Part 33

The knights opposed the two laws with the utmost fury; notwithstanding which they were carried, as the Italians came in crowds to Rome, ready to take up arms, if need be. As this had therefore been brought about by the most unlawful means, the majority of the senate, with an infatuation which is beyond belief, resolved, when the Italians were gone, that the promise to the allies should not be kept; and on Drusus’ urging it, he met with a refusal. This gave rise to the most deadly hatred between him and the faithless senate, which accounts for Cicero’s words, _tribunatus Drusi pro senatus auctoritate susceptus infringi jam debilitarique videbatur_.[89] He appeared either in the light of a liar, or a dupe. And even as the knights were displeased with Drusus, so likewise, on the other hand, was the stupid party of the oligarchs then uppermost. They said, “Shall we then for ever place on the same footing with ourselves those three hundred knights who are thorns in our side?” Such people are blind to the inevitable necessity of making some concessions: by merely saying “no!” they think that they can keep everything in its old place. Thus there now happened what, from the nature of the human heart must have come to pass: Drusus, who until then had been a zealous partisan of the government, henceforth began an opposition against the senate which was quite at variance with his former ways. The ruling faction in the senate, as well as the _equites_, wished for the death of Drusus; the consul Philippus was his sworn foe. It was this man who first uttered that terrible saying, that there were not more than two thousand families in Rome which possessed unimpaired property. The unhappy Drusus at once saw himself forsaken. He was a man of a violent temper, and yet he had undertaken that most perilous task of negotiating as a mediator with the Italians; (the Latin colonies were quiet; for as they were sure of being the first enfranchised, they let the others urge their claims, and but few of them had entered into the interests of the Italians.) That curious fragment from the Vatican, which the editor did not understand, and entitled Ὅρκος φιλίππου,[90] gives us the oath which the Italians took. It betokens an association of a very peculiar kind; they bound themselves to obey his orders unconditionally, and to enrol in their districts partisans who would stand by him, as was done thirty years ago in Ireland. Drusus was in such a state, that he could hardly be said any longer to have a will of his own; he was in a perfect fever: had he been fairly supported by those who were in power, he might still have found a way out of his difficulties. But he was already goaded into frenzy; and his behaviour towards Philippus, in which he did things that he ought never to have ventured on, strongly shows in what a fever he must have been. When on the eve of a great debate, he was now walking up and down with his friends in the lobby of his house,--in these corridors which had no windows, and were lit up with candelabras, the men of rank would move about among a throng of people who were assembled there, and give audience,--he was stabbed in the side by an assassin. The man who did it was never discovered, and it is even uncertain by whom he was hired. He had scarcely been dead a few hours, when all his laws, with the exception of those which related to the courts of justice, were annulled; and in doing this, the senate arrogated to itself a power hitherto unheard of.

Drusus’ death fell out at a most unfortunate moment. The Italians were excited to the highest pitch, and yet there was no one to take their part: public opinion at Rome was against them, as if they were rebels; just as perhaps in England the great body of the people were hostile to the emancipation of the Irish Roman Catholics, or, when the American war broke out, to the North Americans. The party of Drusus, which now showed itself again in the senate, was entirely without a head: Crassus had just died; the two Scævolas, M. Antonius, and the wisest men, knew no longer what to advise, and were intimidated. Instead of allaying the storm, people rashly dared it, the knights charging the senate with treason. The former had at their beck a tribune, Q. Varius,--whose right of citizenship was not even certain, as he was born in Spain of a Spanish mother, though his father was a Roman: this was a brutal man, _vastus homo et fœdus_, as Cicero calls him, whose impudence served him instead of talent. He moved that a court should be established to discover the traitors who had negotiated with the Italians about their emancipation; and the bill was carried against the strongest opposition of the first men in the senate, the knights joining for this purpose with the rabble, who indeed were most furious. They appeared in the forum in arms when the question was put to the vote. There sprang up now a vast number of impeachments; several of the very noblest were convicted of having given traitorous encouragement to the Italians. A very remarkable state of feeling had at this time arisen in Rome: the senate acted the part of democrats; the people, headed by the knights, that of the aristocrats; and whereas the former wished to emancipate the Italians, the latter would not do it.

THE SOCIAL WAR. MITHRIDATES. CIVIL WAR BETWEEN THE PARTIES OF MARIUS AND SYLLA. L. CORNELIUS CINNA.

