Part 30

In the commission at Utica, Scaurus was blameless; just as in former times. After Adherbal’s downfall, the consul L. Calpurnius Bestia wished to enrich himself by an African war, or at all events to be able to sell a peace; he therefore joined with some lovers of justice in moving that Jugurtha should be brought to punishment, and he also managed to be sent out to Africa with that commission. The war began in good earnest; but negotiations were soon set on foot, Jugurtha having convinced Bestia and Scaurus that this was more for their advantage. He remained indeed in possession of his kingdom; but to save appearances, he surrendered himself _in fidem populi Romani_; so that the senate only had to ratify the peace, the _fœdus_ being changed into a _clientela_. He delivered up the deserters, thirty elephants, and much cattle; and he bound himself to pay several instalments of money. Yet the whole thing was but a vile farce. Instead of the deserters being sent to Rome, where they were to be put to death, they were allowed to run away; and the elephants were returned to Jugurtha for money. This treaty, however, raised such an outcry at Rome, that a bold tribune of the name of C. Memmius got the people to have the matter inquired into; and L. Cassius, who at that time was honoured as the justest of men, was commissioned personally to investigate the case in Africa itself. Cassius, beyond all doubt, was a man of very high rank,--a patrician,[82] but not identified with any party: being himself pure in a corrupt time, he condemned without any respect of persons. Cassius’ word of honour was of such weight, that Jugurtha on the strength of it deemed himself quite safe in going to Rome, and publicly making his appearance there. Here we find Jugurtha--and this is a marked feature in the whole of his deportment--wavering between his own boldness and the feeling that he was not able to withstand the power of Rome. He was on the point of giving up his accomplices; but a tribune of the people had been bribed to forbid his speaking, just as he was getting up in the assembly of the people. Thus the authority of the tribunes had become powerful for evil, but powerless for good. During his stay in Rome, Jugurtha caused another descendant of Masinissa, Massiva, a young Numidian, who likewise happened to be there at the very time, and to whom the consul Sp. Albinus had held out a hope of the succession, to be murdered: after this he fled from the city, leaving his sureties behind. The consul Albinus and the senate now declared the negotiations for peace to have been null and void; yet the guilty still remained unpunished. The war was renewed in Africa, but in a lukewarm manner. The consul Sp. Albinus, who had the chief command, wished for war; but his arrangements were bad. As he had to return to Rome for the consular elections, he intrusted the command to his brother Aulus, who behaved in such a bungling way that he was surrounded by the enemy. Jugurtha now plied the army with his money, and not only mere foreigners, but even Roman tribunes were bribed; so that when the time came for attacking Albinus, he was utterly overpowered, and his camp was taken. He was forced to make a disgraceful treaty, which, however, was disowned at Rome.

Things could now no longer be hushed up. Metellus got the command with ample forces to carry on the war. Three _quæsitores_ were now to be appointed, and thus Scaurus was in danger of being involved in the enquiry: but, according to Sallust’s account, he played his cards so well, that, instead of being impeached, he himself became one of the _quæsitores_, and proceeded against the accused only so far as seemed consistent with his own safety. A great number were condemned, and the slow vengeance for the murder of C. Gracchus now reached L. Opimius. It is inconceivable how Cicero is mistaken with regard to the latter: no man’s judgment indeed ought to be implicitly followed. Those who fell at that time, were certainly all of them guilty. Unfortunately, we have no exact knowledge of these _quæstiones_; but thus much is certain, that the _optimates_, who wanted to pass themselves off as being the best, received by the exposure of the infamy of some among them, a blow from which they never recovered. The _equites_, as judges, now took a decided part against the senators: it would have been most interesting for us, if we could have had further details about it. Here begins the split which afterwards led to the civil war between the factions of Marius and Sylla. Calpurnius Bestia was likewise condemned; of the fate of others we know very little.

