncles had all filled the consulship; and his own hereditary claim to that office had been rendered more secure by some good service in Lusitania, which had secured him a military reputation and the triumph which he enjoyed in the very year that preceded his candidature.[1206] His political sentiments may have been known before his election; but the very fact of his elevation to the consulship, and his appreciation of the direction in which the tide of public feeling seemed to be running, gave a definiteness to his views and a courage to his reforming conservatism, which must have surprised his supporters as well as his opponents, and may not have been altogether pleasing to the extreme members of the former party. It must have been believed that a rift was opening between the moneyed classes and the people, and that the latter, satisfied with their recent political triumph and reconciled by the honest passivity of the senate, were content to resume their old allegiance to the governing class. It must even have been held that a spirit of repentance and indignation could be awakened at the reckless and selfish use which the knights had made of the judicial power entrusted to their keeping, that the Mamilian commission could be represented as an outrage on the public conscience, and the ordinary cognisance of public crimes as a reign of terror intended merely to ensure the security of investments.[1207] The knights were to be attacked in their stronghold, and Caepio came forward with a new judiciary law. Two accounts of the scope of this measure have come down to us. According to the one, the bill proposed that jurisdiction in the standing criminal courts should be shared between the senators and the equites;[1208] according to the other, this jurisdiction was to be given to the senate.[1209] That the latter result was meant to be attained in some way by the law, is perhaps shown by the intense dislike which the equestrian order entertained in later times to any laudatory reference to the hated Servilian proposal:[1210] and, although a class which has possessed and perhaps abused a monopoly of jurisdiction, may object to seeing even a share of it given to their enemies and their victims, yet this resentment would be still more natural if the threatened transference of jurisdiction from their order was to be complete. But, in any case, we cannot afford to neglect the express testimony to the fact that the senate was to have possession of the courts; and the only method of reconciling this view with the other tradition of a partition of jurisdiction between the orders, is to suppose that Caepio attempted the effort suggested by Tiberius Gracchus, once advocated by his brother Caius,[1211] and subsequently taken up by the younger Livius Drusus, of increasing the senate by admitting a certain number of knights into that body, and giving the control of the courts to the members of this enlarged council. It may seem a strange and revolutionary step to attempt such a reform of the governing body of the State, whose membership and whose privileges were so jealously guarded, for the purpose of securing a single political end; it may seem at first sight as though the admission of a considerable number of the upper middle class to the power and prizes possessed by the privileged few, would be a shock even to a mildly conservative mind that had fed upon the traditions of the past. Yet a closer examination will reveal the truth that such a change would have meant a very slight modification in the temper and tendencies of the senate, and would have insured a very great increase in its security, whether it meant to govern well or ill, to secure its own advantages or those of its suffering subjects. In reality a very thin line parted the interests of the senators from those of the more distinguished members of the equestrian order. It was only when official probity or official selfishness came into conflict with capitalistic greed, that recrimination was aroused between the two heads of the body politic. But what if official power, under either of its aspects, could make a compromise with greed? The rough features of both might be softened; but, at the worst, a stronger, more permanent and, in the long run, more profitable monopoly of the good things of the empire would be the result of the union. The admission of wealthy capitalists could not be considered a very marked social detraction to the dignity of the order. The question of pedigree might be sunk in an amiable community of taste. In point of lavish expenditure and exotic refinement, in the taste that displayed itself in the patronage of literature, the collection of objects of art, the adornment of country villas, there was little to choose between the capitalist and the noble. And community of taste is an easy passage to community of political sentiment. Any one acquainted with the history of the past must have known that all efforts to temper the exclusiveness of the senatorial order had but resulted in an increase of the spirit of exclusiveness. The patrician council had in old days been stormed by a horde of plebeian chiefs; but these chiefs, when they had once stepped within the magic circle, had shown not the least inclination to permit their poorer followers to do the same. The successful Roman, practical, grasping, commercial and magnificently beneficent, ranking the glory of patronage as second only in point of worth to the possession and selfish use of power, scarcely attached a value even to the highest birth when deprived of its brilliant accessories, and had always found his bond of fellowship in a close community of interest with others, who helped him to hold a position which he might keep against the world. How much more secure would this position be, if the front rank of the assailants were enticed within the fortress and given strong positions upon the walls! They would soon drink into their lungs the strong air of possession, they would soon be stiffened by that electric rigidity which falls on a man when he becomes possessed of a vested interest. There was little probability that the knights admitted to the senate would continue to be in any real sense members of the equestrian order.

But even to a senator who reckoned the increase of profit-sharers, whatever their present or future sentiments might be, as a loss to himself, the sacrifice involved in the proposed increase of the members of his order may have seemed well worthy of the cost. For how could power be exercised or enjoyed in the face of a hostile judicature? The knights had recently made foreign administration on the accepted lines not only impossible in itself, but positively dangerous to the administrator, and in all the details of provincial policy they could, if they chose, enforce their views by means of the terrible instrument which Caius Gracchus had committed to their hands. Even if the business men, shorn of their most distinguished members, might still have the power to offer transitory opposition to the senate by coalition with the mob, the more dangerous, because more permanent, possibilities of harm which the control of the courts afforded them, would be wholly swept away.

The attraction of Caepio’s proposal to the senatorial mind is, therefore, perfectly intelligible; but it is very probable that there were many members of the nobility who were wholly insensible to this attraction. The men who would descend a few steps in order to secure a profitable concord between the orders, may have been in the majority; but there must have been a considerable number of stiff-backed nobles who, even if they believed that concord could be secured by a measure which gave away privileges and did not conciliate hostility, were exceedingly unwilling to descend at all. Caepio is the first exponent of a fresh phase of the new conservatism which had animated the elder Drusus. That statesman had sought to win the people over to the side of the senate by a series of beneficent laws, which should be as attractive as those of the demagogue and perhaps of more permanent utility than the blessings showered on them by the irresponsible favourite of the moment; but he had done nothing for the mercantile class; and his greater son was left to combine the scheme of conciliation transmitted to him by his father with that enunciated by Caepio.

