Book III, §§ 87, 90.) _Apulia_, unlike any other division of central or

southern Italy, consists chiefly of a rich, unbroken plain, from twenty to forty miles in width, gently sloping from the mountains to the sea. In ancient times it maintained great numbers of horses and sheep, the latter of which were famed for the fineness of their wool. When the plain became parched by summer heats, the flocks were driven to the neighboring mountains of Samnium; while, in winter, the Samnite flocks forsook their bleak and snowy heights to find pasturage in the rich meadows of Apulia. The northern portion of Apulia is mountainous, being traversed by two strong spurs of the Apennines, one of which projects into the sea and forms the rocky headland of Mount Garga´nus.

_Calabria_,[62] called by the Greeks Iapyg´ia or Messa´pia, occupied the long peninsula which is commonly called the heel of Italy. Its soft limestone soil quickly absorbs moisture, rendering the country arid, and the heats of summer intense. The products of the soil were, however, in ancient times, abundant and of great value. Its oil, wine, and honey were widely celebrated, the wool afforded by its flocks was of the finest quality, and the horses which recruited the Tarentine cavalry were among the most excellent in the world.

=7.= Italy possessed three islands of great importance: Sicily, noted for its excellent harbors and inexhaustible soil; Sardin´ia, for its silver mines and harvests of grain; and Cor´sica, for its dense forests of pine and fir. The position as well as the valuable productions of these islands, early tempted the enterprise of both Greeks and Carthaginians; and rivalry in their possession first drew these nations into hostility with each other, and with the ultimately victorious power of Rome.

HISTORY OF ROME.

=8.= Our history in this Book falls naturally into three divisions:

I. THE ROMAN KINGDOM, B. C. 753-510. II. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, ” 510-30. III. THE ROMAN EMPIRE, ” 30-A. D. 476.

The records of the First Period, so far as they relate to persons, are largely mixed with fable, and it is impossible to separate the fanciful from the real. The student is recommended to read the stories of the kings, in their earliest and most attractive form, in Dr. Arnold’s History of Rome. Under their beautiful mythical guise, these legends present, doubtless, a considerable amount of truth. Our limits only admit a statement of the popular ancient belief concerning the rise of Rome, among the other and older nations which inhabited Italy.

=9.= Central and southern Italy were occupied, from the earliest known times, by three races, the Etrus´cans, Italians, and Iapygians. The latter were nearly related to the Greeks, as has been proved by their language and the identity of their objects of worship. They therefore mingled readily with the Hellenic settlers (see § 6), and Greek civilization quickly took root and flourished throughout southern Italy. The Italians proper—so called because, when united, they became the ruling race in Italy—arrived later in the peninsula than the Iapygians. They came from the north, and crowded into closer quarters the half-Hellenic inhabitants of the south. They consisted of four principal races: the Umbrians, Sabines, Oscans, and Latins. Of these the first three were closely connected, while the Latins were distinct. The latter formed a confederacy of thirty cities, or cantons, and met every year on the Alban Mount to offer a united sacrifice to Jupiter Latia´ris, the protecting deity of the Latin race. During this festival wars were suspended, as in Elis during the Olympic Games.

=10.= The Etruscans, or Tuscans, were wholly different in language, appearance, and character from the other nations of Italy. Their origin is wrapped in mystery. Some suppose them to have been Turanian, and thus allied to the Lapps, Finns, and Estho´nians of northern Europe, and the Basques of Spain; others, and the greater number, believe the mass of the people to have been Pelasgi—that race which overspread Greece and Italy at a remoter period than history can reach—but to have been absorbed and enslaved by a more powerful people from the north, who called themselves _Ras´ena_, while they were named by others Etruscans. History first finds these invaders in Rhæ´tia, the country about the head-waters of the Ad´ige, the Danube, and the Rhine; then traces them to the plain of the Po, where, at a very early period, they formed a league of twelve cities; and thence south of the Apennines into Tus´cany, which, reduced in limits, still bears their name.

Here they formed a similar but quite distinct confederacy of the same number of cities. For a time their dominion extended across the peninsula, and their fleets commanded both the “Upper” and the “Lower Sea,” the latter of which derived from them its ancient name, Tyrrhenian. They conquered Campania, and built there a third cluster of twelve cities, of which Cap´ua was the chief; but they lost this portion of their territory in wars with the Samnites. Many relics of Etruscan art exist, in the massive walls of their cities, their castings in bronze, figures in terra-cotta, and golden chains, bracelets, and other ornaments, which prove them to have been a luxurious and wealthy people. Their religion was of a gloomy and superstitious character. They sought to know the will of their gods by auguries drawn from thunder and lightning, from the flight of birds, or from the entrails of slain beasts; and to avert their wrath by sacrifices prescribed and regulated by an elaborate ritual. To learn these rites formed a large part of the education of a young Tuscan noble.

=11.= The Romans, who were destined to be for nearly twelve centuries the dominant race of Italy and the world, belonged to the Latin branch of the Italian family. A Greek tradition celebrated by Virgil, and believed by most Romans in the days of the empire, traced their origin to a company of Trojan emigrants, led to the shores of Italy by Æne´as, son of Anchises, after the fall of Troy. (See Book III, § 14.) But the Latin coast was at that time densely populated, and the new comers, if any such there were, must soon have been absorbed and lost among the older inhabitants.

=12.= The common legends assigned the building of Rome to Rom´ulus, grandson of Nu´mitor, an Alban prince. Numitor had been deprived of his crown by his brother Amu´lius, who also killed the son of the deposed king, and compelled his daughter Silvia to become a vestal. Beloved of Mars, she became, however, the mother of Romulus and Remus, whereupon her uncle caused her to be thrown, with her twin sons, into the Anio, a tributary of the Tiber. The rivers had overflowed their banks; when they subsided, the cradle containing the infant princes was overturned at the foot of the Palatine Mount. Nourished by a wolf, and fed by a woodpecker sacred to Mars, they grew to be hardy young shepherds, and distinguished themselves in combats with wild beasts and robbers.

At the age of twenty they became aware of their royal birth, and having conquered Amulius, restored their grandfather to his throne. But they still loved the home of their youth, and resolved to build a new city on the banks of the Tiber. The brothers, differing in their choice of a site, consulted the auspices. After watching all night, Remus, at dawn, saw six vultures; but Romulus, at sunrise, saw twelve. The majority of the shepherds voted the decision to Romulus, and it was ever after believed that the twelve vultures denoted twelve centuries, during which the dominion of the city should endure.

=13.= His shepherd comrades being too few to satisfy his ambition, Romulus offered asylum on the Cap´itoline to homicides and runaway slaves, thus enrolling among his subjects the refuse of the neighboring tribes. To obtain wives for these adventurers, he invited the Latins and Sabines to witness games in honor of Neptune; and when not only men, but women and children were assembled, the runners and wrestlers rushed into the crowd and carried away whom they would. War followed, in which the Latins were thrice defeated. The Sabine king, Titus Tatius, marched with a powerful army upon Rome, obtained possession of the Capitoline fortress through the treachery of the maiden Tarpe´ia, the daughter of its commander, and nearly defeated the forces of Romulus in a long and obstinate battle.

The Sabine women, however, now reconciled to their fate, came between their fathers and husbands, beseeching them with tears to be reconciled, since, whoever should be conquered, the grief and loss must be their own. A lasting peace was made, and the two kings agreed to reign jointly over the united nations, Romulus holding his court on the Palatine, and Titus Tatius on the Capitoline and Quirinal hills. After the death of Tatius, Romulus ruled alone. At the end of a prosperous reign of thirty-seven years, he was reviewing his troops one day in the Field of Mars, when the sun became suddenly darkened, a tempest agitated earth and air, and Romulus disappeared. The people mourned him as dead, but they were comforted by his appearing in a glorified form to one of their number, assuring him that the Romans should become lords of the world, and that he himself, under the name of Quiri´nus, would be their guardian.

=14.= After a year’s interregnum, Numa, a Sabine of wise and peaceful character, was chosen king. He was revered in after ages as the religious founder of Rome, no less than Romulus as the author of its civil and military institutions. The wisdom and piety of his laws were attributed to the nymph Ege´ria, who met him by a fountain in a grove, and dictated to him the principles of good government. The few records of this king and his predecessor belong rather to mythology than to history.

=15.= Tullus Hostil´ius, the third king of Rome, is the first of whose deeds we have any trustworthy account. He conquered Alba Longa, and transferred its citizens to the Cæ´lian Hill in Rome. This new city then became the protectress of the Latin League, with the right of presiding at the annual festival, though it was never, like Alba, a member of the League, but a distinct power in alliance with it. The federal army was commanded alternately by a Roman and a Latin general; and the lands acquired in the wars of the League were equally divided between the two contracting parties, thus giving to Rome, it is evident, a far greater share than to any other city.

=16.= The citizens of consolidated Rome now constituted three tribes: the _Ram´nes_, or original Romans, on the Palatine; the _Tit´ies_, or Sabines, on the Capitoline and Quirinal; and the _Lu´ceres_, on the Cælian. Each tribe consisted of ten _cu´riæ_, or wards, and each _curia_ of ten _houses_, or clans (_gentes_). The patrician, or noble, houses, which alone enjoyed the rights of citizenship, thus numbered three hundred. The heads of all the houses constituted the Senate, while the _Comit´ia Curia´ta_, or public assembly, included all citizens of full age.

Rome, at this period, contained only two classes beside the Patricians. These were the _clients_ and _slaves_. The former were the poorer people who belonged to no _gens_, and therefore, though free, had no civil rights. They were permitted to choose a patron in the person of some noble, who was bound to protect their interests, if need were, in courts of law. The client, on the other hand, followed his patron to war as a vassal; contributed to his ransom, or that of his children, if taken prisoners; and paid part of the costs of any lawsuit in which the patron might be engaged, or of his expenses in discharging honorable offices in the state. The relation on either side descended from father to son. It was esteemed a glory to a noble family to have a numerous clientage, and to increase that which it had inherited from its ancestors. The clients bore the clan-name[63] of their patron. Slaves were not numerous in the days of the kings. During the Republic, multitudes of captives were brought into the market by foreign wars; and at the close of that period, at least half the inhabitants of Roman territory were bondsmen.

=17.= Ancus Mar´tius conquered many Latin towns, and transported their citizens to Rome, where he assigned them the Aventine Hill as a residence. Of these new settlers some became clients of the nobility, but the wealthier class scorned this dependent condition, and relied upon the protection of the king. Hence arose a new order in the state, the _Plebs_, or commonalty, which was destined to become, in later times, equally important with the nobility. It included, beside the conquered people, foreign settlers who came for trade, for refuge, or for employment in the army; clients whose protecting families had become extinct; and sons of patricians who had married wives of inferior rank. Ancus extended the Roman territory to the sea; built the port-town of Os´tia, and established salt-works in its vicinity; fortified the Janiculan Hill, opposite Rome, for a defense against the Etruscans; and constructed the Mamertine, the first Roman prison.

=18.= Lucius Tarquin´ius Priscus was of Greek origin, though he took his name from the Etruscan town Tarquinii, where he was born. The characteristics of his race were shown in the magnificent works with which he embellished Rome. He drained the lower parts of the city by a great system of sewers, and restrained the overflow of the Tiber by a wall of massive masonry, at the place where the Cloa´ca Maxima entered the river. In the valley thus redeemed from inundation he built the Forum, with its surrounding rows of porticos and shops; and constructed the Circus Maximus for the celebration of the Great Games, which had been founded by Romulus, and resembled in most of their features the athletic contests of the Greeks.

As a native of Etruria, Tarquin vowed the erection, upon the Capitoline, of a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the three deities who were worshiped together in every Etruscan city, and for this purpose he cleared away from that mountain all the holy places of the Sabine gods. The temple was built by his son. The wars of Tarquin against the Sabines, Latins, and Etruscans were usually victorious, and added largely to the population of Rome. From the noblest of the conquered peoples he formed three new half-tribes of fifty “houses” each, which he joined to the three old tribes of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, while he increased the number of Vestal Virgins from four to six, that each race might be equally represented. Tarquin was murdered by hired agents of the sons of Ancus Martius, who hoped thus to secure for themselves the throne of their father. But the Roman monarchy was strictly elective, not hereditary; their crime failed of its purpose, and Servius Tul´lius, an Etruscan general, and son-in-law of the murdered king, obtained the crown.

=19.= He made radical changes in the constitution, by giving to every free Roman the right of suffrage, though all offices in the government were still held by the nobles. The Greek cities of southern Italy were, at the same time, changing from aristocratic to popular forms of government, and there are many signs of Greek influence in Latium and Rome. The new popular assembly, _Comitia Centuria´ta_, was so called from the “centuries” in which the entire citizen-soldiery was enrolled. Wealth now acquired in Rome something of the power which had hitherto been reserved for rank. Every man who held property was bound to serve in the armies, and his military position was accurately graded by the amount of his possessions. Highest of all were the _Eq´uites_, or horsemen. These were divided into eighteen centuries, of which the first six—two for each original tribe—were wholly patrician, while the remaining twelve were wealthy and powerful plebeians.

The mass of the people enrolled for service on foot was divided into five classes. Those who were able to equip themselves in complete brazen armor fought in the front rank of the phalanx. Of this class there were eighty centuries: forty of younger men, from seventeen to forty-five years of age, who were the choicest of Roman infantry in the field; and forty of their elders, from forty-six to sixty, who were usually retained for the defense of the city. The second class were placed behind the first; they wore no coat of mail, and their shields were of wood instead of brass. The third class wore no greaves, and the fourth carried no shields. These three classes consisted of only twenty centuries each. The fifth and lowest military class did not serve in the phalanx, but formed the light-armed infantry, and provided themselves only with darts and slings. Below all the classes were a few centuries of the poorest people, who were not required to equip themselves for war. They were sometimes armed, at the public expense, on occasions of great loss or danger to the state; or they followed the army as supernumeraries, and were ready to take the weapons and places of those who fell.

=20.= Beside the patrician tribes of Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, Servius made four tribes in the city and twenty-six in the country, consisting of land-owners without respect to rank. The meeting-place for the whole thirty was the Forum at Rome, while the centuries met without the city on the Field of Mars. The people assembled in the Forum had all the powers of self-government. They elected magistrates and levied taxes for the support of the state, duties which hitherto had belonged to the Comitia Curiata. Of the public lands on the Etruscan side of the Tiber, gained in his early wars, Servius assigned a certain portion to the plebeians, in full ownership. The patricians had leased these lands from the state for the pasturage of their flocks, and they were much exasperated by the new allotment.

=21.= Servius extended the bounds of the city far beyond the Roma Quadra´ta of the Palatine. The Esquiline, Cælian, and Aventine hills had already been occupied by surburban settlements, while the Capitoline, Quirinal, and Vim´inal were held by the Sabine tribes. These Seven Hills,[64] with a large space between and around them, were inclosed by Servius in a new wall, which lasted more than eight hundred years, until the time of the emperor Aurelian. Servius reigned forty-four years, B. C. 578-534. Desirous above all things for the continuance of his reformed institutions, he had determined to abdicate the throne, after causing the people, by a free and universal vote, to elect two magistrates who should rule but one year. Before the end of their term they were to provide, in like manner, for the peaceful choice of their successors; and thus Rome would have passed, by a bloodless revolution, to a popular government. The nobles, however, revolted against this infringement of their exclusive rights. Led by Tarquin, son of the first monarch of that name, and husband of the wicked Tullia, daughter of Servius, they murdered the beneficent king and placed their leader on the throne.

=22.= Tarquin, called “the Proud,” set aside all the popular laws of Servius, and restored the privileges of the “houses”; but as soon as he felt secure in his power, he oppressed nobles and people alike. He compelled the poorer classes to toil upon the public works which his father had begun, and upon others which he himself originated. Such were the permanent stone seats of the Circus Maximus, a new system of sewers, and the great Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. By wars or intrigues, Tarquin made himself supreme throughout Latium. But his insolence disgusted the patricians; he took away the property or lives of citizens without consulting the Senate, while he imposed upon them civil and military burdens beyond what the law permitted. The vile misconduct of his son Sextus led at last to a revolt, in which kingly government was overthrown. The Tarquins and all their clan were banished. The very name of king was thenceforth held in especial abhorrence at Rome. Only in one case was it tolerated. A “king for offering sacrifices” was appointed, that the gods might not miss their usual mediator with men; but this sacerdotal king was forbidden to hold any civil office.

RECAPITULATION.

Early history of Rome is largely fabulous. Three races in Italy, of whom the Etruscans, before the rise of Rome, were most powerful. Their cities, art, and religion. Rome was founded by Latins, but embraced a mixed population of Sabines, Etruscans, and others, which gave rise to the three tribes. Three hundred noble “houses” constituted the Senate and _Comitia Curiata_. Clientage. Formation of a commonalty under Ancus Martius. Buildings of Tarquinius Priscus. Free constitution of Servius Tullius. Division of the people into centuries, both as soldiers and citizens. Thirty tribes assemble in the Forum. Inclosure of the Seven Hills by the Tullian Wall. Tyranny of Tarquin the Proud. Royalty abolished at Rome. Supposed Chronology of the Kings: Romulus, B. C. 753-716; Numa, 716-673; Tullius Hostilius, 673-641; Ancus Martius, 641-616; L. Tarquinius Priscus, 616-578; Servius Tullius, 578-534; Tarquinius Superbus, 534-510.

RELIGION OF ROME.

=23.= Before passing to the history of the Republic, we glance at the religion of Rome. For the first 170 years from the foundation of the city, the Romans had no images of their gods. Idolatry has probably been, in every nation, a later corruption of an earlier and more spiritual worship. Roman religion was far less beautiful and varied in its conceptions than that of the Greeks.[65] It afforded but little inspiration to poetry or art, but it kept alive the homely household virtues, and regulated the transactions of the farm, the forum, and the shop, by principles drawn from a higher range of being.

The chief gods of the Romans were Jupiter and Mars. The former was supreme; but the latter was, throughout the early history of this warlike people, the central object of worship. March, the first month of their year, was consecrated to him, and, in almost all European languages, still bears his name. The great war festival occupied a large portion of the month. During its first few days the twelve _Salii_, or leapers, priests of Mars, who were chosen from the noblest families, passed through the streets singing, dancing, and beating their rods upon their brazen shields. Quirinus, under whose name Romulus was worshiped, was only a duplicate Mars, arising from the union of the two mythologies of the Romans and Sabines. He had, also, his twelve leapers, and was honored, in February, with similar ceremonies.

=24.= The celebrations of the several periods of the farmer’s year were next in order to the war festival. The month of April was marked by days of sacrifice to the nourishing earth; to Ceres, the goddess of growth; to the patroness of flocks; and to Jupiter, the protector of vines; while a deprecatory offering was made to Rust, the enemy of crops. In May the Arval Brothers, a company of twelve priests, held their three days’ festival in honor of Dea Dia, invoking her blessing in maintaining the fertility of the earth, and granting prosperity to the whole territory of Rome. August had its harvest festivals; October, its wine celebration in honor of Jupiter; December, its two thanksgivings for the treasures of the granary, its Saturnalia or seed-sowing on the 17th, and its celebration of the shortest day, which brought back the new sun. Sailors had their festivals in honor, respectively, of the gods of the river, the harbor, and the sea. The ceremonial year was closed with the singular Lu´perca´lia, or wolf festival, in which a certain order of priests, girdled with goat-skins, leaped about like wolves, or ran through the city scourging the spectators with knotted thongs; and by the Ter´mina´lia, or boundary-stone festival in honor of Ter´minus, the god of landmarks.

Janus, the double-faced god of beginnings, was a peculiarly Roman divinity. To him all gates and doors were sacred, as well as the morning, the opening of all solemnities, and the month (January) in which the labors of the husbandman began anew in southern Italy. Sacrifices were offered to him on twelve altars, and prayers at the beginning of every day. New-year’s day was especially sacred to him, and was supposed to impart its character to the whole year. People were careful, therefore, to have their thoughts, words, and acts, on that day pure, beneficent, and just. They greeted each other with gifts and good wishes, and performed some part of whatever work they had planned for the year; while they were much dispirited if any trifling accident occurred. A covered passage between the Palatine and Quirinal hills, _i. e._, between the original Roman and Sabine cities, was known by the name of Janus. Armies going out or returning passed through it, and hence it was always open in time of war and closed in peace. The same ceremony was continued after the passage had ceased to be used, the triumphal gate having been constructed in the walls of Servius.

=25.= Vulcan, the god of fire and the forge, was honored by two festivals, the consecration of trumpets in May, and the Vol´cana´lia in August. Though of inferior rank to the divinities already mentioned, yet dearest of all to the Romans, were the gods of the hearth, the household, and store-room, and of the forest and field. Every house was a temple, and every meal a sacrifice to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. Her temple was the hearth-stone of the city. There six chosen maidens, daughters of the most illustrious families, guarded the sacred fire, which was the symbol of the goddess, by night and day. Every house had over its main entrance a little chapel of the _La´res_, where the father of the family performed his devotions immediately on returning from any journey. The Lares were supposed to be the spirits of good men, especially the deceased ancestors of the family. Public Lares were the protecting spirits of the city; they were worshiped in a temple and numerous chapels, the latter being placed at the crossings of streets. There were also rural Lares, and _Lares Via´les_, who were worshiped by travelers.

=26.= Like all people in any degree affected by Greek culture, the Romans consulted the Delphic oracle. After the capture of Ve´ii (see § 57), they presented that shrine with a tenth of the spoils. Rome itself possessed only one oracle, that of Faunus (the favoring god), on the Aventine Hill. Several oracles of Fortune, Faunus, and Mars existed in Latium, but in none of them were audible responses given, by the mouth of inspired persons, as at Delphi. At Albu´nea, near Tibur, Faunus was consulted by the sacrifice of a sheep. The skin of the animal was spread upon the ground; the person seeking direction slept upon it, and believed that he learned the will of the god by visions and dreams. The Romans frequently resorted to the Greek oracles in southern Italy; and the most acceptable gift which the inhabitants of Magna Græcia could offer to their friends in Rome, was a palm-leaf inscribed with some utterance of the Cumæan sibyl, a priestess of Apollo at Cumæ, near Naples.

=27.= The Sibylline Books were believed to have been purchased by one of the Tarquins from a mysterious woman, who appeared at Rome offering nine volumes at an exorbitant price. The king refusing to purchase, the sibyl went away and destroyed three of the books; then brought back the remaining six, for which she asked the same amount of money. The king again sent her away; she destroyed three more books, and demanded the whole price for the remaining three. The curiosity of Tarquin was aroused, and he bought the books, which were found to contain important revelations concerning the fate of Rome. They were kept in a stone chest under the temple of Jupiter Cap´itoli´nus. One of the four sacred colleges was charged with the care of them, and they were only consulted, by order of the Senate, on occasions of great public calamity.

=28.= The Romans probably learned from the Etruscans their various methods of divination—the interpretation of signs in the heavens, of thunder and lightning, of the flight or voice of birds, of the appearance of sacrifices, and of dreams. The legends ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus the introduction of Etruscan divinities and modes of worship into Rome. At a later time, the Senate provided by special decree for the cultivation of “Etruscan discipline” by young men of the highest birth, lest a science so important to the commonwealth should be corrupted by falling into the hands of low and mercenary persons.

The _Augurs_ constituted the second of the sacred colleges; their number was gradually increased from three to sixteen; they were distinguished by a sacred dress and a curved staff, and were held in the highest honor. No public act of any kind could be performed without “taking the auguries”—no election held, no law passed, no war declared; for, by theory, the gods were the rulers of the state, and the magistrates merely their deputies. If, in the midst of the comitia, an augur, however falsely, declared that it thundered, the Assembly broke up at once. It must be admitted that the augurs often used their great power unfairly in the political strife between patricians and plebeians. The latter, as originally foreigners (see § 17), were held to have no share in the gods of Rome, who thus became the exclusive patrons of the privileged class. When, by a change in the constitution, plebeians were at length elected to high offices, the augurs in several cases declared the election null, on the pretext that the auspices had been irregular; and as no one could appeal from their decision, their veto was absolute.

=29.= The College of Pontiffs was the most illustrious of the religious institutions attributed to the good king Numa. The pontiffs superintended all public worship according to their sacred books, and were required to give instruction to all who asked it, concerning the ceremonies with which the gods might be approached. Whenever sacred officers were to be appointed, or wills read, they convoked the Assembly. Certain cases of sacrilegious crime could only be judged by them; and in very early times, like the Hebrew scribes, they were the sole possessors of both civil and religious law. The highest magistrate, equally with private persons, submitted to their decrees, provided three members of the college agreed in the decision. They alone knew what days and hours might be used for the transaction of public business. The calendar was in their keeping, and—since these august and reverend dignitaries were only men—it is well known that they sometimes used their power to lengthen the year’s office of a favorite consul, or to shorten that of one whom they disapproved. The title of Pon´tifex Maximus, or Supreme Pontiff, was adopted by the Roman emperors, and passed from them to the popes or bishops of modern Rome.

=30.= The fourth of the sacred colleges consisted of the _Fetia´les_, or heralds, who were the guardians of the public faith in all dealings with foreign nations. If war was to be declared, it was the duty of a herald to enter the enemy’s country, and four times—once on either side of the Roman boundary, then to the first citizen whom he chanced to meet, and, finally, to the magistrates at the seat of government—to set forth the causes of complaint, and with great solemnity to call on Jupiter to give victory to those whose cause was just.

The priests of particular gods were called _Flamens_, or kindlers, because one of their principal duties was the offering of sacrifices by fire. Chief of them all was the Flamen Dialis, or priest of Jupiter; and next to him were the priests of Mars and Quirinus. Though the purity and dignity of the priestly life were guarded by many curious laws, the priest was not forbidden to hold civil offices. He was not allowed, however, to mount a horse, to look upon an army outside the walls, or, in early times, to leave the city for even a single night.

=31.= After the good king Servius Tullius had completed his census, he performed a solemn purification of the city and people. During the Republic, the same ceremony was repeated after every general registration, which took place once in five years. Sacrifices of a pig, a sheep, and an ox were offered; water was sprinkled from olive-branches, and certain substances were burned, whose smoke was supposed to have a cleansing effect. In like manner, farmers purified their fields, and shepherds their flocks. An army or a fleet always underwent lustration before setting out on any enterprise. In the case of the latter, altars were erected on the shore near which the ships were moored. The sacrifices were carried three times around the fleet, in a small boat, by the generals and priests, while prayers were offered aloud for the success of the expedition.

RECAPITULATION.

Roman religion less imaginative and more practical than the Greek. Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus its chief divinities. Yearly festivals had reference chiefly to war and husbandry. Worship of Janus. Household gods. The Romans shared their belief in oracles with the Greeks; their arts of divination, with the Etruscans. Four Sacred Colleges: Pontiffs, Augurs, Heralds, and Keepers of the Sibylline Books. Priests might hold civil offices. Ceremonial cleansing of the city after every census; of armies and fleets before every expedition.

II. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.

=32.= The 480 years’ history of the Roman Republic will be best understood if divided into four periods:

I. The Growth of the Constitution, B. C. 510-343.

II. Wars for the possession of Italy, B. C. 343-264.

III. Foreign Wars, by which Rome became the ruling power in the world, B. C. 264-133.

IV. Internal Commotions and Civil Wars, B. C. 133-31.

The leaders of the revolution which expelled the Tarquins, restored the laws of Servius and carried forward his plans, by causing the election of two chief magistrates, of whom one was probably a plebeian. The _consuls_, during their year of office, had all the power and dignity of kings. They were preceded in public by their guard of twelve lictors, bearing the _fasces_, or bundles of rods. Out of the city, when the consul was engaged in military command, an ax was bound up with the rods, in token of his absolute power over life and death.

=33.= For 150 years the Republic was involved in a struggle for existence, during which its power was much less than that of regal Rome. The Latins threw off their supremacy, and Lars Por´sena, the Etruscan king of Clu´sium, actually conquered the city, and received from the Senate an ivory throne, a golden crown, a scepter, and triumphal robe, in token of homage. In their further attempts upon Latium, the Etruscans were defeated, and Rome became independent, but with the loss of all her territories west of the Tiber. The Latins were defeated at the Lake Regillus, by the aid—so Roman minstrels related—of the twin deities, Castor and Pollux, who appeared at the head of the legions, in the form of two beautiful youths of more than mortal stature, mounted on white horses, and who were the first to break through into the enemy’s camp. A temple was consequently built to them in the Forum, and they were regarded as the especial patrons of the Roman knights.

=34.= External dangers over, the patricians again made their power felt in the oppression of the common people. The first period of the Republic was absorbed in conflicts between the two great orders in the state—less attractive, certainly, than the romantic stories of the kingly age, or the stirring incidents of the later period of conquest. But the steps by which a great people has gained and established its freedom can never be without importance, especially to the only republic which has rivaled Rome in grandeur, in variety of interests, or in the multitude of races and languages included eventually within its limits.

=35.= The wealth of Rome hitherto had been chiefly derived from the products of the soil. The lands west of the Tiber were now lost, and all the rural district was open to invasion. Crops were ruined, farm buildings destroyed, cattle driven away. At the same time, through the losses and necessities of the government, taxes were greatly increased; and these were levied, not upon the reduced value of the property, but upon the scale of former assessments. To meet their dues, the poor were obliged to borrow money, at enormous rates of interest, from the rich. The nobles seized the opportunity to enforce to their full extent the cruel laws concerning debt, and the sufferings of the insolvent grew too grievous to be borne. Many sold themselves as slaves to discharge their obligations. Those who refused thus to sign away their own and their children’s liberty were often imprisoned, loaded with chains, and starved or tortured by the cruelty of their creditors. The patrician castles, which commanded the hills of Rome, contained gloomy dungeons, which were the scenes of untold atrocities toward such as had the misfortune to incur the wrath of their owners.

=36.= Fifteen years after the expulsion of the kings, the plebeians, wearied out with a government which existed only for the rich, and imposed all its burdens on the poor, withdrew in a body to a hill beyond the Anio, and declared their intention of founding a new city, where they might govern themselves by more just and equal laws, B. C. 494. The patricians now perceived that they had gone too far. However much they hated the people, they had no idea of losing their services. They yielded, therefore, and received back the seceded plebeians on their own conditions. These were: (1.) Cancellation of claims against insolvent debtors; (2.) Liberation of all such who had been imprisoned or enslaved; (3.) Annual election of two _Tribunes_, whose duty it should be to defend the interests of the commons. The number of these officers was soon raised to five, and eventually to ten. Two plebeian _Æ´diles_ were at the same time appointed, and charged with the superintendence of streets, buildings, markets, and public lands; of the public games and festivals, and of the general order of the city. They were judges in cases of small importance, like those of modern police courts; and they were eventually intrusted with the keeping of the decrees of the Senate, which had sometimes been tampered with by the patrician magistrates.

=37.= The scene of this first decisive battle of the people for their rights, was consecrated to Jupiter, and known in later years as the Sacred Mount (_Mons Sacer_). The Roman commons had thenceforth an important part in public affairs. To prevent suffering in future, Spurius Cassius, consul in the year following the secession, proposed a division among the plebeians of a certain part of the public lands, while the tithe of produce levied by the state upon the lands leased by the patricians, should be strictly collected and applied to the payment of the common people when they served as soldiers. Hitherto the troops had received no pay, while their burden of war expenses was great. The other consul opposed the law, and charged Cassius with seeking popularity that he might make himself a king. The law—the first of a long series of “Agrarian” enactments—was passed; but when the year of his consulship had expired, Cassius was brought to trial by his enemies, and condemned as a traitor. He was scourged and beheaded, and his house was razed to the ground, B. C. 485.

=38.= Having destroyed the leader, the patricians went on to rob the people of all the advantage of the law. They insisted on electing both consuls themselves, only requiring their confirmation by the popular assemblies; and with or without this confirmation, their candidates held supreme power, and refused to divide the public lands. The only resource of the commons was to withhold themselves from military service, and the tribunes now made their power felt by protecting them in refusing to enlist. The consuls defeated this measure by holding their recruiting stations outside of the city, while the jurisdiction of the tribunes was wholly within the walls. Though a man might keep himself safe within the protection of the tribunes, yet his lands were laid waste, his buildings burnt, and his cattle confiscated by order of the government. One last expedient remained. Though compelled to enlist, the soldiers could not be made to gain a battle; and considering the consul who led them, and the class to which he belonged, worse enemies than those whom they met in the field, they allowed themselves to be defeated by the Veientians.

