CHAPTER XII

THE STRUGGLE OF THE OPTIMATES AND THE POPULARES: 133–78 B. C.

*Civil war and imperial expansion.* The century which began with the year 133 B. C. is characterized by a condition of perpetual factional strife within the Roman state; strife which frequently blazed forth into civil war and which culminated in the fall of the republican system of government.

The question at issue was the right of the Senate to direct the policy of Rome, and this right was challenged by the tribunate and the Assembly of Tribes, by the equestrian order, and by the great military leaders who appeared in the course of civil and foreign wars.

For in spite of these unceasing internal disorders this century marks an imperial expansion which rivalled that of the era of the Punic and Macedonian Wars. In Gaul the Roman sway was extended to the Rhine and the Ocean; in the east practically the whole peninsula of Asia Minor, as well as Syria and Egypt, was incorporated in the Empire. With the exception of Mauretania (i. e. modern Morocco, which was really a Roman dependency) the Roman provinces completely encircled the Mediterranean.

At the same time a new Italian nation was created by the admission to Roman citizenship of all the peoples dwelling in Italy south of the Alps.

The period 133 to 78 B. C. covers the first stage in the struggle which brought the Republic to an end, and closes with the Senate in full possession of its old prerogatives, while the powers of the tribunate and Assembly have been seriously curtailed. In this struggle the Roman citizen body was aligned in two groups. The one, which supported the claims of the Senate, was called the party of the “Optimates” or aristocrats; the other, which challenged these claims, was known as the people’s party or the “Populares.”

I. THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS: 133 B. C.

*Tiberius Gracchus, tribune, 133 B. C.* The opening of the struggle was brought on by the agrarian legislation proposed by Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune for the year 133 B. C. Gracchus, then thirty years of age, was one of the most prominent young Romans of his time, being the son of the consul whose name he bore and of Cornelia, daughter of the great Scipio Africanus. Under his mother’s supervision, he had received a careful education, which included rhetoric and Greek Stoic philosophy. As quaestor in Spain in 136 he had distinguished himself for courage and honesty in dealing with the native population and had acquainted himself with the military needs of Rome. He saw in the decline of the free peasantry of Italy the chief menace to the state, and when elected to the tribunate proposed legislation which aimed to re-establish the class of free Roman farmers, and thus provide new strength for the Roman armies.

*The land law.* His proposed land law took the form of a re-enactment of a previous agrarian measure dating, probably, from the end of the third century B. C. This law had restricted the amount of public land which any person might occupy to five hundred iugera (about three hundred and ten acres), an amount which Gracchus augmented by two hundred and fifty iugera for each of two grown sons. All land held in excess of this limit was to be surrendered to the state, further occupation of public land was forbidden, and what was within the legal limit was to be declared private property. Compensation for improvements on surrendered lands was offered to the late occupants, and a commission of three men was to be annually elected with judicial powers to decide upon the rights of possessors (_III vir agris iudicandis assignandis_). The land thus resumed by the state was to be assigned by the commissioners to landless Roman citizens in small allotments, incapable of alienation, and subject to a nominal rental to the state.

*Deposition of the tribune Octavius.* This proposal aroused widespread consternation among the Senators, who saw their holdings threatened. In many cases it had doubtless become impossible for them to distinguish between their private properties and the public lands occupied by their families for several generations. The Senate resorted to its customary procedure in protecting its prerogatives and induced a tribune named Octavius to veto the measure. But Gracchus was terribly in earnest with his project of reform and took the unprecedented step of appealing to the Assembly of the Tribes to depose Octavius, on the ground that he was thwarting the will of the people. The Assembly voiced their approval of Tiberius by depriving his opponent of his office. The land bill was thereupon presented to the Assembly and passed. The first commissioners elected to carry it into effect were Tiberius himself, his younger brother Caius, and his father-in-law, Appius Claudius.

*Death of Tiberius Gracchus.* To equip the allotments made to poor settlers, Tiberius proposed the appropriation of the treasure of King Attalus III of Pergamon, to which the Roman state had lately fallen heir. Here was a direct attack upon the Senate’s customary control of such matters. But before this proposal could be presented to the Comitia, the elections to the tribunate for 132 fell due. Tiberius determined to present himself for re-election in order to ensure the carrying out of his land law and to protect himself from prosecution on the ground of the unconstitutionality of some of his actions. Such a procedure was unusual, if not illegal, and the Senate determined to prevent it at any cost. The elections culminated in a riot in which Gracchus and three hundred adherents were massacred by the armed slaves and clients of the senators. Their bodies were thrown into the Tiber. A judicial commission appointed by the Senate sought out and punished the leading supporters of the murdered tribune.

*The fate of the land commission.* However, the land law remained in force and the commission set to work. But in 129 B. C. the commissioners were deprived of their judicial powers, and, since they could no longer expropriate land, their activity practically ceased.

Still, the Senate’s opponents were not utterly crushed. In 131 an attempt was made to legalize re-election to the tribunate, and although the proposal failed at first, a law to that effect was passed some time prior to 123 B. C. In the year 129 died Scipio Aemilianus, the conqueror of Carthage and Numantia, the foremost Roman of the day. Upon returning from Spain in 132 he had energetically taken sides with the Senate and had caused the land commissioners to lose their right of jurisdiction. Thereby he had become exceedingly unpopular with the Gracchan party, and when he died suddenly in his fifty-sixth year, there were not wanting those who accused his wife Sempronia, sister of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, and others of their family, of being responsible for his decease.

II. THE TRIBUNATE OF CAIUS GRACCHUS: 124–121 B. C.

*Caius Gracchus, tribune, 123 B. C.* The return of Caius Gracchus from his quaestorship in Sardinia in 124 B. C. and his immediate election to the tribunate for the ensuing year heralded the opening of a new phase in the conflict between the Optimates and the Populares. Caius was a passionate orator, and a man of greater energy and more violent temperament than his brother. He entered office pledged to support the agrarian policy of Tiberius, but likewise determined to avenge the latter’s death and to wrest from the Senate its control of the government.