The moderation and the tactical utility of the new proposal fired the imagination of a man, whose support was of the utmost importance for the success of a measure which was to be submitted to a popular body that was divided in its allegiance, uncertain in its views, and therefore open to conviction by rhetoric if not by argument. It was characteristic of the past career of the young orator Lucius Crassus that he should now have thrown himself wholly on the side of Caepio and the progressive members of the senate.[1212] His past career had committed him to no extremes. He had impeached Carbo, known to have been a radical and believed to be a renegade, and he had championed the policy of provincial colonisation as illustrated by the settlement of Narbo Martius. His action in the former case might have been equally pleasing to either side; his action in the latter might have been construed as the work, less of an advanced liberal, than of an imperialist more enlightened than his peers. He had evidently not compromised his chances of political success; he was still but thirty-four and had just concluded his tenure of the tribunate. In the opposite camp stood Memmius, striving with all his might to keep alive the coalition, which he had done so much to form, between the popular party and the merchant class. The knights mustered readily under his banner, for they had no illusions as to the meaning of the bill; it was impossible to conciliate an order by the bribery of a few hundreds of its members, whose very names were as yet unknown. To keep the people faithful to the coalition was a much more difficult task. It was soon patent to all that the agitators had not been wrong in supposing that a serious cleft had opened between the late allies, and in the war of words with which the Forum was soon filled, Memmius seems to have been no match for his opponent. Crassus surpassed himself, and the keen but humorous invective with which he held Memmius up to the ridicule of his former followers,[1213] was balanced by the grand periods in which he formulated his detailed indictment of the methods pursued by the existing courts of justice, and of the terrible dangers to the public security produced by their methods of administration. He did not merely impugn the verdicts which were the issue of a jury system so degraded as to have become the sport of a political “faction,” but he dwelt on the public danger which sprang from the parasites of the courts, the gloomy brood of public accusers which is hatched by a rotten system, feeds on the impurities of a diseased judicature, and terrifies the commonwealth by the peril that lurks in its poisonous sting. This speech was to be studied by eager students for years to come as a master work in the art of declamatory argument.[1214] But its momentary efficacy seems to have been as great as its permanent value. Caepio’s bill was acclaimed and carried.[1215] Then began the turn of the tide. It is practically certain that the authors of the measure never had the courage, or perhaps the time, to carry a single one of its proposals Into effect. The senate was not enlarged, nor was the right of judicature wrested from the hands of its existing holders.[1216] The bill may have been repealed within a few months of its acceptance by the people. Caepio went to Gaul to stake his military reputation on a conflict with the German hordes; he was to return as the best hated man in Rome, to receive no mercy from an indignant people. There was probably more than one cause for this sudden change in political sentiment. The knights may have been thrown off their guard by the suddenness of Caepio’s attack upon their privileges, and a few months of organisation and canvassing may have been all that they needed to restore the majority required for effacing the blot upon their name. But the chief reason is doubtless to be sought in the external circumstances of the moment, and can only be fully illustrated by the description which we shall soon be giving of the great events that were taking place on the northern frontiers of the empire. It is sufficient for the present to remember that, in the very year in which Caepio’s measure had received the ratification of the people, Caius Popillius Laenas, a legate of one of the consuls of the previous year, had been put on his trial before that very people for making a treaty which was considered still more disgraceful than the defeat which had preceded it.[1217] The Comitia now heard the whole story of the conduct of the Roman arms against the barbarians of the North. The story immediately revived the coalition of the early days of the Numidian war, and there was no longer any hope for the success of even moderate counsels proceeding from the senate. Popillius was a second Aulus Albinus, and a new Marius was required to restore the fortunes of the day. It was, however, certain that the only Marius could not be withdrawn from Africa, and men looked eagerly to see what the consular elections for the next year would produce. We hear of no candidate belonging to the highest ranks of the nobility who was deemed to have been defrauded of his birthright on this occasion; but the disappointment of Quintus Lutatius Catulus was deemed wholly legitimate, when Cnaeus Mallius Maximus defeated him at the poll. Catulus belonged to a plebeian family that had been ennobled by the possession of the consulship at least as early as the First Punic War; but the distinction had not been perpetuated in the later annals of the house, and if Catulus received the support of the official nobility, it was because his tastes and temperament harmonised with theirs, and because it may have seemed impolitic to advance a man of better birth and more pronounced opinions in view of the prevailing temper of the people. Catulus was a man of elegant taste and polished learning, one of the most perfect Hellenists of the day, and distinguished for the grace and purity of the Latin style that was exhibited in his writings and orations.[1218] He was one day to write the history of his own momentous consulship and of the final struggle with the Cimbri, in which he played a not ignoble part. Much of our knowledge of those days is due to his pen, and the modern historian is perhaps likely to congratulate himself on the blindness of the people, which thrice refused Catulus the consulship and reserved him to be an actor and a witness in the crowning victory of the great year of deliverance. He had already been defeated by Serranus; he was now subordinated to the claims of Maximus. But what were those claims? Posterity found it difficult to give an answer,[1219] and the reason for that difficulty was that this second experiment in the virtues of a “new man” was anything but successful. The family to which Maximus belonged seems to have been wholly undistinguished, and he himself is the only member of his clan who is known to have attained the consulship. An explanation of his present prominence could only be gathered from a knowledge of his past career, and of this knowledge we are wholly deprived; but it is manifest that he must have done much, either in the way of positive service to the State in subordinate capacities, or in the way of invective against its late administrators, which caused him to be regarded as a discovery by the leaders of the multitude. The colleague given to Maximus was a man such as the people in the present emergency could not well refuse. Publius Rutilius Rufus was a kind of Cato with a deeper philosophy, a higher culture, and a far less bewildering activity. As a soldier he had been trained by Scipio in Spain, and he possessed a theoretical interest in military matters which issued in practical results of the most important kind.[1220] His tenure of the urban praetorship seems to have been marked by reforms which materially improved the condition of the freedmen in matters of private law, and limited the right of patrons to impose burdensome conditions of personal service as the price of manumission.[1221] It was he too who may have introduced the humane system of granting the possession of a debtor’s goods to a creditor, if that creditor was willing to waive his claim to the debtor’s person.[1222] Rutilius, therefore, may have had strong claims on the gratitude of the lower orders; and his personality was one that could more readily command a grateful respect than a warm affection. He was a learned adherent of the Stoic system, the cold and stern philosophy of which imbued his speeches, already rendered somewhat unattractive by their author’s devotion to the forms of the civil law.[1223] He was much in request as an advocate, his learning commanded deep respect, but he lacked or would not condescend to the charm which would have made him a great personal force with the people at a time when there was a sore need of men who were at the same time great and honest.

By a singular irony of fortune it chanced that the province of Gaul fell to Maximus and not to Rutilius. The strong-headed soldier was left at home to indulge his schemes of army reform while the new man went to his post in the north, to quarrel with the aristocratic Caepio, who was now serving as proconsul in those regions, and to share in the crushing disaster which this dissension drew upon their heads. The search for genius had to be renewed at the close of this melancholy year.[1224] Another “new man” was found in Caius Flavius Fimbria, a product of the forensic activity of the age, a clever lawyer, a bitter and vehement speaker, but with a power that secured his efforts a transitory circulation as types of literary oratory.[1225] He is not known to have shown any previous ability as a soldier, and his election, so far as it was not due to his own unquestioned merit, may have been but a symbol of the continued prevalence of the distrust of the people in aristocratic influence and qualifications. His competitor was Catulus who was for the third time defeated. For the other place in the consulship there could be no competition. The close of the Numidian war had freed the hands of the man who was still believed to be the greatest soldier of the day. There was, it is true, a legal difficulty in the way of the appointment of Marius to the command in the north. Such a command should belong to a consul, but nearly fifty years before this date a law had been passed absolutely prohibiting re-election to the consulship.[1226] Yet the dispensation granted to the younger Africanus could be quoted as a precedent, and indeed the danger that now threatened the very frontiers of Italy was an infinitely better argument for the suspension of the law than the reverses of the Numantine war.[1227] The people were in no mood to listen to legal quibbles. They drove the protestant minority from the assembly, and raised Marius to the position which they deemed necessary for the salvation of the State.[1228] The formal act of dispensation may have been passed by the Comitia either before or after the election, but the senate must have been easily coerced into giving its assent, if its adherence were thought requisite to the validity of the act. The province of Gaul was assigned him as a matter of course,[1229] whether by the senate or the people is a matter of indifference. For the Roman constitution was again throwing off the mask of custom and uncovering the bold lineaments which spoke of the undisputed sovereignty of the people. Certainly, if a sovereign has a right to assert himself, it is one who is _in extremis_, who stands between death and revolution. Personality had again triumphed in spite of the meshes of Roman law and custom. It remained to be seen whether the net could be woven again with as much cunning as before, or whether the rent made by Marius was greater than that which had been torn by the Gracchi.

TITLES OF MODERN WORKS REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES

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BERGMANN, R.–_De Asiae Romanorum provinciae praesidibus_ (Philologus, ii., 1847, p. 641).

BETHMANN-HOLLWEG, M.A. VON.–_Der römische Civilprozess_ (Der Civilprozess des gemeinen Rechts, Bde. i., ii.). Bonn, 1864-5.

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BUECHER, K.–_Die Aufstände der unfreien Arbeiter 143-129 v. Chr_. Frankfurt-a.-M., 1874.

CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM GRAECARUM. Ed. A. Böckh. Vol. ii. Berlin, 1843.

CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM LATINARUM. Berolini. Vol. i. (ed. Th. Mommsen, 1863; ed. ii., pars i., ed. Th. Mommsen, G. Henzen, C. Hülsen, 1893). Vol. ii. (ed. A. Hübner, 1869). Vol. viii. (coll. G. Wilmanns, 1881).

CUNNINGHAM, W.–_An Essay on Western Civilisation in its _Economic Aspects_. Cambridge, 1898-1900.

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DRUMANN, W.–_Geschichte Roms in seinem Uebergange von der republikanischen zur monarchisen Verfassung_. 2te Aufl., herausg. von P. Groebe. Berlin. Bd. i., 1899. Bd. ii., 1902.

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KOEPP, F.–_De Attali III. patre_ (Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. N. F. Bd. xlviii., 1893, p. 154).

KRAUSE, J. H.–_Deinokrates oder Hütte, Haus und Palast, Dorf, Stadt und Residenz der alten Welt_. Jena, 1863.

LAU, T.–_Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Eine Biografie_, Hamburg, 1855.

LONG, G.–_The Decline of the Roman Republic_. London, 1864-74.

MAHAFFY, J. P.–_The Slave Wars against Rome_ (Hermathena, 1890). —-_The Work of Mago on Agriculture (ibid.)_.

MARQUARDT, J.–_Das Privatleben der Römer_. Leipzig, 1879. 2te Aufl., besorgt von A. Mau. Leipzig, 1886.
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SCHAEFER, A.–On Orosius, v., 9, 6 (_Mamertium oppidum_) (Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, 1873, p. 71).
—-On Plutarch, _Ti. Gracch_. II ([Greek: _Mallios kai phoulbios_]) (ibid.).

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] The average, or at least the most powerful, type of a race is stamped on its history. It is perhaps needless to say that no generalisations on character apply to all its individual members.