=39.= The noble house of the Fa´bii, as champions of the nobility, had been for six successive years in possession of the consulship. They now saw the danger to Rome of longer opposition to the will of the people; and when Kæso Fabius, in the year 479 B. C., came into power, he insisted upon the execution of the Cassian law. The patricians refused with scorn, and the Fabii resolved to quit Rome. With their hundreds of clients, their families, and a few burghers who were attached to them by friendship and sympathy, they established a colony in Etruria, on the little river Crem´era, a few miles from the city. They promised to be no less loyal and valiant defenders of Roman interests, and to maintain with their own resources this advanced post, in the war then in progress against Veii. Two years from their migration, the settlement was surprised by the Veientians, and every man was put to death, B. C. 477.

=40.= The consuls still refused to comply with the Agrarian law, and at the expiration of their term were impeached by Genu´cius, one of the tribunes of the people. On the morning of the day appointed for the trial, Genucius was found murdered in his bed, B. C. 473. This treacherous act paralyzed the people for the moment, and the consuls proceeded with the enlistment of soldiers. Vo´lero Publi´lius, a strong and active commoner, refused to be enrolled; and in the tumult which ensued, the consuls with all their retinue were driven from the Forum.

The next year Volero was chosen tribune, and brought forward a law that the tribunes should thenceforth be elected by the commons alone in their tribes, instead of by the entire people in the centuries. This was designed to avoid the overwhelming vote of the clients of the great houses, who were obliged to obey the decrees of their patrons, and who often controlled the action of the general assembly. For a whole year the patricians contrived, by various delays, to prevent the passage of the bill. Ap´pius Clau´dius, one of the consuls, stationed himself with an armed force in the Forum to oppose it; and it was not until the plebeians, resorting in their turn to force, had seized the Capitol, and held it for some time under military guard, that the Publilian law was passed. This “second Great Charter of Roman liberties” gave the tribes not only the power of electing tribunes and ædiles, but of first discussing all questions which concerned the entire nation. It was a long step toward the gaining of equal rights by the commons, B. C. 471.

=41.= In the meanwhile, the Romans were carrying on wars with the Æqui and Volsci, two Oscan nations which had taken advantage of the changes in the Latin League, to extend their power to the cities on the Alban Mount and over the southern plain of Latium. Their forays extended to the very gates of Rome, driving the country people to take refuge, with their cattle, within the walls, where a plague then raging added the horrors of pestilence to those of war. It is probable that the civil conflicts in Rome had caused the exile of many citizens; and these, in most instances, joined the hostile nations. Rome was the champion of oligarchy among the cities of Italy, as Sparta was among those of Greece. The spirit of party was often stronger than patriotism; the sympathy between Roman and foreign aristocrats was greater than between patrician and plebeian at home; and thus an exiled noble was willing to become the destroyer of his country.

=42.= The story of Coriola´nus may be partly fictitious, but it truly illustrates the condition of the Republic at that period. Caius Marcius, a descendant of the fourth king of Rome, was the pride of the patricians for his warlike virtues, and had won his surname Coriolanus by capturing the Volscian town of Cori´oli by his individual gallantry. But he was bitterly opposed to the common people, and when he was about to be tried before the comitia for having opposed a distribution of corn, he fled and took refuge among the Volscians, whom he had formerly conquered. The king warmly welcomed him, and seized the first opportunity to stir up a new war with the Romans, that he might turn against them the arms of their best leader. When the Volscian army approached Rome, the Senate sent deputies to demand peace, but Caius refused all terms except such as were impossible for the Republic to grant. The priests and augurs next went to plead with him, but without effect.

At last the noble ladies of Rome, headed by Volum´nia, the mother of Caius, and his wife, Vergil´ia, with her young children, went out in a sad and solemn procession to plead for their sacred city. Coriolanus honored, above all, the mother to whose wise and faithful care he owed his greatness. He sprang to meet her with fitting reverence, but before she would receive his greeting, Volumnia exclaimed: “Let me know whether I stand, in thy camp, thy prisoner or thy mother; whether I am speaking to an enemy or to my son!” Her reproaches silenced Caius; the entreaties of his wife and children, and the tears of the noble ladies, moved him from his purpose. He exclaimed, “Mother, thine is the victory; thou hast saved Rome, but thou hast lost thy son!” He led away the Volscian army. Some say he fell a victim to their revenge; but others, that he lived on among them to extreme old age, and lamented, in the desolateness of his years of infirmity, the factious pride that had exiled him from wife, children, and native land.

=43.= In the meantime, Rome suffered another visitation of pestilence, in which thousands of people died daily in the streets. The Æquians and Volscians ravaged the country up to the walls of Rome; and in addition to their other miseries, the crowded multitude were threatened with starvation. Their civil grievances were not to be redressed by anything less than a thorough and radical reform. In the year 462 B. C., the tribune Terenti´lius Harsa proposed the appointment of a board of ten commissioners, half patrician and half plebeian, to revise the constitution, define the duties of consuls and tribunes, and frame a code of laws from the mass of decisions and precedents. This movement was the occasion for ten years of violent contention, during which Rome was several times near falling into the hands of the Volscians, and was once actually occupied by a band of exiles and slaves under a Sabine leader, Herdo´nius, who seized the Capitol and demanded the restoration of all banished citizens to their rights in Rome.

=44.= Chief of the exiles was Kæso Quinc´tius, son of the great Cincinna´tus, who had been expelled for raising riots in the Forum, to prevent any action of the people upon the Terentilian law. The invading party was defeated, and every man slain. The father of Kæso was then consul. In revenge for the fate of his son, he declared that the law should never pass while he was in office; and that he would immediately lead the entire citizen-soldiery out to war, thus preventing a meeting of the tribes. Nay more, the augurs were to accompany him, and so consecrate the ground of the encampment, that a lawful assembly could be held under the absolute power of the consuls, and repeal all the laws which had ever been enacted at Rome under the authority of the tribunes. At the close of his term, Cincinnatus declared that he would appoint a dictator, whose authority would supersede that of all other officers, patrician or plebeian. All these things could be done under the strict forms of the Roman constitution; but the Senate and the wiser patricians saw that the patience of the commons might be taxed too far, and persuaded Cincinnatus to forego so extreme an exercise of his power.

=45.= War with the Æquians went on, and treaties were only made to be broken. In the year 458 B. C., the entire Roman army was entrapped in a pass of the Alban Hills, surrounded by the enemy, and in imminent danger of destruction. In this crisis, Cincinnatus, who had retired from the consulship to resume his favorite toil of farming, was called to be dictator, with absolute power. The messengers of the Senate found him at his plow, in his little garden-plot across the Tiber. He left the plow in the furrow, hastened to Rome, levied a new army in a single day, went out and defeated the Æquians, and returned the next evening in triumph.

RECAPITULATION.

Consuls are appointed with kingly power, but for a limited time. Rome subject to Porsena. The Latins are defeated at the Lake Regillus. Roman nobles oppress their debtors, and the poor secede. Tribunes of the people and ædiles are appointed. The first Agrarian Law is proposed by Cassius, B. C. 486. To avenge the tyranny of their consuls, the common soldiers refuse to fight. The Fabii take sides with the people, and are destroyed in their colony on the Cremera. The Publilian Laws give the election of officers to the people in their tribes, B. C. 471. War and pestilence. Ten years’ debate upon the Terentilian Laws, which propose a revision of the constitution, B. C. 462-452. The Capitol seized by exiles and Sabines. Cincinnatus, as a noble, opposes the commons, but, as a general, saves Rome.

THE LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES.

=46.= The passage of the Terentilian law was delayed six years, but at length the nobles yielded the main point, and the _decemviri_ were chosen. Though wholly patrician, they were men who enjoyed the confidence of both orders for their proved integrity. Both consuls and tribunes were superseded for the time, and full powers, constituent, legislative, and executive, were intrusted to the Ten. The laws of the Twelve Tables, which were the result of their labors, became the “source of all public and private right” at Rome for many centuries. During the debate upon the bill, commissioners had already been sent to Greece, to study the laws and constitution of the Hellenic states. They returned with an Ionian sophist, Hermodo´rus of Ephesus, who aided in explaining to the lawmakers whatever was obscure in the notes of the commissioners; and so valuable were his services, that he was honored with a statue in the Roman _comitium_.

=47.= Only a few points in this celebrated work of legislation can here be noticed. The laws of Rome gave to a father absolute right of property in his family. He might sell his son, his daughter, or even his wife. The latter act, indeed, was denounced as impious by the religious law, but no penalty was attached to it; the curse of the chief pontiff merely marked the guilty person for the wrathful judgments of Heaven. If a father desired to make his son free, the process was more difficult than the emancipation of a slave. The latter, if sold to another master, could be liberated at once, but a son thus sold and liberated returned to the possession of his father. This subjection could only end with the death of the parent, though the son himself might then be an old man. The Twelve Tables enacted that, if a father had three times sold his son, he lost all further control over him; but a son thus emancipated was considered as severed from all relationship with his father, and could no longer inherit his property. Women were all their lives considered as minors and wards. If their father died, they passed under the control of their brothers; or, if they married, they became the absolute property of their husbands. A widow might become the ward of her own son. Marriages between patricians and plebeians were declared unlawful, and children born in such had no claim upon their fathers’ possessions.

=48.= The ten Law-givers visited with their heaviest penalties the defamation of character; and so stringent was their definition of libel, that neither poets nor historians dared even name the living except in terms of praise. It is much more difficult, therefore, to gain a true idea of public men in the history of Rome than of Greece, whose historians spoke with grand impartiality of men and measures, and the license of whose comic poets, though often used with insolent injustice, yet shows us all the weak points of character, and reveals the man as his contemporaries really saw him. The Roman historians, even when writing of the past, could often draw their materials only from funeral orations, or from the flattering verses of dependent poets, laid up among the records of great families.

=49.= The decemvirs, during their appointed year of office, completed ten tables of laws; and these, according to Roman ideas, were so just and so acceptable, that the assemblies willingly consented to renew the same form of government for another term, especially as the work of legislation was not quite complete. In the new decemvirate, Appius Claudius was re-elected, and his unscrupulous character now made itself felt in the tyrannical nature of the government. The people found that they had ten consuls instead of two, and the power of the Ten was unchecked by any popular tribune.

=50.= The domestic rights of the plebeians were rudely invaded. A fair maiden, Virginia, caught the eye of Appius as she went daily to school in the Forum, attended by her nurse. He declared that she was the slave of one of his clients, having been born of a slave-woman in his house, and sold to the wife of Virginius, who had no children of her own. The friends of Virginia and of the people resented this insolent falsehood with such indignation, that the consul’s officers were compelled to release the maiden under bonds to appear the next day before his judgment-seat, where her lineage might be proved.

Virginius, her father, was with the army before Tus´culum. He was hastily summoned, and, riding all night, reached the city early in the morning. In the garb of a suppliant, he appeared in the Forum with his daughter and a great company of matrons and friends. But his plea was not heard. Appius judged the maiden to be, at least, considered a slave until her freedom could be proved, in direct violation of the law which he had himself enacted the year before, that every one should be regarded as free until proved a slave. Virginius perceived that no justice could be expected before such a tribunal. He only demanded one last word with his daughter; and having drawn her aside with her nurse into one of the stalls of the Forum, he seized a butcher’s knife and plunged it into her heart, crying aloud, “Thus only, my child, can I keep thee free!” Then turning to the decemvir, he exclaimed, “On thy head be the curse of this innocent blood!” No one obeyed the consul’s order to seize him. With the bloody knife in his hand, he rushed through the crowd, mounted his horse at the gate of the city, and rode to the camp.

=51.= The army of plebeians arose at his call and marched upon Rome. They entered and passed through the streets to the Aventine, calling upon the people, as they went, to elect ten tribunes and defend their rights. The other army, near Fide´næ, was aroused in the same manner by Icil´ius, the betrothed lover of Virginia. The common soldiers put aside those of the decemvirs who were with them, chose, likewise, ten tribunes, and marched to the city. The twenty tribunes appointed two of their number to act for the rest, and then leaving the Aventine guarded by a garrison, they passed out of the walls followed by the army, and as many of the people as could remove, and established themselves again on the Sacred Mount beyond the Anio.

=52.= The Senate, which had wavered, was now compelled to act. The seceders had declared that they would treat with no one but Valerius and Hora´tius, men whom they could trust. These were sent to hear their demands. The people required that the power of the tribunes should be restored, a right of appeal from the decision of the magistrates to the popular assembly established, and the decemvirs given up to be burnt, as nine friends of the commons had been, within the memory of men still living. This latter demand, caused only by the exasperation of the moment, was withdrawn upon maturer council; the others were granted, the decemvirs resigned, and the people returned to Rome, B. C. 449. A popular assembly was held, in which ten tribunes were elected, Virginius and Icilius being of the number. Two supreme magistrates were chosen by a free vote of the people; in the place of the decemvirate, and they were now first called consuls. Their powers were the same with those of the prætors, or generals, who had ruled from the expulsion of the kings to the appointment of the first decemvirate, except that an appeal might be made from their sentence to that of the comitia.

The first consuls under this new act were Valerius and Horatius. They went forth and gained so signal a victory over the Sabines, that Rome suffered no more incursions from that people for 150 years. Ancient custom and even law among the Romans honored victorious generals with a triumphal entry into the city on their return; but the Senate, whose duty it was to decree the triumph, regarding the consuls as false to the interests of their order, forbade any such honor to be paid them. Hereupon the people exerted their supreme authority, and commanded the consuls to “triumph” in spite of the Senate. (See §§ 109-111.) Appius Claudius and one of his colleagues were impeached and died in prison; the rest fled from Rome, and their property was confiscated.

=53.= A strong reaction now set in, in favor of the patricians; and so determined was their opposition to the new laws, that the people seceded again, but this time only to the Janiculum, west of the Tiber and opposite Rome. At last a law was passed legalizing marriage between the two orders. Instead of throwing open the consulship freely to the plebeians, it was agreed (B. C. 444) to divide its duties and dignities among five officers, of whom two, the censors, should be chosen only from the nobles, though by a free vote of the tribes, while the three military tribunes might be either patricians or plebeians. The censors were to hold office five years, the tribunes only one.

For some alleged defect in the auspices (see § 28), the first three tribunes were set aside, and for six years consuls were regularly appointed as before. In 438 B. C., tribunes were elected, and for three following years consuls again, showing the extreme difficulty with which the people gained their rights, even when conceded by law. In 433 B. C., an important law of Æmilius, the dictator, limited the duration of the censor’s office to eighteen months, though he was still appointed only once in five years, thus leaving the place vacant a much greater time than it was filled.

=54.= The censors were invested with truly kingly splendor and extraordinary powers. They registered the citizens and their property, administered the revenues of the state, kept the rolls of the Senate, from which they erased all unworthy names, and added such as they considered fit. In this judgment of character they were guided solely by their own sense of duty. If a man was tyrannical to his wife and children, or cruel to his slaves, if he neglected his land, or wasted his fortune, or followed any dishonorable calling, he was degraded from his rank, whatever that might be. If a senator or a knight, he was deprived of his gold ring and purple-striped tunic; if a private citizen, he was expelled from the tribes and lost his vote. The censors were thus the guardians of morals, and their power extended to many matters which could hardly be reached by the general action of the law. The taking of every census was followed by a lustration, or ceremonial purifying of the people (see § 31). Hence, the five years which intervened between two elections of censors were called a _lustrum_, or greater year.

=55.= The Romans must have watched with interest, during the years 415 and 414 B. C., the movements of the great Athenian expedition against Syracuse. Had the brilliant schemes of Alcibiades been carried into effect, the Greeks would doubtless have become the leading power in western Europe; “Greece, and not Rome, might have conquered Carthage; Greek, instead of Latin, might have been at this day the principal element of the languages of Spain, of France, and of Italy; and the laws of Athens, rather than of Rome, might be the foundation of the law of the civilized world.”

RECAPITULATION.

Decemviri chosen to make new laws for Rome. Absolute power of the _paterfamilias_. Laws against libel make Roman history mere eulogium. Tyranny of the second decemvirate. Appius Claudius unjustly claims Virginia for a slave. The people secede, overthrow the decemvirate, and restore consuls and tribunes. The new consuls defeat the Sabines, and triumph in spite of the Senate. By another change of constitution, censors and military tribunes are chosen, instead of consuls. The censors have absolute power to correct public morals. The Athenians fail in their Sicilian expedition, B. C. 415, 414, and leave room for the supremacy of Rome.

CAPTURE OF ROME BY THE GAULS.

=56.= The Gauls were now beginning their terrible incursions from the north into the valley of the Po, thus absorbing the attention of the Etruscans; and the time favored a fresh attack of the Romans upon Veii, the nearest state across the Tiber. The war began B. C. 405, and lasted ten years. The necessity of keeping an armed force continually in the field, gave rise to the standing army, which ultimately made so essential a part of Roman power; and, at the same time, obliged the patricians to study the interests of the people. It was now agreed that the soldiers should be regularly paid, and money secured for this purpose by a careful collection of the rents for public lands. The number of military tribunes was doubled. Their chief, the præfect of the city, was a patrician, and chosen by that order, but the remaining five were elected from either or both classes, by a free vote of the popular assembly.

=57.= After ten years’ warfare with varying success, Veii was taken (B. C. 396) by the dictator Camillus. It is said that on the very day of its surrender, Melpum, the Etruscan stronghold in the north, fell before the Gauls. The loss of these two frontier fortresses began the rapid decline of Etrurian power. The joy of the Romans was commemorated by the whimsical custom, long continued, of concluding every festal game with a mock auction called the “Sale of Veientes.” Cape´na, Fale´rii, Nep´ete, and Sunium were likewise conquered, and with their lands became possessions of Rome. Within half a century, the Etruscans lost to the Gauls all their possessions in Campania and north of the Apennines, and to the Romans, all between the Cimin´ian forests and the Tiber. The nation had already lost its force through unbounded excess in luxury. The nobles were enormously rich, while the people were poor and enslaved.

=58.= The war of the Romans against Volsin´ii was equally successful; but, by a sudden and terrible reverse, Rome was now doomed to suffer the fate which she too often inflicted. The Gauls, after conquering northern Etruria, overflowed the barrier of the Apennines and spread over central Italy. They met the entire Roman force near the little river Al´lia, and defeated it with great slaughter; then pushing on with irresistible power, they captured and burned the city. So overwhelming was the disaster, that the 16th of July, the date of the battle of the Allia, was pronounced a “black day” of ill-omen, on which no business could be safely transacted and no sacrifices acceptably offered.

=59.= The vestal virgins withdrew with the sacred fire to Cære, in Etruria; the mass of the people, with the fugitives from the conquered army, had taken refuge in Veii and other Etruscan towns; but the noblest of the patricians resolved to hold the Capitol. Those who were too old to fight, hoped to serve their country equally well by an heroic death. They repeated, after the pontifex maximus, a solemn imprecation,[66] devoting themselves and the army of the Gauls to death for the deliverance of Rome. Then, arrayed in their most magnificent apparel, holding their ivory scepters, and seated each upon his ivory throne at the door of his own house, they sat motionless while the tumult of plunder and pillage was going on around. The barbarians were struck with admiration of these venerable figures, and one of them began reverently to stroke the long white beard of Papir´ius. Enraged by this profaning touch, the old senator struck him with his ivory scepter. It was the signal for slaughter. The Gauls, recovering from their momentary awe, massacred the noble old men without delay.

=60.= The siege of the Capitol continued six or eight months. At one time it was nearly taken, by the enemy scaling the steep cliff by night. The garrison were asleep, but some geese sacred to Juno gave a timely alarm, and the citadel was saved. Marcus Manlius, who was the first to awaken, succeeded in throwing several of the first assailants down the cliff, and thus maintained the fortress until his comrades could come to his aid. At length, though the garrison were nearly exhausted by hunger, the Gauls were equally ready to make terms, for they had heard that the Venetians were invading their northern possessions. A thousand pounds of gold were paid for the ransom of the city, and the barbarians retired. They were followed by Camillus, the conqueror of Veii and Falerii, who was now again dictator, and who, by cutting off straggling parties of the enemy, regained some portion of the rich booty which they were carrying away; but it is probably not true that he gained any important success over them, as was formerly believed.

=61.= A period of great distress followed the retreat of the Gauls. The farms, upon which the livelihood of so many people depended, had been laid waste; their fruit-trees, buildings, implements, stock and stores, even to the seed-corn needed for next year’s sowing, had been burnt. Rome was a mass of rubbish, in which even the direction of the former streets could no longer be discerned. The government furnished roofing materials, and allowed wood and stone to be taken from the public forests and quarries, on condition that every person so aided would give security to complete his building within the year. But these pledges were often forfeited; and to meet the expense of rebuilding, as well as to pay the extraordinary taxes for restoring the fortress and the temples, money had to be borrowed, and the poor were again at the mercy of the rich. Innocent debtors were dragged from their homes, to toil as slaves in the shops or fields of their creditors.

Many chose to remain in the Etruscan towns where they had taken refuge, and even to make of Veii a new Rome for the plebeians, where they might live free from the overbearing rule of the patricians, and be themselves a privileged class. Though this wholesale secession was prevented, yet the numbers in Rome were so greatly diminished, that a mass of the conquered Etruscans were brought in to fill the vacant places. These were provided with Roman lands, were organized into four new tribes, and admitted to full civil rights. The “new people” formed more than a sixth part of the whole population of the reconstructed city.

=62.= No one could see without pity the distress of the people; but Marcus Manlius, the same whose alertness and presence of mind had saved the Capitol, had also reasons of his own for trying to relieve them. He was jealous of Camillus, and thought that his own services had not been duly rewarded. He sold at auction the best portion of his lands, and applied the proceeds to paying the debts of needy persons, thus delivering them from imprisonment and torture. He was rewarded by the unbounded gratitude of the poor; his house was continually thronged with partisans, to whom he spoke of the selfish cruelty of the nobles, in throwing the whole burden of the public calamity on others, and even accused them of embezzling the immense sums raised to replace the treasures of the temples, which had been borrowed to purchase the retreat of the Gauls.

=63.= For this charge Manlius was thrown into prison, and the people began to regard him as a martyr to their cause. On his release, he renewed his attacks upon the government. He fortified his house on the Capitoline, and with his party held the whole height in defiance of the authorities. His treason was so evident, that even the tribunes of the people took part with the patricians against him, and he was brought to trial before the popular assembly.

He appeared, followed by several comrades whose lives he had saved in battle, and by four hundred debtors whom he had rescued from the dungeon. He exhibited the spoils of thirty enemies slain with his own hand, and forty crowns or other honorary rewards received from his generals. He appealed to the gods, whose temples he had saved from pollution, and he bade the people look at the Capitol before they pronounced judgment. It was impossible to convict such a criminal in such a presence, for the very spot on the Capitol where Manlius had stood alone against the Gauls, was visible from the Forum. He was afterward condemned for treason and thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, the precipitous side of the Capitoline Hill, looking toward the Tiber.

=64.= The power of the patricians was only confirmed by this rash and selfish attempt to overthrow it. For seven years the distress of the people went on increasing; the commons lost heart, and their eldest men refused any longer to accept public office. Two younger men now came forward, who were destined, by their firm and wise procedure, to relieve in great measure the miseries of their class.

C. Licinius Stolo was of one of the oldest and wealthiest plebeian families, connected by many marriages with the nobles. Becoming tribune (B. C. 376), together with his friend, L. Sextius, he proposed a new set of laws, designed to remove both the poverty and the political wrongs under which the commons were suffering. (1.) To relieve immediate distress, it was proposed that the enormous interest already paid upon debts should be reckoned as so much defrayed of the principal, and should, therefore, be deducted from the sum still due. (2.) To prevent future poverty, the public lands, hitherto absorbed in great measure by the patricians, were to be thrown open equally to the plebeians, and no man was to be allowed to hold more than 500 _jugera_,[67] or to pasture more than 100 oxen and 500 sheep on the undivided portion. Further, to secure employment to the poor, a certain amount of free labor was required upon every farm. (3.) Two consuls were to be elected, of whom one every year should be a plebeian.

=65.= The strongest objection to a plebeian consulship was on religious grounds; for high patricians held it an impiety to place in the supreme magistracy one who had no right to take the auspices, and whom they regarded as no true Roman. To attack this prejudice in the boldest manner, Licinius proposed to increase the number of keepers of the Sibylline Books from two to ten, and to appoint five of these from the plebeians. These laws were not passed without many years’ violent opposition. At length they were ratified by the Senate and the Comitia Curiata (B. C. 367); and to celebrate this happy agreement between the two orders, a Temple of Concord was built upon the Capitoline Hill. At the same time, a new office, the prætorship, was instituted and confined to the patricians, comprising most of the civil and judicial duties which had hitherto belonged to the consuls, while the latter kept their absolute military power. The first plebeian consul under this arrangement was L. Sextius.

=66.= The restless and turbulent Gauls re-appeared in Latium, during the same year with the passing of the Licinian laws. They were defeated by the aged general Camillus, who had been six times military tribune and five times dictator. On their second invasion they encamped within five miles of the city, and struck terror, we may well believe, into the hearts of those who remembered the desolations of thirty years before; but, at length, they broke up their camp without fighting, and passed into Campania. On their return through Latium they were signally defeated. In 350 B. C., they spent the winter upon the Alban Mount, and joined the Greek pirates on the coast in ravaging the country, until they were dislodged by L. Furius Camillus, a son of the general.

They made a treaty B. C. 346, after which they never again appeared in Latium. They continued to be the ruling race between the Alps and the northern Apennines, and along the Adriatic as far south as the Abruz´zi. Many towns, like Milan, were held, however, by the Etruscans in a sort of independence, while the Gauls lived in unwalled villages. From their Tuscan subjects, the Gauls learned letters and the arts of civilized life, which spread from them, in a greater or less degree, to all the Alpine populations.

RECAPITULATION.

Veii taken B. C. 396, after a ten years’ siege. Defeat of the Romans on the Allia, and capture of their city by the Gauls, B. C. 390. Massacre of the senators. Manlius saves the Capitol, during a seven months’ siege. Rome in ruins. Distress of the poor. Treason of Manlius. The Licinian laws, passed after nine years’ contest, relieve debtors and divide the public lands among the common people. The Gauls overrun central Italy, B. C. 361-346, but at length retire north of the Apennines.

SECOND PERIOD, B. C. 343-264.

=67.= From the political struggles which developed the Roman constitution, we turn to the series of foreign wars between Rome and her most powerful rival for the supremacy of southern Italy. The Samnites were a Sabine race, settled as conquerors in the Oscan country. Their possessions were mostly inland, comprising the snow-covered mountain range which separates the Apulian from the Campanian plains, but they extended to the coast between Naples and Pæstum, where they included the once famous cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

The Samnites ranked with the Latins, as the most warlike races of Italy; but the conquests of the former, at the period to which we have now come, had been by far the more brilliant and extensive. In the decline both of Greek and Etruscan power in southern Italy (see Book III, § 90), they had gained control of the whole lower portion of the peninsula, except a few Greek colonies like Tarentum and Neapolis. But Latium, under the leadership of Rome, had advanced surely though slowly, securing each advantage by the formation of Roman colonies, bound by the strongest ties of obedience to the mother city, while the Samnite nation had no settled policy and no regularly constituted head. Each new settlement, therefore, divided and diminished their strength.

=68.= The conquerors of Cumæ and Capua adopted the luxurious habits of the Greeks and Etruscans, whom they had supplanted, but with whom they continued to live on friendly terms. The Greek-loving inhabitants of the coast dreaded their rude countrymen of the hills, almost as much as did the refined Hellenes themselves, and thus a great division took place in the Samnite stock. The civilized and Hellenized Samnites besought the aid of the Romans against the predatory hordes of their own race, who were constantly swooping down from the Samnian hills to ravage their fields. The Romans consented, on condition of their own supremacy being acknowledged throughout Campania, and their former treaty with Samnium was broken.

=69.= The First Samnite War began with the march of two Roman armies into Campania, while the Latin allies invaded the Pelignian country on the north. The Roman armies were victorious, and both consuls obtained a triumph. A large force was left, at the request of the Campanians, to guard their cities during the winter. The common soldiers were still burdened with poverty, and the prolonged absence from their farms occasioned serious suffering to their families.

In the second year of the war, mutinous plots were discovered, and a large body of the troops were sent home. On their way they released all the bondmen for debt whom they found working in the fields of their creditors, fortified a regular camp on the slope of the Alban Hills, and were joined by a large body of oppressed common people from the city. But when they met the army hastily raised by the patricians, and sent forth under Valerius the dictator—whose family had always been faithful friends to the people, and who was himself greatly beloved by all classes for his generous character, no less than his military glory—these men, whose revolt had been occasioned by real distress, and not by defect of loyalty, could not bring themselves to fight their fellow-citizens and the defenders of their common country. The two armies stood facing each other, until remorse on one side and pity on the other had overcome all mutual resentment; then, both pressing forward, they grasped hands or rushed into each others’ arms with tears and demands for pardon. The just requirements of the soldiers were granted by the Senate, together with amnesty for their irregular proceedings, and this singular rebellion ended in a lasting peace.

=70.= The Latins, meanwhile, had been left to carry on the Samnite war by themselves, and their repeated successes encouraged them to assert their independence of Rome. The Romans now (B. C. 341) made peace with the Samnites, and, two years later, turned their arms against the Latins, who were strengthened by alliance with their late opponents, the Campanians and Volscians. The two consuls with their forces moved into Campania, and encamped in the plain of Capua, opposite the army of the three allies. Strict orders were issued against skirmishing or personal encounters, and disobedience was to be punished with death. Ignorant or heedless of the command, Titus Manlius, the consul’s son, accepted a challenge from a Latin warrior, killed his opponent, and brought the spoils in triumph to lay at his father’s feet. The consul turned away his face, and summoning his guards, ordered them to behead the young man before his tent, in the presence of all the soldiers. Roman discipline knew no ties of affection. Manlius, the father, was forever regarded with horror, but Manlius, the consul and general, was strictly obeyed as long as he commanded the armies of Rome.

=71.= The decisive battle in the Latin war took place at the foot of Vesuvius. The augurs, having taken the auspices as usual, declared that fate demanded the sacrifice of a general on one side and an army on the other. It was therefore made known to the Roman officers that, whichever portion of the army should begin to yield, the consul commanding in that quarter would devote himself to the gods of death and the grave, in order that the army which must perish might be that of the Latins.

Manlius led the Roman right; Publius Decius, the people’s consul, the left. The battle was severe, and bravely fought on both sides; but, at length, the Latin right wing prevailed, and the Roman left began to give way. Decius instantly called the chief pontiff—for, as a plebeian, he himself was ignorant of the ceremonies by which the gods must be addressed—and bade him dictate the form of words in which he was to devote himself to death. By the direction of the pontiff, he wrapped his toga around his face, set his feet upon a javelin, and repeated the imprecation.[68] Then sending his guard of lictors to the other consul to announce his fate, he mounted his horse, plunged into the host of the enemy, and was quickly slain. The Latins saw and understood the act, but they still fought fiercely, like men who struggled against fate. So equally matched were the main forces, that Manlius gained the day at last only by bringing on the poorer supernumeraries, whom he had armed to constitute a double reserve.

=72.= A second battle was much more easily won, and the Latins had no strength to rally for a third. The Latin League was wholly broken up, Roman law every-where took the place of local constitutions, and some cities even became Roman colonies. The Latins were one in race and language with Rome, and their transient hostility was exchanged for a close and permanent alliance. The battle under Mount Vesuvius was one of the most important in the history of Rome, for by securing the sovereignty of Latium, it opened the way to the conquest of the world.

=73.= For the next twelve years the Romans were unable to undertake any great foreign war. Italy was invaded by Alexander of Epirus, uncle of the great Macedonian conqueror, B. C. 332. His quarrel was with the Samnites, but if his success had been equal to his ambition, no engagements with the Romans would have prevented his overrunning the whole peninsula. He was defeated and slain, however, in 326 B. C., and the Romans immediately prepared for a renewed contest with the Samnites, which was to last twenty-two years, B. C. 326-304. The two chief states of Italy fought for sovereignty, and their allies included almost all the other nations in the peninsula.

