Arminius was no rude savage, fighting out of mere animal instinct or in ignorance of the might of his adversary. He was familiar with the Roman language and civilization; he had served in the Roman armies; he had been admitted to the Roman citizenship, and raised to the rank of the equestrian order. It was part of the subtle policy of Rome to confer rank and privileges on the youth of the leading families in the nations which she wished to enslave. Among other young German chieftains, Arminius and his brother, who were the heads of the noblest house in the tribe of the Cherusci, had been selected as fit objects for the exercise of this insidious system. Roman refinements and dignities succeeded in denationalizing the brother, who assumed the Roman name of Flavius, and adhered to Rome throughout all her wars against his country. Arminius remained unbought by honors or wealth, uncorrupted by refinement or luxury. He aspired to and obtained from Roman enmity a higher title than ever could have been given him by Roman favor. It is in the page of Rome’s greatest historian that his name has come down to us with the proud addition of “_Liberator hand dubie Germaniae_.”
Often must the young chieftain, while meditating the exploit which has thus immortalized him, have anxiously revolved in his mind the fate of the many great men who had been crushed in the attempt which he was about to renew–the attempt to stay the chariot wheels of triumphant Rome. Could he hope to succeed where Hannibal and Mithradates had perished? What had been the doom of Viriathus? and what warning against vain valor was written on the desolate site where Numantia once had flourished? Nor was a caution wanting in scenes nearer home and more recent times. The Gauls had fruitlessly struggled for eight years against Caesar; and the gallant Vercingetorix, who in the last year of the war had roused all his countrymen to insurrection, who had cut off Roman detachments, and brought Caesar himself to the extreme of peril at Alesia–he, too, had finally succumbed, had been led captive in Caesar’s triumph, and had then been butchered in cold blood in a Roman dungeon.
It was true that Rome was no longer the great military republic which for so many ages had shattered the kingdoms of the world. Her system of government was changed, and, after a century of revolution and civil war, she had placed herself under the despotism of a single ruler. But the discipline of her troops was yet unimpaired and her warlike spirit seemed unabated. The first year of the empire had been signalized by conquests as valuable as any gained by the republic in a corresponding period. It is a great fallacy–though apparently sanctioned by great authorities–to suppose that the foreign policy pursued by Augustus was pacific; he certainly recommended such a policy to his successors (_incertum metu an per invidiam_: Tac., _Ann_., i. 11), but he himself, until Arminius broke his spirit, had followed a very different course. Besides his Spanish wars, his generals, in a series of generally aggressive campaigns, had extended the Roman frontier from the Alps to the Danube, and had reduced into subjection the large and important countries that now form the territories of all Austria south of that river, and of East Switzerland, Lower Wuertemberg, Bavaria, the Valtelline, and the Tyrol.
While the progress of the Roman arms thus pressed the Germans from the south, still more formidable inroads had been made by the imperial legions on the west. Roman armies, moving from the province of Gaul, established a chain of fortresses along the right as well as the left bank of the Rhine, and, in a series of victorious campaigns, advanced their eagles as far as the Elbe, which now seemed added to the list of vassal rivers, to the Nile, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, the Tagus, the Seine, and many more, that acknowledged the supremacy of the Tiber. Roman fleets also, sailing from the harbors of Gaul along the German coasts and up the estuaries, cooeperated with the land forces of the empire, and seemed to display, even more decisively than her armies, her overwhelming superiority over the rude Germanic tribes. Throughout the territory thus invaded the Romans had with their usual military skill established fortified posts; and a powerful army of occupation was kept on foot, ready to move instantly on any spot where a popular outbreak might be attempted.
Vast, however, and admirably organized as the fabric of Roman power appeared on the frontiers and in the provinces, there was rottenness at the core. In Rome’s unceasing hostilities with foreign foes, and still more in her long series of desolating civil wars, the free middle classes of Italy had almost wholly disappeared. Above the position which they had occupied, an oligarchy of wealth had reared itself; beneath that position a degraded mass of poverty and misery was fermenting. Slaves; the chance sweepings of every conquered country; shoals of Africans, Sardinians, Asiatics, Illyrians, and others made up the bulk of the population of the Italian peninsula.
The foulest profligacy of manners was general in all ranks. In universal weariness of revolution and civil war, and in consciousness of being too debased for self-government, the nation had submitted itself to the absolute authority of Augustus. Adulation was now the chief function of the senate; and the gifts of genius and accomplishments of art were devoted to the elaboration of eloquently false panegyrics upon the prince and his favorite courtiers. With bitter indignation must the German chieftain have beheld all this and contrasted with it the rough worth of his own countrymen: their bravery, their fidelity to their word, their manly independence of spirit, their love of their national free institutions, and their loathing of every pollution and meanness. Above all, he must have thought of the domestic virtues that hallowed a German home; of the respect there shown to the female character, and of the pure affection by which that respect was repaid. His soul must have burned within him at the contemplation of such a race yielding to these debased Italians.
Still, to persuade the Germans to combine, in spite of the frequent feuds among themselves, in one sudden outbreak against Rome; to keep the scheme concealed from the Romans until the hour for action arrived; and then, without possessing a single walled town, without military stores, without training, to teach his insurgent countrymen to defeat veteran armies and storm fortifications, seemed so perilous an enterprise that probably Arminius would have receded from it had not a stronger feeling even than patriotism urged him on. Among the Germans of high rank who had most readily submitted to the invaders and become zealous partisans of Roman authority was a chieftain named Segestes. His daughter, Thusnelda, was preeminent among the noble maidens of Germany. Arminius had sought her hand in marriage; but Segestes, who probably discerned the young chief’s disaffection to Rome, forbade his suit, and strove to preclude all communication between him and his daughter. Thusnelda, however, sympathized far more with the heroic spirit of her lover than with the timeserving policy of her father. An elopement baffled the precautions of Segestes, who, disappointed in his hope of preventing the marriage, accused Arminius before the Roman governor of having carried off his daughter and of planning treason against Rome. Thus assailed, and dreading to see his bride torn from him by the officials of the foreign oppressor, Arminius delayed no longer, but bent all his energies to organize and execute a general insurrection of the great mass of his countrymen, who hitherto had submitted in sullen hatred to the Roman dominion.
A change of governors had recently taken place, which, while it materially favored the ultimate success of the insurgents, served, by the immediate aggravation of the Roman oppressions which it produced, to make the native population more universally eager to take arms. Tiberius, who was afterward emperor, had recently been recalled from the command in Germany and sent into Pannonia to put down a dangerous revolt which had broken out against the Romans in that province. The German patriots were thus delivered from the stern supervision of one of the most suspicious of mankind, and were also relieved from having to contend against the high military talents of a veteran commander, who thoroughly understood their national character, and also the nature of the country, which he himself had principally subdued.
In the room of Tiberius, Augustus sent into Germany Quintilius Varus, who had lately returned from the proconsulate of Syria. Varus was a true representative of the higher classes of the Romans, among whom a general taste for literature, a keen susceptibility to all intellectual gratifications, a minute acquaintance with the principles and practice of their own national jurisprudence, a careful training in the schools of the rhetoricians, and a fondness for either partaking in or watching the intellectual strife of forensic oratory had become generally diffused, without, however, having humanized the old Roman spirit of cruel indifference to human feelings and human sufferings, and without acting as the least checks on unprincipled avarice and ambition or on habitual and gross profligacy. Accustomed to govern the depraved and debased natives of Syria–a country where courage in man and virtue in woman had for centuries been unknown–Varus thought that he might gratify his licentious and rapacious passions with equal impunity among the high-minded sons and pure-spirited daughters of Germany. When the general of an army sets the example of outrages of this description, he is soon faithfully imitated by his officers, and surpassed by his still more brutal soldiery. The Romans now habitually indulged in those violations of the sanctity of the domestic shrine, and those insults upon honor and modesty, by which far less gallant spirits than those of our Teutonic ancestors have often been maddened into insurrection.
Arminius found among the other German chiefs many who sympathized with him in his indignation at their country’s abasement, and many whom private wrongs had stung yet more deeply. There was little difficulty in collecting bold leaders for an attack on the oppressors, and little fear of the population not rising readily at those leaders’ call. But to declare open war against Rome and to encounter Varus’ army in a pitched battle would have been merely rushing upon certain destruction. Varus had three legions under him, a force which, after allowing for detachments, cannot be estimated at less than fourteen thousand Roman infantry. He had also eight or nine hundred Roman cavalry, and at least an equal number of horse and foot sent from the allied states, or raised among those provincials who had not received the Roman franchise.
It was not merely the number, but the quality of this force that made them formidable; and, however contemptible Varus might be as a general, Arminius well knew how admirably the Roman armies were organized and officered, and how perfectly the legionaries understood every manoeuvre and every duty which the varying emergencies of a stricken field might require. Stratagem was, therefore, indispensable; and it was necessary to blind Varus to their schemes until a favorable opportunity should arrive for striking a decisive blow.
For this purpose, the German confederates frequented the head-quarters of Varus, which seem to have been near the centre of the modern country of Westphalia, where the Roman general conducted himself with all the arrogant security of the governor of a perfectly submissive province. There Varus gratified at once his vanity, his rhetorical tastes, and his avarice, by holding courts, to which he summoned the Germans for the settlement of all their disputes, while a bar of Roman advocates attended to argue the cases before the tribunal of Varus, who did not omit the opportunity of exacting court fees and accepting bribes. Varus trusted implicitly to the respect which the Germans pretended to pay to his abilities as a judge, and to the interest which they affected to take in the forensic eloquence of their conquerors.