[2] Even the Hellenes of the West are only a partial exception. It is true that their cities clung to the coast; but the vast inland possessions of states like Sybaris are scarcely paralleled elsewhere in the history of Greek colonisation.

[3] The Latin colony of Aquileia was settled in the former year (Liv. xl. 34 Vellei. 1. 15), the Roman colony of Auximum in the latter (Vellei. l.c.).

[4] Cic. _de Leg. Agr_. ii. 27. 73 Est operae pretium diligentiam majorum recordari, qui colonias sic idoneis in locis contra suspicionem periculi collocarunt, ut esse non oppida Italiae, sed propugnacula imperii viderentur.

[5] Liv. xxvii. 38; xxxvi. 3; cf. Marquardt _Staatsverwaltung_ 1. p. 51.

[6] The Roman citizen, who entered his name for a Latin colony, suffered the derogation of _caput_ which was known to the later jurists as _capitis deminutio minor_ and expressed the loss of _civitas_ (Gaius i. 161; iii. 56). That a fine was the alternative of enrolment, hence conceived as voluntary, we are told by Cicero (_pro Caec_. 33. 98 Aut sua voluntate aut legis multa profecti sunt: quam multam si sufferre voluissent, manere in civitate potuissent. Cf. _pro Domo_ 30. 78 Qui cives Romani in colonias Latinas proficiscebantur, fieri non poterant Latini, nisi erant auctores acti nomenque dederant).

[7] Liv. xxxix. 23.

[8] Liv. xxxvii. 4.

[9] Liv. xlii. 32 Multi voluntate nomina dabant, quia locupletes videbant, qui priore Macedonico bello, aut adversus Antiochum in Asia, stipendia fecerant.

[10] For the assignations _viritim_ in the times of the Kings see Varro _R.R_. i. 10 (Romulus); Cic. _de Rep_. ii. 14. 26 (Numa); Liv. 1. 46 (Servius Tullius). That the Cassian distribution was to be [Greek: _kat andra_] is stated by Dionysius (viii. 72, 73). On the whole subject see Mommsen in C.I.L. i. p. 75. He has made out a good case for the land thus assigned being known by the technical name of _viritanus ager_. See Festus p. 373; Siculus Flaccus p. 154 Lachm. We shall find that this was the form of distribution effected by the Gracchi.

[11] For the settlement in the land of the Volsci see Liv. v. 24; for that made by M. Curius in the Sabine territory, Colum. i. praef. 14; [Victor] _de Vir. Ill_. 33.

[12] Cato ap. Varr. _R.R_. i. 2. 7 Ager Gallicus Romanus vocatur, qui viritim cis Ariminum datus est ultra agrum Picentium; cf. Cic. _Brut_. 14. 57; _de Senect_. 4. 11; Val. Max. v. 4. 5.

[13] Liv. xlii. 4 (173 B.C.); cf. xli. 16.

[14] The other sources were the _portoria_ and the _vicesima libertatis_. Even at a period when the revenues from the provinces were infinitely larger than they were at the present time Cicero could write, with reference to Caesar’s proposal for distributing the Campanian land, Portoriis Italiae sublatis, agro Campano divisor, quid vectigal superest domesticum praeter vicensimam? (Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 16. i).

[15] See the map attempted by Beloch in his work _Der Italische Bund unter Roms Hegemonie_.

[16] Vellei. ii. 7. See ch. iv., where the attitude of the senate towards the proposals for transmarine settlement made by Caius Gracchus is described.

[17] Polyb. xxxii. 11.

[18] Besides the continued war in Spain from 145 to 133 there were troubles in Macedonia (in 142) and in Sicily during this period of comparative peace. _Circa_ 140-135 commences the great slave rising in that island, and in the latter year the long series of campaigns against the free Illyrian and Thracian peoples begins.

[19] The _officia_ of the _villicus_ have become very extensive even in Cato’s time (Cato _R.R_. 5). Their extent implies the assumption of very prolonged absences on the part of the master.

[20] Lucullus paid 500,200 drachmae for the house at Misenum which had once belonged to Cornelia. She had purchased it for 75,000 (Plut. _Mar_. 34). Marius had been its intermediate owner. Even during his occupancy it is described as [Greek: _polytelaes oikia tryphas echousa kai diaitas thaelyteras hae kat andra polemon tosouton kai strateion autourgon_.]

[21] Diod. xxxvii. 3.

[22] Sulla rented one of the lower floors for 3000 sesterces (Plut. _Sulla_ 1).

[23] The _coenaculum_ is mentioned by Livy (xxxix. 14) in connection with the year 186 B.C. It is known both to Ennius (ap. Tertull. _adv_. Valent. 7) and to Plautus (_Amph_. iii. 1. 3).

[24] Festus p. 171. The _insula_ resembled a large hotel, with one or more courts, and bounded on all sides by streets. See Smith _Dict. of Antiq_. (3rd ed.) i. p. 665.

[25] Val. Max. viii. 1. damn. 7 Admodum severae notae et illud populi judicium, cum M. Aemilium Porcinam (consul 137 B.C.) a L. Cassio (censor 125 B.C.) accusatum crimine nimis sublime extructae villae in Alsiensi agro gravi multa affecit. The author does not sufficiently distinguish between the censorian initiative and the operation of the law. The passage is important as showing the existence of an enactment on the height of buildings. See Voigt in Iwan-Müller’s _Handbuch_ iv. 2, p. 394, and cf. Vellei. ii. 10. Augustus limited the height of houses to 70 feet (Strabo v. p. 235).

[26] Diodor. v. 40 (The Etruscans) [Greek: _en … tais oikiais ta peristoa pros tas ton therapeuonton ochlon tarachas exeuron euchraestian_.] See Krause _Deinokrates_ p. 528.

[27] In spite of the plural form _fauces_ (Vitruv. vi. 3. 6) may denote only a single passage. See Marquardt _Privatl_. p. 240; Smith and Middleton in Smith _Dict. of Antiq_. i. p. 671.

[28] For this _atriensis_, the English butler, the continental porter, see the frequent references in Plautus (e.g., _Asin_. ii. 2. 80 and 101; _Pseud_. ii. 2. 15), Krause _Deinokrates_ p. 534 and Marquardt _Privatl_. p. 140.

[29] Plin. _H.N_. xxxv. 6 Stemmata vero lineis discurrebant ad imagines pictas. It is not known at what period the _imagines_ were transferred from the Atrium to the Alae.

[30] Overbeck _Pompeii_ p. 192; Krause _Deinokrates_ p. 539.

[31] For the practice started, or developed, by Caius Gracchus of receiving visitors, some singly, others in smaller or larger groups, see Seneca _de Ben_. vi. 34. 2 and the description of Gracchus’ tribunate in chapter iv.

[32] Festus p. 357 (according to Mommsen, Abh. der Berl. Akad. Phil.-hist. Classe, 1864 p. 68). Tablinum proxime atrium locus dicitur, quod antiqui magistratus in suo imperio tabulis rationum ibi habebant publicarum rationum causa factum locum; Plin. _H.N_. xxxv. 7 Tabulina codicibus implebantur et monimentis rerum in magistratu gestarum. Marquardt, however (_Privatl_. p. 215) thinks that the name _tablinum_ is derived from the fact that this chamber was originally made of planks (_tablinum_ from _tabula_, as _figlinum_ from _figulus_).

[33] The earliest instances of extreme extravagance in the use of building material–of the use, for instance, of Hymettian and Numidian marble–are furnished by the houses of the orator Lucius Licinius Crassus (built about 92 B.C.) and of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, consul in 78 B.C. This growth of luxury will be treated when we come to deal with the civilisation of the Ciceronian period.

[34] As Krause expresses it (_Deinokrates_ p. 542), at the final stage we find a Greek “Hinterhaus” standing behind an old Italian “Vorderhaus”.

[35] The case mentioned by Juvenal (xi. 151)

Pastoris duri hic est filius, ille bubulci. Suspirat longo non visam tempore matrem, Et casulam, et notos tristis desiderat haedos,

must have been of frequent occurrence as soon as the urban and rustic _familiae_ had been kept distinct.

[36] Suetonius says (_de Rhet_. 3) of L. Voltacilius Pilutus, one of the teachers of Pompeius, Servisse dicitur atque etiam ostiarius vetere more in catena fuisse.

[37] For these _atrienses, atriarii, admissionales, velarii_ see Wallon _Hist. de l’Esclavage_ ii. p. 108.

[38] Diod. xxxvii. 3; Sallust (_Jug_. 85) makes Marius say (107 B.C.) Neque pluris pretii coquum quam villicum habeo. Livy (xxxix. 6) remarks with reference to the consequences of the return of Manlius’ army from Asia in 187 B.C. Tum coquus, vilissimum antiquis mancipium et aestimatione et usu, in pretio esse; et, quod ministerium fuerat, ars haberi coepta.