The events of the first five years were too indecisive to be worth recording. The advantage was generally with the Romans, but the Samnite power was still unbroken, and was able, in 321 B. C., to inflict one of the most severe and disgraceful defeats that Roman arms had ever sustained. The combined forces of Rome, led by the two consuls, were entrapped in a mountain-pass between Naples and Ben´even´tum, known as the “Caudine Forks.” Half the soldiers fell in the fight which ensued; the rest surrendered, but were generously spared by Pontius, the Samnite general, on condition of an honorable peace being signed by the two consuls and by two tribunes of the people, who were present with the troops. The soldiers were then made to “pass under the yoke,”[69] in token of surrender, and were permitted to march away, without their arms, toward Rome. But the Senate, having got back its forces, refused to be bound by the agreement of the consuls. The signers of the treaty, stripped and bound, were given up to the vengeance of the Samnites, but Pontius refused to receive them. He did not choose to punish the innocent for the guilty, nor to justify the Roman government in taking all the advantage of the agreement, and refusing all the sacrifices.

=74.= The war went on six years without any very important event, until, in 315 B. C., the Samnites gained another great success at Lau´tulæ. Almost all the allies of Rome now deserted what seemed the losing cause. Campania revolted; the Ausonians and Volscians joined the Samnite alliance. But, in the following year, a still more severe and decisive battle gave victory to the Romans. The Samnites were crushed beyond all power of recovery. The war was continued, however, ten years longer, chiefly by the efforts of the Etruscans, Oscans, and Umbrians, to preserve the balance of power in Italy. But these efforts were never united, and the Romans were able to defeat them, one by one, until, in 304 B. C., the Samnites became subject to Rome, and all the other parties concluded a peace. Rome was now, without question, the first nation in Italy; and, considering the disputes which weakened the fragments of Alexander’s empire, might almost be considered the greatest in the world. In intellectual culture, the Romans were still inferior to the conquered Samnites. Pontius, the Samnite general, was well versed in Greek philosophy, and in the elevation of his character far surpassed the proudest Romans of his time.

=75.= Near the close of the Second Samnite War, the Æqui, who had been for eighty years in a state of neutrality, took up arms against Rome; and immediately after the treaty of B. C. 304, the consuls marched 40,000 men into their territory. A sharp and severe struggle of fifty days resulted in the capture and destruction of forty-one towns. A large portion of the people were sold into slavery, and the rest became subjects of Rome. A few years later, however, they received the rights of citizens, were enrolled in the tribes, and served in the wars against the Samnites.

=76.= The latter people busily employed the six years’ interval between their second and third great struggle with Rome, in forming and strengthening the “Italian League.” Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls, on the north, were allied with Lucanians, Apulians, most of the Greek cities, and the Samnites, on the south. Rome had the advantage in compactness, numbers, and wealth; her own or her allies’ territory extended across Italy from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and divided the states of her enemies.

The war broke out in 298 B. C., but no important movement was made until, in 295 B. C., the combined armies of the four northern nations advanced toward Rome. The plan of the consuls was at once bold and sagacious. One army awaited the invaders, while another marched directly into Etruria. This movement exposed the weakness of the league, for the Etruscans and Umbrians, deserting their allies, drew off to defend their own territories. The Samnites and Gauls crossed the Apennines to Senti´num, where they were overtaken by the first Roman army. In the battle which followed, the Gallic war-chariots had nearly driven from the field the legions of Decius, the consul, when, remembering the example of his father at Vesuvius, he, likewise, devoted himself to the powers of death for the deliverance of Rome. The legions were at length triumphant; 25,000 of the enemy lay dead upon the field.

=77.= The Gauls now withdrew from the league, but the Samnites continued the war with unabated resolution. Twenty-eight years after his great victory at the Caudine Forks, Pontius again defeated a Roman army under Fabius Gur´ges. The Romans were so exasperated by this defeat where they were confident of victory, that they would have deprived the consul of his command, had not his old father, Fabius Maximus, offered to serve as his lieutenant.

A great victory was now gained, in which Pontius was captured, and made to walk, loaded with chains, in the triumph of the consul. When the procession reached the ascent to the Capitol, he was led aside and beheaded in the Mamertine prison—he who, thirty years before, had spared the lives and liberty of two Roman armies, and even generously released the officers when given over to his vengeance! This base treatment of a brave foe has been called the greatest stain in the Roman annals. The war was ended with the complete submission of Samnium, and the Romans established a colony of 20,000 people at Venu´sia, to hold the conquered territory in awe, B. C. 290.

=78.= In the same year, the consul, Curius Denta´tus, began and ended another war against the Sabines, who had come to the aid of their Samnite kinsmen. They were subdued, and their extensive country, rich in oil, wine, and forests of oak, fell into the possession of the Romans. The commons at Rome suffered greatly, nevertheless, from the burdens of the war. Their farms had been neglected during their absence with the army, and those who had the misfortune to have been taken prisoners, had to be ransomed at a cost ruinous to small fortunes.

Curius, the conqueror of the Sabines, proposed a new Agrarian law for the division of their lands among the poor of Rome. A political contest of several years ensued, during which the mass of the people seceded again to the Janiculum. A rumor of foreign invasion induced the Senate to yield and appoint Hortensius, a plebeian of ancient family, to be dictator. By his wise and conciliatory counsels, peace was restored. He convened all the people in a grove of oaks without the walls, and by the solemn oaths of the whole assembly passed the Hortensian laws, which ended the civil strife of Rome for 150 years. Every citizen received an allotment of land, and certain invidious marks of distinction between patricians and plebeians were effaced, B. C. 286.

RECAPITULATION.

The Hellenized Samnites ask the aid of Rome against their highland countrymen. The First Samnite War, B. C. 343-341, opens with success to the Romans. Sedition of troops in Campania. The Latins revolt against Rome and join the Campanians and Volscians. The Romans make peace and alliance with the Samnites for the Latin War, B. C. 340-338. In the battle of Vesuvius, Decius, the consul, devotes himself to death, and the Romans are victorious. The Latin League suppressed, and the supremacy of Rome established. An invasion of Italy by Alexander of Epirus, is followed by the Second Samnite War, B. C. 326-304. The Romans defeated at the Caudine Forks, B. C. 321, but at last completely victorious. They conquer the Æqui, B. C. 304. Third Samnite War, and Italian League against Rome, B. C. 298-290. Great victory at Sentinum over Gauls, Samnites, Etruscans, and Umbrians. Capture of Pontius, B. C. 292, and end of the Samnite wars. Sabine territories conquered and divided among the people, by Hortensian laws.

WAR WITH PYRRHUS.

=79.= Within three years (B. C. 283), the Romans were menaced by a new danger, in a powerful coalition formed by the Tarentines, and including nearly all the nations of Italy. The storm gathered swiftly and burst from all quarters at once. In the south, the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians were in arms; in the north, the Etruscans and Umbrians, with hordes of Gallic mercenaries, were pouring into the field. Arre´tium alone stood firmly by the Roman alliance, and was besieged by an army of Etruscans and Gauls. The consul, Metel´lus, marching to its relief, was defeated with the total loss of his army. Embassadors, sent to remonstrate with the Seno´nian Gauls for the infringement of their treaty with Rome, were murdered, and their bodies hewed to pieces and cast out without burial. This outrage, which the laws of the rudest savages pronounced sacrilege, provoked a speedy vengeance. Dolabel´la, the consul, marched into the Gallic territory with his army, killed every man who was found, carried off the women and children as slaves, and reduced every village to a heap of ashes and rubbish.

=80.= The Boian Gauls took up arms to avenge their brethren, and, joining the Etruscans, met the Roman forces in the valley of the Tiber, near the little lake Vad´imon. They were defeated so thoroughly that very few escaped from the field. The consul Fabric´ius, the following year, defeated the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians in several great battles, broke up the coalition in the south, and collected an amount of spoils which enabled him to pay all the war expenses of the year, and, beside allowing a liberal share to every soldier, to leave half a million of dollars in the treasury. Tarentum, the prime mover of the war, had never drawn a sword, but had left all its burdens and losses to her allies. To punish this passive but mischievous policy, a Roman fleet was now sent to cruise around the eastern and southern coasts of Italy. It was defeated and sunk by the Tarentines in their own harbor. They then seized Thurii, expelled the Roman garrison, and, in the name of all the Italian Greeks, sent to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, for aid.

=81.= This accomplished and ambitious prince was glad of a new field of enterprise. He hastened into Italy with a well-appointed army of 25,500 men, drilled and equipped in the Macedonian fashion, and supplied with twenty elephants. The gay and self-indulgent Tarentines, quite willing that another should fight their battles for them, forgot their promises of service and subsidies; but Pyrrhus showed them that he was master by stopping the sports of the circus and theaters, and the banquets of the clubs, and keeping the citizens under arms from morning to night. Even with inferior forces he was able to defeat the Roman legions at Heracle´a, on the Siris. Seven times the Epirotes and Greeks were driven from the field, and seven times regained it; but when the last Italian reserve was engaged, Pyrrhus brought on his elephants, till then unknown in Italy, and they put to flight the Roman horse. The rout was complete; the Romans did not stay to defend their camp, but fled to Venu´sia, leaving Pyrrhus master of the field.

=82.= He was now joined by many allies, some of whom had even been subjects or friends of Rome; but the advantage of his victory was not sufficient to balance his loss in officers and men—losses the more serious as Greece was now overrun by the Gauls, and there was little hope of recruits. In these circumstances, Pyrrhus sent to Rome his embassador, Cin´eas, an orator of such brilliant talent, that he was said to have won more cities by his tongue than Pyrrhus by his sword. A large party was inclined to listen to his proposals of “peace, friendship, and alliance.” But Appius Claudius—thirty years ago censor, now a blind old man—heard in his house that Rome was making peace, with a victorious enemy still upon Italian soil. He caused himself to be carried in a litter through the Forum to the Senate-house. When he arrived, all his sons and sons-in-law went out to meet him and lead him to his ancient place. All the Senate listened in breathless silence as the old man rose to speak, protesting against the dishonor of his country. When he ceased, it was voted that no peace should be made while any foreign foe was in Italy, and that the orator who had so nearly persuaded them should leave the city that very day.

=83.= The war went on between the consummate genius of Pyrrhus and the unconquerable will of the Roman people. They were fighting for existence, while Pyrrhus fought for glory; and though in every pitched battle he was victorious, fresh armies were always ready to oppose him. Still hoping to make peace with Rome, he refused to ransom or exchange the multitude of prisoners whom he had taken, but he allowed them all to return to Rome for the winter holidays—the Saturna´lia—on their simple promise to return if the Senate refused a treaty. The Senate refused, and every man returned. In his second campaign, Pyrrhus gained another brilliant victory, at As´culum, over the Romans and their allies. But his restless ambition now turned to a new field, and he departed into Sicily, where the Greek cities had implored his aid against the Carthaginians. Once master of that fertile island, he believed that he could attempt the conquest of Italy with better resources, and he left troops to hold Tarentum and Locri for his base of future operations in the peninsula.

=84.= In Sicily his genius and valor for a time drove all before him. The strong town of Eryx was taken, Pyrrhus himself being the first to mount the scaling-ladders. The Carthaginians implored peace, offering ships and money as the conditions of an alliance. Pyrrhus haughtily refused; but a reverse which he afterward suffered at Lilybæ´um, encouraged his enemies and alienated his allies. After two years he returned into Italy, pursued by a Carthaginian fleet, which defeated him with a loss of seventy ships. On landing, he was met by a body of Mamertines,[70] who had crossed the straits from Sicily, and whom he defeated only by a sharp and costly battle. He arrived at Tarentum with an army equal in numbers, but far inferior in character, to that with which he had come from Epirus four years earlier. His faithful Epirotes were slain, and in their places were ill-trained Italian mercenaries, who would serve only as long as pay and plunder abounded.

=85.= Being in great want of money to satisfy these unruly followers, Pyrrhus yielded to the advice of his Epicure´an courtiers, and appropriated the treasures of the temple of Proser´pina, at Locri. The money was embarked by sea for Tarentum, but a storm drove the sacrilegious vessel back upon the coasts of Locri; and Pyrrhus was so affected by remorse, that he restored the gold and put to death the counselors. He believed that he was ever after haunted by the wrath of Proserpina, which dragged him down to ruin. The following year he was totally defeated near Beneventum, by Curius Dentatus, the consul. Toward the end of the year he passed over into Greece, still leaving a garrison at Tarentum, in token of his unconquered resolution to return.

During the first invasion by Pyrrhus, the Eighth Legion, stationed at Rhegium, and composed chiefly of Campanian mercenaries, had, like the Mamertines in Sicily, thrown off their allegiance, slaughtered the Greek inhabitants, and held the town as an independent military post. They were now reduced, and most of the garrison put to the sword; the rest, consisting of the original soldiers of the legion, were tried at Rome, scourged, and beheaded.

=86.= Roman supremacy was now speedily established both in northern and southern Italy. Picenum was conquered, and half her inhabitants were forcibly removed to the shores of the Gulf of Salerno. Umbria submitted B. C. 266, the chief cities of Etruria followed, and the entire peninsula south of the Macra and Rubicon became subject to Rome. Hitherto the Romans, like the Spartans, had prided themselves upon the homeliness of their manners. When the Samnites sent envoys to M. Curius to bespeak his kind offices with the Senate, and offer him a present of gold, they found the ex-consul seated by his fire and roasting turnips in the ashes, with a wooden platter before him. To their proffered gift he replied, “I count it my glory not to possess gold myself, but to have power over those who do.”

The eleven years following the departure of Pyrrhus were a period of the greatest prosperity ever enjoyed by the common people of Rome, and the wealth arising from the conquest of Italy materially changed their manner of living. Every freeman received a fresh grant of seven _jugera_ of land or a portion of money. The property of the displaced governments went, of course, to the Roman state, and thus valuable possessions of mines, quarries, forests, fisheries, and public lands were added to its domains. The administration of the public revenues demanded a greatly increased number of officials, and the rich, as well as the poor, profited by the results of war.

=87.= The new territories were secured by that system of colonies which, in later times, served to establish the Roman power from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. The colonies were of two kinds. Most favored were those composed of “Roman citizens,” who retained all their rights as such, voting in the assembly, and being eligible to any office which they could have filled if remaining at Rome. Those who joined a “Latin colony,” on the other hand, lost their civil rights in Rome, but they had privileges which attached them both by interest and affection to the mother city. Ostia, and the maritime colonies generally, were of the former and higher class. The great system of Roman roads, which ultimately intersected all western Europe, and may be seen to-day in their massive remains, owed its origin to Appius Claudius “the Blind,” who when censor, in 312 B. C., constructed the Appian Way to connect Rome with her new dependency, Campania. He also built the first of the Roman aqueducts, to supply the poorer portion of the city with water.

=88.= The free-born plebeians of Rome now possessed half the high offices in the state, and even in the sacred colleges of pontiffs and augurs. They were admitted to the Senate when they had served as consuls, or had been appointed to be either prætors or ædiles. Appius Claudius, in his censorship, went still further, and placed upon the rolls of the Senate the names of some who had been born slaves, or who possessed no lands. He enrolled these two very numerous classes in the tribes as voters; and instead of assigning them to those of the city, where they almost exclusively belonged, he distributed them over all the districts, so that they might control all elections. To rescue Rome from the inevitable rule of the mob, his successors in the censorship confined these new votes to the city, thus giving them the control only of four tribes out of thirty-one, and so the danger was averted.

RECAPITULATION.

Coalitions in the north and south against the Romans. Siege of Arretium, and defeat of Metellus. War with the Senonian and Boian Gauls. Victories of Fabricius in the south. Pyrrhus comes to the aid of the Tarentines; defeats the Romans at Heraclea, Asculum, etc.; sends Cineas to Rome, whose persuasions are thwarted by Appius Claudius the Blind; passes into Sicily, and after two years returns to Epirus. All Italy subject to Rome. Increased wealth and luxury of the people. Many new colonies upon the conquered lands. Roads and aqueducts are constructed. Freedmen and non-possessors of land admitted to the suffrage by Appius Claudius.

THIRD PERIOD, B. C. 264-133.

=89.= The great commercial Republic of Carthage, though allied with Rome during the wars with Pyrrhus, had regarded with jealousy the steadily increasing power of the Italian state. The Roman people, on the other hand, had been so enriched by their recent wars, that they were eager for fresh plunder and a new allotment of conquered lands. A slight and doubtful pretext was, therefore, sufficient to plunge the two nations into war. The Carthaginians had seized the citadel of Messana, under pretense of aiding the Mamertines against Hi´ero of Syracuse. The Romans had recently punished the buccaneers of Rhegium for precisely the same crime which the “Sons of Mara” had committed at Messana, but when the latter sought their aid against both Syracusans and Carthaginians, the temptation was too great; they accepted the disreputable alliance, and invaded Sicily with 20,000 men.

=90.= Having gained possession of Messana, they kept it for their own. The combined forces of Syracuse and Carthage, besieging the place, were defeated by Claudius, the consul; and Hiero, being distrustful of his African allies, returned home. The next year he made peace with the Romans, and continued until his death, nearly half a century later, their faithful friend and ally. Most of the Greek cities in Sicily followed his example. Hannibal,[71] son of Gisco, the Carthaginian general, could no longer meet the Romans in the field, but shut himself up in Agrigentum and was besieged. Hanno, attempting to relieve him, was decisively defeated; the city was taken, and its people were sold as slaves.

Hannibal, who escaped to Panor´mus (Palermo) with most of his troops, now carried the war upon the sea, and ravaged the defenseless coasts of Italy with a fleet of sixty vessels. The next year his lieutenant, Boö´des, with a naval detachment, met the consul, Scipio, at Lip´ara, and captured his whole squadron. Hannibal then set out with fifty ships to ravage the coasts of Italy again. But the Romans, wisely learning from their enemies, were now prepared to meet them on their own element. A Carthaginian quin´quereme (a vessel with five rows of oars) had been cast ashore on the coast of Bruttium. It was used as a model, and the Romans, who previously had had nothing greater than triremes, possessed, within two months, one hundred first-class war vessels. While the ships were building, the crews were trained on shore to their peculiar and complicated motions. In the very first encounter, Hannibal was defeated; in the second, off Mylæ, he lost fifty vessels, among them his magnificent flag-ship, which had formerly belonged to Pyrrhus.

=91.= In 259 B. C., Sardinia and Corsica were attacked, and the town of Ale´ria taken by the Romans. The following year, another great naval victory was gained off Ec´nomus, in Sicily; and the consuls, Manlius and Regulus, invaded Africa. They captured and fortified the town of Cly´pea, which they made their headquarters, and then proceeded to lay waste the lands of Carthage with fire and sword. The beautiful villas of the nobles and merchants afforded inestimable spoils; and 20,000 persons, many of whom were of exalted rank, and accustomed to all the refinements of wealth, were dragged away as slaves.

In the winter, Manlius returned to Rome with half the army and all the plunder, while Regulus remained to prosecute the war. He defeated the Carthaginian generals, captured their camp, and overran the country at pleasure. More than three hundred walled villages or towns were taken. In vain the judges and nobles of Carthage cast their children into the brazen arms of Moloch, whence they rolled into the fiery furnace burning always before him. The hideous idol was not appeased, and the Roman general was equally implacable. To all embassies he refused peace, except on such intolerable terms that even disastrous war seemed better.

=92.= At the darkest moment, relief arrived in the person of a Spartan general, Xanthippus, who came with a body of Greek mercenaries. His military fame and the evident wisdom of his counsels inspired such confidence, that he was put in the place of the incompetent Punic commanders. With his 4,000 Greeks, added to the Carthaginian infantry and 100 elephants, he defeated and captured Regulus, and wholly destroyed the Roman army. A still more terrible disaster befell the fleet which had been sent to bring away the shattered remnants of the forces from Africa. A violent storm came on, and the southern coast of Sicily was strewn with the remains of 260 vessels and 100,000 men, B. C. 255.

The Romans, though nearly driven to despair of the republic, never relaxed their exertions, but equipped a new fleet, with which, the following year, they captured the important town of Panormus. This fleet was wrecked, B. C. 253, and the next two years were full of discouragements; but, in 250 B. C., a brilliant victory, won at Panormus by the proconsul Metellus, tended to restore the balance of the opposing forces. A hundred elephants, taken alive, were exhibited in the triumph of Metellus.

=93.= For the next eight years, the advantage was usually with the Carthaginians. Hamilcar Barca, the father of the great Hannibal, ravaged the coasts of Italy, and the Romans had no leader of equal genius to oppose to him. At last they rallied all their forces to put an end to the war. The wealthier citizens at their own expense fitted out a fleet of 200 ships, and the consul Luta´tius gained a decisive victory among the islands west of Sicily. This reverse, following twenty-three years of exhausting war, so disheartened the Carthaginians, that they agreed to abandon Sicily and all the neighboring islands, to pay 2,000 talents, and release all the Roman prisoners without ransom.

=94.= The First Punic War had lasted nearly twenty-four years, B. C. 264-241 inclusive. Rome emerged from it a great naval power, able to meet on equal terms the well-trained mariners who had hitherto ruled the western Mediterranean. Foreseeing that the struggle must be renewed, both parties spent the twenty-three years which followed in strenuous preparations. Rome seized upon Sardinia and Corsica; and Carthage, absorbed and weakened by a revolt of her mercenary troops, was compelled to submit, and even to pay a heavy fine for having presumed to remonstrate.

These islands, with Sicily, were placed under proconsular government, the system by which Rome afterward managed all her vast foreign possessions. The two consuls, on completing their year of office, divided the “provinces” between them by lot or agreement, and each held in his own, both military and civil control, while the finances were managed by quæstors responsible only to the Senate. When the provinces became numerous, the greater number were governed by pro-prætors. One-tenth of the whole produce of these conquered countries was claimed by Rome, beside a duty of five per cent on all imports and exports.

=95.= By the request of the western Greeks, Rome exerted her new naval power in clearing the Adriatic of the Illyrian pirates, who were ravaging its coasts and destroying its commerce. Their queen, Teuta, seized the Roman embassadors who were first sent into her country, killed two and imprisoned the third. In the war which immediately followed, she lost the greater part of her dominions, and was compelled to keep her corsairs within stricter limits for the future, beside paying a yearly tribute to her conquerors. In gratitude for this important service, the Romans were admitted to equal rights with the Hellenic race in the Isthmian Games and the Eleusinian Mysteries, B. C. 228.

=96.= While thus asserting her power in the Greek peninsula, Rome desired to extend her Italian dominion to its natural limit in the Alpine range. The Gauls were not slow in taking the alarm. Obtaining fresh forces from their kinsmen beyond the mountains, they advanced into central Italy, and, overrunning Etruria, threatened Rome again as in the days of Brennus. Three armies were quickly in the field to oppose them; and though one was routed, another, under the consul Æmil´ius, aided by Regulus,[72] who had unexpectedly arrived from Sardinia, gained a decisive victory which nearly destroyed the Gallic host. Within three years all Cisalpine Gaul submitted to Rome, B. C. 222. Mediola´num and Comum (Milan and Como), as well as Placen´tia, Parma, Mode´na, Man´tua, Vero´na, and Brix´ia, were occupied by Roman colonies, connected with the capital by the great military road called the Flaminian Way, and its continuations.

=97.= Carthage, meanwhile, had yielded only from necessity, and for a time, to the superior power of Rome. A large majority of her citizens were for renewing the war at the earliest possible moment; and to recruit her power and wealth, Hamilcar had devoted all his energies to the conquest of the Spanish peninsula, B. C. 236-228. After his death, his son-in-law, Has´drubal, organized and developed the resources of the country by building towns, encouraging trade and tillage, training the native tribes into efficient soldiers, and working the newly discovered silver mines, which, beside paying all the expenses of the province, were rapidly filling up the home treasury. Rome, with her command of the sea, secured from fear of invasion, saw without uneasiness the prosperity of her rival. But an item which no one could have foreseen, the genius of Hannibal, was now to be added to the resources of Carthage.

=98.= At nine years of age he had accompanied his father into Spain, and before the altar of his country’s gods had taken a solemn oath of eternal and unrelenting enmity to Rome. The oath of the child had not been forgotten by the youth. At the age of eighteen he fought by his father’s side in the battle where Hamilcar was slain; and during the following eight years of Hasdrubal’s administration, that general intrusted his young brother-in-law with the command of most of his military enterprises. Upon the death of Hasdrubal, the army by acclamation placed Hannibal at its head, and the government at home neither could nor would annul the appointment.

Having confirmed his power in Spain by two years’ war against the native tribes, Hannibal deliberately sought the quarrel with Rome to which he had devoted his life. The Greek city of Saguntum had placed itself under the protection of Rome. It was attacked by Hannibal, and taken after an obstinate defense of eight months. The Romans sent to Carthage to demand the surrender of the young general for this breach of the treaty. The reply was a declaration of war.

=99.= Leaving his brother Hasdrubal in charge of Spain, Hannibal prepared for a bolder movement than the Romans had foreseen. He knew that the great mountain-barrier of the Alps had already often been traversed by the Gauls, and he relied upon finding able guides among this people, who were mostly friendly to Carthage. He resolved, therefore, on the hitherto unprecedented feat of leading an army from Spain into Italy by land. Having offered, during the winter, solemn sacrifices and prayers for success, at the distant shrine of the Tyrian Hercules at Gades, he set forth from Carthagena, in the spring of 218 B. C., with an army of 90,000 foot, 12,000 horse, and a considerable number of elephants. The Spanish tribes between the Ebro and the Pyrenees were yet to be overcome. They resisted bravely, but were subdued, and a force of 11,000 men was left to hold them in subjection.

=100.= Having passed the Pyrenees, Hannibal advanced through friendly tribes of Gauls to the Rhone, which he crossed near the modern town of Orange, gaining an advance of three days upon the army of Scipio, the consul, who had intended to stop him. The passage of the Alps, with such a force, was one of the greatest military achievements of ancient times. The higher mountains were already obstructed by the snows of early autumn; hostile tribes contested his passage in narrow and dangerous defiles; and in two fierce battles, the army of Hannibal narrowly escaped total destruction. When, after fifteen days of toilsome and dangerous marching, he emerged into the plain of the Po, it was with scarcely more than one-fourth of the great army which had accompanied him from Carthagena.

=101.= The Insubrian Gauls welcomed Hannibal as their deliverer from the hated power of Rome. After a short period of rest in their hospitable country, he sought Scipio, and totally routed his forces in a battle on the Tici´nus. By a still greater victory on the Tre´bia, over the forces of the two consuls (Dec., 218 B. C.), Hannibal became master of northern Italy. All the Gauls who had wavered now hastened to join his standard; but the gain from this quarter was balanced by the irreparable loss of his elephants, and the severe suffering of his African and Spanish troops from the unwonted coldness of the winter.

In the spring of 217 B. C., he crossed the Apennines, and traversed the marshes of the Arno, a passage of tremendous difficulty, in which many of his beasts of burden perished. Again seeking battle, Hannibal passed the army of Flaminius at Arretium, and laid waste the country toward Peru´sia, thus provoking the consul to follow. When he had drawn the Roman army into a most perilous position, between precipitous cliffs and the Lake Thrasymene, he let loose his Gauls and Numidians to the attack. The defeat of the Romans was overwhelming: thousands were forced into the lake; thousands fell by the sword, among whom was Flaminius himself; and 15,000 prisoners remained in the hands of the enemy.

=102.= A panic seized Rome; the conqueror was instantly expected at her gates, and Fabius was elected dictator with unlimited powers. But Hannibal had sought to detach the Italian allies from Rome, by releasing without ransom all their prisoners whom he had taken. Wishing to give time for the disunion to take effect, he turned aside into Apulia, where he rested and recruited his troops worn by so many hardships.

It was already proved in three battles that the Carthaginian was irresistible in the field. The policy of Fabius, therefore, was to avoid a general engagement, while he annoyed and weakened his enemy by cutting off his foraging parties, and otherwise harassing his march. In vain Hannibal crossed the Apennines into the rich Campanian fields, plundering and destroying the crops; he could neither capture a town nor entice Fabius into a battle. The latter fortified the Samnian mountain-passes, thinking to catch his enemy in a trap; but Hannibal eluded the snare and retired safe into Apulia, laden with abundant provision for the comfort of his winter-quarters.

=103.= Great discontent was felt at Rome with the cautious policy of the dictator, and, in the spring of 216 B. C., an army of nearly 90,000 men was led into Apulia by the two consuls Æmilius Paulus and Terentius Varro. They were met by Hannibal on the plain of the Aufidus, near the little town of Cannæ. The Carthaginians were inferior in numbers but superior in discipline, especially in the Numidian horsemen, who had always been victorious in an open field. Never had the Romans suffered so overwhelming a defeat. Their army was annihilated. From 40,000 to 50,000 men lay dead upon the plain, among whom were Æmilius the consul, eighty senators, and the flower of Roman knighthood. Varro, the other consul, with a small but resolute band, made his way in good order from the battle-field; the rest of the survivors were either dispersed or taken prisoners.

=104.= Southern Italy was now lost to Rome. Except the Roman colonies and the Greek cities held by Roman garrisons, all submitted to Hannibal. Capua opened her gates and became the winter-quarters of the African army. Philip of Macedon and Hieron´ymus of Syracuse made alliance with Carthage, and wars with these two powers divided the attention of the Romans. Still, beside keeping two armies in the foreign fields, they occupied every province of Italy with a separate force; and though too wise to meet Hannibal again in a general engagement, hemmed him in closely and cut off his supplies. The great general was now but faintly supported at home, and the ungenerous policy of Carthage probably deprived her of the conquest of Italy.

=105.= Three years, therefore, passed with no decisive events. In 212 B. C., Syracuse was taken by Marcellus after two years’ siege. The attacks of the Romans had been long foiled by the skill of Archimedes, the philosopher, who is said to have burnt their ships at the distance of a bow-shot from the walls, by means of a combination of mirrors which concentrated the sun’s rays. He constructed powerful engines, which, when attached to the walls, grappled the Roman ships and lifted them out of the water; and, in short, the brain of Archimedes was a better defense to Syracuse than the arms of all her soldiers. In the taking of the city, the philosopher was slain by some ignorant troopers; but Marcellus deeply regretted the event. He ordered him to be buried with high honors, and distinguished his family by many marks of friendship.

=106.= Hannibal had been long anxiously awaiting the arrival of his brother from Spain; but the generalship of the two Scipios, Cneius and Publius, who conducted the war in that country, and more especially the brilliant genius of the son of the latter, afterward known as Africanus, had detained Hasdrubal and involved him in many disasters, even the loss of his capital, Carthagena. At last, in 208 B. C., Hasdrubal left Spain to the care of two other generals, and striking out a new path, as his brother’s route of eleven years before was now guarded by the Romans, he crossed the Pyrenees at their western extremity and plunged into the heart of Gaul. Many of the restless people flocked to his standard, and he “descended from the Alps like a rolling snow-ball, far greater than he came over the Pyrenees.”

He found some of Hannibal’s roads uninjured; the mountaineers made no effort to dispute his passage, and he arrived in Italy before he was expected, so that no Roman army was ready to receive him. He might, perhaps, have settled once for all the supremacy of Carthage by marching directly on Rome, for the resources of the Republic, both in men and money, had been drained to the utmost, and another Thrasymene or Cannæ would have ended her existence.

=107.= Hasdrubal lost time in the siege of Placentia, and his letter, describing to Hannibal his plan of operations, fell into the hands of Nero, the consul, who, by a rapid and secret march, joined his colleague at Sena with 7,000 men, leaving the main part of his army still facing Hannibal in the south. Hasdrubal was uninformed of the reinforcement of his enemy, but his quick ear caught one more trumpet-note than usual, at sunrise, in the Roman camp; and as he rode forth to reconnoiter, he discovered that the horses appeared over-driven, and the armor of the men stained. He therefore delayed until night-fall, and then moved to cross the river Metau´rus in search of a stronger position. But his guides betrayed him, and when morning dawned his worn and weary troops were still on the nearer side of the river, where they were soon overtaken by the foe. He made the best arrangement of his men which the crisis would admit, placing the ten elephants in front “like a line of moving fortresses,” his veteran Spanish infantry on the right, the Ligurians in the center, and the Gauls on the left.