*The legislation of Caius Gracchus, 123 B. C.* Upon assuming office Caius developed an extensive legislative program. Extraordinary judicial commissions established by the Senate were declared illegal and the ex-consul Popilius who had been the leader in the prosecution of the followers of Tiberius, was forced into exile. A law was passed which provided for a monthly distribution of grain to the city populace at one half the current market price. In this way an expedient which had occasionally been resorted to in times of distress was laid as a permanent obligation upon the government. It has been pointed out above that the lower classes in the city lived in perpetual danger of famine, and Caius probably hoped to relieve the state of the perpetual menace of a hungry proletariat at the capital by improving the arrangements for the city’s grain supply and lowering the cost of grain to the poor. But in the end this measure had the evil results of putting a severe drain upon the treasury and a premium upon idleness. For the moment, however, it made the city mob devoted adherents of Caius and strengthened his control of the Assembly. The land law of 133 B. C. was re-enacted and the land commissioners reclothed with judicial authority. In connection therewith there was undertaken the extension and improvement of the road system of Italy. Caius then assured himself of the support of the financial interests by a law which provided that the whole revenue from the new province of Asia should be auctioned off at Rome in a lump to Roman contractors. A rich field was thus opened up to the Roman bankers.

*Caius re-elected tribune for 122 B. C.* The activity of Caius in supervising the execution of his legislation made him the leading figure in the government, and he was re-elected to the tribunate for 122 B. C. It seemed as though a sort of Periclean democracy had been established in Rome, where the statesman who commanded a majority in the popular assembly by securing his continuous re-election to the tribunate might supplant the Senate in directing the public policy.

*The Judiciary Law, 123 B. C.* Gracchus continued his legislative activity. One of his most important laws was that which deprived senators of the right to act as judges in the courts, including the permanent _quaestiones_, and transferred this prerogative to the equestrians. This was probably done by defining the qualifications of jurors in such a way as to exclude both senators and those not potentially able to maintain the equipment of a cavalryman at their own expense, i. e. those assessed at less than 400,000 sesterces ($20,000). By the Acilian Law of 123, which reorganized the _quaestio_ for the recovery of damages, the relatives of senators, who were still eligible to the eighteen equestrian centuries, were specifically excluded from serving as jurors. In this way the equestrian order in its widest sense was defined and, being given specific public duties, was rendered more conscious of its power and special interests. In consequence the permanent tribunal for trying officials charged with extortion in the provinces was manned by _equites_ instead of senators. But the change brought no relief to the subjects of Rome for this court was now composed of men who were interested in the financial exploitation of the provincials and who thus were in a position to intimidate a governor who endeavored to restrain the rapacity of tax collectors and money-lenders. The control of the law courts became a standing bone of contention between the Senate and the equestrian order. Another law, which further restricted the powers of the Senate, dealt with the allotment of the consular provinces. Previously these had been assigned by the Senate after the election of the consuls, so that the activities of one distrusted by the senators could be considerably restricted. For the future the consular provinces had to be designated prior to the elections and then assigned to the successful candidates. The Senate’s control over the consuls was thereby considerably weakened.

*Schemes for **colonization** and **extension** of Roman **citizenship**.* Caius also secured the passage of an extensive scheme of colonization, which provided for the establishment of Roman colonies at Capua and Tarentum, and, what was an innovation, for a colony outside of Italy on the site of Carthage. He further championed the cause of the Latin and Italian allies, for whom he sought to secure Roman citizenship. The Senatorial party thereupon endeavored to undermine his influence with the people by proposing through the tribune Livius Drusus a more extensive scheme of colonization, with exemption from rentals for colonists, and opposing the extension of the franchise to the allied communities, a measure unpopular with the masses who were jealous of sharing their privileges with numbers of new citizens.

*The overthrow of Caius Gracchus: 121 B. C.* Caius personally undertook the foundation of the colony, named Junonia, which was located at Carthage, and his absence of seventy days on this mission gave the opposition time to organize their forces. His enemies accused him of aiming at a tyranny, his proposal for extension of the franchise was quashed by the veto of Drusus, and he himself failed to secure his election as tribune for 121. With the opening of that year the Senate initiated an attack upon some of his measures, especially the founding of Junonia. The senators were determined to impeach or kill Gracchus, while he and his friends organized themselves for defence. A riot in which one of the senatorial faction was killed gave the Senate the pretext to proclaim a state of martial law and authorize the consul Opimius to take any steps to safeguard the state. The followers of Gracchus assembled on the Aventine, their overtures were rejected and upon the refusal of Caius and his chief adherent Flaccus to appear before the Senate, Opimius attacked them at the head of the Senators, armed slaves and Cretan archers. The Gracchans were routed; Caius had himself killed by a faithful slave, and a judicial commission condemned three thousand of his followers.

*The consequences of the Gracchan disorders.* The memory of the Gracchi retained a lasting hold upon the affections of the Roman plebs. But although both were earnest patriots, who made a sincere attempt to reform existing abuses in the state, one cannot but feel that the success of their political aims would have brought about no permanent improvement. To substitute for the Senate the fickle Assembly as the governing force in the state was no true democratic measure owing to the fact that the Assembly did not properly represent the mass of the citizen body, and as the future years were to show, would merely have shifted the reins of power from one incompetent body to another more incompetent still. As it was, the Senate, although victorious, emerged from the contest weakened in authority and prestige, and having left a feeling of bitter resentment in the hearts of its opponents. It owed its success to violence and not to legal measures and thus offered a precedent which others might follow against itself. The alliance between the equestrians and the urban proletariat while it lasted had proven stronger than the Senate, and this lesson, too, was not lost upon future statesmen. Besides the loss of some of its prerogatives, the Senate was weakened by the consolidation of the business interests as a political party, with which it was brought into sharp opposition over the question of provincial government. Well might Caius Gracchus declare that by his judiciary law he had “thrust a dagger into the side of the Senate.” For the provincials, the result of this law was to usher in an era of increased oppression and misgovernment. The refusal of the Romans to grant the franchise to the allies served to estrange them still further from Rome. On the whole we may say that conditions in Rome, Italy and the provinces were worse after the time of the Gracchi than before.