Meanwhile a succession of heavy rains rendered the country more difficult for the operations of regular troops, and Arminius, seeing that the infatuation of Varus was complete, secretly directed the tribes near the Weser and the Ems to take up arms in open revolt against the Romans. This was represented to Varus as an occasion which required his prompt attendance at the spot; but he was kept in studied ignorance of its being part of a concerted national rising; and he still looked on Arminius as his submissive vassal, whose aid he might rely on in facilitating the march of his troops against the rebels and in extinguishing the local disturbance. He therefore set his army in motion, and marched eastward in a line parallel to the course of the Lippe. For some distance his route lay along a level plain; but on arriving at the tract between the curve of the upper part of that stream and the sources of the Ems, the country assumes a very different character; and here, in the territory of the modern little principality of Lippe, it was that Arminius had fixed the scene of his enterprise.
A wooded and hilly region intervenes between the heads of the two rivers, and forms the water-shed of their streams. This region still retains the name (Teutobergenwald = _Teutobergiensis saltus_) which it bore in the days of Arminius. The nature of the ground has probably also remained unaltered. The eastern part of it, round Detmold, the modern capital of the principality of Lippe, is described by a modern German scholar, Dr. Plate, as being a “table-land intersected by numerous deep and narrow valleys, which in some places form small plains, surrounded by steep mountains and rocks, and only accessible by narrow defiles. All the valleys are traversed by rapid streams, shallow in the dry season, but subject to sudden swellings in autumn and winter. The vast forests which cover the summits and slopes of the hills consist chiefly of oak; there is little underwood, and both men and horse would move with ease in the forests if the ground were not broken by gulleys or rendered impracticable by fallen trees.” This is the district to which Varus is supposed to have marched; and Dr. Plate adds that “the names of several localities on and near that spot seem to indicate that a great battle had once been fought there. We find the names ‘_das Winnefeld_’ (the field of victory), ‘_die Knochenbahn_’ (the bone-lane), ‘_die Knochenleke_’ (the bone-brook), ‘_der Mordkessel_’ (the kettle of slaughter), and others.”
Contrary to the usual strict principles of Roman discipline, Varus had suffered his army to be accompanied and impeded by an immense train of baggage wagons and by a rabble of camp followers, as if his troops had been merely changing their quarters in a friendly country. When the long array quitted the firm, level ground and began to wind its way among the woods, the marshes, and the ravines, the difficulties of the march, even without the intervention of an armed foe, became fearfully apparent. In many places the soil, sodden with rain, was impracticable for cavalry and even for infantry, until trees had been felled and a rude causeway formed through the morass.
The duties of the engineer were familiar to all who served in the Roman armies. But the crowd and confusion of the columns embarrassed the working parties of the soldiery, and in the midst of their toil and disorder the word was suddenly passed through their ranks that the rear-guard was attacked by the barbarians. Varus resolved on pressing forward; but a heavy discharge of missiles from the woods on either flank taught him how serious was the peril, and he saw his best men falling round him without the opportunity of retaliation; for his light-armed auxiliaries, who were principally of Germanic race, now rapidly deserted, and it was impossible to deploy the legionaries on such broken ground for a charge against the enemy.
Choosing one of the most open and firm spots which they could force their way to, the Romans halted for the night; and, faithful to their national discipline and tactics, formed their camp amid the harassing attacks of the rapidly thronging foes with the elaborate toil and systematic skill the traces of which are impressed permanently on the soil of so many European countries, attesting the presence in the olden time of the imperial eagles.
On the morrow the Romans renewed their march, the veteran officers who served under Varus now probably directing the operations and hoping to find the Germans drawn up to meet them, in which case they relied on their own superior discipline and tactics for such a victory as should reassure the supremacy of Rome. But Arminius was far too sage a commander to lead on his followers, with their unwieldy broadswords and inefficient defensive armor, against the Roman legionaries, fully armed with helmet, cuirass, greaves, and shield, who were skilled to commence the conflict with a murderous volley of heavy javelins hurled upon the foe when a few yards distant, and then, with their short cut-and-thrust swords, to hew their way through all opposition, preserving the utmost steadiness and coolness, and obeying each word of command in the midst of strife and slaughter with the same precision and alertness as if upon parade. Arminius suffered the Romans to march out from their camp, to form first in line for action and then in column for marching, without the show of opposition.
For some distance Varus was allowed to move on, only harassed by slight skirmishes, but struggling with difficulty through the broken ground, the toil and distress of his men being aggravated by heavy torrents of rain, which burst upon the devoted legions, as if the angry gods of Germany were pouring out the vials of their wrath upon the invaders. After some little time their van approached a ridge of high wooded ground, which is one of the offshoots of the great Hercynian forest, and is situated between the modern villages of Driburg and Bielefeld. Arminius had caused barricades of hewn trees to be formed here, so as to add to the natural difficulties of the passage. Fatigue and discouragement now began to betray themselves in the Roman ranks. Their line became less steady; baggage wagons were abandoned from the impossibility of forcing them along; and, as this happened, many soldiers left their ranks and crowded round the wagons to secure the most valuable portions of their property; each was busy about his own affairs, and purposely slow in hearing the word of command from his officers.
Arminius now gave the signal for a general attack. The fierce shouts of the Germans pealed through the gloom of the forests, and in thronging multitudes they assailed the flanks of the invaders, pouring in clouds of darts on the encumbered legionaries as they struggled up the glens or floundered in the morasses, and watching every opportunity of charging through the intervals of the disjointed column, and so cutting off the communication between its several brigades. Arminius, with a chosen band of personal retainers round him, cheered on his countrymen by voice and example. He and his men aimed their weapons particularly at the horses of the Roman cavalry. The wounded animals, slipping about in the mire and their own blood, threw their riders and plunged among the ranks of the legions, disordering all round them. Varus now ordered the troops to be countermarched, in the hope of reaching the nearest Roman garrison on the Lippe.
But retreat now was as impracticable as advance; and the falling back of the Romans only augmented the courage of their assailants and caused fiercer and more frequent charges on the flanks of the disheartened army. The Roman officer who commanded the cavalry, Numonius Vala, rode off with his squadrons in the vain hope of escaping by thus abandoning his comrades. Unable to keep together or force their way across the woods and swamps, the horsemen were overpowered in detail and slaughtered to the last man. The Roman infantry still held together and resisted, but more through the instinct of discipline and bravery than from any hope of success or escape.
Varus, after being severely wounded in a charge of the Germans against his part of the column, committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of those whom he had exasperated by his oppressions. One of the lieutenants-general of the army fell fighting; the other surrendered to the enemy. But mercy to a fallen foe had never been a Roman virtue, and those among her legions who now laid down their arms in hope of quarter, drank deep of the cup of suffering, which Rome had held to the lips of many a brave but unfortunate enemy. The infuriated Germans slaughtered their oppressors with deliberate ferocity, and those prisoners who were not hewn to pieces on the spot were only preserved to perish by a more cruel death in cold blood.
The bulk of the Roman army fought steadily and stubbornly, frequently repelling the masses of assailants, but gradually losing the compactness of their array and becoming weaker and weaker beneath the incessant shower of darts and the reiterated assaults of the vigorous and unencumbered Germans. At last, in a series of desperate attacks, the column was pierced through and through, two of the eagles captured, and the Roman host, which on the morning before had marched forth in such pride and might–now broken up into confused fragments–either fell fighting beneath the overpowering numbers of the enemy or perished in the swamps and woods in unavailing efforts at flight. Few, very few, ever saw again the left bank of the Rhine. One body of brave veterans, arraying themselves in a ring on a little mound, beat off every charge of the Germans, and prolonged their honorable resistance to the close of that dreadful day. The traces of a feeble attempt at forming a ditch and mound attested in after-years the spot where the last of the Romans passed their night of suffering and despair. But on the morrow this remnant also, worn out with hunger, wounds, and toil, was charged by the victorious Germans, and either massacred on the spot or offered up in fearful rites on the altars of the deities of the old mythology of the North.
A gorge in the mountain ridge, through which runs the modern road between Paderborn and Pyrmont, leads from the spot where the heat of the battle raged to the Extersteine–a cluster of bold and grotesque rocks of sandstone–near which is a small sheet of water, overshadowed by a grove of aged trees. According to local tradition, this was one of the sacred groves of the ancient Germans, and it was here that the Roman captives were slain in sacrifice by the victorious warriors of Arminius.
Never was victory more decisive; never was the liberation of an oppressed people more instantaneous and complete. Throughout Germany the Roman garrisons were assailed and cut off; and within a few weeks after Varus had fallen, the German soil was freed from the foot of an invader.
At Rome the tidings of the battle were received with an agony of terror, the reports of which we would deem exaggerated did they not come from Roman historians themselves. They not only tell emphatically how great was the awe which the Romans felt of the prowess of the Germans if their various tribes could be brought to unite for a common purpose,[83] but they also reveal how weakened and debased the population of Italy had become. Dion Cassius says: “Then Augustus, when he heard the calamity of Varus, rent his garment, and was in great affliction for the troops he had lost, and for terror respecting the Germans and the Gauls. And his chief alarm was that he expected them to push on against Italy and Rome; and there remained no Roman youth fit for military duty that were worth speaking of, and the allied populations, that were at all serviceable, had been wasted away. Yet he prepared for the emergency as well as his means allowed; and when none of the citizens of military age were willing to enlist, he made them cast lots, and punished, by confiscation of goods and disfranchisement, every fifth man among those under thirty-five and every tenth man of those above that age. At last, when he found that not even thus could he make many come forward, he put some of them to death. So he made a conscription of discharged veterans and of emancipated slaves, and, collecting as large a force as he could, sent it, under Tiberius, with all speed into Germany.”
[Footnote 83: It is clear that the Romans followed the policy of fomenting dissensions and wars of the Germans among themselves.]