The battle was fiercely contested, for both armies felt that the decision of the day would be final, and that there was no hope for the vanquished. At last Nero, by a circuitous movement, fell upon the Spanish infantry, which had already borne the brunt of the fighting. Hasdrubal saw that the day was lost, and scorning to survive his men or to adorn a Roman triumph, he spurred his horse into the midst of a cohort, and died, sword in hand, B. C. 207.

=108.= The consul Nero returned to his camp before Hannibal had even discovered his absence. Hasdrubal’s arrival in Italy, the battle and its result were first made known to the great general by seeing the ghastly head of his brother, which Nero had brutally ordered to be thrown within his lines. Hannibal read the tale of disaster in the terrible message, and groaned aloud that he recognized the fate of Carthage. Though he remained four years strongly posted in the mountain fastnesses of Bruttium, the issue of the war was already decided. In 204 B. C., the younger Scipio crossed into Africa, and the Carthaginians were compelled to recall Hannibal.

The final battle was fought at Zama, B. C. 202. The great Carthaginian displayed again his perfect generalship, but he had no longer his invincible cavalry, and his elephants were rendered useless by the skillful tactics of Scipio. He was defeated with the loss of 20,000 men slain, and an equal number of prisoners. The peace, concluded in the following year, took from Carthage all her possessions beyond the limits of Africa, and all the lands conquered from Numidia, whose king, Mas´sinis´sa, had rendered important aid to Scipio in the recent war. She surrendered, also, her fleet and elephants, promised a yearly tribute of 200 talents, and engaged to make no war without permission from Rome.

RECAPITULATION.

The First Punic War (B. C. 264-241) begins with the invasion of Sicily by the Romans, who are joined by many Greek cities, capture Messana and Agrigentum, equip a fleet upon a Carthaginian model, and gain many naval victories. They invade Africa, and ravage the lands of Carthage almost without opposition; but Xanthippus arrives with auxiliaries, defeats and captures Regulus. Five years of disaster to the Romans are followed by the great victory of Metellus at Palermo; and after eight years of again unsuccessful warfare, the victory of Lutatius among the Ægates ends the contest. During the peace which follows, Sardinia and Corsica are seized by the Romans, and placed under proconsular government; the Illyrian pirates are subdued, B. C. 229, 228; Cisalpine Gaul conquered, B. C. 225-222. The Second Punic War is begun, B. C. 218, by Hannibal. He crosses the Pyrenees and Alps, defeats the Romans on the Ticinus and the Trebia, and still more disastrously near the Lake Thrasymene and at Cannæ. Syracuse, though defended by the science of Archimedes, is captured by Marcellus. The three Scipios make successful war in Spain. Hasdrubal comes at last to the relief of his brother, but is defeated and slain on the Metaurus, B. C. 207. Hannibal is recalled to Africa, and finally defeated at Zama by Scipio Africanus, B. C. 202.

EXTENSION OF ROMAN POWER.

=109.= A triumph was awarded to Scipio, who was received at Rome with unbounded enthusiasm. The _Triumph_, which was the highest reward a Roman general could attain, may here be described once for all. The victorious chief waited without the walls until the Senate had decided upon his claim to the honor. Several conditions were to be observed: the victory must have been over foreign and not domestic foes; it must have been, not the recovery of something lost, but an actual extension of Roman territory; the war must be completed and the army withdrawn from the field, for the soldiers were entitled to a share in the triumph of their general. The honor was limited to persons of consular or, at least, prætorian rank; an officer of lower grade might receive an _ovation_, in which he entered the city on foot, but the chariot was a mark of kingly state which could only be permitted to the highest.

=110.= If a triumph was decreed, a special vote of the people continued to the general his military command for the day within the walls, for without a suspension of the law, he must have laid it down on entering the gates. On the appointed day, he was met at the Triumphal Gate by the Senate and all the magistrates, in splendid apparel. Taking the lead of the procession, they were followed by a band of trumpeters, and a train of wagons laden with the spoils of the conquered countries, which were indicated by tablets inscribed in large letters with their names. Models in wood or ivory of the captured cities; pictures of mountains, rivers, or other natural features of the regions subdued; loads of gold, silver, precious stones, vases, statues, and whatever was most rich, curious, or admirable in the spoils of temples and palaces, made an important part of the display. Then came a band of flute players, preceding the white oxen destined for sacrifice, their horns gilded and adorned with wreaths of flowers and fillets of wool. Elephants and other strange animals from the conquered countries, were followed by a train of captive princes or leaders with their families, and a crowd of captives of inferior rank, loaded with fetters.

Then came the twelve lictors of the imperator in single file, their fasces wreathed in laurel; and, lastly, the triumphant general himself, in his circular chariot drawn by four horses. His robes glistened with golden embroidery; he bore a scepter, and upon his head was a wreath of Delphic laurel. A slave standing behind him held a crown of Etruscan gold; he was instructed to whisper from time to time in his master’s ear, “Remember that thou art but a man.” Behind the general rode his sons and lieutenants, and then came the entire army, their spears adorned with laurels—who either sang hymns of praise, or amused themselves and the by-standers with coarse jokes and doggerel verses at their general’s expense. This rude license of speech was thought to neutralize the effect of overmuch flattery, which the Romans, like the modern Italians, were taught especially to dread. All the people, in gala dress, thronged the streets, and every temple and shrine were adorned with flowers.

=111.= As a terrible contrast to the joy of the day, just as the procession had nearly finished its course to the Capitol, some of the captured chiefs were led aside and put to death. When their execution was announced, the sacrifices were offered in the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter; the laurel crown of the general was placed in the lap of the image; a magnificent banquet was served, and the “triumphator” was escorted home, late in the evening, by a crowd of citizens bearing torches and pipes. The state presented him a site for a house, and at the entrance to this triumphal mansion, a laurel-wreathed statue of its founder perpetuated the memory of his glory to his latest descendants.

=112.= Carthage being stripped of her power and possessions, Rome became supreme in the western Mediterranean and the greater part of Spain. The confiscated lands of the Italian nations which had taken sides with Hannibal, afforded settlements for large bodies of veteran soldiers. The Cisalpine Gauls were still in revolt, under the lead of a Carthaginian general; but they were reduced by a ten years’ war (B. C. 201-191), and afterward became Latinized with that wonderful facility which distinguishes their race.

=113.= The Alexandrine kingdoms in the East were all prematurely old and falling into decay. The campaigns of Flamininus against Philip of Macedon, B. C. 198, 197, have been already described. (See Book IV, §§ 81-83.) A new war for the protectorate of Greece was occasioned by the movements of Antiochus the Great. This ambitious and restless monarch not only welcomed to his court the now exiled Hannibal, but allied himself with the Ætolians and led an army to their aid. He had miscalculated the power of Rome, which met him promptly with much more than twice his numbers, defeated him once by land and twice by sea, and finally, in the great battle of Magnesia, in Lydia, shattered his forces, while beginning her own long career of Asiatic conquest. The lands conquered from Antiochus were divided between the friendly powers of Pergamus and Rhodes, and the example of their good fortune led many other nations to seek the Roman alliance.

=114.= For more than twenty years, Rome was occupied with continual wars in the west, against the brave and freedom-loving tribes of Spain and the Ligurian Alps, as well as with the natives of Corsica and Sardinia. The latter island was conquered, B. C. 176, by Sempronius Gracchus, who brought away so great a multitude of captives, that “Sardinians for sale” became a proverbial phrase in Rome for anything cheap and worthless.

Meanwhile, Philip V. had died in Macedon, and Perseus had succeeded to the throne. The final struggle of this prince with Rome, and its result in the battle of Pydna (B. C. 168), have been described in Book IV. Rome became for six centuries what Macedon had been only during one man’s short career, the undisputed ruler of the civilized world. None except barbarians any longer hoped to resist her ascendency; and but for a few revolts, like those of the Achæans, the Carthaginians, and the Jews, her progress in absorbing the old states of Asia, Africa, and Europe was both peaceful and rapid.

=115.= After eighteen years of comparative tranquillity, it was resolved that the time had come for the complete extinction of Carthage. Cato, the censor, now eighty-four years of age, and the sternest of Roman legislators, declared that Rome could never be safe while her former rival was so near, so hostile, and so strong; and whenever he was called upon for his vote in the Senate, whatever might be the subject of debate, his unvarying reply was, “I vote that Carthage no longer be.” The doomed city had more than fulfilled every condition of the treaty which closed the First Punic War, and still made many sacrifices for the sake of peace. But the last command of Rome was not intended to be obeyed. The Carthaginians were ordered to destroy their city, and remove to a situation farther from the sea. They refused, and a war began, in which, for four years, the brave spirit of the people sustained them without the faintest hope of victory.

=116.= Their fleet, their weapons, and their mines in Spain, Sardinia, and Elba had all been surrendered to the enemy. In two months 120 ships were built in the blockaded port, and a passage cut through the land to enable them to reach the sea. Public buildings were torn down to furnish timber and metal. Every living being toiled night and day at the defenses. An arsenal was established which daily produced 2,000 shields or weapons, and even the women contributed their long hair to make strings for the engines which hurled stones or arrows from the walls.

At length the Romans, under the consul Scipio Æmilia´nus, forced their way into the city. The people defended it house by house, and street by street, and days of carnage were still required to quench the pride of Carthage in ashes and blood. The city was fired in all directions, and when, after seventeen days, the flames were at last extinguished, nothing remained but shapeless heaps of rubbish. The territories of the Punic state became the “Province of Africa,” whose capital was fixed at Utica. Roman traders flocked to the latter city, and took into their own hands the flourishing commerce of the coast.

=117.= In the same year, B. C. 146, L. Mum´mius, the consul, plundered and destroyed Corinth. Its walls and houses were leveled with the ground, and a curse was pronounced on whomsoever should build on its desolate site. Its commerce passed to Argos and Delos, while the care of the Isthmian Games was intrusted to Sicyon. The policy of Rome toward the Greeks was far more liberal than toward any other conquered people. Her firm and settled government was, indeed, preferable to the dissension and misrule which disfigured the later ages of Greece; and the Greeks themselves declared, in the words of Themistocles, that “ruin had averted ruin.”

=118.= The natives of western Spain, intrenched among their mountains, still maintained a brave resistance to the power of Rome. The Lusitanians, who had never yet been conquered, were basely deceived by Serto´rius Galba, who enticed 7,000 of them from their strongholds by promising grants of fertile lands; and when, trusting the word of a Roman general, they had descended into the plain, he caused them to be treacherously surrounded, disarmed, and either massacred or enslaved.

Among the few who escaped was a youth named Viria´thus, who lived to become the leader and avenger of his people. The career of this guerrilla chief is full of stirring events. Issuing suddenly from a cleft in the mountains, he seven times defeated a Roman army with tremendous slaughter. In the last of these victories, the forces of Servilia´nus were entrapped in a narrow pass and completely surrounded. Absolute surrender was their only choice. Viriathus, however, preferring peace to vengeance, used his advantage with great moderation. He allowed his enemy to depart unhurt, on his solemn engagement to leave the Lusitanians henceforth unmolested in their own territories, and to recognize him, their chief, as a friend and ally of the Roman people.

=119.= The terms were ratified by the Senate, but only to be violated. On the renewal of the war, Viriathus sent three of his most trusted friends to remonstrate, and offer renewed terms of peace. The consul bribed these messengers, by promises of large rewards, to murder their chief. The crime was committed, and within a year Lusita´nia (Portugal) was added to the Roman dominions. Numantia, in the north, still held out against the besieging army of Qu. Pompe´ius. A severe winter caused great sickness and suffering in the legions, and Pompey offered peace on terms favorable to the Spaniards, but, according to Roman ideas, disgraceful to the besiegers. These were accepted, and the last payment but one had been made by the Numantines, when Pompey’s successor in the consulship arrived at the camp. Being thus relieved from command, he denied that he had ever made the treaty, and persisted in his falsehood before the Senate.

The war went on six years, with no credit and frequent disgrace to the Romans, until Scipio Æmilianus, the greatest general of his own time, starved the city at last into surrender. Many of the Numantines, rather than fall into the hands of an enemy whose perfidy they had too often proved, set fire to their houses and perished among the burning ruins. The whole peninsula, except its northern coast, was now subject to Rome. It was divided into three provinces—Hither and Farther Spain, and Lusitania—and became eventually the most prosperous and best governed part of the Roman foreign possessions. The Lusitanian mountains were still haunted by brigands, and isolated country houses in that region had to be built like fortresses; yet the country was rich in corn and cattle, and occupied by a thriving and industrious people.

RECAPITULATION.

Rome, supreme in the western Mediterranean, makes war upon Philip V., of Macedon, and Antiochus the Great, of Syria. The battle of Magnesia, B. C. 190, lays the foundation of her power in Asia, and the battle of Pydna makes her the head of the civilized world. In the meanwhile, Sardinia is conquered, and wars carried on in Spain and Liguria. The third and last Punic War ends, B. C. 146, with the destruction of Carthage. The same year, Corinth is destroyed by Mummius. Viriathus holds out nine years in western Spain; he is assassinated B. C. 140; Numantia is captured B. C. 133; and Spain divided into three Roman provinces.

FOURTH PERIOD, B. C. 133-30.

=120.= The possessions of Rome now extended from the Atlantic to the Ægean, and from the Atlas Mountains to the Pyrenees and Alps. But changes in the relations of rich and poor, governing and governed classes, in her own capital, now withdrew her attention for a while from foreign conquests, and led to important civil controversies. The old strife between patricians and plebeians was long ago at an end. Many plebeian houses had become noble through their members having held high offices in the state; and they had their clientage, their share in the public lands, their seat in the Senate, and their right of displaying waxen images of their ancestors in their houses or in funeral processions, equally with the oldest burghers of all. Freedmen were constantly admitted to the franchise.

=121.= The real cause of trouble was in the sufferings of the poor, who, since the formation of the last colony, in 177 B. C., had had no new allotment of lands. Rome was a “commonwealth of millionaires and beggars.” The Licinian laws (see § 64) were practically set aside. Many rich proprietors held four times the amount of public land to which they were entitled; and instead of employing the required proportion of free labor, preferred to cultivate by means of gangs of slaves. The foreign wars, which formerly so frightfully reduced[73] the numbers of the common people, had now ceased; the labor market became over-stocked, and a mass of paupers, hungry, helpless, and hopeless, began to threaten serious danger to the state. The multitude of slaves, chiefly taken in war, more or less trained for fighting, and conscious of their strength, were a not less dangerous class. The best and wisest of the Romans saw the danger, and sought means to avert it. But among those who most deeply deplored the miseries of the people, a large party believed that nothing could be done.

=122.= In 133 B. C., the tribune Tiberius Gracchus, a son of the conqueror of Sardinia, and grandson of Scipio Africanus, brought forward a bill for reviving the provisions of the Licinian laws. The great amount of state lands which would thus become vacant, he proposed to divide among the poor; and to compensate the former occupants for their losses, by making them absolute owners of the 500 jugera of land which they could legally retain. This movement, apparently so just, was violently opposed. The leased lands had been, in some instances, three hundred years in the same family. Buildings had been erected at great expense, and the property had been held or transferred as if in real ownership. The strong influence of the wealthy class was therefore made to bear against the bill; and when it was brought before the popular assembly, Octa´vius, a colleague of Gracchus in the tribuneship, interposed his veto and prevented the vote from being taken. But Gracchus moved the people to depose Octavius, and so carried the bill. Three commissioners, Tiberius Gracchus himself, his brother Caius, and his father-in-law, Appius Claudius, were appointed to examine into the extent of the abuse, and enforce the Agrarian laws.

=123.= Their task was difficult, and Tiberius had to content the people by continually bringing forward more and more popular measures. The kingdom of Pergamus, with its treasury, had just become the inheritance of the Romans. Gracchus proposed that the money should be distributed among the new land-holders, to provide implements and stock for their farms. Other proposals were for shortening the term of military service, for extending the privilege of jury to the common people, and for admitting the Italian allies to the rights of Roman citizens. The aristocratic party had declared from the beginning that this bold innovator should not escape their vengeance. His candidacy for a second tribuneship brought the opposition to a crisis. Tiberius was slain upon the steps of the Capitol, and his body thrown into the Tiber.

=124.= Though the reformer was dead, his reform went on. The party in power earnestly desired to relieve the public danger and distress, and, by order of the Senate, the commission continued the distribution of lands. A law proposed by Scipio Æmilianus, B. C. 129, withdrew the work from the hands of the commissioners, and placed it permanently in those of the consuls. The lands which were really public property were by this time distributed, and questions had arisen concerning territories which had been granted to Italian allies. “The greatest general and the greatest statesman of his age,” Scipio saw as clearly and lamented as deeply as the Gracchi the needs of his country, and, with unselfishness equal to theirs, he sought to check the reform, when convinced that it had gone as far as justice would permit. But he, too, became a martyr to his efforts. Soon after the passage of his bill, and on the morning of the day appointed for his oration upon popular rights, he was found murdered in his bed.

=125.= Caius Gracchus returned from his quæstorship in Sardinia, B. C. 124, and became tribune of the people. His plans for relieving the poorer classes were more revolutionary than those of his brother, but many of them were most beneficent and widely reaching in their results. Colonies were formed, both in Italy and beyond the sea, to afford an outlet to the crowded and distressed population of Rome. Six thousand colonists were sent to the deserted site of Carthage; another company to Aquæ Sextiæ (Aix), in southern Gaul; and a third, with the full “Roman right,” to Narbo Martius (Narbonne´). The latter colony, though not founded until after the death of Caius, was equally a fruit of his policy. It was fostered by the commercial class, for the sake of its lucrative trade with Gaul and Britain.

A less beneficent though doubtless needed law, provided for the distribution of grain from the public stores, at less than half price, to all residents in the city who chose to apply for it. An extensive range of buildings, the Sempronian granaries, were erected to supply this demand. The result was the crowding within the walls of Rome of the whole mass of poor and inefficient people from the surrounding country, thus giving to the popular leaders a majority in the assembly, and the absolute control of the elections; creating, at the same time, that lazy, hungry, and disorderly mob which for five hundred years constituted the chief danger of the imperial city.

=126.= The lowest age for military service was fixed at seventeen years, and the cost of the soldier’s equipment, which formerly had been deducted from his wages, was now defrayed by the government. Having thus won the poorer people, Caius drew to his side the plebeian aristocracy, by placing in their hands the collection of revenues in the provinces, thus creating the class of great merchants and bankers, hitherto scarcely known in Rome. The new “province of Asia” had been formed from the kingdom of Pergamus, and its name, like that of “Africa” given to the Carthaginian territory, doubtless implied that its limits were not considered as fixed. In accordance with the despotic principle that conquered or inherited lands were the private property of the state, the province was now loaded with taxes, and the privilege of collection was publicly sold at Rome to the highest bidder. The “publicans” amassed great fortunes, but the unhappy provincials were reduced to extreme distress.

=127.= Gracchus would have gone a step farther, and extended the full rights of Roman citizenship to all free Italians. But this liberal policy was equally hateful to the Senate and the commons. The former gained over his colleague, Liv´ius Drusus, who outbade Gracchus by proposing still more popular measures, which, however, were never meant to be fulfilled. Instead of two Italian colonies, composed only of citizens of good character, which had been planned by Gracchus, Drusus proposed twelve, to contain 3,000 settlers each. Caius had left the domain lands subject, as of old, to a yearly rent. Drusus abolished this, and left the lessees in absolute possession of their farms.

At the end of the second year, Caius lost his tribuneship, and the new consuls were opposed to him. His policy was now violently attacked, and especially the formation of the transmarine colonies. It was reported that African hyenas had dug up the newly placed boundary stones of Juno´nia, the successor of Carthage; and the priests declared that the gods in this way signified their displeasure at the attempt to rebuild an accursed city. The auguries were taken anew; a popular tumult arose, in which an attendant of the priests was killed. The next day the Forum was occupied by an armed force, and all the aristocratic party appeared with swords and shields. Caius and his former colleague, Ful´vius Flaccus, retired with their followers to the Aventine, the old stronghold of the commons. The nobility, with their Cretan mercenaries, stormed the mount; 250 persons of humble rank were slain, and the two leaders were pursued and put to death. Three thousand of their adherents were strangled in prison, by order of the Senate. Cornelia,[74] the mother of the Gracchi, was not permitted to wear mourning for the last and noblest of her sons; but the people honored their memory with statues, and on the sacred ground where they had fallen, sacrifices were offered as in temples of the gods.

=128.= Next to Egypt, the most important client-state of Rome was Numidia, which occupied nearly the same space with the modern province of Algeria. Massinissa, the Numidian king, had been rewarded for his faithful service in the Second Punic War, by a grant of the greater part of the Carthaginian territories. Micip´sa, his son, was now a feeble old man, who cared more for Greek philosophy than for affairs of state, and had dropped the control of his kingdom into the hands of his nephew, Jugur´tha, whom he raised by adoption to a level with his own sons. In his will he divided the civil, military, and judicial offices of the kingdom between the three princes.

After the old king’s death, his sons, Adher´bal and Hiemp´sal, disputed the will, while Jugurtha boldly claimed the supreme and sole authority. Hiempsal was murdered by hired ruffians. Adherbal appealed in person to the Roman Senate, which had undertaken to guarantee his father’s bequests. But Jugurtha had learned in the camps that every senator had his price; and his emissaries worked so skillfully, that the whole blame of the dispute and the murder was thrown upon the suppliant prince. A new division of the kingdom was ordered to be made, by Roman commissioners sent over for the purpose. Jugurtha received the fertile and populous region which was afterward known as Mauritania; Adherbal, with Cirta, the capital, had only a tract of sandy desert toward the east.

=129.= Jugurtha, however, was not satisfied; and failing by many insults to provoke his cousin to war, he at last besieged him in his capital, and in spite of lame remonstrances from Rome, captured and put him to death with cruel tortures, and ordered an indiscriminate massacre of all the inhabitants of the town. Of these, many were Italians. Even the base venality of the Roman government could no longer withstand the righteous indignation of the people. War was declared and an army promptly sent forward, which received the submission of many Numidian towns. But again the wily usurper was able to buy peace with African gold. He pretended to submit at discretion, but was re-instated in his kingdom upon paying a moderate fine and surrendering his war elephants, which he was soon permitted to redeem. Public indignation again broke out at Rome. Jugurtha was summoned to the city, to answer concerning the means by which he had obtained the peace. His cousin, Massi´va, took this opportunity to prefer his own claim to the kingdom of Massinissa; but he was assassinated by a confidant of Jugurtha, who immediately, with the aid of his master, escaped from Rome.

=130.= This new insult enraged the people beyond endurance. The Senate canceled the peace and dismissed Jugurtha from the city. His sarcastic remark in leaving expressed a melancholy truth: “If I had gold enough, I would buy the city itself.” The war was renewed, but the army, equally demoralized with its chiefs, was wholly unfit for service. In attempting to besiege the treasure-town of Suthul, the incompetent commander suffered himself to be drawn off into the desert, where his whole army was routed and made to pass under the yoke. By the terms of surrender, Numidia was evacuated and the canceled peace renewed. The generals whose misconduct had led to this disgrace were tried at Rome and exiled, and with them Opim´ius, the head of the Numidian commission, and the real executioner of Caius Gracchus.

In token of the earnestness with which the war was now to be carried on, Qu. Metellus, a stern and upright patrician of the old school, was elected consul for the African campaign. Among his lieutenants was Caius Marius, the son of a Latin farmer, who had risen from the ranks by his sterling ability. He won the hearts of the soldiers by voluntarily sharing all their toils and privations; and through their reports to friends at home, his praise was in every mouth.

=131.= The wild tribes of the desert flocked to the standard of Jugurtha, whom they hailed as their deliverer from Roman domination; and with his swarms of fleet horsemen, he was able either to dictate the battle-field, or to vanish out of sight at any moment, when the combat seemed to be going against him. The Romans gained one or two victories, but no real advantage. An impression, doubtless false and unjust, sprang up at Rome, that the inaction of Metellus, like the reverses of his predecessors, was owing to a secret understanding with Jugurtha—or, at least, that he was prolonging the war to gratify his own love of power.

Availing himself of this prejudice, Marius returned to Rome, and was elected consul for the year 107 B. C. Instead of having his province allotted by the Senate, he was appointed by the people to the command in Africa. His election was really a revolution which gave power in the state to military talent, rather than to great wealth or noble birth. His quæstor in this expedition was L. Cornelius Sulla, a young nobleman distinguished chiefly hitherto by his unbounded licentiousness, but who, by energetic application to his duties, soon won the entire confidence and approbation of his commander. These two men stood, a few years later, in very different relations to each other, as alternate masters of the Roman world.

=132.= In spite of some daring adventures and the capture of several towns, the administration of Marius was not much more successful than that of Metellus. He continued in command as proconsul for the year 106 B. C.; and during the second winter, the real victory was gained by Sulla, who passed through the enemy’s camp at great personal risk, and with consummate skill conducted a negotiation with King Bocchus, of Mauritania, for the surrender of Jugurtha. This notorious criminal was brought in chains to Rome, where, with his two sons, he adorned the triumph of Marius, Jan. 1, B. C. 104. A few days later, he perished with hunger in the lower dungeon of the Mamertine prison. A new peril now threatened Rome, and demanded unusual measures. In spite of a law to the contrary, Marius was reëlected to the consulship, and continued to hold that office five successive years, B. C. 104-100.

=133.= The Cimbri, a mingled horde of Celtic and Germanic tribes, had been dislodged in some unknown manner from their seats beyond the Danube, and were pressing upon the Roman frontier. Before the close of the Jugurthine War, they had four times defeated consular armies in Gaul and the Alpine regions. In the last of these defeats, at Orange, on the Rhone (B. C. 105), an army of 80,000 men had been destroyed, and all Italy was filled with terror. A new army was now on foot, and Marius, with his legate, Sulla, and many other able officers, hastened into Gaul. The Cimbri had turned aside into Spain, where, however, they met a brave resistance, and were soon driven back across the Pyrenees. In western Gaul nothing was able to resist their rapid course of conquest, until they arrived at the Belgian territory beyond the Seine. They were joined by a kindred tribe of Teuto´nes from the shores of the Baltic, and by three cantons of Helve´tii from the mountains of Switzerland. They now arranged a combined invasion of Italy, the Teutones to enter that country from Roman Gaul by the western passes of the Alps, while the Cimbri were to traverse the eastern passes from Switzerland.

=134.= It was the object of the consuls to prevent their junction, and for this purpose Marius awaited the Teutones on the Rhone, near its confluence with the Is´ara, while Catulus marched into northern Italy to meet the Cimbri. One of the greatest victories ever won by Roman arms was gained by the former, near Aix, B. C. 102. Three successive days the barbarians had assaulted the Roman camp, when, despairing of success, they resolved to leave it behind and continue their march into Italy.

Distrusting his new recruits, Marius would not suffer his men to be drawn from their intrenchments until the entire host had departed; and so great were the numbers, and so cumbrous the baggage of the barbarians, that they were six days in passing the Roman works. When they were gone, Marius broke up his camp and started in pursuit, still maintaining perfect order, and intrenching himself carefully every night. In the neighborhood of Aix he overtook the Teutones, and the pitched battle which was then fought ended in the complete destruction of the nation. The warriors who survived the combat put an end to their own lives; and their wives, preferring death to slavery, followed their example.

=135.= Meanwhile, the other division, less ably resisted, had advanced through the Brenner Pass and routed the army of Catulus near Trent. But the comfort and plenty of the Lombard plain were, for the moment, a better protection to Rome than the wisdom of her generals. The Cimbri went into winter-quarters, and Marius had time to recruit his army and hasten to join his colleague in the spring of 101 B. C. When the Cimbri ascended the valley of the Po, hoping to effect the proposed junction with their Teutonic comrades, they met, instead, the combined armies of Marius and Lutatius. The battle was fought at Vercel´læ, westward of Milan, July 30, 101 B. C. The barbarians were wholly defeated, and either slaughtered or enslaved; 14,000 were left dead upon the battle-field, and 60,000 were transferred to the slave-markets of Rome.

=136.= Marius was received at Rome with a brilliant triumph, in which he was hailed as a third Romulus and a second Camillus, and his name in libations was coupled with those of the gods. The common people rejoiced scarcely more for the victory over the barbarians than for that over the government. The triumph of their chosen general, the farmer’s boy of Arpi´num, seemed to them a triumph of the untitled and unprivileged masses over the rich and favored few. Marius was elected to his sixth consulate, and if he had been as great a statesman as general, the Republic might even then have been exchanged for a monarchy. But he had no matured policy, and no skill in adapting means to ends. He allied himself with two unprincipled demagogues, Saturni´nus and Glau´cia, to secure his election, and then abandoned them to the vengeance of the Senate, when their crimes had become too bold for endurance.

The government candidate for the consulship was assailed and beaten to death; and the party which procured the murder, proclaiming Saturninus its chief, broke open the prison doors and gave freedom and arms to both prisoners and slaves. This armed rabble fought the guards of Marius in the very market-place of the city; but it was driven at length to the Capitol, cut off from water, and forced to surrender. Without waiting the forms of trial, some young nobles climbed to the roof of the building where the rioters were imprisoned, tore off the tiles, and stoned them to death. In this disgraceful manner perished four high officers of the Roman people: a prætor, a quæstor, and two tribunes.

=137.= The beautiful island of Sicily was a second time the scene of a servile war, B. C. 102-99. Its fertility and importance as a grain market to Rome had attracted speculators, who farmed their vast estates by means of multitudes of slaves. In the First Servile War (B. C. 134-132), 200,000 rebels were in arms; the second taxed the best exertions of three successive consuls, and though it was ended, B. C. 99, in victory to Rome, the terror it had excited did not soon die away. The slaves not only outnumbered the ruling class, but surpassed it in strength, and even, in some rare instances, in military talent. They were treated with such inhuman cruelty, that they never lacked a motive for revolt, and thus the rural districts were always liable to outbreaks when the governing force was removed.

The Roman slave-code, it may be hoped, has never been equaled in barbarity by that of any civilized state. The slave was “nothing” in law; his master might torture or kill him with no other punishment than the loss of his property; and when, after such a victory as that of Vercellæ, captives could be bought, as we are told, for less than a dollar a head, that motive could have had no weight against the passion of revenge. Happily, society is sometimes better than its laws. Household servants commonly enjoyed the confidence and affection of their masters; physicians and teachers were usually Greek slaves, and their learning and talents caused them to be respected in spite of the misfortune of their condition.

RECAPITULATION.

Though plebeians enjoy political equality, the poor suffer for want of land and employment. Tiberius Gracchus passes the Agrarian laws, but becomes a martyr to his zeal for reform. Scipio Æmilianus, trying to moderate the Agrarian movement, is also murdered. Caius Gracchus founds colonies in Italy and abroad; provides for the poor by a public distribution of grain; gives to the rich plebeians the collection of provincial revenues, and thus creates a class of great bankers and publicans. He is opposed with armed violence and slain, B. C. 121. The crimes of Jugurtha occasion the Numidian war, B. C. 111-106. Metellus is succeeded in command by Marius, who becomes consul, B. C. 107. Jugurtha is captured by the address of Sulla; Marius defeats the Teutones in a great battle near Aix, B. C. 102; and the Cimbri, the next year, at Vercellæ. A sedition at Rome is followed by the death of several magistrates. Sicily is twice devastated by servile insurrections, B. C. 134-132, and B. C. 102-99.

THE SOCIAL WAR.

=138.= Meanwhile, Rome was shaken by the efforts and death of another reformer, M. Livius Drusus, son of the opponent of Gracchus. As a noble, he was filled with shame for the corruptions of his order, and sought to revive the safest and best of the laws of the Gracchi, by giving the franchise to all Italians, and by taking the judicial power from the knights, who had greatly abused it. He was murdered at his own door by an unknown assassin, B. C. 91, and both of his laws repealed. The allies in the south and center of Italy, disappointed in all their hopes by the death of their champion, now flew to arms. Eight nations, the Marsi, Marrucini, Peligni, Vestini, Picenti´ni, Samnites, Apu´li, and Lucani, formed a federal republic under the name of _Italia_, chose two consuls, and fixed their capital at Corfin´ium, in the Apennines.