*Fate of the agrarian legislation.* It is impossible to estimate how many Romans received allotments of land under the Gracchan laws. Although the census list rose from 317,000 in 136 to 394,000 in 125, we cannot ascribe this increase altogether to an increase in the number of small proprietors. The admission of freedmen to citizenship doubtless accounts for many. Still there was beyond question a decided addition made to the free peasantry. The colony of Junonia was abandoned, but the settlers in Africa were left undisturbed on their lands. By 120 the restrictions on the sale of allotments in Italy were withdrawn; in 118 assignments ceased; and in 111 rentals to the state were abolished and all lands then held in possession were declared private property; an enactment which benefited greatly the wealthy proprietors.

III. THE WAR WITH JUGURTHA AND THE RISE OF MARIUS

*Foreign wars of the Gracchan Age.* While the Senate and the Gracchi were struggling for the mastery in Rome, the Roman state engaged in continual frontier struggles, particularly on the northern borders of Italy and Macedonia. Most of these wars were of slight importance, but one resulted in the occupation of the Balearic Islands, in 123–122, which gave Rome full command of the sea route to Spain. Another, still more important, was that waged between 125 and 123 in answer to an appeal from Massalia against the Ligurian Salyes to the north of that city. Their subjugation gave the Romans the command of the route across the Maritime Alps from Italy to Gaul. The fortress of Aquae Sextiae was established to guard this passage.

*The Roman advance in Transalpine Gaul.* It now became the object of the Romans to secure the land route to Spain. But beyond the territory of their ally Massalia the way was blocked by powerful coalitions of Gallic tribes. Chief among these were the Allobroges to the east of the Rhone, the Arverni the greatest of all, whose territory lay west of that river, from the Loire to the Pyrenees, and the Aedui, to the north of the Arverni. The Romans made an alliance with the latter people who were at enmity with the other two, and attacked the Allobroges because they had received fugitives from the Salyes. The Arverni were drawn into the conflict on the side of the Allobroges.

*The province of Narbonese Gaul.* In 121 B. C. both these peoples were decisively beaten in a great battle near the junction of the Isère and the Rhone by the consul Fabius Maximus and the proconsul Domitius. The Romans were now masters of all southern Gaul, except Massalia, and organized it as a province. In 118 B. C. a Roman colony was established at Narbo, which was with the exception of the abandoned settlement of Junonia, the first colony of Roman citizens sent beyond the Italian peninsula, although colonies with Latin rights had been founded in Spain long before. To link Italy with Spain there was constructed the _via Domitia_, a military road traversing the new province.

*The Jugurthine War.* It was not long before Rome became involved in a much more serious conflict that was destined to reveal to the world the rottenness and incapacity of its ruling class, and to reawaken internal political strife. In 118 B. C. occurred the death of Micipsa, who had succeeded Masinissa as king of Numidia. Micipsa left his kingdom to be ruled jointly by his two sons, Adherbal and Hiempsal, and a nephew, Jugurtha. The latter was an able, energetic, but ambitious and unscrupulous prince, who had gained a good knowledge of Roman society through serving in the Roman army before Numantia. However, the three soon quarreled and divided the kingdom. It was not long before Jugurtha caused Hiempsal to be assassinated and drove Adherbal from the country. The latter fled to Rome to appeal for aid, on the basis of the alliance with Rome which he had inherited from his ancestors. Thereupon Jugurtha sent his agents, with well filled purses, to plead his case before the Senate. So successful was he that a Roman commission appointed to divide Numidia between himself and Adherbal gave him the western or richest part of the kingdom. But Jugurtha’s aim was to rule over the whole of Numidia, and so he provoked Adherbal to war. In 113 B. C. he succeeded in besieging him in his capital, Cirta, which was defended chiefly by Italians who had settled there for commercial reasons. Two Roman commissions sent to investigate the situation succumbed to Jugurtha’s diplomacy, and Cirta was forced to surrender. Adherbal and all its defenders were put to death.

*Rome declares war.* The slaughter of so many Italians raised a storm in Rome, where the business elements and populace forced the Senate, which was inclined to wink at Jugurtha’s disregard of its African settlement, to declare war. In 111 a Roman army under the consul Bestia invaded Numidia. Again Jugurtha resorted to bribes and secured terms of peace from the consul after a sham submission. However, the opponents of the Senate saw through the trick and forced an investigation. Jugurtha was summoned to come to Rome under safe conduct to give evidence as to his relations with the Roman officials in Numidia. He came and contrived to buy the intervention of two tribunes who prevented his testimony from being taken. But, relying too much upon his ability to buy immunity for any action, he ventured to procure the assassination in Rome itself of a rival claimant to the Numidian throne (110 B. C.). His friends in the Senate dared protect him no longer and he had to leave Italy.

*A Roman defeat, 109 B. C.* The war reopened but the first operations ended in the early part of 109 B. C. with the defeat and capitulation of a Roman army, which was forced to pass under the yoke, to be released when its commander consented to a recognition of Jugurtha’s position and an alliance between him and Rome. In this shameful episode bribery and treachery had played their part. The terms were rejected at Rome, and a tribunician proposal to try those guilty of misconduct with Jugurtha was ratified by the Assembly. In the same year the consul Metellus took command in Africa. One of his officers was Caius Marius. Marius was born of an equestrian family at Arpinum; he served in the cavalry under Scipio Aemilianus in the Numantine War; engaged with success in the handling of state contracts; became tribune in 119, praetor in 116, and propraetor in Spain in 115 B. C. He was able and ambitious and chafed under the disdain with which he as a “new man” was treated by the senatorial aristocrats.

*Marius, consul: 107 B. C.* Metellus, in contrast to the former commanders against Jugurtha, was both energetic and honorable. He began a methodical devastation of Numidia, and forced Jugurtha to abandon the field and resort to guerilla warfare. He also tried to stir up disloyalty among the king’s followers. But he failed to kill or capture the latter, which alone would terminate the war. Hence when he scornfully refused the request of Marius to be allowed to return and stand for the consulship in 108, Marius intrigued to get the command transferred to himself, alleging that Metellus was purposely prolonging the campaign. Finally, Metellus saw fit to let him go and he was elected consul for the following year. However, the Senate, wishing to keep Metellus in command, had not designated Numidia as a consular province. And so the popular party passed a law in the Assembly of the Tribes which conferred the command against Jugurtha upon Marius. The Senate yielded to this encroachment upon its prerogatives and Marius superseded Metellus in 107. His quaestor was Lucius Cornelius Sulla, scion of a decayed patrician family, who was destined to become the bitter rival of his chief.