The Social War is one of those periods of Roman history in which the scantiness of our information is particularly annoying. Livy had described the events of those two years in four books; but the only connected narrative which we have, is the scanty one of Appian, and besides this there are some exceedingly brief notices.[91] And yet the Social War is one of the very greatest, not only on account of the passions which were displayed in it on both sides, but also because of the changes in its fortunes, and the excellent generalship which was to be found in both armies.

The first symptoms of a tendency of the allies to separate themselves, are met with even as early as the second Punic war, when the allies in the camp of Scipio mutinied, and chose two consuls from among themselves;[92] the insurrection of Fregellæ followed soon afterwards. The war was not begun by those who had originally planned it, but by the peoples which lived farther off. Which of these was the first to resolve upon it, is more than we know; but it is stated that in the year 662, during the tribuneship of M. Livius Drusus, there was a plot to kill the Roman consuls (Philippus especially) and the senate at the Latin Feast. At that solemnity indeed, the whole of the Roman magistracy (συναρχία), consuls, prætors, and even tribunes of the people, were present; so that there remained behind but a _præfectus urbi Latinarum causa_, who was a young man of rank. Now as the Latins mustered there in strong numbers, it is very probable that it was they who had entertained that design, especially the men of Tibur and Præneste; at the same time, it may have happened that so many Italians came thither, that they on their part, deemed the thing feasible. Drusus heard of this atrocious project, and denounced it: for, even if he had not been a man of honour, he was still a Roman, and he did what he wanted to do, just as much for the advantage of his own country, as from any love which he bore to the allies. After the death of Drusus, the Italians, making no secret of their unmitigated rage, sent round ambassadors, and gave each other hostages for mutual security. The Roman government, on the other hand, appointed commissioners with proconsular power for Picenum, where the commotion was fiercest, to remind the allies of their duty. There being what we would call a diet of the Picentines at Asculum, the proconsul Q. Servilius Cæpio, accompanied by M. or C. Fonteius (I do not exactly remember his _prænomen_[93]), came forward, and ventured to address the people, so as to induce them, either by exhortation or by threats, to desist from their intention. But their minds were so exasperated, that a rash word made them break out; and he and his companion were murdered in the theatre at Asculum. The Italians now wished no longer for the Roman franchise; but they wanted to form a sovereign Italian people, in which all who got out of the grasp of the Romans were to be received. All the Romans who were at Asculum were seized, and most of them slain. In the fragments of Diodorus, among the _excerpta de sententiis_, there is a little story of a harlequin, who was a great favourite with the Romans, and who just then made his appearance in the games at Asculum; the people, believing him to be a Roman, were going to kill him, when he only saved himself by proving that he was a Latin. (In this passage, instead of Σαυνίων, we are to read Σαννίων, the old name for Pulcinella; and this is the first mention of that mask.[94])

The insurrection now broke out everywhere; but the same atrocities do not seem to have been perpetrated among the other peoples as were done by the Picentines at Asculum, who were a cowardly abject race; the Marsians and other nations were quite equal to the Romans in refinement. The Italian peoples who at that time revolted, are mentioned in the Epitome of Livy, and by Orosius: they are the Picentines, Marsians, Marrucinians, Vestinians and Pelignians, the Samnites and Lucanians. Appian speaks also of the Apulians, who indeed were in arms; but it is very likely that they had no share in the Italian state. Those peoples in fact were all of them Sabellians, or Sabine colonies; the others, as well as the Apulians who were Oscans, may have joined them merely as being their dependents. Some of the towns also round the bay of Naples were among those which rebelled; of the Latin colonies, Venusia sided with them. Afterwards, the Umbrians likewise took up arms, and for a short time, the Etruscans as well; but they too did not belong to the republic.