Metellus was the son of Macedonicus, and has the surname of Numidicus. He is one of those characters which people are very apt to see in a wrong light:--a noble-hearted man, he cannot be called without qualification; he was, though a plebeian, fully imbued with the prejudices and jealousies of the nobility. From a child, he had come to the conviction that the government ought to be honestly carried on: he was the patron of men of low degree who were making their way upwards; for he loved merit, so long as it kept within bounds, and did not aspire to the very highest place. This accounts for his behaviour to Marius, to whom at first he showed kindness; for as soon as Marius stood for the consulship, he was so blinded by his rage that he became his enemy. To this very day, one meets among the high English nobility with men like Metellus, who look upon the privileges of their order as the first inviolable rights, and whenever offences committed by any of their own body come to light, will step in with their protection to prevent an exposure. Thus the remarkable character of Metellus becomes quite clear: he was estimable for the integrity of his motives, but utterly incapable of being just. He spurned all the offers of Jugurtha against whom he used his own Punic arts, so that that prince was obliged to disarm entirely as the price of hopes which were never fulfilled; and when Jugurtha wished actually to buy himself off from the ruin which he clearly saw before his eyes, Metellus put forth conditions which would have rendered him quite defenceless. At last, Metellus demanded, that he should appear in person; this Jugurtha refused to do, and the war broke out afresh. Metellus carried it on for two years; and though he was sometimes worsted, he deserves very great praise for the manner in which he overcame the difficulties which he had to encounter: several of his undertakings are some of the most brilliant in history. Jugurtha, on the whole, avoided pitched battles; he risked an engagement only once, and then he was beaten. We now again see that mixture of cowardice and boldness which there was in him, and his inability to meet his fate. He wanted to surrender to Metellus, and had already given up all his arms, all his elephants, and two hundred thousand pounds of silver; but when he was to yield up his own person, he withdrew into the wilds of mount Atlas, having now stripped himself of all his resources. Thus the war was protracted in spite of the efforts of Metellus, and the opinion gained ground in Rome, that he had purposely allowed it to drag on: yet there was no reason for doubting his disinterestedness and incorruptibility. He was a great general and statesman, and his personal character stood high; but his pretensions were unbearable. They may indeed have been the ruin of the country: that fearful irritability which we afterwards find in Marius, would never have been roused, had not the _optimates_ done everything in their power to crush him.

On the subject of Marius’ birth, even the ancients were not agreed. Some of them make him out to have been of a very low origin; others (Velleius Paterculus) place him somewhat higher: certain it is that his ancestors were clients of a municipal family in Arpinum, from which, however, it does not follow that they were serfs. The name is Oscan, and it is likely that his family had come from Campania to Arpinum, where it had entered into the clientship of the Herennii. At all events, he was poor, and had served as a private soldier, and before that, even as a day labourer. His extraordinary qualities must have displayed themselves very soon: at an early age, he was known at Rome as an able centurion; and when he applied for the military tribuneship, he was elected with great applause. Otherwise, it was very seldom indeed--particularly in those later times--that any one who had been in the ranks, was ever raised to the higher military commands. Marius rose without the help of any connexions or relations; yet he must have made some money, or he could not have stood for the ædileship, on which occasion he failed. Notwithstanding this repulse, he got the prætorship, which office he discharged very creditably; and though the oligarchs even then gave him trouble by charging him with _ambitus_, he kept his ground against them. In was in those days already most common for candidates to spend money; and yet every one would try and fix this charge upon his opponents, that he might drive them out of the field. He was now with the army of Metellus as a _legatus_: for the higher employments were by no means permanent. For a _homo novus_ to become a prætor, was at that time not at all a thing unheard of; but that he should have risen to the consular dignity, was, according to Sallust’s description, all but an impossibility. Of the six prætors moreover, four, as a matter of course, could not become consuls: the children of a prætor, however, were not _homines novi_.

Marius distinguished himself in Numidia. He was then indeed an elderly man already, even as I am now (1829), somewhat past fifty. He was moreover superstitious. We here meet for the first time with a superstition which is to be traced to the East; for he had with him a Syrian (or perhaps a Jewish) fortune teller of the name of Martha, by whose prophecies he allowed himself to be guided. As he was offering a sacrifice, he beheld an _omen_ by which every thing that was highest in the state was promised him; and this gave him courage to stand for the consulship. Metellus advised him not to do it, tried to keep him back, and thwarted him in an underhand way; nay, when Marius declared that he would positively become a candidate, he forgot himself so far as to tell him, that he need not forsooth be in such a hurry; and that indeed it would be still time enough for him to be thrown out, when his own son should stand. That son was then twenty years old, and by the _leges annales_ no one could be a consul until he was about forty years of age. Marius never forgot this: he felt bitterly offended, and caused the people to be canvassed by his friends in Rome, on which Metellus seemingly yielded, in the hope that he would be too late: for he gave him leave of absence but twelve days before the elections. But Marius by dint of wonderful exertions reached the coast; and the wind being fair, he arrived in Rome, even making his appearance before the day of the election, and was almost unanimously chosen consul.