Dion mentions also a number of terrific portents that were believed to have occurred at the time, and the narration of which is not immaterial, as it shows the state of the public mind when such things were so believed in and so interpreted. The summits of the Alps were said to have fallen, and three columns of fire to have blazed up from them. In the Campus Martius, the temple of the war-god, from whom the founder of Rome had sprung, was struck by a thunderbolt. The nightly heavens glowed several times as if on fire. Many comets blazed forth together; and fiery meteors, shaped like spears, had shot from the northern quarter of the sky down into the Roman camps. It was said, too, that a statue of Victory, which had stood at a place on the frontier, pointing the way toward Germany, had of its own accord turned round, and now pointed to Italy. These and other prodigies were believed by the multitude to accompany the slaughter of Varus’ legions and to manifest the anger of the gods against Rome.
Augustus himself was not free from superstition; but on this occasion no supernatural terrors were needed to increase the alarm and grief that he felt, and which made him, even months after the news of the battle had arrived, often beat his head against the wall and exclaim, “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions.” We learn this from his biographer Suetonius; and, indeed, every ancient writer who alludes to the overthrow of Varus attests the importance of the blow against the Roman power, and the bitterness with which it was felt.
The Germans did not pursue their victory beyond their own territory; but that victory secured at once and forever the independence of the Teutonic race. Rome sent, indeed, her legions again into Germany, to parade a temporary superiority, but all hopes of permanent conquests were abandoned by Augustus and his successors.
The blow which Arminius had struck never was forgotten. Roman fear disguised itself under the specious title of moderation, and the Rhine became the acknowledged boundary of the two nations until the fifth century of our era, when the Germans became the assailants, and carved with their conquering swords the provinces of imperial Rome into the kingdoms of modern Europe.
ARMINIUS
I have said above that the great Cheruscan is more truly one of our national heroes than Caractacus is. It may be added that an Englishman is entitled to claim a closer degree of relationship with Arminius than can be claimed by any German of modern Germany. The proof of this depends on the proof of four facts: First, that the Cheruscans were Old Saxons, or Saxons of the interior of Germany; secondly, that the Anglo-Saxons, or Saxons of the coast of Germany, were more closely akin than other German tribes were to the Cheruscan Saxons; thirdly, that the Old Saxons were almost exterminated by Charlemagne; fourthly, that the Anglo-Saxons are our immediate ancestors. The last of these may be assumed as an axiom in English history. The proofs of the other three are partly philological and partly historical. It may be, however, here remarked that the present Saxons of Germany are of the _High_ Germanic division of the German race, whereas both the Anglo-Saxon and Old Saxon were of the _Low_ Germanic.
Being thus the nearest heirs of the glory of Arminius, we may fairly devote more attention to his career than, in such a work as the present, could be allowed to any individual leader; and it is interesting to trace how far his fame survived during the Middle Ages, both among the Germans of the Continent and among ourselves.
It seems probable that the jealousy with which Maroboduus, the king of the Suevi and Marcomanni, regarded Arminius, and which ultimately broke out into open hostilities between those German tribes and the Cherusci, prevented Arminius from leading the confederate Germans to attack Italy after his first victory. Perhaps he may have had the rare moderation of being content with the liberation of his country, without seeking to retaliate on her former oppressors. When Tiberius marched into Germany in the year 10, Arminius was too cautious to attack him on ground favorable to the legions, and Tiberius was too skilful to entangle his troops in the difficult parts of the country. His march and countermarch were as unresisted as they were unproductive. A few years later, when a dangerous revolt of the Roman legions near the frontier caused their generals to find them active employment by leading them into the interior of Germany, we find Arminius again active in his country’s defence. The old quarrel between him and his father-in-law, Segestes, had broken out afresh.
Segestes now called in the aid of the Roman general, Germanicus, to whom he surrendered himself; and by his contrivance, his daughter, Thusnelda, the wife of Arminius, also came into the hands of the Romans, she being far advanced in pregnancy. She showed, as Tacitus relates, more of the spirit of her husband than of her father, a spirit that could not be subdued into tears or supplications. She was sent to Ravenna, and there gave birth to a son, whose life we know, from an allusion in Tacitus, to have been eventful and unhappy; but the part of the great historian’s work which narrated his fate has perished, and we only know from another quarter that the son of Arminius was, at the age of four years, led captive in a triumphal pageant along the streets of Rome.
The high spirit of Arminius was goaded almost into frenzy by these bereavements. The fate of his wife, thus torn from him, and of his babe doomed to bondage even before its birth, inflamed the eloquent invectives with which he roused his countrymen against the home-traitors, and against their invaders, who thus made war upon women and children. Germanicus had marched his army to the place where Varus had perished, and had there paid funeral honors to the ghastly relics of his predecessor’s legions that he found heaped around him.[84] Arminius lured him to advance a little farther into the country, and then assailed him, and fought a battle, which, by the Roman accounts, was a drawn one.
[Footnote 84: In the Museum of Rhenish Antiquities at Bonn there is a Roman sepulchral monument the inscription on which records that it was erected to the memory of M. Coelius, who fell “_Bella Variano_.”]
The effect of it was to make Germanicus resolve on retreating to the Rhine. He himself, with part of his troops, embarked in some vessels on the Ems, and returned by that river, and then by sea; but part of his forces were intrusted to a Roman general named Caecina, to lead them back by land to the Rhine. Arminius followed this division on its march, and fought several battles with it, in which he inflicted heavy loss on the Romans, captured the greater part of their baggage, and would have destroyed them completely had not his skilful system of operations been finally thwarted by the haste of Inguiomerus, a confederate German chief, who insisted on assaulting the Romans in their camp, instead of waiting till they were entangled in the difficulties of the country, and assailing their columns on the march.
In the following year the Romans were inactive, but in the year afterward Germanicus led a fresh invasion. He placed his army on shipboard and sailed to the mouth of the Ems, where he disembarked and marched to the Weser, there encamping, probably in the neighborhood of Minden. Arminius had collected his army on the other side of the river; and a scene occurred, which is powerfully told by Tacitus, and which is the subject of a beautiful poem by Praed. It has been already mentioned that the brother of Arminius, like himself, had been trained up while young to serve in the Roman armies; but, unlike Arminius, he not only refused to quit the Roman service for that of his country, but fought against his country with the legions of Germanicus. He had assumed the Roman name of Flavius, and had gained considerable distinction in the Roman service, in which he had lost an eye from a wound in battle. When the Roman outposts approached the river Weser, Arminius called out to them from the opposite bank and expressed a wish to see his brother. Flavius stepped forward, and Arminius ordered his own followers to retire, and requested that the archers should be removed from the Roman bank of the river. This was done; and the brothers, who apparently had not seen each other for some years, began a conversation from the opposite sides of the stream, in which Arminius questioned his brother respecting the loss of his eye, and what battle it had been lost in, and what reward he had received for his wound. Flavius told him how the eye was lost, and mentioned the increased pay that he had on account of its loss, and showed the collar and other military decorations that had been given him. Arminius mocked at these as badges of slavery; and then each began to try to win the other over–Flavius boasting the power of Rome and her generosity to the submissive; Arminius appealing to him in the name of their country’s gods, of the mother that had borne them, and by the holy names of fatherland and freedom, not to prefer being the betrayer to being the champion of his country. They soon proceeded to mutual taunts and menaces, and Flavius called aloud for his horse and his arms, that he might dash across the river and attack his brother; nor would he have been checked from doing so had not the Roman general Stertinius run up to him and forcibly detained him. Arminius stood on the other bank, threatening the renegade, and defying him to battle.
I shall not be thought to need apology for quoting here the stanzas in which Praed has described this scene–a scene among the most affecting, as well as the most striking, that history supplies. It makes us reflect on the desolate position of Arminius, with his wife and child captives in the enemy’s hands, and with his brother a renegade in arms against him. The great liberator of our German race was there, with every source of human happiness denied him except the consciousness of doing his duty to his country.
“Back, back! he fears not foaming flood Who fears not steel-clad line:
No warrior thou of German blood,
No brother thou of mine.
Go, earn Rome’s chain to load thy neck, Her gems to deck thy hilt;
And blazon honor’s hapless wreck
With all the gauds of guilt.
“But wouldst thou have _me_ share the prey? By all that I have done,
The Varian bones that day by day
Lie whitening in the sun,
The legion’s trampled panoply,
The eagle’s shatter’d wing–
I would not be for earth or sky
So scorn’d and mean a thing.
“Ho, call me here the wizard, boy,
Of dark and subtle skill,
To agonize but not destroy,
To torture, not to kill.
When swords are out and shriek and shout Leave little room for prayer,
No fetter on man’s arm or heart
Hangs half so heavy there.
“I curse him by the gifts the land
Hath won from him and Rome,
The riving axe, the wasting brand, Rent forest, blazing home.
I curse him by our country’s gods, The terrible, the dark,
The breakers of the Roman rods,
The smiters of the bark.
“Oh, misery that such a ban
On such a brow should be!
Why comes he not in battle’s van
His country’s chief to be?
To stand a comrade by my side,
The sharer of my fame,
And worthy of a brother’s pride
And of a brother’s name?
“But it is past! where heroes press
And cowards bend the knee,
Arminius is not brotherless,
His brethren are the free.
They come around: one hour, and light Will fade from turf and tide,
Then onward, onward to the fight,
With darkness for our guide.
“To-night, to-night, when we shall meet In combat face to face,
Then only would Arminius greet
The renegade’s embrace.
The canker of Rome’s guilt shall be Upon his dying name;
And as he lived in slavery,
So shall he fall in shame.”
On the day after the Romans had reached the Weser, Germanicus led his army across that river, and a partial encounter took place, in which Arminius was successful. But on the succeeding day a general action was fought, in which Arminius was severely wounded and the German infantry routed with heavy loss. The horsemen of the two armies encountered without either party gaining the advantage. But the Roman army remained master of the ground and claimed a complete victory. Germanicus erected a trophy in the field, with a vaunting inscription that the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe had been thoroughly conquered by his army. But that army speedily made a final retreat to the left bank of the Rhine; nor was the effect of their campaign more durable than their trophy. The sarcasm with which Tacitus speaks of certain other triumphs of Roman generals over Germans may apply to the pageant which Germanicus celebrated on his return to Rome from his command of the Roman army of the Rhine. The Germans were “_triumphati potius quam victi_.”