The first movements in the “Social War” were disastrous to Rome. L. Cæsar, the consul, Perper´na, his legate, and Postu´mius, a prætor, were defeated. A consular army under Cæpio was destroyed; Campania was overrun, and the northern Italians were almost ready to join the league. But a late concession saved Rome. The coveted rights of citizenship were conferred on all who had taken no part in the war, and on all who would now withdraw from it. The confederate ranks were thus divided; and, at length, even the Samnites and Lucanians, who were the last to submit, were won by a promise of all that they had asked.

=139.= The slow and cautious conduct of Marius in this war had been eclipsed by the brilliant activity of Sulla, who was now consul; and the Senate, choosing to consider the old general unequal to the hardships of a campaign, conferred the command against Mithridates upon the young patrician officer. The jealousy which had long ago supplanted the ancient confidence between Marius and Sulla, now broke out into violent opposition. To defeat his rival, Marius persuaded Rufus, the tribune, to propose a law for distributing the newly enfranchised Italians among all the tribes. The old citizens would thus be greatly outnumbered, and the appointment of Sulla reversed, for all the new voters regarded Marius as their friend and benefactor. The consuls interfered, but Marius and his ally occupied the Forum with an armed force, compelled the consuls to withdraw their interdict, passed the law by intimidation, and easily obtained a vote of the tribes appointing Marius to the command of the Pontic War.

=140.= This brutal interference with the forms of law was naturally met by an opposing force. The military tribunes sent by Marius to take command, in his name, of the army at Nola, were stoned to death by the soldiers of Sulla, who instantly marched upon Rome at the head of six legions. The city was unprepared for resistance; Sulla became its master, and Marius, with his son and partisans, fled. He wandered, a fugitive and outlaw, along the coast of southern Italy; now half starved in a wood, now buried all night to his chin in a swamp; again indebted for a few hours’ sleep to the charity of a ship-master or to a peasant, who refused the reward offered by Sulla for the head of the outlaw, and enabled him to elude his pursuers.

At Mintur´næ he was sheltered by a woman to whom he had formerly rendered some kindness; but the officers of the town resolved to comply with the orders of the government at Rome, and with difficulty prevailed upon a Gallic or Cimbrian soldier to undertake the work of despatching him. But no sooner had the barbarian entered the room where the old general, unarmed and defenseless, lay upon a bed, than his courage failed, his drawn sword fell from his hand, and he rushed from the house, exclaiming, “I can not kill Caius Marius!”

=141.= The people of Minturnæ now took more generous counsel, and resolved not to destroy the deliverer of Italy. They provided him with a ship, and conducted him with good wishes to the sea, where he embarked for Africa. Here, too, he was warned by the governor to leave the country, or be treated as an enemy of Rome. But a revolution had by this time taken place in Rome itself, which favored the return of Marius. Cinna, one of the new consuls, was of the Marian party, and wished to enforce the laws of Rufus. The aristocrats armed, under the command of the other consul, Octavius, and a battle was fought in the Forum, in which Cinna was defeated and expelled from the city. Like Sulla, he appealed to the army; and as the army was now composed of Italians, who could not but favor that party which promised them supreme power in the Roman elections, the tide was turned against the aristocrats.

Marius returned, seized upon Ostia and other ports on the Latin coast, captured the corn ships, and thus starved Rome into surrender. This time the captured city was given up to a reign of terror. As Marius walked through the streets, his guards stabbed all persons whom he did not salute. Fresh lists were made out every day of those whom he either feared or hated, as victims for the dagger. Marius and Cinna declared themselves consuls for B. C. 86, in contempt of the usual form of election. But the unrelenting master of Rome did not long enjoy his seventh consulship, which he had all his life superstitiously expected, and now so unscrupulously obtained. He died on the eighteenth day of his magistracy, and in the seventy-first year of his age.

=142.= Sulla had brought the Mithridatic War to a victorious conclusion, having conducted five difficult and costly campaigns at his own expense, and recovered for Rome the revolted territories of Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor. But he never forgot that the Republic which he was serving had declared him a public enemy, confiscated his wealth, and murdered his best friends for their adherence to him. If his vengeance was delayed, it was only the more bitter and effectual. He now returned with a powerful army devotedly attached to his person, and laden with treasure collected from the conquered cities of Asia.

To disarm the enmity of the Italians, who formed the most valuable part of his opponents’ forces, he proclaimed that he would not interfere with the rights of any citizen, old or new. He suffered no injury to be done to either the towns or fields of the Italians, and he made separate treaties with many of their cities, by which he guaranteed their full enjoyment of Roman privileges so long as they should favor his interests. The Samnites alone held out against Sulla, and in concert with the Marian party renewed their old hostilities. Cinna was murdered by his own troops, on his way to meet Sulla in Dalma´tia.

=143.= Landing at Brundis´ium, Sulla marched without opposition through Calabria, Apulia, and Campania; defeated one consul near Capua, and won over the entire army of the other by means of emissaries well supplied with gold. He was reinforced by three legions, under Cneius Pompey, and by the adherence of many distinguished citizens, among whom were Metellus Pius, Crassus, and Lucullus. He was still outnumbered by the Marians, who, in 82 B. C., brought into the field an army of 200,000 men, under the two consuls Papir´ius Carbo and the younger Marius. The latter was defeated, however, with great loss at Sacripor´tus, and took refuge in Præneste, where he had deposited his military chest, enriched by the treasures of the Capitoline temples. This town was blockaded, while Sulla marched upon Rome. Marius had secretly ordered his partisans in the city to put to death the most illustrious of the Cornelian faction; and thus perished the pontifex maximus, and many others whose sacred office or exalted character would, in more virtuous times, have made them secure from violence.

=144.= The army of Samnites and Lucanians, by the request of Marius, moved toward Rome, Telesi´nus, their leader, declaring that he would raze the city to the ground. A furious battle was fought near the Colline Gate, in which Sulla was victorious; and, with a cold-blooded ferocity too common in those fearful times, ordered 6,000 prisoners to be cut to pieces in the Campus Martius. Sulla was now master of Rome and of Italy, and his vengeance had begun. A “proscription list” of his enemies was exhibited in the Forum, and a reward of two talents was offered to all who would kill these outlawed persons, or even show the place of their concealment. As usual, private hatred and even the meanest avarice found indulgence under the name of political enmity. Any friend of Sulla was permitted to add names to the list; and as the property of the proscribed usually went to his accuser, the possession of a house, a field, or even a piece of silver plate was often enough to mark a man as a public enemy.

Sulla was appointed dictator, with unlimited power to “restore order to the Republic.” The constitutional changes which he made, were designed to re-instate the Senate and nobles in the preëminence which they had enjoyed in the earliest years after the expulsion of the kings. He limited the sway of the tribunes of the people, and lowered the dignity of their office by prohibiting those who had held it from becoming consuls. Though himself a man of dissolute morals, Sulla clearly saw that the worst miseries of the Roman people proceeded from their own corruption, and he tried to check luxury and crime by the most stringent enactments. But the attempt was hopeless; the character of the nation was so far degraded that no rank or class was fit to rule, and its subjection to the will of a tyrant had become a necessity.

=145.= Sulla increased the number of the Senate by 300 new members chosen from the knights, all, of course, adherents of his own. He gained, also, a sort of body-guard, by giving the rights of citizenship to 10,000 slaves of those whom he had proscribed. These freedmen all received his own clan-name, Cornelius, and became his clients. He rewarded his veterans with the confiscated lands of the Marian party, thus replacing honest and industrious farmers with too often lawless and thriftless military communities. When Sulla had held the dictatorship three years, he surprised the world by suddenly resigning it, and retiring to his country-seat at Pute´oli. Here he devoted his days to the amusements of literature, mingled, unhappily, with less ennobling pleasures. He died B. C. 78, the year following his abdication. Two days before his death he completed the history of his own life and times, in twenty-two volumes, in which he recorded the prediction of a Chaldæan soothsayer, that he should die, after a happy life, at the very height of his prosperity.

=146.= A remnant of the Marian faction still held out in the west of Spain. Sertorius had been sent to command that province, chiefly because, as the most honest and keen-sighted of the Marians, he was troublesome to his brother officers. During the proscription by Sulla, he was joined by many exiles, who aided him in drilling the native troops. Though driven for a time into Africa by the proconsul An´nius, he returned, upon the invitation of the Lusitanians, with a Libyan and Moorish army, which defeated the fleet of Sulla in the Straits of Gibraltar, and his land forces near the Guadalquivir. All Roman Spain became subject to Sertorius. With the aid of Cilician pirates, he captured the islands of Ivi´ca and Formente´ra. He formed a government, in which the senate was composed only of Romans; but he distinguished the native Spaniards by many marks of favor, and won their confidence not only by his brilliant genius, but by his perfect justice in the administration of their affairs.

=147.= Metellus, Sulla’s colleague in the consulship, who commanded his armies in Spain, was completely baffled by the unwearied activity and superior knowledge of the country displayed by Sertorius. At length Cneius Pompey, who had already, in his thirtieth year, gained the title of Great, and the honor of a triumph for his victories over the allies of the Marians in Africa, was sent into Spain with the title of proconsul, to share the command with Metellus. His military skill far surpassed that of his predecessors, but for five years the war was still dragged out with more loss and vexation than success.

At last, Sertorius was murdered by one of his own officers, a man of high birth, who envied the ascendency of genius and integrity, and hoped by removing his general to open the way to his own advancement. He was totally defeated and captured by Pompey in the first battle which he fought as commander-in-chief; and though he tried to save his life by giving up the papers of Sertorius, and thus betraying the secrets of his party in Rome, he was ordered to instant execution, B. C. 72.

=148.= The Spanish war was now ended, but a nearer and greater danger threatened Rome. The pride and luxury fed by foreign conquest had brought no increase of refinement to the common people; and their favorite amusement for festal days was to see the bravest captives, taken in war and trained for the purpose, slaughter each other in the amphitheater. The ædiles, who provided the public shows, vied with each other in the numbers and training of the gladiators, whom they either bought or hired from their owners for exhibition. Among the unhappy men who were under training in the school at Capua, was a Thracian peasant named Spar´tacus. His soul revolted against the beastly fate to which he was doomed, and he communicated his spirit to seventy of his comrades. Forcibly breaking bounds, they passed out at the gates of Capua, seized upon the road some wagon-loads of gladiators’ weapons, and took refuge in an extinct crater of Vesuvius. They defeated 3,000 soldiers who besieged them, and armed themselves more effectively with the spoils of the slain.

Spartacus proclaimed freedom to all slaves who would join him. The half-savage herdsmen of the Bruttian and Lucanian mountains sprang to arms at his call, and the number of insurgents quickly rose to 40,000. They defeated two legions under the prætor Varinius, stormed and plundered Thurii and Metapon´tum, Nola and Nuce´ria, and many other towns of southern Italy. In the second year their forces were increased to 100,000 men, and they defeated successively two consuls, two prætors, and the governor of Cisalpine Gaul. All Italy, from the Alps to the Straits of Messana, quaked at the name of Spartacus, as it had done, more than a hundred years before, at that of Hannibal; but it only proved the decay of Roman character, that a mere bandit chief could accomplish what had once taxed the genius of the greatest general whom the world had yet produced.

=149.= Spartacus, however, saw clearly that in the end the organized power and resources of Rome must be superior to his own, and he only proposed to his followers to fight their way to and beyond the Alps, and then disperse to their homes; but the insurgents, spoiled with success, refused to leave Italy, and turned again to the south. Their winter-quarters, near Thurii, were like an immense fair crowded with the plunder of the whole peninsula, which merchants from far and near assembled to buy. Spartacus refused gold or silver, and took in exchange only iron or brass, which he converted into weapons of war by means of foundries established in his camp. In the panic which pervaded Rome, no one was willing to offer himself for the office of prætor. At length, Licinius Crassus accepted the appointment, and led eight legions into the field.

=150.= Spartacus was twice defeated, and driven to the southern point of Bruttium. Thence he tried to escape into Sicily, where the servile war was still smoldering and ready to be rekindled, and where, by holding the grain fields, he could soon have raised a bread-riot among the hungry mob of Rome. But the Cilician pirates, who had engaged to transport him, proved treacherous; and his attempt to convey his army across the straits on rafts and wicker boats was ineffectual. He then, in despair, broke the lines of Crassus, and once more threw Rome into great consternation.

But the same jealousies which had scattered the forces of Greeks and Romans, doomed the barbarians, also, to destruction. Thirty thousand Gauls separated themselves from Spartacus and his Thracians, and were totally destroyed near Crotona. The final encounter took place on the head-waters of the Silarus. Spartacus fell desperately fighting, and his army was destroyed. Only 5,000 of his men made their way to the north of Italy, where they were met by Pompey on his return from Spain, and all put to the sword. The 6,000 prisoners taken by Crassus were crucified along the Appian Way.

=151.= The two triumphant generals, Pompey and Crassus, demanded the consulship as their reward. To attain this, it was needful to set aside some of the Sullæan laws, for Pompey had neither reached the required age nor passed through the preliminary offices. But the deliverers of Rome could not ask in vain. On Dec. 31, B. C. 71, Pompey triumphed a second time for his victories in Spain; the next day, Jan. 1, B. C. 70, he entered on the duties of his consulship with Licinius Crassus. Though formerly a chief instrument of the oligarchy under Sulla, Pompey now attached himself to the democratic party, more especially to the wealthy middle class. He restored to the tribunes of the people the power which Sulla had taken away, and caused judges to be chosen no longer exclusively from the Senate, but in equal proportions from the Senate, the knights, and the tribunes of the treasury—a class of moneyed men who collected and paid the revenues due to the soldiers.

Reform in the government of the provinces was a rallying cry of the new party, and the year of Pompey’s consulate was marked by the prosecution of Verres, ex-prætor of Syracuse, for his shameless robbery of the province of Sicily. The impeachment was conducted by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great lawyer and orator, whose wonderful learning and eloquence had already made him illustrious. Cicero was allowed one hundred and ten days to collect evidence of Verres’s guilt. In less than half the time he returned from Sicily, followed by a long train of witnesses, whose fortunes had been ruined by the fraud and inhumanity of the prætor. Verres himself had been heard to boast that he had amassed wealth enough to support a life-time of luxury, even if he should spend two-thirds of his ill-gotten gains in hushing inquiry or in buying a pardon; and the unhappy provincials plainly declared that, if he were acquitted, they would petition the Senate to repeal all the laws against official injustice, that in future their governors might, at least, only plunder to enrich themselves, and not to bribe their judges. But Verres was condemned, and not even awaiting his sentence, escaped with his treasures to Massilia.

=152.= At the end of his consulship, Pompey did not accept a province, but remained quietly in Rome, taking no part in public affairs. An increasing danger soon demanded the exercise of his talents. Since the destruction of the naval power of Carthage, Syria, and Egypt, the pirates of the Cilician coast had cruised unchecked throughout the Mediterranean, and had even been encouraged by Mithridates and Sertorius in their enmity against Rome. They captured the corn-ships, plundered the wealthiest cities, and even attacked Roman dignity in its most imposing form, by carrying off great magistrates, with their trains of attendants, from the Appian Way.

The crisis demanded extraordinary measures, and, in B. C. 67, Pompey was intrusted with absolute and irresponsible control of the Mediterranean, with a district extending fifty miles inland from its coasts, and with unlimited command of ships, money, and men. The price of provisions fell instantly upon his appointment, showing the confidence which his great ability had inspired. In forty days he had swept the western sea, and restored the broken communication between Italy, Africa, and Spain. Then sailing from Brundisium, he cleared the sea to the eastward, hunting the corsairs from all their inlets by means of the several squadrons under his fifteen lieutenants, and winning many to voluntary submission by his merciful treatment of the prisoners who fell into his hands.

The final battle took place near the Cilician coast, above which, on the heights of Mount Taurus, the pirates had placed their families and their plunder. They were defeated; 10,000 men were slain, their arsenals, magazines, and 1,300 vessels destroyed, while 400 ships and 20,000 prisoners were taken. Pompey showed no less wisdom in disposing of his captives than energy in defeating them. They were settled in isolated towns, and provided with honest employment; and as a result of the short and decisive conflict of three months, the Mediterranean remained safe and open to peaceful traffic for many years.

=153.= The Mithridatic War, though conducted with great ability by Lucullus, had become disastrous to the Romans; and a new law, proposed by Manil´ius, now extended Pompey’s jurisdiction over all the forces in Asia, with power to make war, peace, or alliance with the several kings at his own discretion. Within a year, B. C. 66, he received the submission of the king of Armenia, and drove Mithridates beyond the Cau´casus. He deposed the last of the Seleucidæ, and placed Syria, as well as Pontus and Bithynia, under provincial management.

As centers of Roman or Greek civilization, he founded thirty-nine new cities, beside rebuilding or reviving many old ones. Among the former was Nicop´olis—“the city of victory”—which he caused to be built as a home for his veteran soldiers, on the site of the decisive overthrow of Mithridates. He subdued Phœnicia and Palestine, B. C. 63, captured the temple-fortress of Jerusalem by a siege of three months, and established Hyrcanus as “high priest and ruler of the people.” The next year he returned to Italy in a long triumphal procession.

RECAPITULATION.

Death of Drusus is followed by the Social War, in the victorious ending of which Sulla gains great glory. Marius interferes by violence with his appointment to command in the war against Pontus. Sulla overpowers the city by his legions, and Marius becomes an exile. After Sulla’s departure he returns, captures Rome, and massacres his opponents, but dies soon after the beginning of his seventh consulship. Sulla, returning triumphant from the East, defeats the new consuls and their allies, and by his proscriptions makes havoc with life and property at Rome. As dictator, he restores the aristocratic government of the early Republic. He dies in retirement, B. C. 78. Sertorius, ten years sovereign in Spain, is opposed by Pompey, and murdered, B. C. 72. War of the gladiators, under Spartacus, fills all Italy with terror, B. C. 73-71. It is ended by Crassus, who, with Pompey the Great, becomes consul for B. C. 70. Cicero impeaches Verres for extortion in Sicily. Pompey, intrusted with extraordinary powers by the Gabinian law, destroys the Cilician pirates; then completes the Pontic War, and establishes Roman dominion in western Asia.

CONQUESTS OF JULIUS CÆSAR.

=154.= Rome, meanwhile, had narrowly escaped ruin from the iniquitous schemes of one of her own nobles. L. Ser´gius Catili´na, a man of ancient family, but worthless character and ruined fortunes, seized the time when all the troops were absent from Italy, to plot with other nobles, as wicked and turbulent as himself, for the overthrow of the government. The new consuls were to be murdered on the day of their inauguration. Catiline and Autro´nius were to take the supreme command in Italy, and Piso was to lead an army into Spain. The first plot failed through the imprudence of its leader; but a second, of still bolder and more comprehensive character, was formed. Eleven senators were drawn into the conspiracy; magazines of arms were formed, and troops levied in various parts of the peninsula. The wide-spread discontent of the people with the existing government aided the success of the movement; and, in the end, slaves, gladiators, and even criminals from the common prisons, were to be liberated and armed.

The secret was kept by a vast number of persons for eighteen months, but the main features of the plot were at length made known to Cicero, then consul, and by his vigilance and prudence it was completely foiled. He confronted Catiline in the Senate—where the arch conspirator had the boldness to take his usual place—with an oration, in which he laid open with unsparing vehemence the minutest circumstances of the plot. The convicted ringleader fled from Rome in the night, and placed himself at the head of his two legions, hoping yet to strike an effective blow before the levies ordered by the Senate could be fit for service. His chief accomplices were seized and strangled in prison, by order of the Senate, while he himself was followed and defeated in Etruria by the proconsul Antonius. The battle was decisive. Catiline fell fighting far in advance of his troops, and 3,000 of his followers perished with him. No free Roman was taken alive. B. C. 62.

=155.= Though this daring conspiracy was thus happily crushed, the weakness and disorder of society alarmed the best and wisest citizens. It was feared that some man of commanding talent might yet succeed where Catiline had failed, and overthrow the liberties of Rome. Pompey, now returning with his victorious legions from the East, was the immediate object of dread to the Senate and aristocratic party. But he quieted apprehension by disbanding his army as soon as he touched the soil of Italy, and proceeded slowly to Rome accompanied by only a few friends. They could not refuse his claim to a triumph, and from the number and extent of his victories, this pageant was the most imposing that Rome had ever seen. Although there was no army to lengthen the procession, it occupied two days in passing through the city. The inscriptions enumerated 22 kings and 12,000,000 of people as conquered; 800 ships, nearly 900 towns, and 1,000 fortresses taken; and the Roman revenues nearly doubled.

By an unusual act of clemency, Pompey spared the lives of all his captives, and dismissed to their homes all except Aristobulus, of Judæa, and the young Tigranes, of Armenia, who were detained lest they should stir up revolts in their respective countries. But though the aristocrats of the Senate had taken part in the public honors paid to Pompey, they could not forget that his appointment in the East had been in defiance of their opposition. His demands of allotments of land to his veterans, and for himself a second consulship and the ratification of his official acts, were refused; and Pompey, to redeem his pledges to his soldiers, now made an alliance with an abler man, and one far more dangerous to the old order of things—if the Senate could but have foreseen it—than himself. B. C. 60.

=156.= Caius Julius Cæsar had been proscribed in his eighteenth year, because he had refused to put away his young wife, Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, at the command of Sulla. He was for a time a fugitive in danger of death, but his friends at length, with great difficulty, procured his pardon from the dictator, on the plea of his youth and insignificance. Sulla was more discerning; he remarked, “That boy will some day be the ruin of the aristocracy, for there are many Marii in him.”

Upon the death of his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius, Cæsar defied the law which had pronounced her husband an enemy of the state, by causing his waxen image to be carried in the funeral procession. It was welcomed by the people with loud acclamations. In his ædileship, three years later—which, in the magnificence of the games celebrated, and the buildings erected at his own expense, surpassed all that had preceded it—Cæsar ventured upon a bolder step. He replaced in the Capitol, during one night, the statues of Marius, and the representations of his victories in Africa and Gaul, which had been removed by Sulla. When morning dawned, the common people and the veterans of Marius wept and shouted for joy at the re-appearance of the well-known features, and greeted Cæsar with rapturous applause. Though formally accused in the Senate of violating a law, he could not be condemned against the voice of the people.

=157.= Dignities and honors followed in rapid succession. He became pontifex maximus in 63 B. C.; prætor, in 62; and at the end of his prætorship he obtained the government of Farther Spain. In this first military command he acquired not only wealth for himself and his soldiers, but great reputation by subduing the Lusitanian mountaineers. On his return, he desired both a triumph and the consulship; but he could not obtain the one if he entered the city before it was decreed, nor the other without being personally present at the approaching election; so he abandoned the showy for the solid advantage, and was duly chosen consul, with Bib´ulus, a tool of the Senate, for his colleague.

=158.= He now managed to detach Pompey from the senatorial party, and form with him and Crassus a _triumvirate_, which, though only a secret agreement, not a public magistracy, ruled the Roman world for several years. The power of Crassus was due to his enormous wealth; that of Pompey, to his great military services; and that of Cæsar, to his unequaled genius and unbounded popularity. Their combined influence was soon felt in the official acts of Cæsar. He brought forward an Agrarian law for dividing the rich public lands of Campania among the poorest citizens. It was passed against the violent opposition of Bibulus and all the aristocratic party; a commission of twenty, with Pompey and Crassus at its head, was appointed to divide the lands, and the veterans thus obtained most of their claims.

The defeated consul, who had declared that he would rather die than yield, now shut himself up in his house, and never re-appeared in public until his year of office had expired. Cæsar obtained a ratification of all Pompey’s acts in Asia, and, at the same time, attached the equites to his party, by giving them more favorable terms in farming the provincial revenues. At the close of his consulship he obtained the government of Illyricum and Gaul, on both sides of the Alps, for a term of five years, with a general commission to “protect the friends and allies of the Roman people.”

=159.= The religious and national bond between the many Celtic tribes which inhabited the ancient territories of Britain, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and a part of Spain, was strong enough to unite them, now and then, in resistance to their common enemies, the Germans on the north and the Romans on the south, but not strong enough to prevent rivalries among themselves, which often gave the foreign power room to interfere in their affairs. The Roman province, founded B. C. 121, now extended northward along the Rhone as far as Geneva; and a great emigration of Germans had occupied territories west of the Rhine, from the neighborhood of the modern Strasbourg to the German Ocean.

=160.= During his first summer in Gaul, Cæsar, by the extraordinary swiftness and decision of his movements, subdued two nations and established Roman supremacy in the center of the country. The Helvetii, who lived between Lake Geneva and the Jura, finding themselves in too narrow quarters, had resolved to emigrate and conquer new habitations to the westward. They burned their twelve towns and four hundred villages, and assembled at Geneva to the number of 368,000 persons, men, women, and children, intending to pass through the Roman province into western Gaul. Cæsar prevented this move by a wall nineteen miles in length, which he extended along the left bank of the Rhone; and bringing up three legions from Italy, he followed the Helvetians along their second route, and defeated them near Bibrac´te. The remnant of the nation—less than one-third of the number on their muster-rolls when the migration began—were ordered back to their native hills.

The Seq´uani, a Celtic tribe north of the Helvetii, had called in Ariovis´tus, the most powerful of the German chiefs, against their rivals the Ædui, who were styled allies and kinsmen of the Romans. Having subdued the Ædui, Ariovistus turned upon his late allies, and demanded two-thirds of their lands in payment for his services. All the Gauls begged aid of Cæsar, who met the German prince near the Rhine, in what is now Alsace. So great was the fame of Ariovistus and his gigantic barbarians, who for fourteen years had not slept under a roof, that the Roman soldiers were afraid to fight; and though shamed out of their cowardice by the stirring appeal of their general, every man made his will before going into battle. The result of the combat was the complete destruction of the German host, only Ariovistus and a few followers escaping across the Rhine.

=161.= The second year, Cæsar conquered the Belgians north of the Seine, and the Senate decreed a public thanksgiving of fifteen days for the subjugation of Gaul. His lieutenant, Decimus Brutus, fought the first naval battle on the Atlantic, with the high-built sailing vessels of the Celts. The maritime tribes revolting the following winter, were subdued; and but for a few brief rebellions, the territories of France and Belgium remained under Roman dominion. Cæsar repaired each winter to his province of Cisalpine Gaul, to watch affairs in Italy. In 56 B. C., he had to reconcile Pompey with Crassus, and re-arrange, in his camp at Luca, the affairs of the triumvirate.

It was agreed that Pompey and Crassus should be consuls the next year, and that, after their term had expired, the former should govern Spain, and the latter Asia, while the proconsular government of Cæsar in Gaul should be prolonged to a second term of five years. In choosing the most arduous and least lucrative province for himself, Cæsar wished to begin the execution of his great scheme for civilizing the West, and organizing the whole Roman dominion into one compact state. The revolution begun by the Gracchi was not yet completed, and it was easy to see that the strife of parties must come again to the sword, as it had in the time of Marius and Sulla. In such a case, Cæsar desired to be near Italy, and to have an army trained to perfect discipline and devotion to himself.

=162.= In the fourth year, B. C. 55, he threw a bridge across the Rhine and invaded Germany. Late in the autumn, he made a reconnoitering expedition to Britain, and received hostages from the tribes. This time the Senate decreed twenty days’ thanksgiving, though Cato stoutly insisted that Cæsar ought, rather, to be given up to the vengeance of the barbarians, to avert the anger of the gods for his having seized the German embassadors. The next year, B. C. 54, Cæsar again invaded Britain with five legions. Notwithstanding the brave resistance of a native chief, Cas´sivelau´nus, he penetrated north of the Thames, took hostages, and imposed tribute; but he left no military posts to hold the island in subjection.

A formidable revolt of the Gauls, the following winter, destroyed one of the six divisions of the Roman army, and imperiled another, commanded by Quintus Cicero, brother of the orator. Cæsar came to its relief, defeated 60,000 of the enemy, and restored quietness to the north. The Germans having aided in this revolt, he again crossed the Rhine near Coblentz, in the summer of 53 B. C. He fought no battles, for the people took refuge among their wooded hills; but the invasion served, as before, to make an imposing display of Roman power.

=163.= The following year, Gaul was every-where in a blaze of revolt, and the campaign was the most difficult and brilliant of all Cæsar’s operations. Ver´cinget´orix, king of the Arver´ni, and the ablest of the Gallic chieftains, stirred up all the tribes, and nearly wrested the country from Roman control. While Cæsar was besieging him in Ale´sia, a Gallic army of more than a quarter of a million of men encamped around the Romans and besieged them in turn. But the genius of the proconsul surmounted even this crisis. He kept down all attempts at sortie, while he defeated the outer army; then forced the town to surrender, and captured Vercingetorix himself. Six years later, the Gallic chief adorned the triumph of Cæsar, and was then executed in the Mamertine prison at the foot of the Capitol. The Gauls now saw that resistance was hopeless. The firm and skillful management of Cæsar in pacifying the country and organizing the Roman rule, completed the work that his brilliant victories had prepared; and by the year 50 B. C., Gaul was at peace.

=164.= Meanwhile, Crassus, fearing that his colleagues would reap all the warlike glory of the league, undertook, after plundering the temples of the East, to make war against Parthia—a war unprovoked by the enemy, unauthorized by the Senate, and unwarranted by his own abilities. Contrary to advice, he plunged into the hot and sandy desert east of the Euphrates, lost the greater part of his army in a battle near Carrhæ (the Haran of Abraham), and was himself slain, soon after, by the treachery of the Parthian general, B. C. 53.

Pompey, now sole consul, no longer pretended any friendship for Cæsar. The conqueror of Mithridates and the Cilician pirates did not fancy that he could be eclipsed by any man; and the relationship between them was lately dissolved by the death of Julia, the daughter of Cæsar, who had been the wife of Pompey. The enemies of the former obtained a decree of the Senate requiring him to surrender his proconsular power, and return to Rome before becoming candidate for a second consulship. Cato had declared that he would prosecute Cæsar for capital offenses as soon as he should resign his command.

It could hardly have been expected that the governor of Gaul would quit his devoted legions, and all the treasures of the conquered province, to place himself unarmed at the mercy of his enemies. Such virtue had been known in the days of Curtius, but self-surrender for the public good had ceased to be fashionable at Rome. Moreover, Cæsar may well have doubted whether the sacrifice of his life would promote the public interests. The Romans required a master; and his own plans for building up a great empire from the scattered fragments of provinces, by extending equal rights to all the conquered peoples, were doubtless the most enlarged and beneficent that had yet been formed. He believed that the great interests of Rome were consistent with his own.

=165.= His enemies lost no opportunity to deprive him of resources. Under pretext of a war with Parthia, the two former colleagues of Crassus were required to furnish each one legion to be sent to Asia. Pompey had formerly lent a legion to Cæsar, and now demanded its return. Cæsar dismissed the two legions, giving to each man his share of the treasure which was to be distributed at his approaching triumph. He wrote at the same time to the Senate, offering to resign his command if Pompey would do the same, but not otherwise. The two legions were kept in Italy. After a violent debate, it was enacted that Cæsar should, without conditions, disband his army on a certain day, under penalty of being declared an enemy of the state. The tribunes, Antonius and Cassius, vetoed the motion, but their veto was set aside; and believing their lives in danger, they fled to Cæsar’s camp at Raven´na.

RECAPITULATION.

Catiline’s deep-laid conspiracy is defeated by Cicero, and its lender slain in battle. Pompey disbands his army and triumphs for his conquests in Asia. He forms with Cæsar, now consul, and Crassus, the first triumvirate. The next year, B. C. 58, Cæsar, as proconsul, assumes the command in Gaul; subdues the Helvetii and the Germans, under Ariovistus, in one campaign; afterward conquers the Belgæ; twice bridges the Rhine and ravages Germany; twice invades Britain; suppresses revolts in Gaul, and organizes the whole country into a peaceful and permanent part of the Roman dominion. Crassus, in Asia, is overwhelmingly defeated, with the loss of his army and his life, B. C. 53. Pompey breaks with Cæsar, and becomes the champion of the Senate.

CÆSAR MASTER OF ROME.