Whilst C. Gracchus is unjustly called a demagogue, this name may well be given to Marius, who was one in every sense of the word; for he would fawn upon the lowest rabble as others would upon powerful individuals, and delight in appearing to the common people as if he were one of them. He was not suited to those times: for he had a sensitive pride which was continually wounded, and thus he fell into those unhappy ways which have disgraced him. Moreover, it was then looked upon as indispensable for a man of rank to be well versed in the manners, and literature, and language of the Greeks; just as those of the French were deemed essential in Germany, even to the days of my youth. Old Cato learned Greek only late; yet he learned it, and was well read in the literature of his own country. Unlike him, Marius did not cling to the old traditions which began already to vanish away, and he disdained modern refinement, because he knew nothing of it: he spoke Greek, it is true, which at that time was quite necessary in society, but he despised it. His honesty was without a stain: for though his great wealth must have been acquired in war, he was held to be a _vir sanctus_, since he had not robbed the commonwealth as the greater part of his contemporaries had done. From this we may judge of the state of morals then. Fabricius, Curius, and others, who centuries before had likewise been called _sancti_, were also poor. Marius was a first-rate general, the consciousness of which carried him high: he was great in drawing up an army, especially in the day of battle, unrivalled in his mode of conducting a campaign, and just as skilful in encampment. But he had few friends: the leading features of his character were bitterness and hatred, and he was cruel and unamiable. Fate had raised him up to save Rome, the degeneracy of which is to be charged upon those who crushed and irritated so extraordinary, so distinguished a man. Metellus was an ordinary general: had he ever had to face Marius in the field, he would at once have been beaten. Marius, on the contrary, was no common commander; besides the greatest foresight in making his preparations, he was gifted with unbounded energy to execute, and with a quickness of eye which could see everything at a glance. It was his hatred against the so-called _optimates_, which, perhaps without his being aware of it, led him into his many unrighteous acts against them.

The tribunes of the people at Rome now moved that the province of Numidia should, out of turn, be the first assigned; and as this was unanimously agreed to by the people, Marius got the chief command. Metellus again showed his littleness of mind. Not being able to brook the sight of his successor, he stole away, leaving the army to his legate Rutilius, an excellent man, who afterwards became a victim to party spirit, as he went over to the other side: for, as hitherto the oligarchical faction had shown itself malignant, so did the democrats in their turn, now that they had got the upperhand. Marius ended the war with Jugurtha in less than two years, having displayed the greatest ability and boldness. Sallust particularly mentions, how in the siege of Capsa, he put to flight the enemy’s cavalry, &c. The Romans did not advance much beyond Cirta; Jugurtha went to Bocchus, king of the Mauritanians, a connexion of his by marriage. This prince at first had taken up arms on his side; but he soon listened to the proposal of the Romans, to make his peace with them by betraying his ally. This was done after a great deal of negotiation, Bocchus having wavered for a long time, and even thought of arresting Sylla, by whom this business was transacted: at length he gave up Jugurtha, who was now led by Marius in his triumph. Part of Numidia was united with the province of Africa; most of it, however, was left as an independent kingdom, the kings of which in all likelihood--in what way, we do not know--belonged to Masinissa’s house. Juba, in the time of Cæsar’s wars, was descended from the nameless king who then succeeded. Bocchus was acknowledged as an independent sovereign.

WAR WITH THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.

The war in Africa had come to an end, and it was high time that it should; for the republic had quite a different employment for Marius, in comparison with which the war against Jugurtha was mere child’s play. The Cimbri and Teutones were expected on the frontiers of Italy, and they had already routed the armies of Manlius and Cæpio. Contrary to all existing rules, Marius at the unanimous call of the nation was made consul; for the laws both forbade the choice of a man who was absent from the city, and required that ten years should elapse between two consulships of the same person. Marius had his triumph the new year’s day on which he entered upon his second consulate.