After the Romans had abandoned their attempts on Germany, we find Arminius engaged in hostilities with Maroboduus, king of the Suevi and Marcomanni, who was endeavoring to bring the other German tribes into a state of dependency on him. Arminius was at the head of the Germans who took up arms against this home invader of their liberties. After some minor engagements a pitched battle was fought between the two confederacies (A.D. 19) in which the loss on each side was equal, but Maroboduus confessed the ascendency of his antagonist by avoiding a renewal of the engagement and by imploring the intervention of the Romans in his defence. The younger Drusus then commanded the Roman legions in the province of Illyricum, and by his mediation a peace was concluded between Arminius and Maroboduus, by the terms of which it is evident that the latter must have renounced his ambitious schemes against the freedom of the other German tribes.
Arminius did not long survive this second war of independence, which he successfully waged for his country. He was assassinated in the thirty-seventh year of his age by some of his own kinsmen, who conspired against him. Tacitus says that this happened while he was engaged in a civil war, which had been caused by his attempts to make himself king over his countrymen. It is far more probable, as one of the best biographers[85] has observed, that Tacitus misunderstood an attempt of Arminius to extend his influence as elective war chieftain of the Cherusci and other tribes, for an attempt to obtain the royal dignity.
[Footnote 85: Dr. Plate, in _Biographical Dictionary_.]
When we remember that his father-in-law and his brother were renegades, we can well understand that a party among his kinsmen may have been bitterly hostile to him, and have opposed his authority with the tribe by open violence, and, when that seemed ineffectual, by secret assassination.
Arminius left a name which the historians of the nation against which he combated so long and so gloriously have delighted to honor. It is from the most indisputable source, from the lips of enemies, that we know his exploits.[86] His countrymen made history, but did not write it. But his memory lived among them in the days of their bards, who recorded
“The deeds he did, the fields he won, The freedom he restored.”
Tacitus, writing years after the death of Arminius, says of him, “_Canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes_.” As time passed on, the gratitude of ancient Germany to her great deliverer grew into adoration, and divine honors were paid for centuries to Arminius by every tribe of the Low Germanic division of the Teutonic races. The _Irmin-sul_, or the column of Herman, near Eresburgh (the modern Stadtberg), was the chosen object of worship to the descendants of the Cherusci (the Old Saxons), and in defence of which they fought most desperately against Charlemagne and his Christianized Franks. “Irmin, in the cloudy Olympus of Teutonic belief, appears as a king and a warrior; and the pillar, the ‘Irmin-sul,’ bearing the statue, and considered as the symbol of the deity, was the Palladium of the Saxon nation until the temple of Eresburgh was destroyed by Charlemagne, and the column itself transferred to the monastery of Corbey, where perhaps a portion of the rude rock idol yet remains, covered by the ornaments of the Gothic era.”[87] Traces of the worship of Arminius are to be found among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors after their settlement in this island. One of the four great highways was held to be under the protection of the deity, and was called the “Irmin street.” The name _Arminius_ is, of course, the mere Latinized form of _Herman_, the name by which the hero and the deity were known by every man of Low German blood on either side of the German Sea. It means, etymologically, the _War-man_, the _man of hosts_. No other explanation of the worship of the Irmin-sul, and of the name of the Irmin street, is so satisfactory as that which connects them with the deified Arminius. We know for certain of the existence of other columns of an analogous character. Thus there was the _Roland-seule_ in North Germany; there was a _Thor-seule_ in Sweden, and (what is more important) there was an _Athelstan-seule_ in Saxon England.[88]
[Footnote 86: Tacitus: _Annales_.]
[Footnote 87: Palgrave: _English Commonwealth_.]
[Footnote 88: Lappenburg: _Anglo-Saxons_.]
CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
EMBRACING THE PERIOD COVERED IN THIS VOLUME B.C. 450-A.D. 12
JOHN RUDD, LL.D.
Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals following give volume and page.
Separate chronologies of the various nations, and of the careers of famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with volume and page references showing where the several events are fully treated.
“Est” means date uncertain.
B.C.
450. The decemvirate instituted at Rome; the Twelve Tables of law framed. See “INSTITUTION AND FALL OF THE DECEMVIRATE IN ROME,” ii, 1.
Alcibiades born.[Est]
448. First Sacred War between the Phocians and Delphians for the possession of the temple at Delphi.
The decemvirate abolished at Rome. See “INSTITUTION AND FALL OF THE DECEMVIRATE IN ROME,” ii, 1.
Athens is now the principal seat of Greek philosophy, literature, and art.
447. The Boeotians defeat the Athenians at Coronea; the conflict was brought about by Athens breaking the truce arranged between the Greek states to endure for five years, in order to combine against Persia. The result was the loss to Athens of Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris.
445.[Est] Nehemiah begins the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem.
Peace of Callias between the Greeks and Persians.
Birth of Xenophon, general and historian.
444. Ascendency of Pericles at Athens.[Est] See “PERICLES RULES IN ATHENS,” ii, 12.
The military tribunes instituted at Rome. The consulship was in no sense abolished; until the passage of the Licinian Rogations (when it reappeared as a permanent annual magistracy) it alternated irregularly with the military tribunes. See “INSTITUTION AND FALL OF THE DECEMVIRATE IN ROME,” ii, 1.
Thucydides exiled Athens.
443. An Athenian colony planted at Thurium, near Sybarius; it is accompanied by Herodotus and Lysias.
442. Pericles, guided by Phidias the sculptor, adorns Athens; the Parthenon, Propylaea, and Odeum built.
440. Samos resists the Athenian sway; is besieged by Pericles and Sophocles; Melissus defends the city, but surrenders after a siege of nine months.
Comedies prohibited performance at Athens.
439. Great famine in Rome; Sp. Maelius distributes corn to the citizens, for which he is accused of wishing to be king, and is assassinated by Servilius Ahala.
438. Spartacus becomes king of Bosporus.
Ahala impeached and exiled Rome.
437. The prohibition of comedy repealed at Athens.
Syracuse, the predominant state in Sicily, reaches the height of its prosperity. See “DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE,” ii, 48.
436. Commencement of the dispute between Corinth and Corcyra regarding the city of Epidamnus, in which Athens supported the latter; this led to the Peloponnesian War.
435. Naval victory over the Corinthians by the Corcyraeans, near Actium.
432. Ambassadors from Corcyra implore the aid of Athens, which series a fleet to defend the island against the Corinthian attack. Corinth incites Potidaea to revolt from Athens.
431. Beginning of the Peloponnesian War. Sparta declares on the side of Corinth and makes war on Athens. The real cause of the war–which was to be so disastrous to Greece–was that Sparta and its allies were jealous of the great power Athens had attained. Sparta was an oligarchy and a friend of the nobles everywhere; Athens was a democracy and the friend of the common people; so that the war was to some extent a struggle between these classes all over Greece.
430. “GREAT PLAGUE AT ATHENS.” See ii, 34. The physician Hippocrates distinguishes himself by extraordinary cures of the sick.
Second invasion of Attica by the Spartans.
429. Death of Pericles, during the plague, at Athens.
Potidaea reduced by the Athenians.
Birth of Plato.
428. Attica invaded the third time.
Lesbos revolts from the Athenian confederacy; on this the Athenians besiege Mitylene.
427. Mitylene reduced; Athens becomes master of Lesbos. Plataea, the ally of Athens, after being besieged, surrenders to the Peloponnesians and is destroyed.
Attica again invaded.
425. Agis begins the fifth invasion of Attica; he retires on learning that the Athenians under Cleon had taken Pylos and Sapachteria.
Mount AEetna in eruption.
On the death of Artaxerxes I, his son, Xerxes II, succeeds him as ruler of Persia; he reigns only forty-five days, being slain by his brother Sogdianus, who usurps the throne.
424. The island of Cythera taken by the Athenians. Brasidas, the Spartan general, captures Amphipolis, defeating Thucydides.
Ochus (Darius Nothus) rids himself of Sogdianus and succeeds him on the Persian throne.
423. The Athenians banish Thucydides for having suffered Amphipolis to be taken.
422. The Athenians send Cleon to recover Amphipolis; he is defeated by Brasidas; both fall in the battle.
421. Peace of Nicias between Sparta and Athens. End of the first period of the Peloponnesian War.
420. Alcibiades negotiates an alliance between Athens and Argos. Amphipolis retained by the Spartans.
419. An Athenian expedition is led into the Peloponnesus by Alcibiades.
418. Victory of the Spartans at Mantinea.
The league between Athens and Argos dissolved.
416. The island of Melos, which had remained neutral, is conquered by the Athenians; its inhabitants are treated with extreme cruelty.
415. The Athenians send an expedition against Syracuse under Nicias, Lamachus, and Alcibiades; the latter is recalled to answer an accusation of having broken some statues of Mercury in Athens; he takes refuge in Sparta. Andocides, the orator, implicated in the same charge, is imprisoned and exiled.
414. Syracuse is invested by the Athenians under Nicias; being hard pressed, Syracuse appeals to the other Greek states; Cylippus, the Spartan commander, comes with a fleet to the aid of the city. See “DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE,” ii, 48.
The Romans capture Bolae, an AEquian town; the division of the booty causes a mutiny among the soldiers, who slay the quaestor and the military tribune, M. Postumius.
413. On Alcibiades’ advice the Spartans fortify a position at Decelea, in Attica.
“DEFEAT OF THE ATHENIANS AT SYRACUSE.” See ii, 48.