=166.= It was time for decisive action. Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, a little river which separated his province from Roman Italy, and advanced with one legion, the troops in Gaul having received orders to follow without delay. To enter the country without resigning his command was itself a declaration of war. Panic seized Rome, and the Senate fled, leaving the public treasures behind. Fifteen thousand recruits, destined for Pompey’s army, seized their officers and handed them over, with themselves and the town Corfin´ium, where they were quartered, to Cæsar. Other bodies of recruits followed their example. Pompey, having lost more than half his ten legions, retired to Brundisium; and though besieged by Cæsar, succeeded in escaping with 25,000 men to Greece.

The Roman world was now really divided between the two generals. Pompey controlled Spain, Africa, and the East, and hoped, by commanding the sea and the corn islands, to starve Italy into surrender. Cæsar had only Italy, Illyricum, and Gaul. If Pompey had acted with energy, he might speedily have created an army in the East and regained Rome, but by delay he allowed Cæsar to attack his provinces in detail, and wrest the entire empire from his grasp. The emigrated nobles assembled themselves at Thessalonica and re-organized a senate, in which they made a vain show of keeping up the constitutional forms, while, by their petty jealousies, they hampered every movement of their general-in-chief.

=167.= Cu´rio, the ablest of Cæsar’s lieutenants, captured Sicily, and thus averted famine from Rome. In Africa he was less fortunate. Drawn into an unexpected combat with the whole army of King Juba, he was defeated, and chose to be slain rather than meet his general in disgrace. Instead of the anarchy and general proscription which his enemies had predicted, Cæsar soon restored order in Italy, and universal confidence, by the moderation and forbearance of his conduct. Friends and foes were equally protected. The moneyed class, which had most to gain from a settled government, came over to the side of Cæsar, and the “rich lords resumed their daily task of writing their rent-rolls.”

His first foreign enterprise was against Spain, where Pompey had seven legions. It was conquered by a severe and toilsome campaign of forty days. Returning through Gaul, Cæsar received the surrender of Massilia, and learned of his appointment to the dictatorship at Rome. He held this high office only eleven days, but long enough to preside at the election of consuls, in which he himself, of course, received the greatest number of votes; to pass laws relieving debtors, and restoring to the enjoyment of their estates the descendants of those whom Sulla had proscribed; and to begin his scheme of consolidating the provinces, by granting the full rights of Roman citizenship to the Gauls.

=168.= As consul, he then led his army to Brundisium and crossed into Greece. Pompey had assembled from the eastern countries a great army and fleet, the latter of which commanded the sea, and seemed to forbid the passage of Cæsar. But Bibulus, the admiral, confiding in his superior numbers and the wintry season, was off his guard until seven legions were landed in Epirus. The attempt to capture Pompey’s camp and treasures, at Dyrra´chium, failed; but the vain confidence inspired by their partial success, in the proud and frivolous young nobles of the refugee party, eventually proved their ruin.

Cæsar was, indeed, in a perilous position; his fleet was destroyed, and he was cut off in a hostile country where food must soon fail. Nevertheless, with his usual good fortune or consummate skill, he contrived to draw his victorious enemy after him to the interior of the country, where Pompey’s fleet gave him no advantage, and then to choose his own battle-field at Pharsa´lia, in Thessaly. The army of Pompey, in horse and foot, numbered 54,000 men; that of Cæsar, scarcely more than 22,000. The former was abundantly supplied both with provisions and military materials, while the latter was near the point of starvation, and compelled to stake its existence on one desperate venture. So certain did the result appear, that the patricians in Pompey’s camp were already disputing among themselves the succession to Cæsar’s pontificate.

=169.= On the 9th of August, B. C. 48, the Pompeians crossed the river which separated the two camps, and with their cavalry commenced the attack. Cæsar’s horsemen were driven in, but a picked troop of his legionaries, tried on a hundred Gallic fields, unexpectedly charged the assailants. Their orders were to aim their javelins at the enemies’ faces. Confused by this novel attack, the cavalry turned and fled; and Pompey, who had been urged by the reproaches of his self-appointed counselors to give battle, contrary to his better judgment, and who had never shared their confidence, did not wait to see the general attack, but galloped away to his camp.

His army was completely routed; 15,000 lay dead upon the field, and 20,000 surrendered on the morning after the battle. Many of the aristocracy hastened to make their peace with the conqueror; the “irreconcilables” either betook themselves to the mountains or the sea, to carry on for years a predatory warfare; or to Africa, where King Juba, of Numidia, perceiving that Cæsar’s consolidating policy would deprive him of his kingdom, still stood firmly on the Pompeian side. The other client-states withdrew their quotas of ships and men as soon as they saw that Pompey’s cause was lost.

=170.= Pompey fled to Egypt. The young queen, Cleopatra, was now in Syria, having been driven from her kingdom by her brother’s guardian, Pothi´nus, who was with an army holding the eastern frontier against her. The perfidious statesmen who surrounded the king, sent out a boat inviting the illustrious fugitive to land; but just as he had reached the shore, he was stabbed by a former centurion of his own, who was now in the service of Ptolemy. Pompey perceived his fate; without a word, he covered his face with his toga, and submitted to the swords of his executioners. His head was cut off, and his body cast out upon the sand, where it was buried by one of his own attendants.

Cæsar soon arrived in pursuit; but when the ghastly head was presented to him, he turned away weeping, and ordered the murderers to be put to death. He remained five mouths at Alexandria, regulating the affairs of the kingdom, which he secured to Cleopatra jointly with her brother. He thus became involved in war with the people, and in a naval battle was once compelled to save his life by swimming from ship to ship, holding his sword in his teeth, and the manuscript of his Commentaries upon the Gallic Wars in one hand over his head. He was victorious at last, and Ptolemy was drowned in the Nile.

=171.= Cæsar then turned rapidly toward Asia Minor, where Pharnaces of Pontus was trying to regain his father’s lost dominions. The Roman army had been defeated at Nicopolis with great loss, but Cæsar won a decisive victory at Zie´la, and finished the campaign in five days. It was on this occasion that he sent to the Senate his memorable dispatch, “Veni, vidi, vici.”[75] The presence of the chief made a similar transformation of the war in Africa. The Pompeian party had re-established its senate at Utica, and during Cæsar’s long delay in Egypt had raised an army fully equal to that which had been conquered at Pharsalia.

In attempting to carry the war into Africa, Cæsar met an unexpected obstacle in a mutiny of his veterans in southern Italy. Wearied out with the unusual hardships of their last campaigns, and imagining that their general could do nothing without them, they refused to embark for Sicily, and commenced their march toward Rome. Having provided for the security of the city, Cæsar suddenly appeared among the legions, and demanded to know what they wanted. Cries of “discharge!” were heard on every hand. He took them instantly at their word; and then addressing them as “citizens,” not as “soldiers,” promised them, at his approaching triumph, their full share in the treasure and lands which he had destined for his faithful followers, though in the triumph itself they could, of course, have no part.

His presence and his voice revived their old affection; they stood mute and ashamed at the sudden severing of the bond which had been their only glory in the past. At length they began to beg, even with tears, that they might be restored to favor, and honored again with the name of “Cæsar’s soldiers.” After some delay their prayer was granted; the ring-leaders were only punished by a reduction of one-third in their triumphal presents, and the revolt was at an end.

=172.= The campaign in Africa was not less difficult than the one in Greece. The Pompeians were well supplied with cavalry and elephants, and were able to fight on fields of their own choosing. They gained a battle near Rus´pina, but in the more decisive conflict at Thapsus, they were completely overthrown. The soldiers of Cæsar disregarded his orders to spare their fellow-citizens; they were determined to obtain rest from war at any cost of Roman blood, and 50,000 Pompeians were left dead upon the battle-field. Cæsar was now master of all Africa. Cato, commanding at Utica, provided for the safety of his friends either by flight or surrender; then shutting himself in his room, read all night the treatise of Plato on the Immortality of the Soul, and toward morning killed himself with his own sword.

=173.= Cæsar returned to Rome in possession of absolute power. Instead of the proscriptions, which, in similar circumstances, had marked the return of Marius and Sulla, he proclaimed amnesty to all, and sought to avail himself of the wisdom of all parties in reorganizing civil affairs. As he had never triumphed, he now celebrated four days for his victories in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Numidia; but the rejoicings were only for the conquest of foreign foes, for it was regarded as unseemly to triumph over Roman citizens. Twenty thousand tables were spread in the streets and public squares, gifts of grain and money were distributed among soldiers and people, and the games were celebrated with a splendor never before approached. Cæsar now applied himself with diligence to regulate the disorders of the state; and the benefit of one, at least, of his provisions is felt even to the present day. The reckoning of time, through the carelessness or corruption of the pontiffs (see § 29), had fallen into hopeless confusion: harvest festivals took place in spring, and those of the late vintage at midsummer. Cæsar, as chief pontiff, reformed the calendar, by adding ninety days to the current year, and then, with the aid of an Alexandrian astronomer, adapted the reckoning to the sun’s course. He made the Roman year consist of 365 days, and added a day every fourth year. The Julian Calendar, with only one emendation,[76] is that which we now follow. In acknowledgment of his service in this matter, the Senate ordered the month of Cæsar’s birth to be called henceforth from his clan-name, July. His successor, Augustus, on occasion of some trifling improvement in the calendar, gave his own surname to the following month.

=174.= The Pompeians made one more rally in Spain, but they were defeated and overthrown by Cæsar, in the severe and decisive battle of Munda, March 17, B. C. 45. Cneius Pompey, the younger, was slain; his brother Sextus soon submitted, and received the family estates. He was proscribed during the disorders which followed the death of Cæsar, and for eight years kept up a piratical warfare upon the sea. Having settled the affairs of Spain, Cæsar celebrated a fifth triumph, and was loaded by the servile Senate with unlimited powers and dignities. He became dictator and censor for life, the latter office now receiving its new title, præfecture of morals. He was permitted to make peace or war without consulting either Senate or people. In his highest and most distinctive power, that of perpetual imperator, he was to name his successor. His person was declared sacred, and all the senators bound themselves by oath to watch over his safety. His statues were ordered to be placed in all the temples, and his name in civil oaths was associated with those of the gods.

=175.= Cæsar availed himself of his unprecedented power to plan many great works of general utility. He projected a much-needed digest of Roman laws, and the founding of a Latin and Greek library on the model of that of Alexandria, which had been almost destroyed by fire during the recent siege. He proposed to turn the course of the Tiber, so as at once to drain the Pontine marshes, to add to the city an extensive tract of land available for building, and to connect with Rome the large and convenient port of Terraci´na, instead of the inferior one of Ostia.

Above all, he desired to substitute a great Mediterranean empire for the mere city government which, for more than a hundred years, had ruled Italy and the world. To atone for the narrow policy of municipal Rome, he rebuilt the two great commercial cities, Carthage and Corinth, which Roman jealousy had demolished; and he effaced, as far as possible, the distinctions between Italy and the provinces. In the many colonies which he founded in Europe, Asia, and Africa, he provided homes for 80,000 emigrants, mostly from the crowded tenement houses of Rome itself. His plans embraced the varied interests of every class and nation within the empire, and aimed to reach, by the union of all, a higher civilization than either had attained alone. In the wildest regions of Germany, Dalmatia, or Spain, the Roman soldier was followed by the Greek school-master and the Jewish trader.

=176.= Though occupying the highest rank as a general, Cæsar was more a statesman than a warrior, and desired to base his government, not upon military power, but upon the confidence of the people. He was already in his fortieth year when he first assumed the command of an army. Still, his great works as a ruler had all to be executed in the brief intervals of military affairs. The five and a half years which followed his accession to supreme power were occupied by seven important campaigns; and he was about undertaking an expedition against Parthia, to avenge the overthrow of Crassus, when a violent death ended his career. It is said that he desired, before his departure, to receive the title of king.

A conspiracy had already been formed among his personal enemies. It was now strengthened by the accession of several honest republicans, who dreamed that the death of the dictator would restore freedom to the state. At the festival of the Lupercalia, Feb. 15, B. C. 44, the crown was offered to Cæsar, by Antony, his colleague in the consulship; but, perceiving the consternation of the people, he declined it. On the 15th of the following month, in spite of many warnings, Cæsar repaired to the Senate-house. He had just taken his seat, when one of the conspirators stooped and touched his robe. At this signal, Casca stabbed him in the shoulder; the others thronged around with their drawn swords or daggers.

Instead of the flattering crowd, nothing but murderous faces and the gleam of steel met his eye on every side. Still he stood at bay, wounding one assailant with his stylus, throwing back another, and disarming a third, until he received a wound from the hand of Brutus, whom, though an adherent of Pompey, he had honored with his confidence and loaded with benefits. Then drawing his mantle about him, with the reproachful exclamation, “And _thou_, Brutus!” he fell at the base of Pompey’s statue and expired.

=177.= Brutus, raising aloft his bloody dagger, cried aloud to Cicero, “Rejoice, father of our country, for Rome is free!” Never was rejoicing more unfounded. If Brutus and his accomplices could have restored to the Roman people the simple and self-denying virtues of the olden time, Rome would indeed have been free. But Cæsar understood the times better than his assassins. In cutting off the only man who was capable of ruling with clear insight, firmness, and beneficence, they had plunged the state again into the horrors of civil war, and made it the easy prey of a less able and less liberal despot. Senate and people were at first paralyzed by the suddenness of the change, and by fear of a return to the old scenes of proscription. Antony, now sole consul, had time to possess himself of Cæsar’s papers and treasures; and by his funeral oration over the body of the dictator—especially by reading his will, in which all the Roman people were remembered with great liberality—he roused the indignant passions of the crowd against the murderers.

Antony was for a time the most popular man in Rome, but a rival soon appeared in the person of Octavia´nus, the grand-nephew and adopted son of Julius Cæsar. This young man, who had been educated with great care under the eye of his adoptive father, arrived from the camp at Apollonia and claimed his inheritance, out of which he carefully distributed the legacies to soldiers and people. Cicero was led to look upon him as the hope of the state, and in his third great series of orations, called the Philip´pics, he destroyed the popularity of Antony and his influence with the Senate. Two of Antony’s legions deserted to Octavian, and Antony himself, in two battles, was routed and driven across the Alps.

=178.= The two consuls for the year 43 B. C. were slain in the battle before Mu´tina. Octavian, returning to Rome, compelled the popular assembly to elect him to that office, though he was only nineteen years of age. He was appointed to carry on the war against Antony, who had now been joined by Lepidus—formerly master of the horse to Julius Cæsar—and was now descending from the Alps with a formidable army of seventeen legions. But the Senate, almost equally afraid of Antony and Octavian, revoked the outlawry of the former; and the latter, disgusted with its vacillations, resolved upon a league with the two commanders, whose forces alone could give him victory over the assassins.

On a small island in the Reno, near Bono´nia (Bologna), the three met, and the Second Triumvirate, of Antony, Cæsar Octavianus, and Lepidus, was then formed, B. C. 43, proposing to share between them for five years the government of the Roman world. A proscription followed, in which Cicero, though the friend of Cæsar, was sacrificed to the hatred of Antony. The illustrious orator was murdered near his own villa at For´miæ, and his head and right hand were nailed to the rostrum at Rome, from which he had so often discoursed of the sacred rights of citizens. Two thousand knights and three hundred senators perished in this proscription. Those who could escape took refuge with Sextus Pompey in Sicily, or with Brutus and Cassius in Greece.

=179.= Antony and Octavian crossed the Adriatic, and defeated the last of the conspirators in two battles at Philippi, in the autumn of 42 B. C. Both Brutus and Cassius ended their lives by suicide. Cæsar returned to Italy, where a new civil war was stirred up by Fulvia, the wife of Antony, and Lucius, his brother. Lucius Antonius threw himself into Perusia, where he was besieged and taken by Octavian. The common citizens were spared, but 300 or 400 nobles were slain at the altar of Julius Cæsar, on the anniversary of his death, March 15, B. C. 40. Fulvia died in Greece, and a new agreement between the triumvirs, called the Peace of Brundisium, was sealed by the marriage of Antony with Octavia, the sister of the younger Cæsar.

In the new division of the civilized world, Antony received the East; Octavian, Italy and Spain; and Lepidus, Africa. Sextus Pompey, whose fleets, commanding the sea, threatened the capital with famine, was admitted, next year, to a sort of partnership with the triumvirate, in which he received the islands of the western Mediterranean, on condition of his supplying Rome with grain. The conditions of this treaty were never fulfilled, and a two years’ war between Pompey and Octavian was the result. It was ended B. C. 36, by a great sea-fight off Nau´lochus. Agrippa, the intimate friend of Cæsar, routed the forces of Pompey, who fled in despair to Asia, and the following year was captured and put to death. His land forces, deserted by their leader, prevailed upon Lepidus to become their general, and declare war against Octavian. But the young Cæsar acted with an intrepidity worthy of his name. He went unarmed and almost alone into the camp of Lepidus, and by his eloquence persuaded them to desert their unworthy commander and be faithful to himself.

=180.= Lepidus being degraded, the two remaining members of the triumvirate continued three years at the head of affairs. But an alliance so purely selfish could not be permanent. Antony neglected his noble wife for the enchantments of the Egyptian queen, on whom he bestowed Phœnicia, Cœle-Syria, and other dominions of Rome. He wasted the forces committed to him in expeditions which resulted only in loss and disgrace; and he laid aside the simple dignity of a Roman citizen for the arrogant ceremony of an Eastern monarch.

In 32 B. C., war was declared against Cleopatra, and in September of the following year the forces of the two triumvirs met off Actium, in Acarnania. Antony had collected a vast fleet and army; but his officers, disgusted by his weak self-indulgence, were ready to be drawn over to the side of Octavian. Disheartened by many desertions, Antony took no active part in the battle, but while those of his forces who still faithfully adhered to him were fighting bravely in his defense, he drew off with a portion of his fleet, and followed Cleopatra to Egypt. His land army, after waiting a week for its fugitive commander, surrendered to Octavian.

From this moment Cæsar was master of the Roman world. The final blow was given the next year in Egypt, where Antony was defeated before Alexandria, and deserted by his fleet and army. Cleopatra negotiated to betray him, but when she found that Octavian wanted to capture her, that she might adorn his triumph, she ended her life by the poison of an asp. Antony, in despair, had already killed himself, and Egypt became a Roman province. Octavian, returning to Rome the following year, celebrated a three-fold triumph, and the gates of Janus were closed the third time, in token of universal peace, B. C. 29.

RECAPITULATION.

Cæsar crosses the Rubicon, and in three months becomes master of Italy. He subdues the Pompeians in Spain, becomes dictator, and afterward consul; pursues Pompey into Greece; is defeated at Dyrrhachium, but victorious at Pharsalia, B. C. 48. Pompey is slain in Egypt. Cæsar re-establishes Cleopatra under the Roman protectorate; re-conquers Pontus; quells a mutiny in his Gallic legions, and overthrows the Pompeians at Thapsus, in Africa. He celebrates four triumphs at Rome; reforms the calendar; finally crushes the Pompeians in Spain; is invested with sovereign powers, and organizes a cosmopolitan empire. On the eve of departure for Asia, he is murdered in the Senate-house by sixty conspirators. Antony aims to succeed him, but Octavian receives his inheritance. Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus form the Second Triumvirate, B. C. 43. In the proscription which follows, Cicero is killed. Brutus and Cassius are defeated at Philippi, B. C. 42. A dispute in the triumvirate is ended by the Peace of Brundisium, and the marriage of Antony and Octavia. Lepidus is degraded from the triumvirate, B. C. 35; the two remaining colleagues quarrel, and the battle of Actium makes Octavian supreme ruler of the empire, B. C. 31.

III. THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

=181.= FIRST PERIOD, B. C. 31-A. D. 192. The empire founded by Cæsar Octavianus was an absolute monarchy under the form of a republic. Many of the high offices, which had been borne by different persons, were now concentrated in one; but he declined the name dictator, which had been abused by Marius and Sulla, and was careful to be elected only for limited periods, and in the regular manner. The title Imperator, which he bore for life, had always belonged to generals of consular rank during the time of their command. The name Augustus, by which he is henceforth to be known, was a title of honor bestowed by the Senate, and made hereditary in his family. As chief, or “Prince of the Senate,” he had the right to introduce subjects for discussion; and as pontifex maximus, or high priest of the state, he had a controlling influence in all sacred affairs.

He lived in the style of a wealthy senator in his house on the Palatine, walked abroad without retinue, and carefully avoided kingly pomp. The popular assemblies still appointed consuls, prætors, quæstors, ædiles, and tribunes, but the successful candidate was always recommended by the emperor, if he did not himself accept the appointment. These old-fashioned dignities were now little more than empty names, the real power having passed, under Augustus himself, to new officers, especially to the præfect of the city and the commander of the Prætorian Guard.[77] The people, meanwhile, were satisfied with liberal distributions of corn, wine, and oil, and amused by a constant succession of games.

=182.= In seven centuries the Roman dominion had grown from the few acres on the Palatine Hill, to embrace the Mediterranean with all its coasts, from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, and from the African Desert to the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euxine. The twenty-seven provinces, reorganized by Augustus, were divided between himself and the Senate according to their condition. Those which were securely at peace were called Senatorial Provinces, and governed by proconsuls appointed by the legislative body; those which demanded the presence of an army were Imperial Provinces, and were managed either by the emperor in person or by his legates.

The standing army, which maintained order in the entire empire, consisted, in the time of Augustus, of twenty-five legions, each legion numbering, in horse, foot, and artillery, a little less than 7,000 men. This force of 175,000 was distributed along the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates, or in Britain, Spain, and Africa, according to the danger from the outer barbarians. While internal peace was maintained by the wise management of Augustus, the natural boundaries of the empire above mentioned were only gained and kept by active war. Northern and north-western Spain, the Alpine provinces of Rhætia and Vindelic´ia, and the Danubian countries Nor´icum, Panno´nia, and Mœ´sia, required almost unremitted warfare of more than twenty years, B. C. 12-A. D. 9.

=183.= The Germans, east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, though often defeated, were never subdued. Drusus, a step-son of Augustus, was the first Roman general who descended the Rhine to the German Ocean. He built two bridges and more than fifty fortresses along the river, and imposed a tribute upon the Frisians north of its mouth. Drusus died in his third campaign, B. C. 9, and was succeeded by his brother Tiberius, who after many years, A. D. 4, seemed to have subdued the tribes between the Rhine and the Elbe.

But his successor, Qu. Varus, attempted to establish the same arrogant and arbitrary rule which he had exercised over the slavish Syrians—a people crushed by nearly two thousand years of despotism, Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, and Macedonian. The free-spirited Germans rose in revolt, under their princely leader, Armin´ius (Herman). Arminius had been educated at Rome, and had thoroughly learned the tactics of the legions; but Roman refinement never weakened his German fidelity to fatherland. Private wrong was now added to national oppression, and he deeply laid and firmly executed his plan for the destruction of the Roman army and the deliverance of Germany.

=184.= Varus was enticed into the broken and difficult country of the Teutoberg´er Wald, at a season when heavy rains had increased the marshiness of the ground. Barricades of fallen trees blocked his way, and, in a narrow valley, a hail-storm of javelins burst upon his legions from the hosts of Arminius. On the next day the battle was renewed, and the Romans were literally destroyed, for all the captives were sacrificed upon the altars of the old German divinities. The garrisons throughout the country were put to the sword, and within a few weeks not a Roman foot remained on German soil.

The news of the disaster struck Rome with terror. The superstitious believed that supernatural portents had accompanied the event. The temple of Mars was struck by a thunderbolt, comets blazed in the sky, and spears of fire darted from the northward into the prætorian camp. A statue of Victory, which had stood on the Italian frontier looking toward Germany, turned of its own accord and faced toward Rome. Augustus, in his grief, heightened by the weakness of old age, used for months to beat his head against the wall, exclaiming, “Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!”

By the revolt of Arminius, Germany was once and forever freed. Roman armies were led thither by Germanicus and the younger Drusus, but they gained no permanent advantages; and by the will of Augustus and the policy of his successors, the Rhine continued to be regarded as the frontier until, five centuries later, the tide of conquest turned in the other direction, and the Teutonic races divided the Roman Empire into the kingdoms of modern Europe.

=185.= The reign of Augustus was a refreshing contrast to the century of revolution which had preceded it, for the security and prosperity that were felt throughout the empire. Commerce revived, agriculture was greatly improved, and the imperial city was adorned with temples, porticos, and other new and magnificent buildings. Augustus could truly boast that he “found Rome of brick and left it of marble.” A more lasting glory surrounds his name from the literary brilliancy of his court. Livy, the historian, and Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibul´lus, with other poets, enjoyed his patronage and celebrated his achievements; and in allusion to this, the brightest period of every nation’s literature is commonly called its “Augustan Age.” Augustus had no son, and his choice of an heir fell upon Tiberius, the son of his wife, Livia, by a former marriage. By the same arrangement, Germanicus, the son of Drusus, was adopted by Tiberius, and married to Agrippi´na, granddaughter of Augustus.

=186.= In the 77th year of his age, Augustus closed his long and wonderfully prosperous reign of forty-five years, A. D. 14. The Senate and people submitted to his appointed successor. The army would more willingly have proclaimed its idolized general Germanicus, but the younger prince absolutely refused to sanction the act. Tiberius, so far from prizing his fidelity, never forgave his popularity; and the court soon understood that the surest way to gain the favor of the emperor was to ill-treat his adopted son.

The policy of Tiberius was that of many another cowardly and suspicious tyrant. Conscious of his own unworthiness, either by birth or genius, of the high place he filled, he saw a rival in every possessor of great talent or even exalted virtue. He was afraid to call to his assistance the great patricians or the princes of the Julian house, and he regarded his own relations with unmingled jealousy. As he found it impossible, however, to administer alone all the world-embracing affairs of such an empire, he raised to the post of prætorian præfect a Volsinian knight, Seja´nus, whom he fancied too mean to be dangerous, but who became, in fact, the master of the whole dominion.

=187.= Germanicus, meanwhile, conducted three campaigns, A. D. 14-17; and, after several disasters, gained some important victories over Arminius, between the Rhine and the Elbe. He was recalled A. D. 17, to receive the honor of a triumph, and was met, twenty miles from Rome, by an enthusiastic multitude which had poured forth to welcome him. He was, indeed, dangerously dear both to his legions and to the common people; and though he believed that in one year more he could complete the conquest of Germany, he was now transferred to another army and to the eastern wars. In his new command he settled the affairs of Armenia, and organized Cappadocia as a province; but he died A. D. 19, near Antioch in Syria, believing himself poisoned by Piso, a subordinate, who had been sent by the emperor with express orders to thwart and injure his chief.

=188.= Drusus, the son of Tiberius, was poisoned by order of Sejanus, who had the boldness to request permission of the emperor to marry the widow of his victim. This was refused; but Tiberius, still blinded to the marvelous ambition of the wretch who ruled him, consented to retire to Capreæ, and leave Rome in the hands of Sejanus. His time was now given up to swinish excesses, while his worthless lieutenant maintained for five years a riot of misrule. His wicked schemes did not spare the best or noblest of the imperial family; but, at length, he perceived his master’s suspicion directed toward him, and prepared to anticipate the blow by assassinating Tiberius himself. His plot was discovered, and he was suddenly seized and executed, A. D. 31.

The fall of this unworthy favorite took from Tiberius the only man whom he had ever trusted, and henceforth all were equally the objects of his fierce and cruel jealousy. Agrippina, the noble wife, as well as Nero, Drusus, and Livil´la, the unworthy sons and daughter of Germanicus, were put to death by his orders. Unlike Augustus, who scrupulously kept within the forms of law, he usurped the right to condemn without trial all who were obnoxious to him; and he extended the definition of treason to words and even thoughts. From his island retreat in the beautiful Bay of Naples, he issued destruction to men, women, and even innocent children who had the misfortune to be of sufficiently noble birth to attract his attention. It was a relief to the world when he died from illness, A. D. 37, at the age of seventy-eight.

=189.= Tiberius had appointed no successor, but Senate, soldiers, and people united in the choice of Caius Cæsar, the only surviving son of Germanicus and Agrippina. In his childhood he had been the pet of the legions in Germany, and from the little military boots (_caligæ_) which he wore to please them, he acquired the nickname _Caligula_. This childish appellation is the name by which he is commonly known in history. Caligula was now twenty-six years of age, and was considered to be of a mild and generous disposition. The first months of his reign justified the impression. He released the prisoners and recalled the exiles of Tiberius, and he restored power to the regular magistrates and the popular assemblies. But his weak head was turned by the possession of absolute power, and of the enormous wealth hoarded by Tiberius. In unbounded self-indulgence, he extinguished the last spark of reason, and exerted his tremendous power only for mischief, and in the most wild and reckless manner. Choosing to be considered as a god, he built a temple to himself, under the name of Jupiter Latiaris; and so servile was Rome now become, that her noblest citizens purchased the honor of officiating as priests to this worthless divinity.

The worst abuse of absolute power was shown in contempt for human life. When the supply of criminals for the public games was exhausted, the emperor ordered spectators, taken at random from the crowd, to be thrown to the beasts; and lest they should curse him in their last agonies, their tongues were first cut out. But this mad career of despotism worked its own destruction; for, in the fourth year of his reign, and the thirtieth of his age, Caius Cæsar was murdered by two of his guards.

=190.= The Roman world being thus suddenly without a master, the prætorians took upon themselves to decide its fate. Finding Claudius, the uncle of Caligula, a weak and timid old man, hiding himself in the palace, they saluted him as emperor, and hurried him away to their camp, where he received the oaths of allegiance. Considered from childhood as lacking in intellect, Claudius had been treated by his relatives with a contempt, and by his servants with a harshness and cruelty, which only increased the natural irresoluteness of his character. Yet, though feeble, he was a good and honest man, and the evil wrought in his reign was the work of others. His infamous wife, Messali´na, gratified her jealousy and revenge at the expense of the noblest in the state, especially the imperial princesses, without even a show of legal formality. At last she was executed for her crimes, and the emperor procured a law from the Senate which enabled him to marry his niece, Agrippina.

This princess appears to advantage only when compared with her predecessor. She recalled Seneca, the philosopher, from exile, and made him the tutor of her son, Nero. She protected many who were unjustly accused, and she advanced to power the faithful Burrhus, who proved a better servant, both to herself and her son, than either deserved. At the same time, Agrippina persuaded her husband to set aside his own son, Britan´nicus, in favor of her son by a former marriage. This youth bore his father’s name, L. Domitius Ahenobar´bus, but by the emperor’s adoption he became Nero Claudius Cæsar Drusus Germanicus. By the first of these names he is known in history as one of the most wicked of tyrants. Having gained all that she hoped from the weak compliance of Claudius, Agrippina poisoned him, and presented her son to the prætorian guards as their imperator. Some, it is said, cried out, “Where is Britannicus?” but there was no serious resistance, and the new emperor was accepted by the Senate, the people, and the provinces.

=191.= For the first five years, under the wise and honest administration of Seneca and Burrhus, the Romans believed that the golden age had returned. Taxes were remitted; lands were allotted to the needy and deserving. The _delators_, that infamous class of people who made their living by accusing others of crime, were suppressed or banished. The Roman arms prospered in Armenia, under the able command of Cor´bulo, who captured the two capitals, Artax´ata and Tigranocerta, and completely subdued the kingdom. In Germany all was quiet, and the legions on the lower Rhine had leisure to complete the embankments which protected the land from inundation.

None of this prosperity was due, however, to the character of Nero, who was a sensual and cruel tyrant even from his youth. In the second year of his reign he poisoned his foster-brother, Britannicus. A few years later, he murdered his mother, his wife, and the too faithful Burrhus, cast off the influence of Seneca, and thenceforth gave free course to his tyrannical caprices. He encouraged the informants again, and filled his treasury with the confiscated property of their victims.

=192.= He persecuted both Jews and Christians, charging upon the latter the great fire at Rome, which he was more than suspected of having himself caused to be kindled. By this terrible conflagration, ten of the fourteen wards, or “regions,” of the city were made uninhabitable. Nero watched the burning from a tower on the Esquiline, while, in the dress of an actor, he chanted the “Sack of Troy.” Whether or not he had ordered the destruction of Rome in consequence of his disgust with its narrow and winding streets, he wisely availed himself of the opportunity to rebuild it in more regular and spacious proportions. The houses were constructed of stone, and rendered fire-proof; each was surrounded with balconies, and separated from other houses by lanes of considerable width, while a plentiful supply of water was introduced into every tenement.