[39] Plin. _H.N_. xviii. 108 Nec coquos vero habebant in servitiis eosque ex macello conducebant. The practice is mentioned by Plautus (_Aul_. ii. 4. 1; iii. 2. 15).

[40] _Condus promus_ (Plaut. _Pseud_. ii. 2. 14).

[41] Wallon op. cit. ii. p. 111.

[42] C. Gracchus ap. Gell. x. 3. 5.

[43] Polyb. xxxii. 11; Diodor. xxxvii. 3.

[44] Diod. l.c.

[45] Plin. _H.N_. xxxiii. 143 Invenimus legatos Carthaginiensium dixisse nullos hominum inter se benignius vivere quam Romanos. Eodem enim argento apud omnes cenitavisse ipsos.

[46] Val. Max. ii. 9, 3.

[47] Plin. _H.N_. xxxiii. 141.

[48] Vellei. i. 13.

[49] Polyb. xl. 7.

[50] Liv. xxxix. 6 Lectos aeratos … plagulas … monopodia et abacos Romam advexerunt. Tunc psaltriae sambucistriaeque et convivalia ludionum oblectamenta addita epulis. Cf. Plin, _H.N_. xxxiv. 14.

[51] Polyb. ix. 10 [Greek: _Rhomaioi de metakomisantes ta proeiraemena tais men idiotikais kataskenais tous auton ekosmaesan bious, tais de daemosiais ta koina taes poleos_.] Another great raid was that made by Fulvius Nobilior in 189 B.C. on the art treasures of the Ambraciots (Signa aenea marmoreaque et tabulae pictae, Liv. xxxviii. 9).

[52] Plin. _H.N_. xv. 19 Graeci vitiorum omnium genitores.

[53] Cic. _pro Arch_. 3. 5 Erat Italia tum plena Graecarum artium ac disciplinarum … Itaque hunc (Archiam) et Tarentini et Regini et Neapolitani civitate ceterisque praemiis donarunt: et omnes, qui aliquid de ingeniis poterant judicare, cognitione atque hospitio dignum existimarunt.

[54] Cic. _de Rep_. ii. 19. 34 Videtur insitiva quadam disciplina doctior facta esse civitas. Influxit enim non tenuis quidam e Graecia rivulus in hanc urbem, sed abundantissimus amnis illarum disciplinarum et artium. Cicero is speaking of the very earliest Hellenic influences on Rome, but his description is just as appropriate to the period which we are considering.

[55] Plut. _Paul_. 28.

[56] Sulla brought back the library of Apellicon of Teos, Lucullus the very large one of the kings of Pontus (Plut. _Sulla_ 26; _Luc_. 42; Isid. _Orig_. vi. 5). Lucullus allowed free access to his books. Here we get the germ of the public library. The first that was genuinely public belongs to the close of the Republican era. It was founded by Asinius Pollio in the Atrium Libertatis on the Aventine (Plin. _H.N_. vii. 45; Isid. _Orig_. vi. 5).

[57] Macrob. _Sat_. iii. 14. 7.

[58] Dionys. vii. 71.

[59] They had made contributions in 186 B.C. towards the games of Scipio Asiaticus (Plin. _H.N_. xxxiii. 138).

[60] Livy (xl. 44) after describing the _senatus consultum_, in which occur the words Neve quid ad eos ludos arcesseret, cogeret, acciperet, faceret adversus id senatus consultum, quod L. Aemilio Cn. Baebio consulibus de ludis factum esset, adds Decreverat id senatus propter effusos sumptus, factos in ludos Ti. Sempronii aedilis, qui graves non modo Italiae ac sociis Latini nominis sed etiam provinciis externis fuerant.

[61] The effect was still worse when a rich man avoided it. Cic. _de Off_. ii. 17. 58. Vitanda tamen suspicio est avaritiae. Mamerco, homini divitissimo, praetermissio aedilitatis consulatus repulsam attulit. Sulla said that the people would not give him the praetorship because they wished him to be aedile first. They knew that he could obtain African animals for exhibition (Plut. _Sulla_ 5).

[62] Cic. _in Verr_. v. 14. 36.

[63] Liv. x. 47; xxvii. 6.

[64] Liv. xxiii. 30.

[65] Liv. xxx. 39.

[66] Plin. _H.N_. xviii. 286.

[67] Mommsen _Röm. Münzw_. p. 645.

[68] Liv. xxxvi. 36. On these festivals see Warde Fowler _The Roman Festivals_ pp. 72. 91. 70. The _Megalesia_ seem to have fallen to the lot of the curule aediles (Dio. Cass. xliii. 48), the others to have been given indifferently by either pair.

[69] Val. Max. ii. 4-7; Liv. _Ep_. xvi. It was exhibited in the Forum Boarium by Marcus and Decimus Brutus at the funeral of their father.

[70] Compare Livy’s description (xli. 20) of the adoption of Roman gladiatorial shows by Antiochus Epiphanes–Armorum studium plerisque juvenum accendit.

[71] Polyb. xxx. 13.

[72] Liv. xxxix. 22.

[73] Liv. xliv. 18.

[74] Dig. 21. 1. 40-42 (from the edict of the curule aediles) Ne quis canem, verrem vel minorem aprum, lupum, ursum, pantheram, leonem … qua vulgo iter fiet, ita habuisse velit, ut cuiquam nocere damnumve dare possit.

[75] Cic. _de Off_. ii. 17. 60 Tota igitur ratio talium largitionum genere vitiosa est, temporibus necessaria. He adds the pious but unattainable wish Tamen ipsa et ad facultates accomodanda et mediocritate moderanda est. Compare the remarks of Pöhlmann on the subject in his _Geschichte des antiken Communismus und Sozialismus_ ii. 2. p. 471.

[76] Mommsen _Staatsr_. ii., p. 382.

[77] Plut, _Ti. Gracch_. 14.

[78] Liv. xxxix. 44; Plut, _Cat. Maj_. 18.

[79] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_, p. 128.

[80] Cic. _de Off_. ii. 22. 76 (Paullus) tantum in aerarium pecuniae invexit, ut unius imperatoris praeda finem attulerit tributorum. A deterrent to luxury could still have been created by imposing heavy harbour-dues on articles of value; but this would have required legislation. Nothing is known about the Republican tariff at Italian ports. The percentage may have been uniform for all articles.

[81] Liv. xxxiv. cc. 1-8; Val. Max. ix. 1. 3; Tac. _Ann_. iii. 33.

[82] Macrob. _Sat_. iii. 17; Festus pp. 201, 242; Schol. Bob. p. 310; Meyer _Orat. Rom. Fragm_. p. 91.

[83] This date (161) is given by Pliny (_H.N_. x. 139); Macrobius (_Sat_. iii. 17. 3) places the law in 159.

[84] Gell. ii. 24; Macrob. _Sat_. iii. 17; Plin. _H.N_. x. 139; Tertull. _Apol_. vi. The ten asses of this law are the Fanni centussis misellus of Lucilius.

[85] It seems that we must assume formal acceptance on the part of the allies in accordance with the principle that Rome could not legislate for her confederacy, a principle analogous to that which forbade her to force her franchise on its members (Cic. _pro Balbo_ 8, 20 and 21).

[86] We may compare the enactment of 193 B.C., which was produced by the discovery that Roman creditors escaped the usury laws by using Italians as their agents (Liv. xxxv. 7 M. Sempronius tribunus plebis … plebem rogavit plebesque scivit ut cum sociis ac nomine Latino creditae pecuniae jus idem quod cum civibus Romanis esset).

[87] The _Lex Licinia_, which is attributed by Macrobius (l.c.) to P. Licinius Crassus Dives, perhaps belongs either to his praetorship (104 B.C.) or to his consulship (97 B.C.).

[88] Gellius (ii. 24), in speaking of Sulla’s experiments, says of the older laws Legibus istis situ atque senio obliteratis.

[89] _Exaequatio_ (Liv. xxxiv. 4).

[90] Cic. _de Rep_. iii. g. 16; see p. 80.

[91] Compare Tac. _Ann_. iii. 53. The Emperor Tiberius here speaks of Illa feminarum propria, quis lapidum causa pecuniae nostrae ad externas aut hostilis gentes transferuntur.

[92] The prohibition belongs to the year 229 B.C. (Zonar. viii. 19). For other prohibitions of the same kind dating from, a period later than that which we are considering see Voigt in Iwan-Müller’s _Handbuch_ iv. 2, p. 376 n. 95.