412. Alcibiades visits the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, with whose aid he negotiates an alliance between Persia and Sparta.
411. Owing to the machinations of Alcibiades a revolt is organized in Athens, by the aid of the clubs of the nobles and rich men; its object being to overthrow the democracy and establish an oligarchy. The rising is successful and the “Reign of the Four Hundred” ensues; it lasts four months; its framer, Antipho, is put to death. Alcibiades is recalled.
410. The Spartans are defeated by Alcibiades in a naval encounter at Cyzicus. Sparta makes overtures for peace.
409. The Carthaginians invade Sicily; they reduce Silenus and Himera.
408. Alcibiades takes Selymbria and Byzantium.
Psammeticus is king of Egypt.
Roman plebs first admitted to the quaestorship.
407. Lysander, the Spartan admiral, defeats the Athenian fleet at Notium; in consequence of this defeat, Alcibiades, who had been received with great honor, is banished, and ten generals are nominated to succeed him.
406. The Athenians vanquish the Spartan fleet under Callicratidas, at Arginusae. The Athenian generals are executed at Athens for not saving the shattered vessels and the bodies of the slain.
Dionysius the Elder becomes ruler of Syracuse.
Anxur and other towns captured by the Romans, who now first give their soldiers a regular pay.
405. The Spartan under Lysander, who had been restored to command, annihilate the Athenian navy at Aegospotami.
Artaxerxes II succeeds Darius II on the Persian throne.
Successful revolt of the Egyptians against the Persians; the independence of Egypt secured.
404. Athens taken by Lysander and dismantled; thirty tyrants appointed by him. Lysias and other orators banished. End of the Peloponnesian War.
403. Democracy is restored in Athens by Thrasybulus; he publishes an act of amnesty. The Ionian alphabet adopted at Athens.
401. Cyrus rebels against his brother Artaxerxes, of Persia; he is defeated and slain at the battle of Cunaxa.
400. The Ten Thousand Greek auxiliaries of Cyrus effect their retreat to the sea. See “RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND GREEKS,” ii, 68.
399. Sparta and Persia engage in war.
“CONDEMNATION AND DEATH OF SOCRATES.” See ii, 87.
396. Agesilaus, the Spartan general, begins his victorious campaigns against the Persians.
The Romans, headed by Camillus, capture Veii, after a ten years’ siege.
395. Corinth, Thebes, Argos, and Athens combine against Sparta; the Spartans are defeated at Haliartus; Lysander is slain.
Tissaphernes’ Persian army is defeated by Agesilaus, near Sardis.
394. The Athenian admiral Conon, in charge of the Persian fleet, crushingly defeats that of the Spartans, under Pisander, off Cnidus.
Agesilaus is recalled from Asia; commanding the Spartans, he gains a victory over the confederate Greeks at Coronea.
393. Conon undertakes the rebuilding of the walls in Athens and restores the fortifications.
392. Conon excites the jealousy of the Persians; he retires into Cyprus, where he dies.
391. Camillus banished from Rome, charged with misappropriating the booty secured at Veii, but really on account of his patrician haughtiness; he dies at Ardea, whither he had withdrawn.
389. Aeschines born; he was accounted in Athens second only to Demosthenes as an orator.
388[89] (387). Brennus, commanding the Gauls, burns Rome. See “BRENNUS BURNS ROME,” ii, 110.
[Footnote 89: By the old chronological reckoning this event occurred B.C. 390.]
387. Through the mediation of Persia, Sparta compels the Greek states to accept the peace of Antalcidas, which leaves the Ionian cities and Cyprus at his mercy; this enables Sparta to maintain her supremacy in Greece.
385.[Est] Birth of Demosthenes, the famous Greek orator and general.
384. Aristotle born.
383. War of Syracuse with Carthage.
Thebes is betrayed to Sparta, during her war against Olynthus.
379. The Olynthians are forced to submission by the Spartans. Pelopidas and his associates drive the Spartans from Thebes.
378. Athens declares in favor of Thebes against Sparta.
376. Cleombrotus leads the Spartans into Boeotia; the Spartan fleet, under Pollis, is overwhelmed off Maxos, by Chabrias.
371. Congress of Sparta, Thebes being excluded from the treaty of peace; Pelopidas and Epaminondas gain the great victory of Leuctra, in which Cleombrotus, King of Sparta, is slain. Thebes becomes the dominant power in Greece.
The Arcadian union formed. One of the first effects of the battle of Leuctra was to emancipate the Arcadians, and a plan was formed to raise them in the political affairs of Greece.
370. Epaminondas, the Theban general, heads his first expedition into the Peloponnesus; he threatens Sparta, which Agesilaus saves.
369. The Thebans advance into Laconia; they restore the independence of the Messenians. Epaminondas and Pelopidas are condemned for having retained their command beyond the term allowed by the laws of Thebes; they are pardoned and reappointed.
The Arcadians found Megalopolis, which they make the capital of the Arcadian confederacy.
368. The Thebans again enter the Peloponnesus, but retreat before the arrival of succor sent by Dionysius to the Lacedaemonians. Pelopidas, treacherously made prisoner by Alexander of Pherae, is rescued by Epaminondas. A congress, under the mediation of Persia, is held at Delphi; it fails, because the Thebans will not abandon the Messenians.
The Carthaginians at war with Dionysius; but, after losing Selinus and other towns, they make peace.
Camillus, more than eighty years old, appointed dictator at Rome; he persuades the patricians to assent to the demands of the plebs, and builds the temple of Concord.
A celestial globe brought into Greece from Egypt.
367. The Licinian Rogations, Rome; three bills introduced by Licinius, decreeing: 1. That interest on loans be deducted from the principal; 2. Limiting the public land held by any individual to 500 jugera (320 acres); 3. Ordering that one of the two consuls should be a plebeian. Institution of the praetorship.
364. Pelopidas attacks Alexander of Pherae; during the battle of Cymoscephale his soldiers are alarmed at an eclipse of the sun, and he is slain.
362. The Spartans and allies defeated at Mantinea by Epaminondas; he is slain.
361 (359). Artaxerxes II of Persia succeeded by Artaxerxes III (Ochus).
359. Philip ascends the throne of Macedon; he concludes peace with the Athenians.
358.[Est] Athens involves herself in the Social War with Cos, Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium.
Amphipolis captured by Philip of Macedon; he loses his right eye by an arrow from Astor.
357. Outbreak of the Ten Years’ Sacred War, caused by the Crissians levying grievous taxes on those who went to consult the oracle of Delphi.
356. Burning of the temple of Diana at Ephesus; this building was accounted one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Birth of Alexander the Great.
Dion frees Syracuse from Dionysius the Younger; he is expelled from Sicily.
355. The Social War ends in Greece. Athens recognizes the independence of the confederated states.
353. Final conquest of Egypt by the Persians.
352. Philip of Macedon interferes in the Greek Sacred War; Demosthenes delivers his First Philippic encouraging the Greeks to resist the Macedonians; Philip’s attempt to seize Thermopylae is defeated.
Two thousand colonists are sent from Athens to Samos.
347. Philip of Macedon captures and destroys Olynthus.
346. Phocis occupied by Philip of Macedon; this ends the Sacred War.
Dionysius the Younger again assumes power in Syracuse.
343 (340). Timoleon effects the deliverance of Syracuse from Dionysius the Younger.
Rome engages in the First Samnite War.
341 (338). End of the First Samnite War.
Invasion of China by Meha the Hun. See “TARTAR INVASION OF CHINA BY MEHA,” ii, 126.[Est]
340. Adoption of the Publilian laws in Rome, which further restricted the power of the patricians.
The Romans make war upon the Latins; the latter are subjugated. Manlius, one of the Roman consuls, condemns his son to death for a breach of discipline.
338. Athens and Thebes form an alliance to resist Philip of Macedon, who had passed Thermopylae and seized Elatea. The allied forces are overwhelmed at Chaeronea, and Philip establishes the Macedonian dominion in Greece.
Artaxerxes III is succeeded by Arses in Persia.
337. Philip of Macedon declares himself commander of the Greeks against the Persians; he repudiates his wife Olympias; their son Alexander attends his mother into Epirus.
336. Assassination of Philip of Macedon, by Pausanias at Aegae, while preparing to invade Persia; he is succeeded by his son, Alexander the Great.
Arses is succeeded by Darius III (Codomannus) in Persia.
335. Thebes, revolting against the Macedonian authority, is subdued and destroyed by Alexander, who, however, spares the house of Pindar the poet.
Rome concludes a peace with Gaul.
334. Alexander enters upon the conquest of Persia; he is victorious over Darius at the Granicus.
333. Lycia and Syria reduced by Alexander; Damascus captured by Parmenio, Alexander’s general, and the siege of Tyre begun.
Darius is defeated at Issus; his family are among Alexander’s captives.
332. “ALEXANDER REDUCES TYRE: LATER FOUNDS ALEXANDRIA.” See ii, 133. He takes Gaza and occupies Egypt.
The Lucanians and Bruttians defeat and slay Alexander of Epirus, his ambitious designs in Italy having been betrayed.
331. “THE BATTLE OF ARBELA,” in which Alexander the Great conquers Darius and overthrows the Persian empire. See ii, 141.
330. The Spartans, under Agis III, revolt against the Macedonians; Antipater defeats the Spartans and their allies at Megalopolis; Agis is slain.
Darius is seized and laden with chains by Bessus, a Bactrian satrap who soon after slays him.
Alexander captures Bessus and delivers him to Oxathres, the brother of Darius, by whom he is executed.
Alexander pursues his conquests in Parthia, Media, Bactria, and on the shores of the Caspian.
329. The Oxus and Jaxartes are crossed by Alexander; he drives back the Scythians; he founds new cities in the countries adjacent, and winters in Bactria.
The consuls at Rome are granted a triumph and the surname of “Privernas,” for the conquest of Privernum.