The Italian peoples, according to Appian,[95] who alone has recorded this fact, had established a senate of five hundred persons, and chosen two consuls and twelve prætors, thus altogether adopting the forms of the Roman republic. One consul was Pompædius Silo, the soul of the undertaking, who was a Marsian and the guest-friend of Drusus, with whom he had formerly negotiated; the second was C. Papius Mutilus, a Sabine. And not to speak of this constitution, the nations were very widely distinct from each other: they had been parted for centuries, each standing by itself; so that when they now made themselves independent of Rome, there could not but have been a great temptation to be independent of each other, their principles and pursuits being different. The Samnites, whom afterwards C. Pontius Telesinus led against Rome, that he might, as he said, destroy the den of the wolf, had from of old entertained an implacable hatred against Rome; and indeed Pontius Telesinus himself, who in this war with Sylla showed such undaunted resolution, and whose thoughts were ever bent on Rome’s annihilation, may have sprung from the _Gens Pontia_ of that C. Pontius who had so terribly humbled the Romans at Caudium. The Marsians, on the other hand, had never had a fierce and protracted war with the Romans, as the latter had always faithfully fulfilled their honourable conditions with them. These therefore were quite a heterogeneous element of the league. The seat of the government was Corfinium, in the country of the Pelignians, a small but valiant people, and the town now assumed the name of Italica: denarii are not unseldom found, which have the inscription _Italia_ and _Viteliu_. The latter, which is the Oscan way of writing, belongs to the Samnites; the former, the Latin one, to the Marsians, who had a language of their own, but Latin letters: from this we see that those nations differed also in their languages. Among the Samnites, the Oscan was indeed the prevailing language; the Marsians and their allies were of far purer race than the Sabines, although in a wider sense of the word they were all of them Sabines. There are also coins still existing with the likeness of C. Papius Mutilus.

At the outbreak of the war, the allies had decidedly the advantage. The only thing which saved the Romans, was that the Latin colonies remained true to them; as there is no doubt but that as soon as ever the struggle began, the Romans granted the full franchise to the Latins by the _lex Julia_, which was so called from the consul L. Julius Cæsar. It is a common, but yet an incorrect way of speaking, to say that the Italians had got the rights of citizenship through the _lex Julia_; for they did not get these all at once by one law, but by several distinct enactments which were successively enlarged. Unhappily we know of none of their details. The _lex Julia_ applied to the forty or fifty Latin colonies; and not only to those in Italy, but also to Narbo and Aquæ Sextiæ (the former is mentioned at a later period as _colonia civium Romanorum_), and without doubt to Tibur and Præneste as well, besides those other old Latin towns which had not received all the rights of citizenship in the year 417.[96] To this last class the Hernican towns especially belonged; and perhaps also Venafrum, Atina, and some others, in which at that time there was a _præfectura_. This gave a great increase to the strength of the Romans, who even in the war with Hannibal had thus brought into the field eighty thousand men able to bear arms, all of whom spoke Latin, Roman citizens likewise being mingled with them. It was now seen how foolish it was in the Romans to have let things go so far; for had they turned a deaf ear to the Latins also, Rome would have been lost. This grant of the franchise dates from the beginning of the year.

Although Hiero in his day had still said that the Romans employed none but Italian troops, yet they now carried on the war with soldiers raised from whatever country they could get them, with Gauls, Mauritanians, Numidians, Asiatics: not a place was spared in the levy. Thus by degrees the preponderance of the Italians was balanced by the Latins, and outweighed at last by the foreigners. Moreover, Rome had an immense advantage from her central position, and her colonies which were scattered all over Italy. By her position, she cut off the North from the South; by her colonies, which it was everywhere necessary to beset with troops, the resources of the allies were frittered away.

The history of the war is chiefly to be found in Diodorus and Appian. I have been at much pains about it, and have tried to put the materials in order; yet I have only just barely succeeded in getting anything like a clear notion of it. The scene of the war was in three different districts: there was an army of the south, a central, and a northern army. The southern army of the allies was in Campania as far as the Liris; that of the centre, was from the Liris, all through the country of the Sabines, to the neighbourhood of Picenum; that of the north, in Picenum: here was the utmost boundary of the operations, whilst the Greek towns in the rear of the Italians kept neutral. Nothing whatever is now said of the Bruttians; so much had that unfortunate nation suffered in the war of Hannibal: nor is there any mention of the Messapians, who may already have been entirely hellenized. The Roman colony of Venusia, as we remarked above, took the side of the allies, its population having at length almost become Apulian and Lucanian, so that indeed the Latin language was scarcely any longer the one most in use. In the army of the South, C. Papius Mutilus held the command against the Roman consul L. Julius Cæsar. Mutilus conquered Nola, Muceria, Pompeii, and Stabiæ, and carried the war into Campania. Capua was kept by the Romans; Naples and the Greek cities remained faithful,

## acting as if the war was no concern of theirs. The struggle was very

sharp around Acerræ: at the end of the year, the allies had the best of it.