[93] Earlier enactments had been directed against canvassing, but not against bribery. The simplicity of the fifth century B.C. was illustrated by the law that a candidate should not whiten his toga with chalk (Liv. iv. 25; 433 B.C.). The _Lex Poetelia_ of 358 B.C. (Liv. vii. 16) was directed against personal solicitation by _novi homines_. Some law of _ambitus_ is known to Plautus (_Amph. prol. 73; cf. Trinumm_. iv. 3. 26), See Rein _Criminalrecht_ p. 706

[94] Liv. xl. 19 Leges de ambitu consules ex auctoritate senatus ad populum tulerunt. This was the _lex Cornelia Baebia_ and that it referred to pecuniary corruption is known from a fragment of Cato (ap. _Non_. vii. 19, s.v. largi, Cato lege Baebia: pecuniam inlargibo tibi).

[95] Obsequens lxxi.

[96] Liv. _Ep_. xlvii.

[97] Polyb. vi. 56 [Greek: _para men Karchaedoniois dora phaneros didontes lambanousi tas archas, para de Rhomaiois thanatos esti peri touto prostimon_.]

[98] The position of the ruined patrician will be fully illustrated in the following pages when we deal with the careers of Scaurus and of Sulla.

[99] Liv. xxxiv. 52.

[100] Liv. xxxix. 7.

[101] Liv. xxxviii. 9.

[102] For the later history of the _aurum coronarium_ see Marquardt _Staatsverw_. ii. p. 295. It was developed from the _triumphales coronae_ (Festus p. 367) and is described as gold Quod triumphantibus … a victis gentibus datur and as imposed by commanders Propter concessam vitam (_al_. immunitatem) (Serv. _Ad. Aen_. viii. 721).

[103] Liv. xxi. 63 (218 B.C.) Id satis habitum ad fructus ex agris vectandos; quaestus omnis patribus indecorus visus.

[104] It was antiqua et mortua (Cic. _in Verr_. v. 18. 45).

[105] Cicero (_Parad_. 6. 46) speaks of those Qui honeste rem quaerunt mercaturis faciendis, operis dandis, publicis sumendis. Compare the category of banausic trades in _de Off_, 1. 42. 150, although in the _Paradoxa_ the contrast is rather that between honest and vicious methods of money-making. Deloume (_Les manieurs d’argent à Rome_ pp. 58 ff.) believes that the fortune of Cicero swelled through participation in _publica_.

[106] Plut. _Cato Maj_. 21.

[107] Plut. _Crass_. 2.

[108] Plut. _Cato Maj_. 21. Cato employed this method of training as a means of increasing the _peculium_ of his own slaves. But even the _peculium_ technically belonged to the master, and it is obvious that the slave-trainer might have been used by others as a mere instrument for the master’s gain.

[109] Plat. l.c. [Greek: _haptomenos de syntonoteron porismou taen men georgian mallon haegeito diagogaen hae prosodon_.]

[110] Plaut. _Trinumm. Prol_. 8:

Primum mihi Plautus nomen Luxuriae indidit: Tum hanc mihi gnatam esse voluit Inopiam.

[111] Liv. xxxiv. 4 (Cato’s speech in defence of the Oppian law) Saepe me querentem de feminarum, saepe de virorum, nec de privatorum modo, sed etiam magistratuum sumptibus audistis; diversisque duobus vitiis, avaritia et luxuria, civitatem laborare. Compare Sallust’s impressions of a later age (_Cat_. 3) Pro pudore, pro abstinentia, pro virtute, audacia, largitio, avaritia vigebant.

[112] Polyb. vi. 56.

[113] Polyb. xxiv. 9.

[114] Cato ap. Gell. xi. 18. 18. The speech was one De praeda militibus dividenda.

[115] We first hear of a standing court for _peculatus_ in 66 B.C. (Cic. _pro Cluent_. 53. 147). It was probably established by Sulla.

[116] Rein _Criminalr_. pp. 680 ff.; Mommsen _Röm. Forsch_. ii. pp. 437 ff.

[117] Liv. xxxvii. 57 and 58 (190 B.C.).

[118] See especially the case of Pleminius, Scipio’s lieutenant at Locri (204 B.C.), who, after a committee had reported on the charge, was conveyed to Rome but died in bonds before the popular court had pronounced judgment (Liv. xxix. 16-22).

[119] Liv. xlii. 1 (173 B.C.) Silentium, nimis aut modestum aut timidum Praenestinorum, jus, velut probato exemplo, magistratibus fecit graviorum in dies talis generis imperiorum.

[120] For such requisitions see Plut. _Cato Maj_ 6 (of Cato’s government of Sardinia) [Greek: _ton pro autou strataegon eiothoton chraesthai kai skaenomasi daemosiois kai klinais kai himatiois, pollae de therapeia kai philon plaethei kai peri deipna dapanais kai paraskeuais barhynonton_.]

[121] Liv. xxxii. 27 Sumptus, quos in cultum praetorum socii facere soliti erant, circumcisi aut sublati (198 B.C.).

[122] The _Lex de Termessibus_ (a charter of freedom given to Termessus in Pisidia in 71 B.C.) enjoins (ii. l. 15) Nei … quis magistratus … inperato, quo quid magis iei dent praebeant ab ieisve auferatur nisei quod eos ex lege Porcia dare praebere oportet oportebit. This Porcian law was probably the work of Cato (Rein _Criminalr_. p. 607).

[123] Liv. xxxviii. 43; xxxix. 3; Rein, l.c.

[124] Liv. xliii. 2.

[125] Cic. _Brut_. 27. 106; _de Off_. ii. 21. 75; cf. _in Verr_. iii. 84. 195; iv. 25. 56.

[126] Liv. xli. 15. (176 B.C.) Duo (praetores) deprecati sunt ne in provincias irent, M. Popillius in Sardiniam: Gracchum eam provinciam pacare &c…. Probata Popillii excusatio est. P. Licinius Crassus sacrificiis se impediri sollemnibus excusabat, ne in provinciam iret. Citerior Hispania obvenerat. Ceterum aut ire jussus aut jurare pro contione sollemni sacrificio se prohiberi…. Praetores ambo in eadem verba jurarunt. I have seen the passage cited as a proof that governors would not go to unproductive provinces; but Sardinia was a fruitful sphere for plunder, and the excuses may have been genuine. That of Popillius seems to have been positively patriotic.

[127] Liv. xlii. 45 Decimius unus sine ullo effectu, captarum etiam pecuniarum ab regibus Illyriorum suspicione infamis, Romam rediit.

[128] Cic. _in Verr_. v. 48. 126 (70 B.C.) Patimur … multos jam annos et silemus cum videamus ad paucos homines omnes omnium nationum pecunias pervenisse.

[129] For the principle see Gaius iii. 151-153.

[130] Polybius (vi. 17), after speaking of various kinds of property belonging to the state, adds [Greek: _panta cheirizesthai symbainei ta proeiraemena dia tou plaethous, kai schedon hos epos eipein pantas endedesthai tais onais kai tais ergasiais tais ek touton_].

[131] Polyb. vi. 17. The senate can [Greek: _symptomatos genomenou kouphisai kai to parapan adynatou tinos symbantos apolysai taes ergonias_]. Thus the senate invalidated the _locationes_ of the censors of 184 B.C. (Liv. xxxix. 44 Locationes cum senatus precibus et lacrimis publicanorum victus induci et de integro locari jussisset.)

[132] In 169 B.C. it was the people that released from an oppressive regulation (Liv. xliii. 16). In this case a tribune answered the censor’s intimation, that none of the former state-contractors should appear at the auction, by promulgating the resolution Quae publica vectigalia, ultro tributa C. Claudius et Ti. Sempronius locassent, ea rata locatio ne esset. Ab integro locarentur, et ut omnibus redimendi et conducendi promiscue jus esset.

[133] Deloume op. cit. pp. 119 ff. Polybius (vi. 17) has been quoted as an authority for the distinction between these two classes. He says [Greek: _oi men gar agorazousi para ton timaeton autoi tas ekdoseis, oi de koinonousi toutois, oi d’ enguontai tous aegorakotas, oi de tas ousias didoasi peri touton eis to daemosion_.] The first three classes are the _mancipes, socii and praedes_. In the fourth the shareholders (_participes_ or perhaps _adfines_, cf. Liv. xliii. 16) are found by Deloume (p. 120); but the identification is very uncertain. The words may denote either real as opposed to formal security or the final payment of the _vectigal_ into the treasury. A better evidence for the distinction between _socii_ and shareholders is found in the Pseudo-Asconius (in Cic. _in Verr_. p. 197 Or.) Aliud enim socius, Aliud particeps qui certam habet partem et non _in_divise agit ut socius. The _magnas partes_ (Cic. _pro Rab_. Post. 2. 4) and the _particulam_ (Val. Max. vi. 9. 7) of a _publicum_, need only denote large or small shares held by the _socii_. _Dare partes_ (Cic. l.c.) is to “allot shares,” but not necessarily to outside members. Apart from the testimony of the Pseudo-Asconius and the mention of _adfines_ in Livy the evidence for the ordinary shareholder is slight but by no means fatal to his existence.