*The end of the war: 107–105 B. C.* Marius continued the methodical subjugation of Numidia, but Jugurtha was strengthened by an alliance with his father-in-law Bocchus, king of Mauretania. However, Marius won several hard fought battles over the forces of both kings, and finally, through the agency of Sulla, detached Bocchus from the cause of Jugurtha. Bocchus treacherously seized his son-in-law and handed him over to the Romans. This brought the war to an end. Numidia was divided among princes friendly to Rome, and Marius returned to triumph in Rome, and to find himself elected consul for the year 104 in defiance of precedent, owing to the fear of a barbarian invasion of Italy from the north and the popular confidence in him engendered by his African successes. Jugurtha, after gracing his victor’s triumph, perished in a Roman dungeon.

*Consequences of the war.* The corruptibility and incapacity, combined with an utter lack of public responsibility, displayed by the senators in this war contributed to further weaken the already diminished prestige of their order. Besides it had again been demonstrated that a coalition of the equestrians and the city populace could control the public policy, and in the person of Marius, the war had produced a leader upon whom they could unite.

IV. THE INVASION OF THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONS

*The movements of the Cimbri and Teutons.* The fear of a barbarian invasion of Italy which caused Marius to be elected to his second consulship was occasioned by the wanderings of a group of Germanic and Celtic peoples, chief of which were the Cimbri and the Teutons. In 113 B. C. the former, a Germanic tribe, invaded the country of the Taurisci, allies of Rome, who dwelt north of the Alps. A Roman army sent to the rescue was defeated. The Cimbri then moved westwards to the Rhine, where they were joined by the Teutons (Toygeni), who were probably a branch of the Celtic Helvetii, by the Tigurini, another division of the same people, and by the Ambrones, a tribe of uncertain origin. In 111, the united peoples crossed the Rhine into Gaul and came into conflict with the Romans in the new province. Two years later the consul Julius Silanus was defeated by the Cimbri, who demanded lands for settlement within Roman territory. Their demand was refused and hostilities continued. In 107 another consul, Lucius Cassius, was defeated and slain by the Tigurini. In 106 Quintus Servilius Caepio recovered the town of Tolosa, which had deserted the Roman cause, and carried off its immense temple treasures. Three years later he was tried and condemned for defrauding the state of this booty. In 105, two Roman armies were destroyed by the united tribes in a battle at Arausio (Orange), in which 60,000 Romans were said to have fallen. This disaster, the greatest suffered by Rome since Cannae, was largely brought about by friction between the two Roman commanders. The way to Italy lay open but the barbarians failed to take advantage of their opportunity. The Cimbri invaded Spain and the rest remained in Gaul.

*The army reforms of Marius.* In this crisis Marius was appointed to the command against the Cimbri and their allies, and at once set to work to create an army for the defence of Italy. The increasing luxury and refinements of civilization in Italy had begun to undermine the military spirit among the Romans, especially the propertied classes, and this had led to a decline of discipline and efficiency in the Roman armies. Furthermore, the universal obligation to military service was no longer rigidly enforced, partly because of the residence abroad of so many citizens. Appeals to volunteers became more and more frequent. No longer were recruits enrolled for one year only, but took the oath of service for sixteen years. In building up his new army Marius recognized these new tendencies. He relied mainly upon voluntary enlistments, admitting to the ranks, as he had done already in the Jugurthine War, those whose lack of property had previously disqualified them for service in the legions. The soldiers now became recognized professionals, who upon their discharge looked to their commanders to provide for their future. Among the troops loyalty to the state was supplanted by devotion to a successful general, and the latter could rely upon his veterans to support him in his political career. Marius also introduced changes in the arms and equipment of the soldiers, and he is also credited, although with less certainty, with the increase in the size of the legion to 6000 men and its division into ten cohorts as tactical units.

*Marius in Gaul.* During the years 104 and 103 Marius kept his army in Gaul guarding the passage to Italy, while he completed the training of his troops and dug a new channel at the mouth of the Rhone to facilitate the passage of his transports into the river. He was re-elected to the consulship for 103 and again for 102 since the danger from the barbarians was not over. In 102 the Cimbri returned from Spain and, joining the other tribes, prepared to invade Italy. The Teutons and Ambrones followed the direct route from southern Gaul, while the Cimbri and Tigurini moved to the north of the Alps to enter Italy by the eastern Alpine passes. Marius permitted the Teutons and Ambrones to march by him, then he overtook and annihilated them at Aquae Sextiae. In the meantime, the Cimbri had forced the other consul, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, to abandon the defence of the eastern passes and had crossed the Adige into the Po Valley, where they wintered. Marius returned to Italy to join his colleague and face the new peril. In the next year, while consul for the fifth time, he met and destroyed the Cimbri on the Raudine plains near Vercellae. Thus Italy was saved from a repetition of the Gallic invasion of the fourth century B. C.

The vitality of the Roman state was by no means exhausted as the defeat of the barbarians shows, and men of energy and ability were not lacking, but under the existing régime it required a crisis to bring them to the front.

*The Second Sicilian Slave War, 104–101 B. C.* While the barbarians were knocking at the gates of Italy, Rome was called upon to suppress a series of disorders in other parts of her empire, some of which were only quelled after considerable effort. In 104 B. C. occurred a serious rebellion of the slaves in Sicily, headed by two leaders Salvius and Anthenion, the former of whom took the title of King Typhon. The rebels became masters of the open country, defeated the forces sent against them, reduced the Sicilian cities to the verge of starvation, and were only subdued by a consular army under Manius Aquillius in 101 B. C.

*War with the Pirates.* Before the slave war in Sicily had been brought to a close the Romans were forced to make an effort to suppress piracy in the Mediterranean. Piracy had been on the increase ever since the decline of the Rhodian sea power, following the Second Macedonian War, for as there were no longer any rival maritime powers Rome had neglected to maintain a navy adequate even for policing the seas. The pirates were at the same time slave traders, who made a business of kidnapping all over the Mediterranean but particularly in the east to supply the slave mart at Delos. In 104 B. C. the king of Bithynia complained to the Senate that one-half of his ablebodied men had been carried into slavery. This traffic was winked at by the Romans, since they needed slaves in great numbers for their plantations, and their business interests profited by the trade. However the depredations of the pirates at length became too serious to be ignored, and in 102 B. C. the praetor Marcus Antonius was given a special command against them. They had their chief strongholds on the Cilician coast and the island of Crete, and Antonius proceeded to Cilicia, where he destroyed several of their towns and annexed some territory, which became the province of Cilicia.