With the army of the centre, Pompædius, or Poppædius, Silo opposed P. Rutilius Lupus: the former showed himself to have been a great general, and the Roman commander, who was no match for him, lost his life in the battle. But Sylla and Marius were with the army there, which was the main one, as lieutenant-generals; and Rome owed it to these, that limits were put to the success of the enemy. The Latin colony of Æsernia in the midst of Samnium, was conquered by the Samnites. Here was seen the hatred of the colonies against the Italians; for the people of Æsernia, who seem to have had faith in the lucky star of Rome, held out until they were reduced by hunger: the Samnites in the beginning of the siege had certainly offered them a free retreat. The first who had any brilliant success, was Cn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of him who afterwards was called _Magnus_, a _prætor proconsulari potestate_: he had all the profligacy of his age, notwithstanding which he was a distinguished man. He defeated the Picentines in a battle near Asculum, where there were 75,000 Italians against 65,000 Romans: the Romans gained a decisive victory, and a terrible chastisement was inflicted upon Asculum. The Picentines, on the whole, had to suffer most grievously for their conduct. Cn. Pompeius now advanced from the north: the Italian peoples lost their feeling of confidence in victory, and owing to the want of hearty union among themselves, were no longer able to stand their ground. First of all, the Vestinians separated from the rest; and now the Romans held out allurements to the nations singly, granting them peace and the franchise. What the conditions were we know not, though there must have been more than the _civitas sine suffragio_: the Romans, however, must have taken care not to lay down a distinct rule; for afterwards there is a dispute about the meaning of the grant. Velleius Paterculus, a very ingenious writer who was perfectly master of his subject, whatever objections one may have to the man himself, tells us that nearly three hundred thousand Italians who were able to bear arms, perished in this war; and that the Romans had not yielded the citizenship to the Italians, until they had spent the last drop of blood which they had to shed. We may, therefore, take it for granted, that half of the whole number of men engaged on both sides were killed, and that therefore the struggle was carried on with the greatest fury, as in a civil war: hence Appian also places it in his work as such.

In the second year, the war is still less to be made out than in the first: thus much only is certain, that the northern Sabellian peoples also, the Marsians, Marrucinians, and Pelignians, had now a separate peace, even as early perhaps as the end of the first year. These new citizens were not distributed among the old tribes, but others were formed out of them: this was quite in keeping with the system of the ancients, as otherwise the old citizens would have been outnumbered in the assemblies of the people, and in the elections, by the new ones. It is not known for certain how many fresh tribes were created: according to a passage in Velleius, there were eight of them. Another statement in Appian[97] is evidently written wrong: there we find δεκατεύοντες ὰπέφηναν ἑτέρας (viz. φυλάς), from which δέκα φυλάς, has been gathered, though perhaps it would then have been better to read δέκα ἐξ αὐτῶν. Yet, from Appian’s usual way of speaking, it seems to have been δεκαπέντε. My reasons for this, are from a feeling of symmetry: if we add 15 to 35, we have 50; 35 is quite an awkward number, which had grown up by degrees, and at which one would not wish to stop; 15 is to 35 as 3 to 7, and is therefore somewhat less than half of the original number, which was now of necessity to be changed. That Velleius has eight, I account for by the circumstance that the Latins had eight tribes given them, and afterwards the Etruscans and Umbrians got seven.

The number of battles fought in this war, is even beyond belief. Corfinium took again its old name, and the seat of government was transferred to Æsernia; the Samnites now formed the real centre of the war, and they carried it on with the same perseverance as they had done in former times: this was at least the case with the three cantons of the Hirpinians, the Caudines, and the Pentrians. The Romans marched into Apulia, and entirely surrounded the Samnites; so that already by the end of the year 663, the war was well nigh decided. The Samnites indeed still held out; yet there were none in arms besides them, but a part of the Apulians and Lucanians. These peoples went on with the war from despair alone: they either reckoned on the movement in Asia caused by the war of Mithridates, or they had made up their minds to perish.

In this second year of the war, there was also a rising of the Etruscans and the Umbrians: but they soon made their peace with the Romans. Their rebellion took quite a different character from that of the Italians:--a prætor conquers the Etruscans, and they get the franchise at once. The Etruscans had formerly furnished no troops for the Roman army: yet now they were ready to take up arms for an honour to which they had not hitherto attached any value. The Roman of rank had in the Marsian a very dangerous rival for all the offices; whereas, on the other hand, the Etruscan, being as a foreigner quite distinct from the Roman, had far less chance of getting these places. The Marsians were to the Romans very much like what the Germans of the North are to those of the South; and therefore they readily blended with the Romans, whilst the Etruscans were to these, as the French, or the Slavonians are to the Germans. The Samnites, as in olden times, wished for the destruction of Rome.