328. Sogdiana, Central Asia, occupies Alexander during this, his seventh campaign, and he winters there at Nautaca.
327. Marriage of Alexander to Roxana, daughter of Oxyartes, a Bactrian ruler.
326. Alexander invades India and defeats Porus; his soldiers refuse to proceed farther.
Rome begins the Second Samnite War.
325-4. Alexander marches from the Indus to Persepolis; his fleet is sailed to the Euphrates by Nearchus.
Harpalus flees from Babylon with immense treasures, which he conveys to Athens.
323. Death of Alexander the Great at Babylon. His principal generals endeavored to obtain, each for himself, a portion of his empire. Ptolemy first secures Egypt and establishes his dynasty firmly there. Philip Aridaeus, half-brother of Alexander, succeeds him on the throne of Macedon, with Perdiccas as regent. Demosthenes returns to Athens and rouses the Greek states to recover their freedom; under Leosthenes they overpower Antipater, who takes refuge in Lamia, whence this is called the Lamian War.
The Samnites sue for peace, but reject the terms on which it is offered by the Romans.
322. The body of Alexander is entombed at Alexandria.
The confederate Greeks are defeated by Antipater at Crannon; end of the Lamian War.
Demosthenes, who was accused by the Macedonians of being privy to the looting of the treasury by Harpalus, after the battle of Crannon fled to Calauria; he was captured by the Macedonian troops and thereupon poisoned himself.
321. Beginning of the wars between Alexander’s successors; Perdiccas and Eumenes oppose themselves to Antipater, Craterus, Antigonus, and Ptolemy.
Perdiccas assails Ptolemy in Egypt; Perdiccas is slain in a mutiny. In Asia Minor, Eumenes triumphs over Craterus, who is killed.
Victory of the Samnites over the Romans at the Caudine Forks. These were two narrow gorges, united by a range of mountains on each side. The Romans went through the first pass, but found the second blocked up; on returning they found the first similarly obstructed. Being thus hemmed in they passed under the yoke.
320. Eumenes, defeated by Antigonus, shuts himself up in the castle of Nora, where he sustains a year’s siege.
319. Polysperchon is appointed by Antipater to succeed him as regent for Philip Arrhidaeus and Alexander Aegus, half-brother and son of Alexander the Great, on his, Antipater’s, death.
Polysperchon’s elevation to power is followed by a league against him, formed by Antipater’s son Cassander, Antigonus, and Ptolemy. Eumenes lends his support to Polysperchon, after escaping from Nora.
318. The Romans and Samnites make a truce.
Polysperchon prevailed over by Cassander in the struggle for power in Greece and Macedonia. Athens he places under the rule of Phalereus.
317. Phocion, an Athenian general who wisely advised in vain for peace with Antipater, became regarded as a traitor; he fled to Phocis, entered into the intrigues of Cassander, who delivered him up to the Athenians, who condemned him to drink hemlock. Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, aided by Polysperchon and the Epirotes, seizes Macedonia.
Olympias is put to death by Cassander. Eumenes, being betrayed to Antigonus, is put to death; Antigonus holds the supreme power in Asia.
315. The rebuilding of Thebes undertaken by Cassander.
314. Commencement of the struggle against Antigonus waged by Cassander, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Lysimachus.
313. Tyre surrenders to Antigonus. Ptolemy engages with him and conquers Cyprus.
The Romans take Fregellae and other towns from the Samnites.
312. Seleucus Nicator establishes the realm of the Seleucidae, the army of Antigonus, under his son Demetrius Poliorcetes, being defeated by Ptolemy and Seleucus. Babylon is made the capital.
Ptolemy conquers Judea; he transplants many Jews to Alexandria and Cyrene, where their industry is encouraged and their religion protected.
At Rome Appius Claudius, the blind, constructs the Via Appia, the first aqueduct, and a canal through the Pontine marshes.
Zeno institutes the sect of Stoics at Athens.
311. A temporary peace among the competitors for power in Asia. Greece is declared to be free, and Ptolemy resigns Phoenicia to Antigonus.
Roxana, the widow of Alexander the Great, and her young son Alexander Aegas, are put to death by Cassander.
The Roman consul Bubulcus penetrates into Samnium, where he is surrounded, and cuts his way through with great courage.
310. Agathocles, the Syracusan ruler, defeated by the Carthaginians at Himera, passes over to Africa and carries the war into their own country.
The Etruscans take up arms in favor of the Samnites.
Civil war in the little kingdom of Bosporus; Satyrus II, king for a few months, falls in battle.
An eclipse of the sun, August 15th.
309. Hercules, a natural son of Alexander, proclaimed king of Macedon; he is murdered by Cassander.
The Romans are victorious over the Samnites and the Etruscans.
308. The Romans, under Fabius, compel the Etruscans to make peace; Fabius then turns against the Samnites, whom he defeats.
307. Demetrius Poliorcetes, son of Antigonus, arrives with a fleet at Athens, expels Demetrius Phalereus, and restores the democracy, the Athenians throw down Phalereus’ statues and condemn him to death.
306. Ptolemy’s fleet is destroyed by Demetrius Poliorcetes at Salamis; but Antigonus fails in his attempt on Egypt. Antigonus assumes the title of king of Asia; Ptolemy Lagi, Lysimachus, and Seleucus, the rulers of Egypt, Thrace, and that part of Alexander’s empire east of the Euphrates, likewise assume the royal title. Cassander of Macedon is hailed king by his subjects.
305. War between Seleucus and India, under Sandrocottus, ends in a treaty of amity.
Flavius reconciles all orders of the Roman state and erects a temple of Concord.
Demetrius Poliorcetes besieges Rome.
304. The Romans triumphantly end the Second Samnite War.
302. The priesthood at Rome is opened to the plebs.
300.[90] Battle of Ipsus. Seleucus and Lysimachus overwhelm the army of Antigonus and his son, Demetrius Poliorcetes; Antigonus is slain. His dominions are divided among the victors. Lysimachus takes a large portion of Asia Minor; Seleucus appropriates Upper Syria, Capuadocia, and other territory.
[Footnote 90: The date is usually given as 301.]
Seleucus Nicator builds Antioch, which he makes the capital of his kingdom of Syria.
299. Rome engages in the Third Samnite War, which becomes one of extermination, but the Samnites bravely resist in their mountain holds.
295. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, espouses Antigone of the house of Ptolemy; he returns to his dominions, out of which he had been driven by the Molossi.
The Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls unite against Rome. Q. Fabius Rullianus and P. Decimo Mus defeat the Samnites and Gauls at Sentinum.
Demetrius Poliorcetes retakes Athens; Lysimachus and Ptolemy deprive him of all he possesses.
294. The Macedonian throne is seized by Demetrius Poliorcetes; by violence or treachery the sons of Cassander are slain.
293. Many towns of the Samnites are so utterly destroyed by the Romans that their sites are unknown; a portion of the spoil is cast into a brazen colossus, and placed in front of the Roman Capitol.
The Roman census is 272,308 citizens.
The first sun-dial at Rome is placed on the temple of Quirinus.
290. The end of the Third Samnite War, which results in the submission of the Samnites to Rome.
287. Birth of Archimedes, celebrated mathematician.[Est]
Lysimachus and Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, wrest Macedonia from Demetrius Poliorcetes; immediately after, Lysimachus expels Pyrrhus.
286. The Hortensian law, passed by Q. Hortensino, affirmed the legislative power granted the plebeians B.C. 446 and 336.
285. Completion of the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Scriptures, called “the Alexandrian.”
The length of the solar year first accurately determined by Dionysius, in the astronomical canon.
283. Death of Ptolemy Lagi (Ptolemy Soter); Ptolemy Philadelphus (jointly on the throne with his father since 295) succeeds him as King of Egypt. He further encourages the immigration of the Jews, who flourish exceedingly.
282. The Tarentines attack a Roman fleet and insult the ambassadors, who demand satisfaction. Rome prepares for war; the Tarentines engage Pyrrhus to assist them.
281. Lysimachus, at war with Seleucus Nicator, is defeated and slain in Phrygia.
The Roman consul Aemilius invades the territory of Tarentum.
280. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, invades Italy; he makes the cause of Tarentum his own and wars on Rome. Laevinus, the Roman consul, is defeated. See “FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN GREEKS AND ROMANS,” ii, 166.
Revival of the Achaean League. The Achaei originally inhabited the neighborhood of Argos; when driven thence by the Heraclidae, they retired among the Ionians, expelled the natives, and seized their thirteen cities, forming the Achaean League.
279. Pyrrhus, who had tried to mediate between Tarentum and Rome, meeting with non-success, advances on Rome. He fails to make any impression and returns to Tarentum; the Romans follow him, and he gains an unimportant victory over them at Asculum. See “FIRST BATTLE BETWEEN GREEKS AND ROMANS,” ii, 166.
Irruption of Gauls into Macedonia; King Ptolemy Ceraunus offers battle to them, in which he is killed.[91]
[Footnote 91: The date usually given is B.C. 280.]
278. The Gauls under Brennus invade Greece; they are cut to pieces near Delphi.
Alliance formed between Rome and Carthage.
Pyrrhus wars against Carthage in Sicily.
277. A body of Gauls enter Northern Phrygia, of which they take possession.
Pyrrhus expels the Carthaginians from most of their possessions in Sicily.
276. Other Grecian cities join the Achaean League.
275. Pyrrhus, on the arrival of Carthaginian reenforcements, returns to Italy; he is totally defeated by M. Curius Dentatus (at Beneventum), who exhibits in his triumphs the first elephants ever seen in Rome.
273. Ptolemy Philadelphus, of Egypt, sends an embassy to congratulate the Romans on their victory and to ask an alliance with them.
272. Pyrrhus attempts the siege of Sparta; he is repulsed. In an attack on Argos, Pyrrhus is slain.
Tarentum surrenders to the Romans.