Besides these troubles the Romans had to face revolts in Spain which broke out spasmodically down to 95 B. C., as well as continual inroads of barbarians from Thrace into the provinces of Macedonia and Illyricum.

V. SATURNINUS AND GLAUCIA

*Popular **triumphs** in Rome.* The successes of their champion, Marius, emboldened the populares to undertake the prosecution of the corrupt and incapable generals of the _optimates_, a number of whom were brought to trial and convicted. Another popular victory was won in 104 B. C. when the _lex Domitia_ transferred the election of new members of the colleges of augurs and pontiffs from the colleges themselves to a Comitia of seventeen tribes chosen by lot.

*The sixth consulship of Marius, 100 B. C.* Upon Marius himself his present prestige had an unwholesome effect. In spite of the fact that he had violated the constitution by his five consulships, four of which were held in succession, he determined to seek a sixth term, although there was now no military danger to excuse his ambition. He leagued himself with the leaders of the _populares_, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, who as tribune had supported Marius in 103, and Caius Servilius Glaucia. Both were ambitious demagogues, who sought to imitate the rôle of the Gracchi by introducing a legislative program catering to the popular party. For the moment they were successful. Marius secured his sixth consulship for 100 B. C., Saturninus became tribune a second time, and Glaucia praetor. But violence had to be resorted to in order to carry the elections. Saturninus then introduced bills for the distribution of grain to the city proletariat at much less than half the market price, for the allotment of the lands in north Italy which had been ravaged by the Cimbri, and for the founding of colonies in the provinces. His corn law failed, but the others were forced through by the aid of the disbanded Marian soldiers. However, this appeal to mob violence caused the equestrians to desert the popular leaders, who also lost the sympathy of Marius. Saturninus then sought the consulship for the next year, and, when it seemed that he would be defeated, caused one of his most influential rivals to be killed. The Senate thereupon proclaimed a state of martial law and called upon Marius to restore order. Saturninus, Glaucia, and their followers occupied the Capitol, where they were attacked and forced to surrender upon promise that their lives would be spared. But Marius was unable to protect them from the vengeance of their foes who massacred all the captives. Again the Senate had conquered by a resort to force, but this time their opponents had first appealed to the same means. For the time Marius suffered a political eclipse; he had shown no political capacity and had been unable to control or protect his own party which was now divided and discredited.

VI. THE TRIBUNATE OF MARCUS LIVIUS DRUSUS, 91 B. C.

*The **trial** of Rutilius Rufus: 93 B. C.* The senators and the equestrians had combined for the moment against the terrorism instituted by the popular demagogues but the coalition was not lasting. As Caius Gracchus had foreseen the control of the law courts proved a standing bone of contention between the two orders. Especially aggravating to the senators was the use of the court established for the trial of cases of extortion to force the provincial governors to administer the provinces in the interest of the Roman financiers. A scandalous instance of this abuse was the case of Rutilius Rufus in 93 B. C. He had been quaestor under Mucius Scaevola, in 98 B. C. governor of Asia, where both had sternly checked any unjust exactions by the agents of the _publicani_. A trumped-up charge of extortion was now brought against Rutilius, and he was tried and adjudged guilty. His fate was to serve as a warning to officers who took their provincial obligations seriously. Rutilius retired to Asia and lived in great esteem among the people whom he was condemned for having oppressed.

*The **legislative program** of Livius Drusus: 91 B. C.* Two years later Marcus Livius Drusus, a tribune, of a prominent senatorial house, brought forward a proposal for the reform of the juries. He proposed to increase the number of the Senate to six hundred by the inclusion of three hundred prominent equestrians, and to have the juries chosen half from the new Senate and half from the remaining equestrians.(10) Equestrian _jurors_ were to be made liable to prosecution for accepting bribes. To secure support for his judiciary law, Drusus introduced a bill to found new colonies and another to provide cheaper grain for the city populace.

However, when he encountered serious opposition to his judicial reform in the Senate as well as among the _equites_, Drusus combined this and his other reforms with a law for the enfranchisement of the Italian allies. He contrived to carry his measures through the Assembly, which was probably coerced by the presence of large numbers of Italians in the city, but since he had included several distinct proposals in one bill, which was unconstitutional, the Senate declared his law invalid. Drusus yielded but prepared to introduce the franchise bill to be voted on a second time. Before this could be done he was mysteriously assassinated, doubtless by an agent of his political opponents. Thus died the last civilian reformer of Roman history. Later reforms were carried by the power of the sword.

VII. THE ITALIAN OR MARSIC WAR, 90–88 B. C.

*The Italian Confederacy.* The death of Drusus was the signal for a revolt of the Italian allies. They had been in close alliance with him, and had taken steps for concerted action in arms if his bill should fail to pass. A confederacy was organized, the government of which was vested in a Senate of five hundred members with absolute powers, having as executive officers two annual consuls and twelve praetors. The capital of the confederacy was at Corfinium, in the territory of the Paeligni, which was renamed Italia. A federal coinage was issued. Before opening hostilities the Italians made a formal demand for Roman citizenship, which the Senate definitely refused. Thereupon they declared their independence.

*The resources of the rivals.* The Italian Confederacy embraced practically all the warlike peoples of central and southern Italy. Of particular importance were the Marsi who gave their name to the war. In numbers the Italians were a match for the Romans, and they had acquired Roman military tactics, organization and discipline through long service in the Roman armies. They also could count on leaders of approved ability. But the Latin colonies and the Greek cities in the south remained true to their allegiance, and thus the Italians were cut off from the coast. Furthermore Umbria and Etruria, although disaffected, did not at once take up arms. Rome’s control of the sea enabled her to draw upon the resources of the provinces in men, money, and supplies, and consequently she was in a much better position to sustain a prolonged struggle.