[134] E.g. by loan to a _socius_ at a rate of interest dependent on his returns, perhaps with a _pactum de non petendo_ in certain contingencies.

[135] These are, in strict legal language, the true _publicani_; the lessees of state property are _publicanorum loco_ (Dig. 39. 4, 12 and 13).

[136] Later legal theory assimilated the third with the first class. Gaius says (ii. 7) In eo (provinciali) solo dominium populi Romani est vel Caesaris, nos autem possessionem tantum vel usumfructum habere videmur. But the theory is not ancient-perhaps not older than the Gracchan period. See Greenidge _Roman Public Life_ p. 320. From a broad standpoint the first and second classes may be assimilated, since the payment of harbour dues (_portoria_) is based on the idea of the use of public ground by a private occupant.

[137] _Cic. de Leg. Agr_. ii. 31. 84.

[138] Thédenat in Daremberg-Saglio _Dict. des Antiq. s.v_. Ergastulum.

[139] Compare Cunningham _Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects_ vol. i. p. 162.

[140] Cic. _in Verr_. ii. 55. 137; iii. 33. 77; ii. 13. 32; 26. 63.

[141] Ibid. ii. 13. 32.

[142] Liv. xxv. 3.

[143] Liv. xxiii. 49.

[144] Liv. xxiv. 18; Val. Max. v. 6. 8.

[145] Plut. _Cato Maj_. 19.

[146] Liv. xliii. 16.

[147] Cic. _Brut_. 22. 85 Cum in silva Sila facta caedes esset notique homines interfecti insimulareturque familia, partim etiam liberi, societatis ejus, quae picarias de P. Cornelio, L. Mummio censoribus redemisset, decrevisse senatum ut de ea re cognoscerent et statuerent consules. For the value of the pine-woods of Sila see Strabo vi. 1. 9.

[148] Liv. xlv. 18 Metalli quoque Macedonici, quod ingens vectigal erat, locationesque praediorum rusticorum tolli placebat. Nam neque sine publicano exerceri posse, et, ubi publicanus esset, ibi aut jus publicum vanum aut libertatem sociis nullam esse. The _praedia rustica_ were probably public domains, that might have formed part of the crown lands of the Macedonian Kings and would now, in the natural course of events, have been leased to _publicani_.

[149] It might happen that the interest of the _negotiator_ was opposed to that of the _publicanus_. The former, for instance, might wish _portoria_ to be lessened, the latter to be increased (Cic. _ad Att_. ii. 16. 4). But such a conflict was unusual.

[150] Cato _R.R_. pr. 1. Est interdum praestare mercaturis rem quaerere, nisi tam periculosum sit, et item fenerari, si tam honestum sit. Majores nostri sic habuerunt et ita in legibus posiverunt, furem dupli condemnari, feneratorem quadrupli. Quanto pejorem civem existimarint feneratorem quam furem, hinc licet existimare. Cf. Cic. _de Off_. i. 42. 150. Improbantur ii quaestus, qui in odia hominum incurrunt, ut portitorum, ut feneratorum.

[151] Cic. _de Off_. ii. 25. 89. Cum ille … dixisset “Quid fenerari?” tum Cato “Quid hominem,” inquit, “occidere?”

[152] For such professional money-lenders see Plaut. _Most_. iii. 1. 2 ff.; _Curc_. iv. 1. 19.

[153] Liv. xxxii. 27.

[154] On the history and functions of the bankers see Voigt _Ueber die Bankiers, die Buchführung und die Litteralobligation der Römer_ (Abh. d. Königl. Sächs. Gesell. d. Wissench.; Phil. hist. Classe, Bd. x); Marquardt Staatsverw, ii. pp. 64 ff.; Deloume _Les manieurs d’argent à Rome_, pp. 146 ff.

[155] Plin. _H.N_. xxi. 3. 8.

[156] Cf. Cic. _de Off_, iii. 14. 58. Pythius, qui esset ut argentarius apud omnes ordines gratiosus….

[157] Yet the two never became thoroughly assimilated. The _argentarius_, for instance, was not an official tester of money, and the _nummularii_ appear not to have performed certain functions usual to the banker, e.g. sales by auction. See Voigt op. cit. pp. 521. 522.

[158] Plaut. _Cure_. iv. 1. 6 ff.

Commonstrabo, quo in quemque hominem facile inveniatis loco. * * * * *
Ditis damnosos maritos sub basilica quaerito. Ibidem erunt scorta exoleta, quique stipulari solent. * * * * *
In foro infumo boni homines, atque dites ambulant. Sub veteribus, ibi sunt qui dant quique accipiunt faenore.

[159] To be bankrupt is _foro mergi_ (Plaut. _Ep_. i. 2. 16), _a foro fugere, abire_ (Plaut. _Pers_. iii. 3. 31 and 38).

[160] Cic. _de Off_. ii. 24. 87. Toto hoc de genere, de quaerenda, de collocanda pecunia, vellem etiam de utenda, commodius a quibusdam optumis viris ad Janum medium sedentibus … disputatur. For _Janus medius_ and the question whether it means an arch or a street see Richter _Topogr. der Stadt Rom_. pp. 106. 107.

[161] Liv. xxxix. 44; xliv. 16. The Porcian was followed by the Fulvian Basilica (Liv. xl. 51). The dates of the three were 184, 179, 169 B.C. respectively.

[162] Deloume op. cit. pp. 320 ff.; Guadet in Daremberg-Saglio _Dict. des Antiq. s.v_. Basilicae.

[163] Large transport ships could themselves come to Rome if their build was suited to river navigation. In 167 B.C. Aemilius Paulus astonished the city with the size of a ship (once belonging to the Macedonian King) on which he arrived (Liv. xlv. 35). On the whole question of this foreign trade see Voigt in Iwan-Müller’s _Handbuch_ iv. 2, pp. 373-378.

[164] Voigt op. cit. p. 377 n. 99.

[165] Compare Cunningham _Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects_ vol. i. p. 165, “It is only under very special conditions, including the existence of a strong government to exercise a constant control, that free play for the formation of associations of capitalists bent on securing profit, is anything but a public danger. The landed interest in England has hitherto been strong enough to bring legislative control to bear on the moneyed men from time to time…. The problem of leaving sufficient liberty for the formation of capital and for enterprise in the use of it, without allowing it licence to exhaust the national resources, has not been solved.”

[166] Plut. Numa 17. On the history of these gilds see Waltzing _Corporations professionelles chez les Remains_ pp. 61-78.

[167] The praetor was Rutilius (Ulpian in Dig. 38. 2. 1. 1), perhaps P. Rutilius Rufus, the consul of 105 B.C. (Mommsen Staatsr. in. p. 433). See the last chapter of this volume. For the principle on which such _operae_ were exacted from freedmen see Mommsen l.c.

[168] Inliberales ac sordidi quaestus (Cic. _de Off_. i. 42. 150).

[169] Gell. vii. (vi.) 9; Liv. ix. 46; Mommsen _Staatsr_. i. p. 497.

[170] Cf. Cic. _de Off_. i. 42. 151 Omnium autem rerum, ex quibus aliquid adquiritur, nihil est agricultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius.

[171] See de Boor _Fasti Censorii_. A disturbing element in this enumeration is the uncertainty of numerals in ancient manuscripts. But the fact of the progressive decline is beyond all question. No accidental errors of transcription could have produced this result in the text of Livy’s epitome.

[172] Liv. _Ep_. xvi.

[173] Ibid. lvi.

[174] Ibid. xlvi. xlviii.

[175] Euseb. Arm. a. Abr. 1870 Ol. 158.3 (Hieron. Ol. 158.2 = 608 A.U.C.).

[176] Liv. _Ep_. lvi.

[177] Eorum qui arma ferre possent (Liv. i. 44); [Greek: _ton echonton taen strateusimon haelikian] (Dionys. xi. 63); [Greek: ton en tais haelikiais_] (Polyb. ii. 23).

[178] Besides the _proletarii_ all under military age would be excluded from these lists. Mommsen (_Staatsr_. ii. p. 411) goes further and thinks that the _seniores_ are not included in our lists.