Lucania and Brittium also submit to Rome.
269. The first silver coinage at Rome.
266. The Romans capture and destroy Volsinii; Rome controls all Italy.
264. War between Rome and Carthage. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
Gladiators first introduced into Rome.
263. Antigonus Gonatus, King of Macedon, captures Athens.
The Romans compel Hiero, King of Syracuse, to withdraw from the support of Carthage. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
Philetaerus at his death appoints his nephew, Eumenes, King of Pergamus; the competition for books between him and Ptolemy Philadelphus causes the latter to prohibit the export of papyrus from Egypt; this leads to the invention of parchment at Pergamus, whence it takes its name.
Hiero makes peace with the Romans; he becomes their most trusted ally.
260. Ships-of-war first built by the Romans; the naval power of Rome inaugurated by the decisive victory of Duilius over the Carthaginians at Mylae. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
259. The Romans invade Corsica; they carry off much rich spoil from thence and Sardinia, but make no permanent conquests. The island of Melita (Malta) is captured by the Romans.
258. Atilius, the Roman consul, surrounded by the Carthaginians in Sicily, escapes with difficulty.
257. A drawn battle between the fleets of Rome and Carthage off Tyndaris causes the Romans to prepare larger ships, in order to strike a decisive blow.
256. Total defeat of the Carthaginian fleet near Ecnomus; the victorious Roman consuls land in Africa. The Carthaginians hire troops from Greece and give the command to Xanthippus. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
255. Regelus and his Roman legions are vanquished by Xanthippus; Regelus is taken captive. The Romans fit out a large fleet, which gains another victory and brings off the remains of the army from Africa. Many of the ships are wrecked.
254. Another fleet consisting of 220 ships is equipped in three months by the Romans; Panormus (Palermo) is captured. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
253. The Romans again land in Africa and ravage many Carthaginian coast cities; on their return most of their ships are wrecked; the Romans resolve to abstain from naval warfare.
252. Birth of Philopoemen, called the “Last of the Greeks.”
251. Aratus restores the freedom of Sicyon; joins the Achaean League, which becomes a powerful body.
250. Arsaceo founds the kingdom of Parthia.
The Romans begin the siege of Lilybaeum; the Carthaginians successfully defend it till the close of the war. Metellus, the Roman proconsul, commanding in Sicily, gains a great victory over Hasdrubal near Panoramus; over one hundred elephants form part of his triumphal procession.
249. Naval victory of the Carthaginians over the Romans at Drepanum.
Regelus is sent to Rome to propose an exchange of prisoners; on his return the Carthaginians put him to death with the utmost cruelty.
The war between Syria and Egypt, which had been ruinous to the former, is ended by a treaty between Antiochus II and Ptolemy Philadelphus. One of the conditions was that Antiochus repudiate Laodice and marry Berenice, Ptolemy’s daughter.
248. Parthia becomes an independent kingdom.
247. Birth of Hannibal, the famous Carthaginian general.
Ptolemy Euergetes succeeds his father Ptolemy Philadelphus on the throne of Egypt.
243. Corinth, delivered by Aratus from the yoke of Macedon, joins the Achaean League; other states follow the example.
241. Agis IV, of Sparta, assists the Achaeans in their war against the Aetolians.
Rome, having again assembled a great fleet, under Lutatius Catalus, vanquishes the Carthaginians in a naval encounter off the Aegates. End of the First Punic War; Sicily is relinquished by Carthage to Rome.
240. The Carthaginian mercenaries in Africa revolt; Hamilcar Barca crushes it out.
237. Carthage is compelled to cede Sardinia to Rome.
236-221. Celomenes III of Sparta institutes great political reforms and engages in a struggle with the Achaean League.
236-220. Hamilcar Barca and Hasdrubal, his son-in-law, conquer a great part of Spain.
235. Rome, at peace with all the world, closes the temple of Janus, for the first time since Numa, according to legend, the second king of Rome.
234. Birth of Cato the Elder.
Scipio Africanus born.
230. Ambassadors sent by Rome to protest against the piracies of the Illyrians are murdered by the order of Queen Teuta.
229. A successful war is waged by the Romans against the Greek kingdom of Illyria; the Roman power is extended across the Adriatic.
On the death of Hamilcar, his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, takes his place in Spain; he founds Carthago Nova (Carthagena).
227. Sparta makes war with the Achaean League.
225-222. Cisalpine Gaul is conquered by the Romans.
221. Cleomenes III is crushed by Antigonus Doson, ruler of Macedon, at Sellasia; the Spartan power is utterly destroyed.
220. Social war; the war made by the Aetolian League on the Achaean League.
219. Hannibal lays siege to Saguntum, which he destroys; this is the real commencement of the Second Punic War. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
Philip V, of Macedon, is victorious in his campaigns against the Aetolian League.
218. Hannibal crosses the Alps into Italy; he defeats the Romans on the Ticinus and Trebia. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
217. Philip V continues his victorious way against the Aetolian League.
Hannibal defeats the Romans at the Trasimene Lake.
Antiochus the Great cedes Coele-Syria and Palestine to Egypt.
216. Crushing defeat of the Romans by Hannibal at Cannae. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
214. Rome has her first encounter with Macedon; Philip V allies himself with Hannibal and begins the war.
Marcellus is sent into Sicily and besieges Syracuse, which had declared against Rome.
213. Aratus, strategus of the Achaean League, is poisoned by Philip V of Macedon; this alienates from him many Greek states.
Hwangti crushes out literature in China.
212. After a two-years’ siege the Romans under Marcellus take Syracuse.
The two Scipios defeated and killed in Spain. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
211. Hannibal before the gates of Rome. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
The Aetolian League with its allies assists Rome against Macedon.
210. Aegina taken by the Romans; the inhabitants reduced to slavery.
Agrigentum, being conquered by Caevinus, places all Sicily again under Roman subjection.
Scipio, victorious in Spain, takes Carthago Nova. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
208. Suspension of his operations against Scipio–the future Scipio Africanus–in Spain by Hasdrubal, son of Hamilcar, who sets out to relieve his brother Hannibal in Italy.
207. Hasdrubal is defeated and slain on the Metaurus. See “BATTLE OF THE METAURUS,” ii, 195.
A signal victory is achieved by Philopoemen, general of the Achaean League, with Macedon, over the Spartans at Matinea.
206. Birth of Polybius, Greek historian.
The Carthaginian power in Spain completely destroyed by Scipio.
205. End of the first Romo-Macedonian war.
204. Scipio carries the war into Africa; he defeats the Carthaginians and the Numidians.
203. Hannibal, recalled from Italy, arrives at Carthage.
202. The Carthaginian power is completely broken, ending the Second Punic War. See “SCIPIO AFRICANUS CRUSHES HANNIBAL AT ZAMA AND SUBJUGATES CARTHAGE,” ii, 224.
201. A war is begun by Rome for the resubjugation of the Boii and Insubres of Cisalpine Gaul, who had attained freedom owing to the Carthaginian invasion.
The Jews become subject to the Seleucid monarchy.
200. Declaration of war by Rome against Macedon; the second Macedonian war.
198. Antiochus the Great, of Syria, conquers Palestine and Coele-Syria from Egypt, defeating Scopas and the Aetolian allies.
197. Decisive Roman victory over the Macedonians at Cynoscephale; Philip V of Macedon makes a humiliating peace.
196. The Roman general Flaminius proclaims the freedom of the Greeks.
195.[Est] Birth of Terrence, Roman comic poet.
Ptolemy V, Epiphanes, King of Egypt. See i, 1, “The Rosetta Stone.”
192. In concert with the Aetolians, Antiochus the Great takes up arms against Rome.
191. Antiochus is defeated by the Romans under Acilius Glabrio, at Thermopylae, in Greece. The resubjugation of Cisalpine Gaul is completed by Rome.
All the Peloponnesus is included in the Achaean League, which attains its apogee.
190. Scipio Asiaticus takes command of the Romans in Greece, with his brother Africanus as lieutenant; Antiochus is vanquished at Magnesia and he is compelled to release his hold on the greater part of Asia Minor. Most of the conquered territory is annexed to Pergamus. Scipio Asiaticus takes his surname for the courage and ability he showed.
189. Fall of the Aetolian League.
185. Birth of Scipio Africanus the Younger.
179. Death of Philip V of Macedon. His son Perseus negotiates secretly with other states against Rome. The Celtiberians and Lusitanians lay down their arms.
177. Rome suppresses a revolt in Sardinia. A colony settled at Lucca. The Achaeans contract an alliance with Rome.
Thessaly relapses under the Macedonian influence.
176. The consul Scipio dies, and C. Valerius Laevinus takes his place for the rest of the year. His colleague Petilius is slain in battle against the Ligurians. The Orchian and other sumptuary laws fail to repress the luxury of the Romans.
175. Disgraceful struggles for the high-priesthood of Jerusalem; Antiochus sells it to Jason, the brother of Onias, who is deposed.
174. Masinissa, after many encroachments, seizes the Carthaginian provinces of Tyssa, with fifty cities; Roman ambassadors sent to settle the dispute. Others deputed to ascertain the intentions of Perseus.
Mithridates VI of the Arsacidae begins his reign and prepares the elevation of Parthia to great power.
173. The Roman ambassadors return, Perseus having refused to receive them.
Death of Cleopatra, who, in the name of her young son, had been regent of Egypt.
172. The Ligurians are subdued and Northern Italy filled with Roman colonies. Eumenes honorably received at Rome; on his way back he is attacked by assassins near Delphi.
Menelaus, another brother, supplants Jason in the high-priesthood of Jerusalem.
171. Commencement of the Third Macedonian War; King Perseus begins his struggle with Rome.
Antiochus invades Egypt and takes Memphis.