The palace of Nero having been destroyed, he built his Golden House on a scale of magnitude and splendor which Rome had never seen. The porticos which surrounded it were three miles in length; within their bounds were parks, gardens, and a lake which filled the valley afterward occupied by the Flavian Amphitheater. The chambers of this imperial mansion were gilded and inlaid with gems. The least of its ornaments, though probably the greatest of its objects, was a colossal statue of Nero himself, 120 feet in height.

=193.= Nero desired to be praised as a musician and a charioteer, and so far forgot his imperial dignity as to appear as an actor in the theaters. He gained prizes at the Olympic Games, A. D. 67, which had been delayed two years that he might be present. He took part, also, in the vocal performances at the Isthmian Games, on which occasion he ordered the death of a singer whose voice drowned his own. On his return, he entered Rome through a breach in the walls, after the ancient Hellenic custom; but the 1,800 garlands with which he had been laden by the servile Greeks, showed the decline of the old heroic spirit, rather than the glory of the victor.

=194.= The impositions of Nero caused revolts in the provinces, and, among others, Vespasian, the future emperor, was sent to pacify Judæa. But Nero was jealous of his most able and faithful officers. Cor´bulo, the conqueror of Armenia, Rufus and Scribo´nius, the commanders in Germany, were recalled, and avoided public execution only by putting themselves to death. All the generals on the frontier perceived that they could escape a similar fate only by timely revolt, and insurrections broke out at once in Germany, Gaul, Africa, and Spain. The conspirators agreed, at length, in the choice of Galba, the governor of Hither Spain, as their leader and emperor.

Nero perceived that resistance was hopeless. Deserted by the prætorians and all his courtiers, he fled from his Golden House and hid himself in the cottage of Phaon, his former slave, a few miles from the city. After spending a night and part of a day in an agony of terror, he summoned courage to end his own life, just as he heard the tramp of the horsemen who were coming to take him. He was but thirty years of age, and had reigned nearly fourteen years. With him expired the line of Augustus. The imperial power never again remained so long in any one family as it had among the members, by adoption or otherwise, of the Julian house.

RECAPITULATION.

Augustus (B. C. 30-A. D. 14) combines in himself all the dignities of the Republic, but carefully avoids the appearance of royalty. He leaves the peaceful provinces to the Senate, but assumes the command of those which are at war. The Germans, under Arminius, revolt and destroy the legions of Varus. The “Augustan Age” is distinguished for prosperity and enlightenment. Tiberius (A. D. 14-37) succeeds Augustus, but Sejanus rules the empire. Germanicus and many others are persecuted and put to death. Caius Cæsar (Caligula, A. D. 37-41) begins well, but, soon spoiled by power, exhibits “the awful spectacle of a madman, master of the civilized world.” He is succeeded by his uncle Claudius (A. D. 41-54), a weak but honest man. Agrippina, having poisoned him, makes her son Nero emperor (A. D. 54-68). Upon the death of his instructors, he proves a reckless and cruel tyrant. He rebuilds Rome with unprecedented magnificence after the great fire. Having caused the death of his best generals, he kills himself only in time to escape the vengeance of his people.

DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE.

=195.= Galba, the most distinguished general of his time, had gained the favor of the emperor Claudius by refusing to assume the crown upon the death of Caligula. He had proved his ability and worth by his wise and just administration of the province of Africa, and had been honored at Rome with the highest dignities to which his patrician birth and eminent services entitled him. He was now more than seventy years of age, but learning that Nero had sent orders for his death, he resolved to rid the world of a tyrant by accepting the crown. He was a Roman of the ancient style, and the luxurious prætorians were equally disgusted with his strict discipline and his sparing distribution of money. By adopting Piso as his successor, he disappointed Otho, who easily raised a revolt against him, and the aged emperor and his adopted son were slain in the Forum, Jan. 15, A. D. 69.

=196.= Otho, the early favorite of Nero, had for ten years been governor of Lusitania. He was acknowledged, on the death of Galba, by the Senate and most of the provinces, but the legions in Germany had already (Jan. 3, 69) proclaimed their own general, Vitel´lius. The armies of the two generals met near the confluence of the Adda and the Po. Otho was defeated, and died by his own hand. Vitellius, having gained a crown by the skill and energy of his officers, lost it by his own unworthiness. Without the courage or ability of his predecessors, he surpassed them in contemptible self-indulgence. Vespasian, commander in Judæa, in revolting against this monster, was hailed by the acclamations of all good people, and supported by all the legions of the East. He took possession of Egypt, the grain-market of Rome, and sent his lieutenants into Italy. This time the generals of Vitellius were defeated on the Po, the capital was taken by assault, and the disgraced emperor put to death.

=197.= During the reign of Vespasian, order and prosperity succeeded to the storms which had convulsed the empire. The old discipline was revived, the revenues were re-organized, the capital was beautified, and the people employed by the construction of such great works as the Coliseum and the Temple of Peace. The space inclosed by Nero for his own enjoyment, was thrown open by Vespasian to the use of the people; and the materials of the Golden House served to enrich many public buildings. The revolt of the Batavians and other tribes on the lower Rhine was suppressed, A. D. 70; the Jewish War of Independence was finally subdued, the Holy City taken, and the people dispersed. Agric´ola completed the subjugation of Britain as far as the Tyne and the Solway, which he connected by earthworks and a chain of forts.

=198.= Titus, the son of Vespasian, having proved his military talent during the reign of his father, by the capture of Jerusalem, had been rewarded by a triumph, and by the title of Cæsar, which implied his association in the government. At the death of Vespasian, he became sole emperor without opposition. Whatever may have been his personal faults, Titus distinguished himself as a ruler by sincere and constant efforts to promote the happiness of his people. Recollecting, one evening, that he had performed no act of kindness, he exclaimed that he had lost a day.

The circumstances of his reign made peculiar demands upon the emperor’s benevolence. The beautiful Campanian towns, Hercula´neum and Pompe´ii, were destroyed by a sudden eruption of Vesuvius. A fire raged again three days and nights at Rome, followed by a general and fatal pestilence. Titus assumed the pecuniary loss as his own, and even sold the ornaments of his palace to defray the expense of rebuilding the ruined houses. He established public baths on the site of Nero’s gardens on the Esquiline, and completed the Coliseum, or Flavian Amphitheater, which he dedicated by a festival of a hundred days, including combats of 5,000 wild beasts. After a reign of but little more than two years, Titus died of a fever, having named his brother as his successor, A. D. 81.

=199.= Domitian was regarded by the people with more favor than he deserved, on account of the virtues of his father and brother. His nature was morose and jealous; and when his ill-success in military matters began to be contrasted with the victories of his predecessors, he became cruel and tyrannical, reviving the false accusations, forfeitures, and death-penalties of the reign of Nero. He was partially successful in his wars in Germany, but he was defeated on the Danube with great disaster, and even consented to pay an annual tribute to the Dacians, to keep them from invading Mœsia. When the cruelties of Domitian began to excite the fears of his servants, he was murdered, Sept. 18, A. D. 96.

=200.= The Senate now asserted a power which it had failed to exercise since the days of Augustus, by naming Nerva as sovereign. He was a childless old man, but he chose for his successor M. Ul´pius Traja´nus, a general whose vigor and ability, already shown in war, promised well for the interests of the state. It was henceforth considered the duty of the emperor to select from all his subjects the man most fit to rule, without reference to his own family, and the heir thus adopted bore the name of Cæsar. The mild, beneficent, and economical government of Nerva afforded a pleasing contrast to the severe and sanguinary rule of Domitian. Upon his death, which occurred A. D. 98, his adopted heir was immediately recognized as emperor.

=201.= Trajan was born in Spain, and his youth had been passed in military service. The Romans regarded him as the best of all their emperors. In personal character he was brave and generous, diligent and modest; in his policy as a ruler he was both wise and liberal. He scrupulously regarded the rights and dignities of the Senate, and treated its members as his equals. He was most diligent in hearing causes that were presented for his judgment, and in corresponding with the governors of provinces, who consulted him on all important affairs in their administration.

He managed the finances so well, that, without oppressive taxes or unjust confiscations, he always had means for the construction of roads, bridges, and aqueducts; for loans to persons whose estates had been injured by earthquakes or tempests; and for public buildings in Rome and all the provinces. The Ulpian Library and the great “Forum of Trajan,” for the better transaction of public business, among many other useful and elegant works, bore witness to his liberality. The reign of Trajan was a literary epoch only second to that of Augustus. The great historian Tacitus, the younger Pliny, Plutarch, Sueto´nius, and Epicte´tus, the slave-philosopher, were all living at this time.

=202.= Augustus had enjoined his heirs to regard the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates as the limits of their dominion. Trajan, however, desiring to throw off the disgraceful tribute which Domitian had promised to the Dacians, made war twice against their king, Deceb´alus. He was completely victorious; the king was slain, and his country became a Roman province guarded by colonies and forts. On his return, A. D. 105, Trajan celebrated a triumph, and exhibited games during 123 days. It is said that 11,000 wild beasts were slaughtered in these spectacles, and that 10,000 gladiators, mostly Dacian prisoners, killed each other “to make a Roman holiday.”

In the later years of this reign, the Roman and the Parthian empires came into conflict for the control of Armenia. Trajan quickly reduced the latter country to a Roman province, and, in subsequent campaigns, he wrested from the Parthians the ancient countries of Mesopotamia and Assyria. Trajan died in Cilicia, A. D. 117. His ashes were conveyed to Rome in a golden urn, and placed under the column which bears his name.

=203.= Ha´drian began his reign by surrendering the Asiatic conquests of Trajan. During the twenty years of almost unbroken peace which marked his administration, Hadrian visited the remotest corners of his empire, studied the wants and interests of his people, and tried impartially to secure the best good of all. York in England, Athens, Antioch, and Alexandria shared with Rome the honors of an imperial capital; and each had its part of those great architectural works which, in some cases, still exist to commemorate the glory of Hadrian. A revolt of the Jews, A. D. 131-135, was ended with the banishment from Palestine of the last remnants of their race. A Roman colony, Æ´lia Capitolina, was founded upon the site of Jerusalem, to which the Christians, expelled by Titus, were freely admitted with the first of their Gentile bishops. Of all the benefits which Hadrian conferred upon the empire, the greatest, perhaps, was his choice of a successor.

=204.= T. Aurelius Antoni´nus came to the throne A. D. 138. His uneventful reign presents the rare example in Roman annals of twenty-three years’ undisturbed tranquillity, and is a striking example of the truth of the saying, “Happy is the people that has no history.” The happiness of his great family, for so he regarded his subjects, was the ruling purpose of his life. In Britain, the Roman boundary was pushed to its farthest northern limit during this reign, and guarded by the “Wall of Antoninus,” extending from the Frith of Forth to the Clyde.

Marcus Aurelius, the nephew of Hadrian, who, together with L. Verus, had been adopted by Antoninus, assumed the latter’s name[78] with his crown. He resembled his adoptive father in his love of religion, justice, and peace; but his reign was far less happy, owing to calamities which were beyond his power to avert. The barbarians north of the Danube began to be crowded by a new and great immigration from the steppes of Asia. The Scythic hordes, broken up from their ancient seats, we know not by what impulse or necessity, had thrown themselves upon the Germans, and these were driven across the Roman frontier, even into Italy, which they ravaged as far as Aquilei´a, on the Adriatic. The two emperors proceeded against them. Verus died in the Venetian country A. D. 169, but Aurelius remained at his post on the Danube, summer and winter, for three years. He gained a great victory over the Quadi, A. D. 174. A sudden storm, occurring during the battle, decided the result. The pagans attributed it to an intervention of Jupiter Pluvius; but the Christians, to the prayers of Christian soldiers in the “Thundering Legion.”

During the first years of the reign of Aurelius, the Parthians made a formidable attack upon the eastern provinces, destroyed an entire legion, and ravaged all Syria. The general Avidius Cassius, being sent against them as the lieutenant of Verus, more than made good the Roman losses, for he extended the boundary of the empire again to the Tigris. But after the death of Verus, Cassius was led to proclaim himself emperor, and gained possession of most of the Asiatic provinces. Before Aurelius could arrive in the East, the rebel chief was slain by his own officers, after a reign of three months. Aurelius caused his papers to be burnt without reading them, and suffered no man to be punished for his part in the rebellion.

The elevation and self-control which distinguished the emperor were owing, in great measure, to the Stoic philosophy which he studied from his twelfth year. The only blot on his character is the persecution of the Christians, which was doubtless instigated by the harsh and arrogant Stoics who surrounded him. Justin Martyr at Rome, the venerable Polycarp at Smyrna, and multitudes of less illustrious disciples at Vienna and Lyons, suffered death for their fidelity to their religion, A. D. 167-177. Marcus Aurelius died in Pannonia, A. D. 180.

=205.= Deceived by the youthful promise of his only son, Aurelius had associated Com´modus with him in the government at the age of fifteen. If the young prince could have enjoyed many years of training under the wise and virtuous care of his father, he might indeed have become all that was hoped of him. But the untimely death of the good Aurelius left his son at seventeen a weak, self-indulgent youth, easily controled by worthless associates. For three years the government continued in the course which Aurelius had marked out for it. But, A. D. 183, a plot for the murder of Commodus was detected, and many senators were believed to be involved. His revengeful nature, stimulated by fear, now made him a monster of tyranny. His only use of imperial power was to issue warrants for the death of all whom he suspected. Vain of his strength and skill, he assumed the name of the Roman Hercules, and exhibited himself in the amphitheater as a marksman and gladiator. At last, some of the intended victims of his proscriptions avoided their own destruction by strangling him in his bed-chamber, after he had reigned twelve years and nine months, A. D. 192.

=206.= The decline of the empire, which had been delayed by the Five Good Emperors—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines—proceeded with frightful rapidity under Commodus. The armies in the provinces, tired of discipline, broke up into petty bands which robbed and murdered on their own account. One historian tells us that Peren´nis, the prætorian præfect, was deposed and slain, with his wife and children, upon the demand of 1,500 insurgent soldiers who had marched unresisted from Britain to Rome. Society was as thoroughly demoralized as the army. Except among the despised and persecuted Christians, purity of life was scarcely to be found. Poverty was creeping upon the nations through the decline of industry, but luxury and self-indulgence were more wildly excessive than ever.

RECAPITULATION.

Galba (A. D. 68, 69) offends his guards by his strict economy, and is murdered after seven months. Otho, three months emperor, is defeated by Vitellius, who reigns from April to December, A. D. 69. Vespasian (A. D. 69-79) restores peace, order, and prosperity. In his reign Jerusalem is destroyed. The short but beneficent reign of Titus (A. D. 79-81) is disturbed by great calamities—earthquake, fire, and pestilence. Domitian (A. D. 81-96) is a gloomy tyrant, disgraced abroad and detested at home. Nerva (A. D. 96-98) restores confidence, and chooses for his successor Trajan (A. D. 98-117), who is called the best and ablest of all the emperors. He gains victories north of the Danube and east of the Euphrates, thus extending the empire to the utmost limits which it ever attains. Hadrian (A. D. 117-138) visits every portion of his dominions, and diffuses every-where the blessings of peace and good government. Antoninus Pius (A. D. 138-161) enjoys a reign of unexampled tranquillity. Marcus Aurelius (A. D. 161-180), though a peaceful philosopher by choice, is involved by necessity in many wars. He generously forgives the rebellion led by Cassius, but permits a persecution of the Christians, at the instance of the Stoics. Commodus (A. D. 180-193), exasperated by a plot against his life, becomes a revengeful tyrant, and under his reckless misrule all order, industry, and safety vanish from the empire.

SECOND PERIOD, A. D. 193-284.

=207.= By their unchecked disorders, the soldiers had learned their power, and now assumed to set up and put down emperors at their will. The murderers of Commodus proceeded to the house of Per´tinax, præfect of the city, and offered him the crown. He was a good old man, one of the few surviving friends of Marcus Antoninus, and one to whose care the young prince Commodus had been committed. He reluctantly accepted the dangerous honor, and the result justified his fears. The economy and order which he attempted to introduce, disgusted equally the amusement-loving citizens and the turbulent and grasping soldiers. Pertinax was murdered in his own palace by the prætorians, March 28, A. D. 193, after a reign of less than three months. The guards now put up the imperial crown at public auction, and sold it to Did´ius Julia´nus, a wealthy senator, for $15,000,000. The Senate acknowledged him, and he reigned more than two months at Rome. But the armies in Britain, Pannonia, and Syria, not so much offended by the scandalous insolence as encouraged by the example of their comrades at the capital, set up their own leaders, Albi´nus, Seve´rus, and Niger, as emperors.

=208.= Severus arrived first at Rome, gained over the prætorians by promises of donatives, and was acknowledged by the Senate. Julianus was deserted and slain in his palace. The first imperial act of Severus was to disarm the prætorians, and to banish them to a distance of 100 miles from the capital. He defeated his two rivals, the one at Cyzicus and Issus, and the other near Lyons (Lugdu´num), in Gaul; and by their death became undisputed master of the empire. Instead of the old prætorians, he garrisoned Rome with 40,000 troops chosen from the legions, and their chief, the prætorian præfect, became, next the sovereign, the most powerful person in the world; for, beside his military command, he had control of the public treasury, and great influence in the making and enforcing of the laws. Severus was an able and successful general. He extended the empire eastward by the capture of the Parthian capital, and the conquest of Adiabe´ne; and northward, by his wars against the Caledonians. He died at York, the Roman capital of Britain, A. D. 211, having reigned eighteen years.

=209.= The two sons of Severus, Caracal´la and Geta, had been associated by their father in his imperial dignity, and reigned together a year after his death. Then their mutual hatred broke out afresh, and after a vain attempt to divide the empire between them, Caracalla murdered Geta in the arms of their mother. In the five years of his sole reign, he proved one of the worst tyrants that Rome had known. Under the pretext of exterminating the “friends of Geta,” he massacred 20,000 persons, some of whom were the most virtuous and illustrious in the empire. Goaded by his restless conscience, Caracalla then quitted Rome, and wandered through all the eastern and northern provinces, followed every-where by a track of poverty, desolation, and death. At last he plunged into a war with Parthia, in which he had some success; but before his second campaign he was murdered by Macri´nus, his prætorian præfect, whom the guards proclaimed emperor.

=210.= Macrinus bestowed the title of Cæsar upon his son, and then hastened to follow up Caracalla’s victories over the Parthians. He encountered the Eastern monarch near Nis´ibis, and suffered a shameful defeat, which forced him to retire into Syria. The soldiers were now tired of their chosen imperator, whose severity of discipline was an unwelcome change from the reckless liberality of Caracalla. Julia Mæsa, sister-in-law of Severus, persuaded one division of the army to accept as their prince her grandson, Bassia´nus, whom she declared to be a son of Caracalla. He is more commonly called Elagab´alus, from the Syrian sun-god to whose priesthood he had been dedicated as a child. The wealth which Mæsa had hoarded during her residence at her sister’s court materially aided to convince the soldiers. A body of troops, sent to quell the insurrection, were also, in great measure, gained over to her wishes. A battle was fought near Antioch, in which Macrinus was defeated, and eventually slain, after a reign of fourteen months.

=211.= Elagabalus, or his ministers, hastened to send a letter to the Senate, in which he loaded himself with all the high-sounding titles of Cæsar, Imperator, son of Antoninus, grandson of Severus, Pius, Felix, Augustus, etc. The Romans passively admitted his claims, and the Arval Brothers offered their annual vows for his health and safety under all these names. The Syrian boy, who, at the age of fourteen, found himself thus clothed with imperial honors, was the most contemptible of all the tyrants that ever afflicted the Roman world. His days and nights were given up to gluttonous feasting and loathsome excesses.

The decorous and solemn rites of Roman religion were replaced by degrading sorceries, which were believed to be accompanied in secret by human sacrifices. The Syrian sun-god was placed above Jupiter Capitolinus himself, and all that was sacred or honorable in the eyes of the people became the object of insult and profanation. The emperor had been persuaded to confer the title of Cæsar on his cousin, Alexander Severus; but perceiving that this good prince soon surpassed him in the respect of the army, he sought to procure his death. A second attempt was fatal to Elagabalus. The prætorians murdered him and cast him into the Tiber.

=212.= Alexander Severus, now in his seventeenth year, was acknowledged with joy by the soldiers and the Senate. His blameless life and lofty and beneficent aims present a bright, refreshing contrast to the long annals of Roman degradation. Purity and economy returned to public affairs; wise and virtuous men received the highest offices; the Senate was treated with a deference which belonged to its ancient dignity, rather than to its recent base compliance with the whims of the army. If the power of Alexander had been as great as his designs were pure, the world might have been benefited.

A great revolution, about this time, changed the condition of Asia. The new Persian monarchy, under Artaxerxes, the grandson of Sassan, had overthrown the Parthian empire, and now aimed at the recovery of all the dominions of Darius Hystaspes. Artaxerxes actually sent an embassy to Alexander Severus, demanding the restitution to Persia of her ancient provinces between the Ægean and the Euphrates. The reply was a declaration of war. Alexander in person met the forces of Artaxerxes in the plain east of the Euphrates, and defeated them in a great battle, A. D. 232.

Hearing that the Germans were plundering Gaul, he hastened to make peace and returned to Rome. The next year he set out for Germany; but before he could begin his military operations there, he was murdered by a small band of mutinous soldiers. The virtues of Alexander were largely owing to the watchful care of his mother, in guarding his childhood from the wickedness with which he was surrounded. The prince repaid her vigilance by the most dutiful and tender regard; and it is said that her over-cautious and economical policy, which led him to withhold gifts of money demanded by the army, occasioned his death.

=213.= The ringleader of the mutiny was Max´imin, a Thracian peasant—a brutal and illiterate ruffian, yet with enough natural ability to cause him to be chosen emperor by his comrades. Three years this savage ruled the world, his only policy being hatred toward the noble and covetousness toward the rich; until the people of Africa, roused to fury by the extortions of his agents, revolted and crowned their proconsul, Gor´dian, and his son. The two Gordians were slain within a month; but the Senate supplied their place by two of its own number, and with unwonted spirit prepared for the defense of Italy. Maximin marched from his winter-quarters on the Danube, but he had advanced no farther than Aquileia when he was murdered in his tent by his own soldiers.

=214.= Though the legions had destroyed the emperor of their choice, they had no intention of yielding to that of the Senate. They murdered Pupie´nus and Balbi´nus within six weeks of their triumph over Maximin, and bestowed the imperial robes upon a younger Gordian, the grandson of the former proconsul of Africa. This boy of twelve years was intended, of course, to be a mere tool of his ministers. Timesith´eus, the prætorian præfect, was an able officer, and, so long as he lived, vigorously upheld the imperial power against Persian assaults and African insurrections. He was succeeded in command by Philip the Arabian, who artfully procured the death of the young emperor, and assumed the purple himself. He wrote to the Senate that Gordian had died of disease, and requested that divine honors should be paid to his memory.

=215.= Among the few events recorded of the five years (A. D. 244-249) of Philip’s reign, is the celebration of the “Secular Games” at Rome, upon the completion of a thousand years from the building of the city, April 21, A. D. 248. Rival emperors were set up by the Syrians, and by the army in Mœsia and Pannonia. Decius, a senator, was sent by Philip to appease the latter. Their mock-emperor was already dead, but the soldiers, believing their guilt too great to be forgiven by Philip, thronged around Decius with tumultuous cries of “Death or the purple!” The loyal officer, with a hundred swords at his throat, was compelled to be crowned, and to consent to lead his rebellious army into Italy. He wrote to assure his master that he was only acting a part, and would resign his mock-sovereignty as soon as he could escape his troublesome subjects. But Philip did not believe these professions of loyalty. He marched to meet the insurgents at Verona, was defeated and slain, Sept., A. D. 249.

=216.= The two years’ reign of Decius (A. D. 249-251) was marked by two widely different attempts to restore the ancient religion and morality of Rome—the revival of the censorship and the persecution of the Christians. It was deeply felt that the calamities of the empire were due to the corruption of its people. But the first measure produced no effect, while the second only aroused the evil passions of men, and occasioned untold misery. The bishops of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome became martyrs, and Alexandria was the scene of a frightful massacre. Another calamity, for which Decius was not responsible, was the first great incursion of the Goths, who ravaged the provinces of Mœsia and Thrace south of the Danube. Decius was defeated by them in A. D. 250; and the next year, in attempting to cut off their retreat, he lost his life in a great battle.

=217.= Gallus, an able general, was crowned by the Senate, Hostilia´nus, the son of Decius, being associated with him in the imperial dignity. Calamities thickened; pestilence raged in Rome, and fresh swarms of barbarians, only encouraged by the successes of the Goths, and the sums of money which had been paid them as the price of peace, ravaged the Danubian provinces. Hostilianus died of the plague, and the distress of the people led them to unjust accusations of the emperor. Æmilianus having defeated an army of the invaders, was proclaimed as sovereign by his troops, and, marching into Italy, defeated Gallus and his son at Interam´na. Æmilian was acknowledged by the Senate, but his reign was short. Valerian, a noble and virtuous officer, had been sent by Gallus to bring the Gallic and German legions to his aid. He arrived too late to save his master, but he defeated Æmilian near the scene of his former victory, and himself received the allegiance of Senate and people.

It was no enviable distinction, for the causes that were tending to the destruction of the empire were more numerous and fiercely active than ever. The Franks from the lower Rhine, the Aleman´ni from southern Germany, ravaged Italy, Gaul, and Spain, and even crossed the straits into Africa. The Goths had made themselves fleets from the forests of the Euxine, with which they devastated the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece, capturing and burning innumerable cities, among which were Cyzicus, Chalcedon, Ephesus, and even Corinth and Athens. The new Persian kingdom of the Sassanidæ had increased in power. Its second monarch, Sapor, conquered Armenia, and overran the Roman provinces in the East. He defeated and captured Valerian in a battle near the Euphrates, and gratified his pride by a spectacle which no monarch before had ever been able to exhibit—a Roman emperor, loaded with chains but clothed in purple, a perpetual captive at his court.

The government being thus overwhelmed with calamities, various pretenders claimed the sovereignty of the several fragments of the empire. These adventurers were known in general as the “Thirty Tyrants.” Their reigns were usually too short or too insignificant to be worthy of mention. Palmyra continued to be the royal seat of Odena´tus, and after his death, of his widow, Zenob´ia, for ten years, A. D. 264-273, inclusive. Pos´thumus established a kingdom in Gaul, which lasted seventeen years. Valerian, before his disasters in the East, had associated with him, in the cares of empire, his son Gallie´nus; but that prince could attempt little more than the defense of Italy. Aure´olus, commanding on the upper Danube, assumed the imperial title and crossed the Alps. He was defeated by Gallienus, and besieged in Milan. Through his arts, Gallienus was slain by his own soldiers; but they conferred the purple on a more honest man and better general, whom the murdered prince had named in his dying moments. Milan was taken and Aureolus put to death.

=218.= Though the Roman Empire seemed to be doomed to destruction, equally by disunion within and the attacks of barbarians from without, its final disruption was delayed by a succession of able emperors. Claudius, who succeeded Gallienus, A. D. 268, vanquished the Alemanni in Italy, and the Goths in Mœsia. Aurelian (A. D. 270-275) again routed the Goths in Pannonia; and then recalling the advice of Augustus, he ceded to the barbarians the provinces north of the Danube, removing the Roman inhabitants to Mœsia. He made a war against Zenobia, which ended in the capture of the “Queen of the East,” and the overthrow of her kingdom. A still more difficult enterprise awaited Aurelian in the west, where Tet´ricus, the last successor of Posthumus, had united Gaul, Spain, and Britain into one powerful monarchy. But he was conquered, and the empire was again established on the borders of the Atlantic, A. D. 274.

Aurelian was about to turn his victorious arms against the Persians, when he was assassinated by several of his officers, owing to a plot formed by his secretary, Mnes´theus. The army, indignant at the crime, applied to the Senate for a new emperor, instead of permitting any general to seize the crown. The Senate, after six months’ hesitation, during which the soldiers respectfully waited, named M. Claudius Tac´itus, a senator of vast wealth and blameless character. He would gladly have declined the laborious and perilous position, on account of his age and infirmities; but the Senate insisted, and Tacitus was crowned. All the acts of his short reign were directed to the improvement of morals, and the establishment of law and order throughout the empire. He was called away to Asia Minor, where a troop of Goths, engaged by Aurelian to serve in his Eastern expedition, were committing disorders for want of pay. They were expelled; but Tacitus, enfeebled by old age, sank under the exertion, and he died two hundred days from his accession to the throne, A. D. 276.

=219.= Florian, brother of Tacitus, assumed the purple at Rome, while the army in the East proclaimed Probus, their general. The soldiers of Florian, however, refused to fight their comrades, and, after three months, put their leader to death. Probus, thus undisputed master of the Roman world, was an able general and a wise and beneficent sovereign. He not only drove the Germans out of Gaul, subdued the Sarmatians, and terrified the Goths into peaceable behavior, but he provided for the security of his extended frontier by settling the border provinces with numerous colonies of barbarians, who, becoming civilized, made a barrier against further incursions of their countrymen. He wished, also, to improve waste lands by the draining of marshes and the planting of vines, and to employ in these works the dangerous leisure of his soldiers. But the legionaries did not share the thrifty policy of their emperor. They mutinied at Sir´mium, and by another murder ended the beneficent reign of Probus, A. D. 282.

=220.= Carus, the prætorian præfect, was hailed as emperor by the army, and conferred the title of Cæsar on his two sons, Cari´nus and Nume´rian. Leaving the former to govern the West, Carus, with Numerian, turned toward the East; first gained a great victory over the Sarmatians in Illyricum, and then proceeded to overrun Mesopotamia, and capture the two great cities of Seleucia and Ctes´iphon. He had advanced beyond the Tigris, and seemed about to overthrow the Persian kingdom, when he suddenly died, whether by lightning, by disease, or by the dagger, historians are not agreed.

His son Numerian yielded to the superstitious fears of his soldiers, and withdrew within the Roman boundaries. On the retreat he was murdered by his father-in-law, who was also prætorian præfect, and who hoped to conceal the crime until he could reap the fruits of it. But the army discovered the death of their beloved emperor, and set up Diocle´tian, the captain of the bodyguards, to avenge and succeed him.

Carinus, meanwhile, reigning in the West, was dazzling the Roman world by expensive games, and insulting it by his profligacy. Hearing of the murder and usurpation, he marched with a large and well-disciplined army to meet Diocletian, and joined battle near Margus, in upper Mœsia. The Western troops were victorious, but Carinus, while leading the pursuit, was slain by one of his own officers. His followers came to an agreement with those of Diocletian, who was universally hailed as emperor.

=221.= His accession began a new period in the empire, when the power of the sovereigns became more absolute, ceasing to be checked either by the lawful authority of the Senate or the insolence of the soldiers. During the ninety-two years which had elapsed since the death of Commodus, the legions had claimed the privilege, not only of raising to the imperial power whomsoever they might choose, but of removing the object of their choice whenever he ceased to content them. No general who desired to be emperor dared stint his donatives, or enforce the needful severity of discipline. But for the almost constant danger from barbarians without, the army, which was the real tyrant of the Roman world, might have already put an end to all order, peace, and civil government.

RECAPITULATION.