*The first year of the war: 90 B. C.* Hostilities opened in 90 B. C. with the Italian forces attempting to reach Etruria in the north and occupy Campania in the south and the Romans trying to forestall them by invading the territory of the allies. In the south the year’s campaign resulted in numerous Roman disasters. Much of Campania was won by the allies who succeeded in penetrating to the coast. In the north the Romans also suffered defeats, but were able to maintain themselves and win several successes. Here Marius, in the capacity of a _legatus_, rendered valuable service.

Before the close of the year the revolt began to spread to Etruria and Umbria. Thereupon the Romans, with the object of securing the support of their still faithful allies and of weakening the ranks of the rebels, passed the Julian Law which granted Roman citizenship to all who had not joined the revolt and all who should at once lay down their arms. In this way the Umbrians and Etrurians were quieted, the Latins and the Greek allies rewarded, and many communities, which sought Roman citizenship but not independence, induced to surrender.

*The second year of the war.* In the following year the fortune of war changed. The Romans were everywhere successful. The consul Pompeius practically pacified the north, and the _legatus_ Sulla broke the power of the allies in south Italy. A second franchise law, the _lex Plautia Papiria_, helped thin the ranks of the allies by offering Roman citizenship to all citizens of Italian federate communities who would claim it within sixty days. A third, the Pompeian Law, gave the franchise to all non-Romans in Gaul south of the Po, and Latin rights to those north of the Po river. The Senate was now anxious to bring the war to a close because affairs in the East had assumed a threatening aspect.

*The end of the war and its significance.* In the course of the year 88 B. C. organized resistance among the rebels died out. The new citizens were not to be enrolled in all of the thirty-five Roman tribes, a step which might make them dominate the Assemblies, but they were to vote in certain tribes only, so that their influence could be restricted.(11) Naturally, they were dissatisfied with this arrangement and their enrollment became a burning question of Roman politics. Henceforth all Italians were Romans and in the course of the next generation the various racial elements of Italy were gradually welded into a Latin nation. As it was impossible for the magistrates of Rome to oversee the administration throughout so wide an area, the Romans organized the Italian towns into locally self-governing municipalities of the type previously established on Roman territory. At first these municipalities retained many of their ancestral laws, customs and institutions, but in time they conformed to a uniform type, the government of which was modelled upon that of the capital city Rome. The municipalities were powerful agents in the Latinization of the peninsula.

VIII. THE FIRST MITHRADATIC WAR

*Mithradates VI., Eupator, King of Pontus.* The danger which in 89 B. C. directed the attention of the Senate to the eastern Mediterranean was the result of the establishment of the Kingdom of Pontus under an able and ambitious ruler, Mithradates Eupator, who challenged the supremacy of Rome in Asia Minor. In 121 B. C. Mithradates had succeeded to the throne of northern Cappadocia, a small kingdom on the south shore of the Black Sea, whose Asiatic population was imbued with Hellenistic culture and whose rulers claimed descent from the ancient royal house of Persia and from Seleucus, the founder of the Macedonian kingdom of Syria. For seven years Mithradates shared the throne with his brother, under his mother’s regency, but in 114 when eighteen years of age, he seized the reins of government for himself. Subsequently he extended his power over the eastern and northern shores of the Black Sea as far west as the Danube and thus built up the kingdom of Pontus, i. e. the coast land of the Black Sea, a name which later was applied to his native state of north Cappadocia.

*His **conflict** with Rome.* However, Mithradates also sought to extend his sway in Asia Minor, where Greater Cappadocia became the object of his ambitions. This brought him into conflict with Rome, whose policy was to prevent the rise of any dangerous neighbor in the East and who refused to suffer her settlement of Asia Minor to be disturbed. No less than five times did Mithradates, between 112 and 92 B. C., attempt to bring this district under his control, but upon each occasion he was forced by Roman interference to forego the fruits of his victories, since he was not yet prepared for war with Rome. In 91 B. C. he occupied the kingdom of Bithynia, which lay between Pontus and the Roman province of Asia, but again he yielded to Rome’s demands and withdrew. However, when Roman agents encouraged the King of Bithynia to raid his territory and refused him satisfaction he decided to challenge the Roman arms, seeing that Rome was now involved in the war with her Italian allies. War began late in 89 B. C.

*The conquests of Mithradates in Asia, 89–88 B. C.* Mithradates was well prepared; he had a trained army and a fleet of three hundred ships. He experienced no difficulty in defeating the local levies raised by the Roman governor of Asia, and speedily overran Bithynia and most of the Roman province. Meanwhile his fleet swept the Aegean Sea. The Roman provincials who had been unmercifully exploited by tax gatherers and money-lenders greeted Mithradates as a deliverer. At his order on a set date in 88 B. C. they massacred the Romans and Italians resident in Asia, said to have numbered 80,000, a step which bound them firmly to the cause of the king.

*Athens and Delos.* In the same year, 88 B. C. the populace of Athens, in the hope of overthrowing the oligarchic government which had been set up in the city with the support of Rome, seized control of the state and threw themselves into the hands of Mithradates. One of the king’s generals, Archelaus, while on his way to Athens, exterminated the Italian colony at Delos, the center of the Roman commercial and banking interests in the East. From this blow the island port never fully recovered. Archelaus soon won over most of southern Greece to his master’s cause, while Mithradates sent a large army to enter Hellas by the northerly route through Thrace and Macedonia.

*Disorders in Rome.* This situation produced a crisis in Rome. Sulla, who had been elected consul for 88 B. C., was allotted the command in the East upon the outbreak of hostilities. However, he had been unable to leave Italy where he was conducting the siege of Nola in Campania. Marius, although in his sixty-eighth year, was as ambitious as ever and schemed to secure the command against Mithradates for himself. In this he was supported by the equestrians, who knew Sulla to be a firm upholder of the Senate. Accordingly the Marians joined forces with the tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus, who had brought forward a bill to enroll the new citizens and freedmen equally in each of the thirty-five tribes. Sulpicius organized a body-guard of equestrians and instituted a reign of terror. He passed his law by force in spite of the opposition of the consuls. When Sulla had left the city to join his army, a law was passed in the Assembly transferring his command in the East to Marius. But Sulla refused to admit the legality of the act, and, relying upon the support of his troops, marched on Rome. Having taken the city by surprise, he caused Sulpicius, Marius, and others of their party to be outlawed. Sulpicius was slain; but Marius made good his escape to Mauretania. The Sulpician Laws were abrogated, and Sulla introduced a number of reforms, with the object of strengthening the position of the Senate. The most significant of these reforms was the revival of the Senatorial veto over laws proposed in the Assembly of the Tribes. This done, upon the conclusion of his consulate, Sulla embarked with his army for Greece early in 87 B. C.