The Cimbri[83] were not, properly speaking, Gaels; but they were akin to the Cymri, the inhabitants of the greater part of the western coast of England, of Wales, and of Cumberland (which has its name from them, and where even so late as a hundred years ago, traces of the Cymric tongue were met with): the _Basbretons_ also belonged to the same race. Whether any Cymri dwelt in Ulster, is problematical: the Picts were likewise of the Cymric stock; and so were the Belgians: for though these were not unmingled with Gaels, the Cymri must have been predominant among them. On their great migration, they went in the fourth or fifth century to the borders of the Ukraine, and ruled as Celto-Scythians as far as the banks of the Dnieper, or even beyond: there they were called Galatians. Owing to circumstances of which we have no exact knowledge, very likely in consequence of the advance of the Sarmatians or Sclavonians, they were driven out of their settlements,--and they fell back upon their countrymen in Moldavia, Wallachia, Hungary, and the neighbouring countries: they first of all expelled the Bastarnians; then the Scordiscans and Tauriscans; and in 639, before the outbreak of the war with Jugurtha, they threw themselves upon the country of the Noricans in Carniola and Carinthia. Here, on the frontier of Italy, were the abodes of the Carnians and other Gallic tribes, which, though not subject to the Romans, were of course in a state of dependence, as is always the case with small nations when they are neighbours of great ones. The Cimbri made their appearance on the banks of the middle Danube and in Bohemia, and attacked the Boians; but they were repelled. It must have been while they were on the middle Danube, that they fell upon every people which they met with, and leagued themselves with the Teutones. These, as even their name seems to show, were of German stock, quite as certainly as the Cimbri were of Gallic race in the widest sense of the word (thus many Gallic words are found in the Cymric language, and there is a general affinity between them, although Gauls and Cymri did not understand each other). The Teutones may, like the Cimbri, have been chased out of the East by the advance of the Sarmatians: if what we are told from the travels of Pytheas be true, and he fell in with the Teutones on the eastern coast of Prussia, it is likely that they were pushed on from northern Poland by the Sarmatians. In Gaul they clearly appear as the allies of the Cimbrians, and the names of the leaders betoken a Gallic and a German people. When now they rushed forth from Noricum, either together or in separate hosts, the Romans came to the help of the Carnians, and the consul Cn. Papirius Carbo, in all likelihood a son of him who had been driven by Crassus to commit suicide, was defeated and killed near Noreia by the Cimbrians, and his whole army perished with him. But the barbarians did not follow up their victory, nor did they penetrate into Italy; but, what is very strange, they overran the bleak provinces of Austria and Bavaria north of the Alps, which were then inhabited by Celts, and thus went on to Gaul. At the general break up which ensued, they were also joined by the Tigurini, who were Gauls from Helvetia, and by the Ambrones: whence these last came, is more than we can say; most likely, they were Ligurians from the Alps. All of these moved into Gaul, bringing with them a countless number of waggons with women, children, and booty; and now the four peoples, sometimes in one huge host, at other times apart, burst upon the civilized world. It is difficult to say where they defeated either Silanus or Scaurus; for our accounts are scanty beyond belief, as Livy fails us here, and the seventeen books of Dio Cassius which we have not, were also no longer to be found by Zonaras. It might be inferred from one statement, that the Romans advanced as far as the neighbourhood of Rochelle, between Poitou and the Garonne. They had to suffer another defeat under the consul L. Cassius Longinus, near the lake of Geneva, and they purchased their retreat with the loss of half their baggage. Although they wished to protect the Transalpine Gauls, all their efforts were unsuccessful. The devastation of Gaul by these wars was one of the most dreadful calamities ever known: the whole of the country bounded by the Rhone, even from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, was ravaged, which may account for its weakened state in the days of Cæsar; the towns were taken and laid waste, and the inhabitants cruelly treated. Of all the Gallic tribes, the Belgians alone could stand their ground. The worst defeat which the Romans sustained, was on the banks of the Rhone, the year after the consulship of Marius, under the consul Cn. Mallius and the proconsul Cæpio. That eighty thousand Romans and Italians were killed, does not look at all historical;--if that number be correct, many Gallic auxiliaries must have been with them;--but the statement, according to Orosius, seems to rest merely on the authority of Valerius Antias. At all events, both of the Roman armies were completely routed. But most providentially for Rome, when Gaul had everywhere been ransacked, the Cimbri and Teutones, either deterred by the Alps, or perhaps because they also feared the Romans more than they did any other people, turned towards Spain, which country they overran, as the Romans were utterly unable to protect it. Even those places which surrendered to them were horribly treated; and this led the Celtiberians to stand sieges in which they were at last driven to feed on dead bodies, rather than fall into the hands of barbarians. This resolute spirit made the invaders give up all thoughts of conquering Spain, and they retreated back again into Gaul.