[179] The limit to the incidence of taxation was a property of 1500 asses (Cic. _de Rep_. ii. 22. 40), the limit of census for military service was by the time of Polybius reduced to 4000 asses (Polyb. vi. 19). Gellius (xvi. 10. 10) gives a reduction to 375 asses at a date unknown but preceding the Marian reform. Perhaps the numerals are incorrect and should be 3,750.

[180] Liv. xl. 38.

[181] Gell. i. 6. Cf. Liv. _Ep_. lix.

[182] See Wallon _Hist. de l’Esclavage_ ii. p. 276.

[183] _Concubinatus_ could not, by the nature of the case, become a legal conception until the Emperor Augustus had devised penalties for _stuprum_. It was then necessary to determine what kind of _stuprum_ was not punishable. But the social institution and its ethical characteristics, although they may have been made more definite by legal regulations, could not have originated in the time of the Principate. For the meaning of _paelex_ in Republican times see Meyer _Der römische Konkubinat_ and a notice of that work in the _English Historical Review_ for July 1896.

[184] Cunningham _Western Civilisation_ p. 156. Cf. Soltau in _Kulturgesch. des klass. Altertums_ p. 318.

[185] Plin. _H.N_. xviii. 3. 22; Varro _R.R_. i. 1. 10.

[186] Colum. 1. 1. 18. The Latin translation was probably made shortly after the destruction of Carthage, _circa_ 140 B.C. (Mahaffy _The Work of Mago on Agriculture_ in _Hermathena_ vol. vii. 1890). Mahaffy believes that the Greek translation by Cassius Dionysius (Varro _R.R_. i. 1. 10) was later, and he associates it with the colonies planted by C. Gracchus in Southern Italy.

[187] Saturnia in 183 (Liv. xxxix. 55), Graviscae in 181 (Liv. xl. 29), Luna in 180 and again in 177 (Liv. xli. 13; Mommsen in C.I.L. i. n. 539). See Marquardt _Staatsverw_, i. p. 39.

[188] Plut. _Ti. Gracch_. 8; Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 198.

[189] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 198.

[190] Liv. xxxix. 29.

[191] Varro _R.R_. ii. 5. II Pascuntur armenta commodissime in nemoribus, ubi virgulta et frons multa. Hieme secundum mare, aestu abiguntur in montes frondosos.

[192] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 16.

[193] Nitzsch op. cit. p. 17.

[194] Cic. _de Off_. ii. 25. 89. So in Cato’s more reasoned estimate (_R.R_. i. 7) of the relative degrees of productivity, although _vinea_ comes first (cf. p. 80) yet _pratum_ precedes _campus frumentarius_.

[195] App. _Hannib_. 61.

[196] App. l.c.; Gell. x. 3. 19.

[197] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 193 So zerfiel denn Mittelitalien in zwei scharf-getheilte Hälften, den ackerbauenden Westen und den viehzuchttreibenden Osten; jener reich an Häfen, von Landstrassen durchschnitten, in einer Menge von Colonien oder einzelnen Gehöften von Römischen Ackerbürgern bewohnt; dieser fast ohne Häfen, nur von einer Küstenstrasse durchschnitten, für den grossen Römer der rechte Sitz seiner Sclaven und Heerden. Cf. p. 21. For the pasturage in Calabria and Apulia see op. cit. pp. 13 and 193.

[198] Liv. xxviii. II; cf. Luc. _Phars_. i. 30.

[199] Dureau de la Malle (Économie Politique ii. p. 38) compares the precept of the Roman “Quid est agrum bene colere? bene arare. Quid secundum? arare. Tertio stercorare” with the adage of the French farmer “Fumez bien, labourez mal, vous recueillerez plus qu’en fumant mal et en labourant bien”.

[200] See Dreyfus _Les lois agraires_ p. 97. Varro (_R.R_. i. 12. 2) is singularly correct in his account of the nature of the disease that arose from the _loca palustria_:–Crescunt animalia quaedam minuta, quae non possunt oculi consequi, et per aera intus in corpus per os ac nares perveniunt atque efficiunt difficilis morbos. The passage is cited by Voigt (Iwan-Müller’s _Handbuch_ iv. 2. p. 358) who gives a good sketch of the evils consequent on neglect of drainage.

[201] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 228.

[202] Polyb. xxxvii. 4.

[203] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 237.

[204] Polyb. xxxvii. 3.

[205] Polyb. ii. 15.

[206] For such purchases from Sardinia see Liv. xxxvi. 2, from Sicily (at a period later than that which we are considering) Cic. _in Verr_. iii. 70, 163.

[207] Cf. Cato _R.R_. i. 3 (In choosing the situation of one’s estate) oppidum validum prope siet aut mare aut amnis, qua naves ambulant, aut via bona celebrisque.

[208] For the traditions which assign a very early date for laws dealing with the _ager publicus_ see the following chapter, which treats of the legislation of Tiberius Gracchus.

[209] App, _Bell. Civ_. i. 7 [Greek: _taes de gaes taes doriktaetou sphisin ekastote gignomenaes taen men exeirgasmenaen autika tois oikizomenois epidiaeroun hae epipraskon hae exemisthoun, taen d’ argon ek tou polemou tote ousan, hae dae kai malista eplaethyen, ouk agontes po scholaen dialachein, epekaerytton en tosode tois ethelousin ekponein epi telei ton etaesion karpon_].

[210] For the evidence for this and other statements connected with the _ager publicus_ see the citations in the next chapter.

[211] In consequence of the doubtfulness of the traditions concerning early agrarian laws this time cannot even be approximately specified. See the next chapter.

[212] Tradition represents the first laws dealing with the _ager publicus (e. g_. the supposed _lex Licinia_) as earlier than the _lex Poetelia_ of 326 B.C., which abolished the contract of _nexum_.

[213] Plut. _Ti. Gracch_. 8 [Greek: _hysteron de ton geitnionton plousion hypoblaetois prosopois metapheronton tas misthoseis eis eautous_.]

[214] App. _Bell. Civ_. i. 7 [Greek: _oi gar plousioi … ta … anchou sphisin, osa te haen alla brachea penaeton, ta men onoumenoi peithoi ta de bia lambanontes, pedia makra anti chorion egeorgoun_.] Cf. Seneca _Ep_. xiv. 2 (90). 39 Licet agros agris adjiciat vicinum vel pretio pellens vel injuria.

[215] [Greek: _pedia makra_] (App. l.c.), Plin. _H.N_. xviii. 6. 35 Verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam. (For the expression _lati fundi_ see Siculus Flaccus pp. 157, 161). Frontinus p. 53 Per longum enim tempus attigui possessores vacantia loca quasi invitante otiosi soli opportunitate invaserunt, et per longum tempus inpune commalleaverunt. For the invasion of pasturage see Frontinus p. 48 Haec fere pascua certis personis data sunt depascenda tunc cum agri adsignati sunt. Haec pascua multi per inpotentiam invaserunt et colunt.

[216] In spite of the fertility of the land, the native Gallic population had vanished from most of the districts of this region as early as Polybius’ time (Polyb. ii. 35). Cf. Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 60.

[217] Val. Max. iv. 4. 6.

[218] Steinwender _Die römische Bürgerschaft in ihrem Verhältnis zum Heere_ p. 28.

[219] App. _Bell. Civ_. i. 7.

[220] Polyb. vi. 39.

[221] Liv. xxvii. 9 (209 B.C.) Fremitus enim inter Latinos sociosque in conciliis ortus:–Decimum annum dilectibus, stipendiis se exhaustos esse … Duodecim (coloniae) … negaverunt consulibus esse unde milites pecuniamque darent.

[222] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 194.

[223] Cato _R.R_. 144 etc.

[224] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 187.

[225] Cato _R.R_. 5. 136.

[226] Cato _R.R_. 136 Politionem quo pacto _partiario_ dari oporteat. In agro Casinate et Venafro in loco bono parti octava corbi dividat, satis bono septima, tertio loco sexta; si granum modio dividet, parti quinta. In Venafro ager optimus nona parti corbi dividat … Hordeum quinta modio, fabam quinta modio dividat.

[227] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 188.

[228] Dureau de la Malle _Économie Politique_ ii. pp. 225, 226.

[229] Cato _R.R_. i. 7 Vinea est prima,… secundo loco hortus inriguus, tertio salictum, quarto oletum, quinto pratum, sexto campus frumentarius, septimo silva caedua, octavo arbustum, nono glandaria silva.

[230] Cic. _de Rep_. iii. 9. 16 Nos vero justissimi homines, qui Transalpinas gentis oleam et vitem serere non sinimus, quo pluris sint nostra oliveta nostraeque vineae. Cf. Colum. iii. 3. 11.

[231] See Cato _R.R_. 7, 8 for the produce of the _fundus suburbanus_. Cf. c. 1 (note 2) for the value of the _hortus inriguus_.