*Siege of Athens and Piraeus, 87–86 B. C.* Driving the forces of Archelaus and the Athenians from the open country, Sulla began the siege of Athens and of its harbor town Piraeus in the autumn of 87. Athens was completely invested, but in spite of hunger the resistance was prolonged until March, 86, when Sulla’s troops penetrated an unguarded spot on the walls and the city was sacked. A large number of the inhabitants were massacred but the public buildings were spared. Soon after Piraeus was taken by storm at terrific cost to the victors, but its citadel Munychia held out until evacuated by Archelaus.

*Chaeronea and Orchomenus.* From Athens Sulla hastened to meet the army of Mithradates which had penetrated as far as Boeotia. At Chaeronea the numerically inferior but better disciplined Romans won a complete victory. At this juncture there arrived in Greece the consul Flaccus at the head of another army, with orders to supersede Sulla. The latter, however, was not disposed to give up his command and as Flaccus feared to force the issue they came to an agreement whereby each pursued a separate campaign. This left Sulla free to meet a new Mithradatic army which had crossed the Aegean. At Orchomenus he attacked and annihilated it. But Mithradates still controlled the Aegean, and Sulla, being unable to cross into Asia, was forced to winter in Greece.

*Peace with Mithradates, 85 B. C.* In 85 B. C. Lucius Lucullus, Sulla’s quaestor, appeared in the Aegean with a fleet that he had gathered among Rome’s allies in the East. He defeated the fleet of Mithradates and secured Sulla’s passage to Asia. The king’s position was now precarious. His exactions had alienated the sympathies of the Greek cities which now began to desert his cause. Furthermore Flaccus, after recovering Macedonia and Thrace, had crossed the Bosphorus into Bithynia. There he was killed in a mutiny of his soldiers and was succeeded by his legate Fimbria, who was popular with the troops because he gratified their desire for plunder. But Fimbria was energetic; he defeated Mithradates and recovered the coast district as far south as Pergamon (86 B. C.). Mithradates was ready for peace and Sulla was anxious to have his hands free to return to Italy, where the Marians were again in power. Negotiations were opened by Mithradates with Sulla and after some delay peace was concluded in 85 B. C. on the following terms: The king was to surrender Cappadocia, Bithynia, the Roman province of Asia and his other conquests in Asia Minor, to pay an indemnity of 3000 talents, and give up a part of his fleet. His kingdom of Pontus remained intact.

*Sulla’s treatment of Asia and Greece, 85–83 B. C.* Sulla spent the following winter in Asia, readjusting affairs in the province. The rebellious communities were punished by the quartering of troops upon them, and by being forced to contribute to Sulla the huge sum of 20,000 talents, or $24,000,000. To raise this amount they were forced to borrow from Roman bankers and incur a crushing burden of debt. In 84 B. C. Sulla crossed to Greece, there to complete his preparations for a return to Italy. The Greek states had suffered heavily in the recent campaigns on her soil. Sulla had carried off the temple treasures of Olympia, Delphi and Epidaurus, Attica and Boeotia had been ravaged and depopulated, and the coasts had been raided by the Mithradatic fleet. From the devastations of the Mithradatic war Hellas never recovered.

IX. SULLA’S DICTATORSHIP

*The Marian party in Rome 87–84 B. C.* While Sulla had been conducting his successful campaign in Greece, in Italy the Marian party had again won the upper hand. Scarcely had Sulla left Italy with his army when the consul Cinna re-enacted the Sulpician Laws. His colleague Gnaeus Octavius and the senatorial faction drove him from the city and had him deposed from office. But Cinna received the support of the army in Campania, recalled Marius, and made peace with the Samnites still under arms by granting them Roman citizenship. Marius landed in Etruria, raised an army there, and he and Cinna advanced on Rome. They forced the capitulation of their opponents, had Cinna reinstated as consul, and had the banishment of Marius revoked; Sulla’s laws were repealed, and his property confiscated. Then ensued a massacre of the leading senators, including Octavius the consul. On 1 January, 86, Marius entered upon his seventh consulship and died a few days later. His successor, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, was sent to supersede Sulla, a mission which cost him his life, as related before. In 85 B. C., the war with Mithradates was at an end and the Marians had to face the prospect of the return of Sulla at the head of a victorious army. The consuls Cinna and Carbo proceeded to raise troops to oppose him. They illegally prolonged their office for the next year (84) and made preparations to cross the Adriatic and meet Sulla in Macedonia. But the army gathered for this purpose at Brundisium mutinied and murdered Cinna. Carbo prevented the election of a successor and held office as sole consul. The Senate had previously begun negotiations with Sulla in an effort to prevent further civil war. He now demanded the restitution of property and honors both for himself and all those who had taken refuge with him. The Senate was inclined to yield, but was prevented by Carbo.

In the spring of 83 B. C. Sulla landed at Brundisium, with an army of 40,000 veterans from whom he exacted an oath of allegiance to himself. He made known his intentions of respecting all privileges granted to the Italians, to prevent their joining his enemies. Still the bulk of the new citizens, particularly in Samnium and Etruria, supported the Marian party. Sulla was joined at once by the young Cnaeus Pompey, who had raised an army on his own authority in Picenum, and by other men of influence. In the operations which followed the leaders of the Marians showed themselves lacking in coöperation and military skill. Sulla penetrated into Campania, where he defeated one consul Norbanus, at Mount Tifata. The other consul Scipio Asiaticus, entered into negotiations with him, and was deserted by his army which went over to Sulla.

In the following year Sulla advanced into Latium and won a hard fought victory over the younger Marius, now consul, at Sacriportus. Rome fell into his hands and Marius took refuge in Praeneste. Sulla then turned against the second consul, Carbo, in Etruria, and, after several victories forced him to flee to Africa. In a final effort the Marians, united with the Samnites, tried to relieve Praeneste; failing to accomplish this they made a dash upon Rome. But Sulla appeared in time to save the city and utterly defeat his enemies in a bloody contest at the Colline Gate. Praeneste fell soon after; Marius committed suicide, and except at a few isolated points all resistance in Italy was over.