170. Hostilius, who takes the command in Macedon, makes no progress; the Roman fleet ravages the sea-coast.
Perseus negotiates with Antiochus, Prusias, and many Greek states to form a coalition against Rome; even Eumenes begins to treat with him.
Ptolemy Physcon is associated with his brother as joint King of Egypt.
169. The manoeuvres of Marcius Philippus drive Perseus from his strong position in Tempe.
Antiochus lays siege to Alexandria; the Egyptians apply to Rome for aid.
168. Battle of Pydna; complete defeat of Perseus, King of Macedon, by the Romans, under L. Aenilius Paulas. Macedon becomes a Roman province.
Antiochus, awed by the Roman ambassador Popillius and the fate of Perseus, evacuates Egypt. In his retreat he plunders Jerusalem and despoils the Temple, in which he sets up the statue of Jupiter Olympias.
167. Deportation of a thousand Achaeans to Rome; among them is Polybius, the historian, who there finds patrons and friends. The first library opened in Rome, consisting of books plundered from Macedon.
Arms are taken up by the Asmoneans against Antiochus, King of Syria.
165. Judas Maccabaeus enters Jerusalem; he purifies the Temple. See “JUDAS MACCABEUS LIBERATES JUDEA,” ii, 245.
160. Defeat and death of Judas Maccabaeus in battle.
158. Roman citizens are almost entirely relieved of direct taxation by the revenues from Macedon and other conquests.
149. Commencement of the Third Punic War between Rome and Carthage. See “THE PUNIC WARS,” ii, 179.
First Roman law against bribery at elections.
147.[Est] Viriathus, the Lusitanian leader, has his first great victory over the Romans.
146. Scipio Africanus the Younger completely destroys Carthage.
Mummius, commanding in Greece, defeats the Archaeans at Leucopetra; he captures and destroys Corinth. The treasures of Grecian art conveyed to Rome. Greece becomes a Roman province.
Demetrius Nicator slays Alexander Bala in battle and becomes king of Syria.
141. Simon Maccabaeus captures the citadel of Jerusalem.
Silanus, accused by the Macedonians of corrupt practices, is condemned by his father, Torquatus, and takes his own life.
140. The Jews proclaim Simon Maccabaeus hereditary prince; with this dignity is united the office of high-priest.
[Est]Viriathus, the Lusitanian leader against the Romans in Spain, is assassinated by order of the consul Caepio.
135. Simon Maccabaeus is assassinated; John Hyrcanus, his son, succeeds him as ruler at Jerusalem.
134-133. Antiochus Tidetes, King of Syria, besieges Jerusalem; he is repulsed.
134-132. Servile War in Sicily, caused by the inhuman treatment of the slaves by their owners; two great battles were fought before the rising was suppressed.
133. Tiberius Gracchus attempts his great political and agrarian reforms in Rome. See “THE GRACCHI AND THEIR REFORMS,” ii, 259.
Scipio Africanus the Younger reduces Numantia.
Attalus III of Pergamus bequeaths his kingdom, which embraces a great part of Asia Minor, to the Romans.
125-121. The southeastern portion of Transalpine Gaul conquered by the Romans.
123-122. Caius Gracchus commences his agrarian reforms in Rome. See “THE GRACCHI AND THEIR REFORMS,” ii, 259.
118. Rome extends her dominion beyond the Rhone; the colony of Narbo Martius (Narbonne) founded.
113. Hordes of the Cimbri and Teutons threaten the Rome dominion by an invasion of Illyrium.
112. Jugurtha, King of Numidia, kills Adherbal, who has been restored to the throne of Numidia after being driven thence by Jugurtha.
111. The consul Calpurnius proceeds with a Roman army into Numidia; bribed by Jugurtha, he makes a peace and withdraws his forces.
109. Jugurtha is opposed in Numidia by the Roman army headed by Metellus.
John Hyrcanus, the Jewish Prince and high-priest, defeats Ptolemy Lathyrus and captures Samaria.[Est]
The Cimbri request an allotment of land from the Romans, whereon to settle; it is refused; they ravage the country, but are checked in Thrace by Nimicus Rufus.
108. Metellus, as proconsul, continues the war in Numidia.
The Cimbri defeat the consul Scaurus in Gaul.
Mithridates of Pontus secretly prepares to regain by force the province of Phrygia, which the Romans took from him during his minority.
107. Marius vigorously carries on the war against Jugurtha; Marius is consul, Sylla his quaestor.
Cassius, Roman consul, is defeated and slain by the Cimbri in Gaul.
106. Birth of Cicero. Birth of Pompey the Great.
Jugurtha is betrayed by Bocchus, King of Mauretania, into the hands of the Romans, which ends the Jugurthine War.
105. The Cimbri and Teutones defeat the consul Manilius and proconsul Caepio, near the Rhone, with great loss.
Aristobulus, son of John Hyrcanus, succeeds his father and assumes the title of king of Judea.
104. Alexander Jannaeus succeeds his brother Aristobulus in Judea.
102. Marius overwhelmingly defeats the Teutones, while they were retreating from Spain, at Aquae Sextiae (Aix).
Another revolt of the slaves in Sicily (Second Servile War).
101. Marius utterly crushes the Cimbri on the Raudian Fields, after they had previously defeated the proconsul Lutatius Catulus.
100. The Second Servile War continues.
Birth of Julius Caesar.
99. M. Aquilius finally crushes out the slave uprising in Sicily.
94. Mithridates makes his son king of Cappadocia.
93. Cappadocians appeal to the Romans, who give them Ariobarzanes for their king. Mithridates seizes Galatia.
92. Sulla is sent by the Romans into Cappadocia to observe Mithridates’ proceedings; ambassadors from Parthia meet him there.
91. M. Livius Drussus, people’s tribune, advocates giving the rights of citizenship to the Roman allies; he is assassinated.
90. Social or Marsic War, a conflict of the Italian states against Rome, begins, the cause being the refusal of the franchise by Rome. Caesar, the consul, is unfortunate against the Samnites, and Rutilius is defeated and slain by the Marsi. Marius retrieves these disasters. Citizenship granted to the states which remain faithful to Rome.
The Roman senate promises aid to Cappadocia against Mithridates.
89. The consul Pompeius (father of Pompey the Great) gains decided victories over the Picentines; his colleague, Cato, defeats the Marsi, but is killed in the battle; Sulla takes the command, and is so successful that he is elected consul for the ensuing year. Cicero is a cadet in the army of Pompeius.
Cleopatra is put to death by her son Alexander, who is expelled from Egypt, and Ptolemy Soter restored.
88. End of the Social War. Most of the refractory states admitted to Roman citizenship.
Mithridates, King of Pontus, occupies Phrygia; he asks all Asia Minor to join him; a general massacre of the Romans occurs.
Quarrel between Sulla and Marius which causes war between them for the control of the Roman army. The first Roman civil war.
87. Sulla proceeds to Greece to conduct the war against Mithridates; Sulla besieges Athens.
The consul Cinna, deposed by the senate, calls Marius from Africa, raises an Italian army, and reinstates himself in office; bloody proscriptions by Marius and Cinna follow.
86. Death of Marius, in the beginning of his seventh consulate; Flaccus, appointed in his place, is assassinated on his march to the east, by C. Fimbria, who assumes command of the Roman army.
Sulla captures the revolted city of Athens and defeats the army of Mithridates under Archelaus.
A sedition of the Jews is quelled with merciless severity by Alexander Jannaeus.
85. The Romans are successful against Mithridates in Asia.
84. End of the First Mithridatic War; Mithridates, finding himself between two victorious Roman armies, agrees to peace and relinquishes all his acquisitions.
83. Sulla makes war against the Marian party in Italy.
The Roman senate refuses to send Mithridates a formal ratification of the treaty. He retains a part of Cappadocia. The Second Mithridatic War begins.
82. Sulla becomes dictator at Rome, after crushing the Marian party; he inflicts a bloody vengeance on his enemies.
End of the Second Mithridatic War.
81. Pompey, having been successful in Africa, is granted a triumph in Rome.
80. Sertorius, the Marian leader, sets up an independent state in Spain.
Caesar serves as a cadet at the siege of Mitylene; he receives a civic crown for saving the life of a citizen.
79. Sulla resigns the dictatorship, but remains master of Rome.
Alexander Jannaeus, King of Judea, is succeeded on his death by his widow Alexandra.
78. Death of Sulla.
76. Pompey is sent into Spain to oppose Sertorius.
74. Mithridates renews hostilities; he enters into an abortive alliance with Sertorius. Third Mithridatic War. Lucullus commands the Roman forces.
73. Lucullus routs the army of Mithridates.
Rising of the gladiators; Spartacus collects, on Mount Vesuvius, a numerous army of slaves and gladiators; they overcome the forces sent against them and ravage Southern Italy. The Third Servile War.
72. Sertorius is assassinated in Spain; the Spaniards submit to Pompey.
King Mithridates is driven from his dominions by Lucullus; the King takes refuge in Armenia.
71. Crassus defeats and slays Spartacus; the gladiators are crushed.
70. Death of Alexandra, widow of Jannaeus; she nominates her son, Hyrcanus, as her successor; but his brother, Aristobulus, usurps the throne of Judea.
Pompey and Crassus, previously at variance, are reconciled during their joint consulship.
Cicero’s six orations (the first only being actually delivered) against Verres, who, when governor of Sicily, had plundered the island of property, art treasures, etc.
Birth of Vergil.
69. Lucullus crosses the Euphrates, captures Tigranocerta, and defeats Tigranes, who had succored Mithridates in Armenia.
68. Lucullus defeats Tigranes and takes Nisibis.
67. A mutiny in the Roman army caused by the appointment of Glabrio to succeed Lucullus.
Pompey crushes the pirates of Cilicia and makes it a Roman province.
Julius Caesar is quaestor in Spain.