[232] See the citations in Voigt (Iwan-Müller’s _Handbuch_ iv. 2 p. 370). Communities and corporations employed _coloni_ on their _agri vectigales_ (Cic. _ad Fam_. xiii. 11, 1; Hygin. _de Cond. Agr_. p. 117. 11; Voigt l.c.).

[233] Liv. xlv. 34.

[234] Mahaffy (“The Slave Wars against Rome” in _Hermathena_ no. xvi. 1890) believes that the majority of these were shipped to Sicily.

[235] Strabo xiv. 5. 2.

[236] Cf. Arist. _Pol_. i. 8. 12 [Greek: _hae polemikae physei ktaetikae pos estai; hae gar thaereutikae meros autaes, hae dei chraesthai pros te ta thaeria kai ton anthropon hosoi pephykotes archesthai mae thelousin, hos physei dikaion touton onta ton polemon_.]

[237] Mahaffy (l.c.) thinks that the Syrians and Cilicians of the first slave war in Sicily, whom he believes to have been transferred from Carthage, had been secured by that state in a trade with the East–the trade which perhaps took the Southern Mediterranean route from Malta past Crete and Cyprus.

[238] Wallon _Histoire de l’Esclavage_ ii. p, 45.

[239] Strabo xiv, 3. 2 [Greek: _en Sidae goun polei taes Pamphylias ta naupaegia synistato tois Kilixin, hypo kaeruka te epoloun ekei tous halontas eleutherous homologountes_.]

[240] Strabo (xiv. 5. 2), after describing the slave market at Delos, continues [Greek: _hoste kai paroimian genesthai dia touto; hempore, katapleuson, exelou, panta pepratai_.]

[241] Plut. _Cato Maj_. 4.

[242] If we make the denarius a rough equivalent of the drachma, some of the prices given in Plautus are as follows:–A child, 600 denarii, a nurse and two female children, 1800, a young girl, 2000, another 3000. Here we seem to get the average prices for valuable and refined domestics. Elsewhere special circumstances might increase the value; a female lyrist fetches 5000 denarii, a girl of remarkable attractions 6000. See Wallon _Hist. de l’Esclavage ii. pp. 160 ff.

[243] Ter. _Andria_ ii. 6. 26.

[244] It is probable, however, that in the case of superintendents (_villici, villicae, procuratores_) experience may have been an element in the prices which they fetched.

[245] Festus p. 332 Sardi venales, alius alio nequior.

[246] Plut. _Cato Maj_. 21.

[247] Cato _R.R_. 56, 57.

[248] Ibid. 2.

[249] At the close of this period a division took place between the functions of _villicus_ and those of _procurator_. The former still controlled the economy of the estate and administered its goods; the latter was the business agent and entered into legal relations with other parties. See Voigt in Iwan-Müller’s _Handbuch_ iv. 2 p. 368.

[250] Colum. i. 6.

[251] An inspection of all the _ergastula_ of Italy was ordered by Augustus (Suet. _Aug_. 32) and Tiberius (Suet. _Tib_. 8). Columella (i. 8) recommends inspection by the master.

[252] Kidnapping became very frequent after the civil wars. It was to prevent this evil that inspection was ordered by the Emperors (note 3). See Thédenat in Daremberg-Saglio _Dict. des Antiq. s.v_. Ergastulum.

[253] Plaut. _Most_. i. 1. 18; Florus iii. 19.

[254] For the distinction between the _vincti_ and _soluti_ see Colum. i. 7.

[255] Varro _R.R_. ii. 2 10 The proportion is larger than would be demanded in modern times, but Mahaffy (l.c.) remarks that we do not hear of the work of guardianship being shared by trained dogs, and that the danger from wild beasts and lawless classes was considerable. As regards the first point, however, we do hear of packs of hounds which followed the Sicilian shepherds (Diod. xxxiv. 2), and it is difficult to believe that these had not developed some kind of training.

[256] Varro _R.R_. ii. 10. 7.

[257] Diod, xxxiv. 2. 38.

[258] Val. Max. ii. 10. 2.

[259] Livy (xxxii. 26) speaks of them as _nationis eius_. He has just mentioned the slaves of the Carthaginian hostages. But it does not follow that either class was composed of native Africans. They may have been imported Asiatics, as in Sicily.

[260] Liv. xxxii. 26.

[261] Liv. xxxiii. 36 Etruriam infestam prope conjuratio servorum fecit.

[262] Liv. xxxix. 29.

[263] Bücher _Die Aufstände der unfreien Arbeiter_ p. 34. Cf. Soltau in _Kulturgesch. des klass. Altertums_ p. 326.

[264] Oros. v. 9 Diodor. xxxiv. 2. 19.

[265] Mahaffy l.c.

[266] Cf. Bücher op. cit. p. 79.

[267] Diod. xxxiv. 2. 27. For the large number of Roman proprietors in Sicily see Florus ii. 7 (iii. 19) 3–(Sicilia) terra frugum ferax et quodam modo suburbana provincia latifundis civium Romanorum tenebatur.

[268] Diod. xxxiv. 2. 32. 36.

[269] Diod. l.c.

[270] Diod. xxxiv. 2. 31. This may have been true of the time of which we are speaking; for the influence of the Roman residents in Sicily on the administration of the island must always have been great. But Diodorus assigns an incorrect reason when he states that the Roman knights of Sicily were judges of the governors of the provinces. This is true only of the period preceding the second servile war.

[271] Historians profess to tell the mechanism by which this device was secured. A spark of fire was placed with inflammable material in a hollow nut or some similar small object, which was perforated. The receptacle was placed in the mouth, and judicious breathing did the rest. See Diodorus xxxiv, 2. 7; Floras ii. 7 (iii. 19).

[272] Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 228.

[273] Diod. xxxiv. 2. 24 [Greek: _hypo gar taes pepromenaes autois kekyrosthai taen patrida taen Ennan, ousan akropolin holaes taes naesou_.]

[274] Ibid. 2. 12 [Greek: _oud estin eipein … hosa enybrizon te kai enaeselgainon_.]

[275] [Greek: _planon te apekaloun_] (Diod. xxxiv. 2. 14).

[276] Diodor. xxxiv. 3. 41.

[277] Ibid. 2. 39.

[278] Ibid., 2, 24.

[279] Liv. _Ep_. lv.; App. _Syr_. 68. Cf. Nitzsch _Die Gracchen_ p. 288.

[280] Diodorus describes him as an Achaean. Mahaffy (l.c.) suspects that he came from Eastern Asia Minor or Syria, where Achaeus occurs as a royal name. But the name also occurs in old Greece. One may instance the tragic poet of Eretria.

[281] [Greek: _kai boulae kai cheiri diapheron_] (Diod. xxxiv. 2. 16).

[282] Ibid. 2. 42.

[283] Florus ii. 7 (iii. 19). 6.

[284] Diod. xxxiv. 2. 43.

[285] Ibid. 2. 18; Florus l.c.

[286] Florus ii. 7 (iii. 19). 7 Quin illud quoque ultimum dedecus belli, capta sunt castra praetorum–nec nominare ipsos pudebit–castra Manli Lentuli, Pisonis Hypsaei. Itaque qui per fugitivarios abstrahi debuissent praetorios duces profugos praelio ipsi sequebantur. P. Popillius Laenas, the consul of 132 B.C., was praetor in Sicily either immediately before, or during the revolt (C.I.L. i. n. 351. l. g).

[287] Strabo vi. 2. 6. For the question whether they held Messana see p. 98.

[288] Florus ii. 7 (iii. 19). 2 Quis crederet Siciliam multo cruentius servili quam Punico bello esse vastatam?

[289] [Greek: _epi tae prophasei ton drapeton_] (Diodor. xxxiv. 2. 48). Wallon (_Hist. de l’Esclavage_ ii. p. 307) takes these words to mean that the peasantry professed to be marching against the slaves.

[290] Mahaffy (l.c.) has raised and discussed this question. His conclusions are (i) that the pirates may have been influenced by a sense of business honour to the effect that the man-stealer should abide by his bargain, (ii) that these pirates may have received some large bribe, direct or indirect, from Rome, (iii) that the natural enmity between the slaves and the pirates may have hindered an agreement for transport, (iv) that the Cilician slaves, accustomed to permanent robber-bands, may have not held it impossible that Rome would acquiesce in such a creation in Sicily, (v) that the Syrian towns would not have troubled about the restoration of such of their members as had become slaves, even had they not feared to offend Rome. He remarks that the return of even free exiles to a Hellenistic city was a cause of great disturbance.

[291] Liv. _Ep_. lvi.; Oros. v. 9.

[292] C.I.L. i. nn. 642, 643.