*Sulla’s aims.* Sulla was absolute master of the situation and at once proceeded to punish his enemies and reward his friends. In cold-blooded cruelty, without any legal condemnation, his leading opponents were marked out for vengeance; their names were posted in lists in the forum to indicate that they might be slain with impunity and that their goods were confiscated. Rewards were offered to informers who brought about the death of such victims, and many were included in the lists to gratify the personal enmities of Sulla’s friends. The goods of the proscribed were auctioned off publicly under Sulla’s direction, and their children and grandchildren declared ineligible for public office. From these proscriptions the equestrians suffered particularly; 2600 of them are said to have perished, together with ninety senators. The Italian municipalities also felt Sulla’s avenging hand. Widespread confiscations of land, especially in Samnium and Etruria, enabled him to provide for 150,000 of his veterans, whose settlement did much to hasten the latinization of these districts. Ten thousand slaves of the proscribed were set free by Sulla and took the name of Cornelii from their patron. These arrangements were given the sanction of legality by a decree of the Senate and a law which confirmed all his acts as consul and proconsul and gave him full power for the future.

*Sulla dictator: 82–79 B. C.* But Sulla’s aims went further than the destruction of the Marian party. He sought to recreate a stable government in the state. For this he required more constitutional powers than the right of might. Therefore, since both consuls were dead, he caused the appointment of an _interrex_ who by virtue of a special law appointed him a dictator for an unlimited term to enact legislation and reorganize the commonwealth (_dictator legibus scri__bundis et rei publicae constituendae_). Sulla’s appointment occurred late in 82 B. C. The scope of his powers and their unlimited duration gave him monarchical or rather tyrannical authority.

*Sulla’s reforms.* The general aim of Sulla’s legislation was to restore the Senate to the position which it had held prior to 133 B. C. and to guarantee the perpetuation of this condition. His reforms fall into two classes; firstly, those directed to securing the rule of the _optimates_, which were not long-lived; secondly, those seeking to increase the efficiency of the administration, which being of a non-partizan character enjoyed greater permanency than the preceding. Those of the former sort constituted a renewal and extension of his reforms of 88 B. C. The senatorial veto over legislation in the Assembly of Tribes was renewed, and the tribunes’ intercession restricted to interference with the exercise of the magistrate’s _imperium_. To deter able and ambitious men from seeking the tribunate, it was made a bar to further political office. The senators were once more made eligible for the juries, while the equestrians were disqualified. The Domitian Law of 104 B. C. was abrogated and the practise of co-opting the members of the priestly college was revived. Most important of Sulla’s administrative reforms was that which concerned the magistracy. The established order of offices in the _cursus honorum_ was maintained, an age limit set for eligibility to each office, and an interval of ten years required between successive tenures of the same post. The number of quaestors was increased to twenty, that of the praetors raised from six to eight. In connection therewith the method of appointing provincial governors was regulated. By the organization of the province of Cisalpine Gaul, the number of provinces was raised to ten, and the two consuls and eight praetors, upon the completion of their year of office in Rome, were to be appointed to the provinces as pro-consuls and propraetors for one year. The pro-magistrates thus lost their original extraordinary character and this change marks the first step in the creation of an imperial civil service.

As before, the Senate designated the consular provinces before the election of the consuls who would be their proconsular governors. The consuls were not deprived of the right of military command, but, as before, regularly assumed control of military operations in Italy. The consular _imperium_ remained senior to that of the provincial governors, and might be exercised beyond the frontiers of Italy. However, in practise the consuls were not regularly employed for overseas campaigns, since the Senate now arrogated to itself what had previously been a prerogative of the Assembly, namely, the right of selecting any person whatever to exercise military _imperium_ in any sphere determined by itself. A new field for the activity of the praetors arose from the establishment of special jury courts for the trial of cases of bribery, treason, fraud, peculation, assassination and assault with violence. These were modelled on the court for damage suits brought against provincial officers, and superseded the old procedure with its appeal from the verdict of the magistrate to the Comitia. To provide a sufficient number of jurors for these tribunals the membership of the Senate was increased from three hundred to six hundred by enrolling equestrians who had supported Sulla. This increased number was maintained by the annual admission of the twenty ex-quaestors, whereby censors were rendered unnecessary for enrolling the Senators. The administration, especially in its imperial aspects, was more than ever concentrated in the Senate’s hands.

*Pompey **“**the Great,**”** 79 B. C.* While Sulla was effecting his settlement of affairs in Rome and Italy, the Marians in Sicily and Africa were crushed by his lieutenant Cnaeus Pompey. Their leader Carbo was taken and executed. In 82 B. C. Sulla had caused the Senate to confer upon Pompey the command in this campaign with the _imperium_ of a propraetor, although he had not yet held any public office. Having finished his task Pompey demanded a triumph, an honor which previously had only been granted to regular magistrates. Sulla at first opposed his wishes, but as Pompey was insistent and defiant, he yielded to avoid a quarrel, and even accorded him the name of Magnus or the Great. Pompey celebrated his triumph 12 March, 79 B. C.

*Sulla’s retirement and death, 78 B. C.* Sulla did not seek political power for its own sake, and, after carrying his reforms into effect, he resigned his dictatorship in 79 B. C. He retired to enjoy a life of ease and pleasure on his Campanian estate, relying for his personal security and that of his measures upon his veterans and the Cornelian freedmen. In the following year he died at the age of sixty. Sulla’s genius was rather military than political. Fond though he was of sensual pleasures, he was possessed of great ambition which led him to such a position of prominence that he was forced to adopt the cause of one of the two political factions in the state. From that point he must crush his enemies or be crushed by them; and in this lies the explanation of his attempt to extirpate the Marian party. As a statesman he displayed little imagination or constructive ability. He could think of nothing better than to restore the Senate to a position which it had shown itself unable to maintain; and his persecutions of his political opponents had not crushed out opposition to the Senate, but left a legacy of hatred endangering the permanence of his reforms.

The epoch between the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus and the death of Sulla revealed the incapacity of either the Senate or the tribunes and the Assembly to give a peaceful and stable government to the Roman state. Sulla’s career, anticipating those of Caesar and Augustus, pointed the way to the ultimate solution.