Pertinax (A. D. 193) is crowned and murdered by the prætorians, who then sell the throne to Julianus. Severus (A. D. 193-211) buys the adhesion of the guards, and having gained the imperial power, disarms and expels them. He enlarges his dominions by conquests both in the east and west. Caracalla murders his brother, and misgoverns the empire six years, A. D. 211-217. Macrinus (A. D. 217, 218) gains and loses his crown by violence. Elagabalus (A. D. 218-222) introduces Syrian manners and worship into Rome. He is succeeded by his cousin, Alexander Severus (A. D. 222-235), who gains a great victory over the new Persian empire of the Sassanidæ, but is afterward slain in Germany during a mutiny of his troops. Maximin (A. D. 235-238), a Thracian, is set up, and in three years put down, by his comrades in the army. The two Gordians reign less than a month, Pupienus and Balbinus about six weeks, when a younger Gordian (A. D. 238-244) is invested with the purple at the age of twelve. He loses his life through the arts of Philip the Arab, who becomes emperor, and celebrates, A. D. 248, the thousandth year of the existence of Rome. Decius, being sent to quell a revolt in Pannonia, is crowned by the soldiers, A. D. 249, and Philip is slain. Two great calamities mark the reign of Decius: a persecution of Christians and an incursion of Goths. Gallus (A. D. 251-253) is deposed by Æmilianus, who is soon superseded by Valerian (A. D. 254-260). The whole empire is overrun by Gothic and German invaders. Valerian, in his wars in the East, is captured, and spends the last seven years of his life at Sapor’s court. “Thirty Tyrants” spring up in various parts of the empire. Gallienus reigns in Italy, first with his father, Valerian, and afterward alone, A. D. 254-268. He is slain through the management of a pretender, Aureolus, but is succeeded by Claudius (A. D. 268-270), who defeats the barbarians. Aurelian (A. D. 270-275) makes the Danube again the northern boundary of the empire; subdues Zenobia in the east and Tetricus in the west; is murdered on his way to Persia. Tacitus (A. D. 275, 276), being appointed by the Senate, reigns two hundred days. Florian, his brother, is deposed by his own troops. Probus (A. D. 276-282) restores security by a wise and energetic reign. Carus gains great victories in the East; but after his sudden death, his son Numerian abandons his conquests. Numerian is slain in the East, Carinus in the West, and Diocletian becomes emperor.

THIRD PERIOD, A. D. 284-395.

=222.= Under the firm and wise policy of Diocletian, the Roman world entered upon a century of greater vigor and security. The empire being too large to be administered by a single head, Diocletian conferred equal power upon his friend and comrade Maxim´ian, with the title of Augustus. A few years later, two Cæsars, Gale´rius and Constan´tius, were added to the imperial college, each being associated, as adopted son and successor, with one of the emperors. To the Cæsars were assigned the more exposed provinces, which needed an active and vigilant administration, while the Augusti kept to themselves the old and settled portions of the empire. Constantius had Gaul, Spain, Britain, and the whole frontier of the Rhine; Galerius had Noricum, Pannonia, and Mœsia, with the defenses of the Danube; while Maximian governed Italy and Africa, and Diocletian retained for himself Thrace, Macedonia, Egypt, and the East. Though allotted thus to its several rulers, the empire was not divided. The four princes governed in consultation, and were equally honored in all parts of the realm.

=223.= In A. D. 286, a naval chief, Carau´sius, being intrusted with a powerful fleet for the defense of the British and Gallic coasts against the Franks, gained over the troops in Britain, seized the island, and set up an independent government. He built new ships, and soon became master of the Western seas. Diocletian and Maximian, after vain attempts to break his power, were compelled to acknowledge him as their colleague in the empire, A. D. 287. Constantius, upon becoming Cæsar, made war, A. D. 292, upon this new Augustus; captured Boulogne after a long and severe siege, and was preparing to invade Britain, when Carausius was killed by his chief officer, Allec´tus.

Constantius landed, three years later, in Britain, and by a battle near London recovered the island. He afterward drove the Alemanni out of Gaul, and settled his captives in colonies upon the lands depopulated by their ravages. At the same time, Maximian quelled a formidable revolt of the Moors in Africa; and Diocletian, by a siege of eight months, captured Alexandria, where a rival emperor had usurped the throne, and punished the rebellious city by a massacre in which many thousands perished. The Cæsar Galerius made war against the Persians for the recovery of Armenia, which they had taken from Tirida´tes, the vassal of Rome. He was defeated near Carrhæ, on the very scene of the overthrow of Crassus, more than three centuries before; but he retrieved this misfortune by a great victory over King Narses, followed by an advantageous peace.

=224.= The system of Diocletian was thus effective and prosperous, as far as it concerned the foreign enemies of the state; but the expenses of four imperial courts, with the immense number of soldiers and officials, imposed heavy burdens upon the people. The wretched tax-payers were often tortured to enforce payments which they were unable to make. The civil wars of the preceding centuries had deprived extensive districts of inhabitants; and the productions of the earth and of human industry had ceased.

=225.= The greatest blot upon the memory of Diocletian is the persecution of Christians in the last year of his reign. Every province and every great city of the empire had now heard the doctrines of Christ, and the church in Rome numbered 50,000 members. In an age of turbulence and corruption, Christians were every-where distinguished as the most orderly, industrious, loyal, and honest members of the community. Their refusal to worship the image of the emperor, which was an essential part of the Roman religion, had brought upon them several local persecutions, but none so widely extended and severe as that of Diocletian. The edict requiring uniformity of worship was issued A. D. 303. Instantly the cruel passions of the pagans were let loose from restraint. Innocent blood flowed in every province. Whoever had either malice or covetousness to indulge, had only to accuse his enemy of being a Christian, and to be rewarded with half the confiscated goods. In the extreme west, Constantius protected those of the “new religion,” but elsewhere there was no appeal from the atrocious cruelties sanctioned by courts of law.

=226.= Of the many acts by which Diocletian abased the authority of the Senate, the most effective was the removal of the center of government from the ancient city on the Tiber. His own official residence was at Nicomedia; that of Maximian, at Milan; while Constantius held a provincial court at York, and Galerius at Sirmium, on the Savus. The Senate thus became the mere council of a provincial town. Imperial edicts took the place of the laws which had formerly received its sanction. The insolent prætorians were, at the same time, replaced by the “Jovian” and “Herculean Guards”; and their præfect, who had been a rival of the emperor, became merely an officer of the palace. Diocletian, however, celebrated the twentieth year of his reign, and his numerous victories, by a triumphal entry into Rome; and this was the last “triumph” which the ancient capital ever beheld.

=227.= The next year, A. D. 305, Diocletian, worn out with the cares of empire, formally abdicated his power, and compelled Maximian to do the same. The two Cæsars now became Augusti, and two new candidates, Maximin and Severus, were appointed by Galerius to the former title. The legions in Britain were dissatisfied, however, by seeing the choice of a successor taken away from their own imperator; and upon the death of Constantius, A. D. 306, they immediately proclaimed Con´stantine, his son. He was acknowledged as Cæsar by Galerius, who conferred the rank of Augustus on Severus.

But, the next year, Maxen´tius, son of Maximian, was declared emperor by the Senate and people of Rome, and his father resumed the purple, which he had unwillingly laid aside at the command of Diocletian. Severus, attempting to crush this insurrection, was taken captive at Ravenna, and privately put to death. Galerius now conferred the imperial dignity on Licinius, and for two years the Roman world was peaceably governed by six masters: Constantine, Maximian, and Maxentius in the West; Galerius, Maximin, and Licinius in the East.

=228.= The peace was first broken by the dissensions of Maximian and his son. The elder emperor fled from Rome, and was well received by Constantine, who had married his daughter. Before long, however, Maximian entered again into plots with Maxentius for the ruin of Constantine; which becoming known to their intended victim, he returned promptly from his campaign on the Rhine, besieged his father-in-law in Massilia, and put him to death, A. D. 310. Galerius died the next year at Nicomedia, and the empire was again divided into four parts, of which Constantine ruled the extreme west; Maxentius, Italy and Africa; Licinius, Illyricum and Thrace; Maximin, Egypt and Asia.

The cruel and rapacious character of Maxentius wearied out his subjects, who sent deputies from Rome, beseeching Constantine to come and be their sovereign. This great general had won the love of his followers, not less by his firm and successful dealings with the barbarians, than by his liberal protection of the Christians, whose virtues he esteemed, and whose rights of conscience he respected. On his march toward Italy, it is said that he beheld a vision. A flaming cross appeared in the heavens, bearing in Greek the inscription, “By this, conquer!” Thenceforth, the cross replaced the pagan symbols which had been carried at the head of the legions; and the omen, if such it was, was amply fulfilled.

=229.= Constantine passed the Alps, A. D. 312, defeated the troops of Maxentius near Turin, captured Verona after an obstinate siege and battle, and encountered his rival in a final combat before the gates of Rome. In the battle of the Mil´vian Bridge, Maxentius was defeated and drowned. The following year, Maximin was defeated by Licinius, in a great battle at Heraclea, on the Propontis, and put an end to his life at Tarsus, in Cilicia. Constantine and Licinius, in a series of battles, divided the world between them. The river Strymon and the Ægean became the boundaries between the Eastern and Western empires. Two sons of Constantine and one of Licinius received the title of Cæsar. Crispus, on the Rhine, gained a victory over the Franks and Alemanni; and Constantine, on the Danube, executed a terrible vengeance upon the Goths, who had invaded the Roman territory.

=230.= After seven years’ peace, war broke out between the emperors, in A. D. 322. Licinius was defeated near Hadriano´ple, besieged in Byzantium, and finally overthrown upon the Heights of Scuta´ri, overlooking the latter city. His death made Constantine the sole ruler of the civilized world. His great dominion received a new constitution suitable to its magnitude. The seat of government was fixed upon the confines of Europe and Asia, in the new and magnificent city bearing the emperor’s name, which he built upon the ruins of the Greek Byzantium. The whole empire was divided into four _præfectures_, which nearly corresponded to the dominions of the four emperors, A. D. 311. (§ 228.) Each præfecture was divided into _dioceses_, and each diocese into proconsular governments, or _presidencies_.

This subdivision of the empire gave rise to three ranks of officials, somewhat resembling the nobility of modern Europe. The republican form of government, so ostentatiously cherished by Augustus, had now disappeared, and in its place was the elaborate ceremony of an Oriental court. Even the 10,000 spies, known as the “King’s Eyes,” were maintained as of old by Xerxes and Darius. A standing army of 645,000 men was kept upon the frontier; but as Roman citizens were now averse to military service, the legions were largely composed of barbarian mercenaries. The Franks, especially, had great importance, both in the court and camp of Constantine.

=231.= The great event of this reign was the admission of Christianity as, in a certain sense, the religion of the state. The Edict of Milan, A. D. 313, guaranteed to the hitherto persecuted people perfect security and respect; that of A. D. 324 exhorted all subjects of the empire to follow the example of their sovereign, and become Christians. Heathenism was not yet proscribed. Constantine was pontifex maximus, and must, on certain occasions, have offered sacrifices to the fabulous gods of Rome. It was only in his last days that he received Christian baptism; but he presided in the first General Council of the Church at Nice, in Bithynia, A. D. 325, to which he had convened bishops from all parts of the empire, to decide certain disputed matters of faith. Though he treated the assembled fathers with every mark of reverence, he refused to persecute Arius and his followers, the Alexandrian heretics, whom the Council condemned.

=232.= Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, who had been named Cæsar at the age of seventeen, was the idol of the people, but an object of jealousy to his father, who suspected him of treasonable designs. Whether the charges against him were true, we have no means of knowing. He was seized during the festivities in Rome, in honor of the twentieth year of his father’s reign, tried secretly, and put to death. The last years of Constantine were disturbed by fresh movements of the barbarians north of the Danube. The Sarmatians, being attacked by the Goths, implored the aid of the Romans. Constantine was defeated in one battle with the invaders, but in the next he was victorious, and 100,000 Goths, driven into the mountains, perished with cold and hunger. In the division of spoils, the Sarmatians were dissatisfied, and revenged themselves by making inroads upon the Roman dominions. In succeeding wars they were defeated and scattered; 300,000 were received as vassals of the empire, and settled in military colonies in Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Italy.

=233.= Hoping to secure peace to the empire after his death, Constantine assigned its different parts to his three sons and two nephews, whom he had carefully educated for their great responsibilities. But his care was unavailing. Immediately upon his decease, A. D. 337, Constantius, his second son, being nearest, seized the capital, and ordered a massacre of all whose birth or power could give them any hopes of obtaining the sovereignty. Of his own relatives, only two cousins, Gallus and Julian, escaped. The three sons of Constantine then divided the empire between them. Constantine II., the eldest, received the capital, together with Gaul, Spain, and Britain; Constantius had Thrace and the East; Constans, Italy, Africa, and western Illyricum.

The reign of Constantius was occupied by a disastrous war with Persia. The pagan Armenians revolted upon the death of their king, Tiridates—a “friend of the Romans,” who had established Christian worship in his dominions—and opened their gates to the Persians. The son of Tiridates sought the aid of Constantius, who succeeded in restoring the prince Chos´roes to his dominions. The fortress of Nisibis, which was esteemed the bulwark of the East, withstood three memorable sieges by the Persians; but the Roman armies were defeated in nine pitched battles, and the raids of the Persian cavalry extended even to the Mediterranean, where they captured and plundered Antioch.

=234.= In the meanwhile, discord had broken out between the emperors in the West, and Constantine II., invading the dominions of his brother Constans, was defeated and slain near Aquileia. Constans seized his provinces, and reigned ten years (A. D. 340-350) over two-thirds of his father’s empire. Magnentius, an officer in Gaul, then assumed the purple, and Constans was slain. Constantius, recalled from his Persian wars, defeated Magnentius in a toilsome campaign on the Danube; received the submission of Rome and the Italian cities; and finally, by a great battle among the Cottian Alps, ended the rebellion with the life of the usurper, A. D. 353. Sixteen years after the death of the great Constantine, the empire was thus reunited under one sovereign. Gallus, the cousin of Constantius, had been taken from prison to receive the title of Cæsar and the government of the East. But he proved wholly unfit to rule; he treated with insult the embassador of his cousin, and even caused him to be murdered by the mob of Antioch. Gallus was thereupon recalled, and put to death at Pola, in Is´tria.

RECAPITULATION.

Diocletian (A. D. 284-305) associates Maximian as “Augustus,” and Galerius and Constantius as “Cæsars,” with himself in the management of the empire. Constantius overthrows the sovereignty of Carausius in Britain and northern Gaul. Galerius gains victories in Asia; Diocletian, in Egypt; and Maximian, in Africa. The new system is efficient abroad, but oppressive at home. Christians are severely persecuted. Seat of government removed from Rome. Diocletian and Maximian resign, A. D. 305. Galerius (A. D. 305-311) and Constantius (A. D. 305, 306) become emperors; Severus and Maximin, Cæsars. Constantine the Great (A. D. 306-337), succeeding his father, Constantius, eventually conquers Maximian, who has resumed the purple, and Maxentius (A. D. 312), who has been proclaimed at Rome, and reigns over the Western empire. Licinius (A. D. 307-323), after the death of Galerius, conquers Maximin, and reigns east of the Ægean. Constantine conquers Licinius, A. D. 323, and becomes sole emperor. Fixes his court at Constantinople; reorganizes the government; makes Christianity the religion of the state; has wars with the Goths; and establishes military colonies of Sarmatians within the bounds of the empire. After his death, his three sons destroy their kinsmen, and divide the dominion between them. While Constantius II. is at war with Persia, his brother, Constantine II., is slain by Constans, who is himself deposed, after ten years, by Magnentius. Constantius, returning from the East, A. D. 350, defeats Magnentius, and reigns over his father’s entire dominion, A. D. 353-361.

EXTINCTION OF PAGANISM.

=235.= Julian, the younger brother of Gallus, was permitted to pursue his favorite studies at Athens, until, A. D. 355, he was called to the court of Milan, dignified with the title of Cæsar, and intrusted with the government of Gaul. His conduct displayed great energy and talent. He severely defeated the Alemanni, in the battle of Strasbourg; drove the Franks from their castles on the Meuse; and in three invasions of Germany, liberated 20,000 Roman captives. He rebuilt the cities of Gaul which the barbarians had destroyed; adorned Paris, his winter residence, with a palace, theater, and baths; imported grain from Britain for the sustenance of the people; and protected agriculture, manufactures, and commerce.

Constantius became jealous of his cousin’s fame, and sought to disarm and disgrace him, by ordering the greater part of the Gallic army to the East. Julian was preparing to send away his devoted followers, but the soldiers mutinied, proclaimed him emperor, and forced him to assume the purple robe. An embassy to Constantius was contemptuously dismissed; and Julian, after again chastising the Franks, and improving the defenses of the German frontier, set forth to decide the question by actual war. Penetrating the Black Forest as far as the Danube, he descended that river with a captured fleet, surprised Sirmium, and was received with acclamations by the people. He sent letters justifying his conduct to the principal cities of the empire, especially to the senates of Athens and Rome; and he was invested by the latter with the imperial titles which it alone could legally bestow. The sudden death of Constantius, at Tarsus, Nov., A. D. 361, ended the uncertainty. All Constantinople poured forth to welcome Julian, at a distance of sixty miles from the capital, and soldiers and people throughout the empire accepted him as their head.

=236.= His first acts were to retrench the Oriental luxury of the palace, to punish the officers of Constantius who had oppressed the people, and to dismiss the 10,000 spies. A philosopher by choice, and an emperor only by compulsion, Julian prided himself upon the frugal simplicity of his habits, and professed himself merely the “servant of the Republic.” He is known in history by the unhappy name of “Julian the Apostate.” Incensed against the _Christian_ cousins who had murdered his entire family, he extended his hatred to the faith which they so unworthily professed. He publicly renounced Christianity, and placed himself and his empire under the protection of the “Immortal Gods.”

To spite the Christians, he patronized the Jews, and attempted to rebuild their Temple at Jerusalem; but he was thwarted by balls of fire breaking out near the foundation, which made it impossible for the workmen to approach.[79] He excluded all Christians from the schools of grammar and rhetoric, hoping thus to degrade them in intellectual rank, and weaken them in controversy. He, however, disappointed the pagan zealots by proclaiming toleration to all parties. In the spring of A. D. 363, Julian departed with a great army for the East, where the ravages of the Persian king had for four years met with little resistance. He gained an important victory over the Persians at Ctesiphon, but in a subsequent skirmish he was mortally wounded, and died, June, A. D. 363, after a reign of only sixteen months.

=237.= Jovian, the captain of the life-guards, was saluted as Augustus by the generals of Julian. He obtained peace with the Persian king by ceding the five provinces east of the Tigris, and then conducted a difficult retreat to the capital. The principal act of his reign was the re-establishment of Christian worship and of universal tolerance. He died, Feb., A. D. 364, after a reign of eight months. The civil and military officers of the empire met at Nicæa, and chose for their sovereign Valentin´ian, a Christian and a brave soldier, who had distinguished himself by service both on the Tigris and the Rhine. His brother Valens was made his colleague, with the command of the East, extending from the lower Danube to the boundaries of Persia.

=238.= Valentinian fixed his capital at Milan, which alternated with Rheims and Treves as his headquarters. He signally defeated the Alemanni, and guarded the Rhine by a new series of forts. The coasts of western Europe now began to be overrun by piratical Saxons, while the Picts and Scots swept over all the cultivated fields of southern Britain, from the Wall of Antoninus to the coast of Kent. Theodo´sius, father of the future emperor of that name, led a veteran army to the relief of the Britons, and afterward gained among the Orkneys a great naval victory over the Saxons.

Having defeated the Alemanni on the upper Danube, Theodosius was next sent into Africa to quell a revolt of the Moors and provincials, provoked by the extortions of Count Roma´nus. Firmus, the chief of the Moors, was as wily as Jugurtha, but Theodosius showed all the skill of Metellus or of Scipio. He imprisoned Romanus and restored order to the province; but he was rewarded only by unjust suspicions and a military execution, A. D. 376. Valentinian was already dead (Nov., A. D. 375), and the ministers who surrounded his son disguised the truth to suit their own purposes.

=239.= Valens, meanwhile reigning in the East, was far inferior to his brother in firmness and beneficence of character. At the beginning of his reign, Proco´pius, a kinsman of Julian, gained possession of Constantinople, and kept it several months as nominal emperor. He was captured at last, and suffered a cruel death in the camp of Valens. The great event of this period was the irruption of a new and terrible race of savages from northern Asia. The Huns were more hideous, cruel, and implacable than even the fiercest of the barbarians hitherto known to the Romans. The Great Wall, which still divides China from Mongolia, had been erected as a barrier against their inroads; but their attention was now turned to the westward, where the Goths, north of the Black Sea, were the first to feel their power.

The great Gothic kingdom of Her´manric extended from the Danube and Euxine to the Baltic, and embraced many kindred tribes, of which the eastern or Ostro-Goths, and the western or Visi-Goths were most important. The former were conquered by the Huns; the latter besought permission from Valens to settle on the waste lands south of the Danube, and become subjects of the empire. Their request was granted, and a million of men, women, and children crossed the river. But the Roman commissioners who were charged with receiving and feeding this starving multitude, seized the opportunity to make their own fortunes, at the expense of their honor and of the safety of the empire.

The Goths had been required to give up their arms, but they purchased of these officers permission to retain them. The food which was served to them was of the vilest quality and most extravagant price. Discontent broke out among the turbulent and armed host. The Gothic warriors marched upon Marcianop´olis, defeated the army which was sent to defend it, and laid waste all Thrace with fire and sword. Instead of pacifying the Goths by a just punishment of the offenders, and by pledges of justice for the future, Valens sent for aid to his nephew Gratian, and advanced with his army to fight with the barbarians. In a battle near Hadrianople he was slain, and two-thirds of his army perished, A. D. 378.

=240.= Gratian, the son of Valentinian, had been three years emperor of the West, and now became sole sovereign of the dominions of Augustus. He chose, however, for a colleague, the general Theodosius, to whom he committed the empire of Valens, with the addition of the province of Illyricum. The youth of Gratian was adorned by a fair promise of all the virtues; but as soon as his excellent instructors left him, he proved himself weak and wholly unfit for command. Bad men gained and abused his confidence.

Maximus, in Britain, revolted, and passed over into Gaul with an army. Instead of fighting, Gratian fled from Paris; his armies deserted to the enemy, and the fugitive emperor was overtaken and slain at Lyons, A. D. 383. He had already, on his accession, shared the imperial dignity with his brother, Valentinian II., then only five years of age. Maximus, being in actual possession of the countries west of the Alps, was acknowledged by Theodosius, on condition of the young Valentinian being left in secure possession of Italy and Africa. The sovereign of Gaul, Spain, and Britain soon became strong enough to break his word. He invaded Italy, and the young emperor, with Justi´na his mother, fled to the court of Theodosius for protection. The emperor of the East marched to attack Maximus, whom he defeated and caused to be executed as a traitor, and established Valentinian II. in the sovereignty of the whole Western empire.

=241.= The young sovereign of the West proved as weak as his brother. He fell under the control of an officer of his own, a Frank named Arbogas´tes; and when he attempted to shake off the yoke, the too powerful servant murdered his master and set up an emperor of his own choosing. Euge´nius reigned two years (A. D. 392-394), as the tool of Arbogastes; but Theodosius at length defeated his army near Aquileia, and put him to death.

For four months the Roman world was united, for the last time, under one sovereign. Theodosius the Great well deserved the title by which he is known in history. His vigorous and prudent management changed the Goths from dangerous enemies into powerful friends. Great colonies of Visi-Goths were formed in Thrace, and of Ostro-Goths in Asia Minor; and 40,000 of their warriors were employed in the armies of the emperor. If later monarchs had acted with the wisdom and firmness of Theodosius, these recruits might have added great strength to the then declining empire. They were, in fact, a chief occasion of its fall.

=242.= This reign is marked by the extinction of the old pagan worship. The temples were destroyed, and all sacrifices or divinations forbidden. The Egyptians believed that Serapis would avenge any profanation of his temple at Alexandria; but when a soldier, climbing to the head of the colossal idol, smote its cheek with his battle-ax, the popular faith was shaken, and it was admitted that a god who could not defend himself was no longer to be worshiped. Arians and other Christian heretics were persecuted with scarcely less rigor than the pagans; for they were forbidden to preach, ordain ministers, or hold meetings for public worship. The penalties inflicted by Theodosius were nothing more than fines and civil disabilities; but his contemporary, Maximus, is said to have been the “first Christian prince who shed the blood of his Christian subjects for their religious opinions.”

The power and dignity of the Church at this time is shown by the conduct of Ambro´sius, Archbishop of Milan. Theodosius had ordered a general massacre of the people of Thessalonica, as a punishment for a wanton tumult which had arisen in their circus, during which a Gothic general and several of his officers had been killed. Several thousands of persons, the innocent with the guilty, were slaughtered by barbarian troops sent thither for the purpose. When the emperor, who was then at Milan, went as usual to church, Ambrosius met him at the door, and refused to admit him to any of the offices of religion until he should publicly confess his guilt. The interdict continued eight months; but, at length, the master of the civilized world, in the garb of the humblest suppliant, implored pardon in the presence of all the congregation, and was restored, at Christmas, A. D. 390, to the communion of the Church.

Before his death, Theodosius divided his great dominions between his two sons, giving the East to Arcadius, and the West to Hono´rius. The latter, who was only eleven years of age, was placed under the guardianship of the Vandal general Stil´icho, who had married a niece of the great emperor. Theodosius died at Milan, Jan. 17, A. D. 395.

RECAPITULATION.

Julian administers Gaul and invades Germany with great energy and success. He incurs the jealousy of his cousin, and is declared emperor by his troops. Constantius dies, and Julian (A. D. 361-363), now universally acknowledged, restores paganism. He is killed in an Eastern campaign, and is succeeded by Jovian, who withdraws west of the Tigris. On the death of Jovian, A. D. 364, Valentinian (A. D. 364-375) is chosen by the court and army, and assigns the Eastern empire to his brother Valens. The general Theodosius gains important victories over Saxons, Picts, Scots, and Moors. Procopius usurps for a time the Eastern capital, and the empire is threatened by both Huns and Goths. In war with the latter, Valens is slain. Gratian (A. D. 375-383), son of Valentinian, confers the Eastern empire upon the younger Theodosius (A. D. 379-395). He is himself dethroned by Maximus, who becomes sovereign of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and even expels the brother of Gratian (A. D. 387) from Italy. Theodosius destroys Maximus, and restores Valentinian II. as emperor of the West; but this young monarch is soon murdered by Arbogastes. Eugenius reigns two years, A. D. 392-394. Theodosius defeats him, and rules the united empire four months. He conciliates the Goths; abolishes pagan rites; persecutes heretics; does penance at Milan; divides the empire between Arcadius and Honorius.

FOURTH PERIOD, A. D. 395-476.

=243.= The empire east of the Adriatic continued more than a thousand years from the accession of Arcadius, and its records belong to Mediæval History. From the death of the great Theodosius, the division of the two empires was complete. Rufi´nus, the minister of Arcadius, bore a mortal enmity to Stilicho, the guardian of Honorius; and for the sake of revenge, he let loose the Goths upon the Western empire. Al´aric, the Visi-Goth, was made master-general of the Eastern armies in Illyricum. At the same time, he was elected to be king of his own countrymen, and it is uncertain in which character he invaded Italy, A. D. 400-403. Honorius was driven from Milan, but Stilicho defeated the invader at Pollen´tia, and afterward at Verona, and persuaded him, by promises of lands for his followers, to withdraw from Italy.

During the rejoicings at Rome on account of his retreat, an incident occurred which marks the progress of Christianity in the declining empire. Telem´achus, a monk, entered the arena of the Coliseum and attempted to separate the gladiators, protesting, in the name of Christ, against their inhuman combat. He was stoned to death by the crowd; but their remorse bestowed upon him the honors of a martyr; and the emperor, who was present, made a law abolishing forever the shedding of human blood for public sport.

=244.= Honorius transferred his capital from Milan to the impregnable fortress among the marshes of Ravenna, which continued three centuries to be the seat of government for Italy. A fresh invasion from Germany, led by the pagan Radagai´sus, devastated western Italy. Gaul was, at the same time, overrun by a mingled horde of Vandals, Suevi, Alani, and Burgundians; and from that moment the Roman Empire may be said to have fallen in the countries beyond the Alps. The army in Britain revolted; and after electing and murdering two emperors, set up Constantine, who led them into Gaul, defeated the German invaders, passed into Spain, and established a kind of sovereignty over the three western countries of Europe.

Meanwhile, Stilicho was disgraced and slain, through the intrigues of his enemy, Olympius. While the barbarian auxiliaries in his army were lamenting his death, they were enraged by a massacre of their wives and children, who had been kept as hostages in the various cities of Italy. This insane act of cruelty sealed the fate of Rome. The barbarians, freed from either the duty or necessity of obeying Honorius, flocked to the camp of Alaric, in Illyricum, and urged him to invade Italy. The Visi-Goth had injuries of his own to avenge. He passed the Alps and the Po, and, after a rapid march, pitched his camp upon the Tiber. Rome was reduced to starvation. Thousands died of famine, and thousands more from the pestilence which it occasioned. At length, Alaric accepted the terms offered by the Senate, and retired, upon the payment of an enormous ransom, A. D. 408.

=245.= His brother-in-law, Adolphus, now joined him with a troop of Huns and Goths. Alaric offered peace to the court of Ravenna, on condition of receiving lands for his followers, between the Danube and the Adriatic. His demands being refused, he again marched upon Rome, and set up an emperor of his own choosing, in At´talus, præfect of the city. Ravenna was only saved from his attack by a reinforcement from Theodosius II., now emperor of the East. Africa was likewise delivered by the vigilance of Count Herac´lian. But Alaric was soon tired of his puppet-king. He deposed him, and again sought peace with Honorius. The treaty failed through the ill-will of Sarus, a Goth in the imperial service, who was a bitter enemy and rival of Alaric.

The king of the Visi-Goths now turned a third time, and with relentless rage, upon Rome. The Eternal City was taken, Aug. 10, A. D. 410, and for six days was given up to the horrible scenes of murder and pillage. Though greatly reduced in power, Rome had never lost her dignity, or the wealth of her old patrician houses. These were now ransacked; gold, jewels, and silken garments, Grecian sculptures and paintings, and the choicest spoils of conquered countries, brought home in triumph by ancestors of the present families, went to enrich the Gothic and Scythic hordes, who were so ignorant of the value of their plunder, that exquisite vases were often divided by a stroke of a battle-ax, and their fragments distributed among the common soldiers. Only the churches and their property were respected, for Alaric declared that he waged war with the Romans, and not with the apostles.

=246.= At length the king of the Goths withdrew, laden with spoils, along the Appian Way, meditating the conquest of Sicily and Africa. Storms, however, destroyed his hastily constructed fleet, and a sudden death terminated his career of conquest. He was buried in the channel of the little river Busenti´nus, and his sepulcher was adorned by his followers with the treasures of Rome. Adolphus, his successor, made peace with Honorius, and received the hand of the imperial princess Placid´ia, who had been taken prisoner during the siege. Her bridal gifts consisted of the spoils of her country. Adolphus retired into Gaul, and then into Spain, where he founded the kingdom of the Visi-Goths, as a dependency upon the Western empire.

Constantine was driven out of Spain, and captured at Arles, by Constantius, who was rewarded for his distinguished services by a marriage with Placidia, after the death of her Gothic husband, and by the imperial titles which he bore as the colleague of her brother. He reigned but seven months, and after his death Placidia quarreled with Honorius, and took refuge with her nephew at Constantinople. In a few months the emperor of the West ended a disgraceful reign of twenty-eight years, A. D. 423. John, his secretary, usurped the throne; but Theodosius II. sent a fleet and army to enforce the claims of his cousin, the son of Placidia, and the troops in Ravenna were easily persuaded to surrender their upstart emperor. John was beheaded at Aquileia, A. D. 425.

=247.= Valentinian III. was a child of six years. The Western empire was therefore placed under the regency of his mother, Placidia, who continued to rule it for a quarter of a century, while the military command was held by Aë´tius and Boniface. Unhappily, these two generals were enemies. The malicious falsehoods of Aëtius led Boniface into rebellion, and lost Africa to the empire. Gen´seric, king of the Vandals in Spain, willingly accepted the invitation of Boniface, and crossed the straits with 50,000 men. The Moors immediately joined his army; the Donatists[80] hailed him as their deliverer from persecution.

Too late, Boniface discovered his mistake, and returned to his allegiance. All Roman Africa, except Carthage, Cirta, and Hippo Regius, had passed over to the Vandals. Forces were sent from Constantinople to aid those of Italy; but the combined armies were defeated, and Boniface was compelled to abandon Africa, taking with him all the Roman inhabitants who were able to leave. The countries on the Danube had been ceded to the Eastern empire, in return for the aid of Theodosius II., in placing Valentinian III. upon his throne. Britain, unprotected by the Roman armies, had thrown off her allegiance, and had for forty years no government except that of the clergy, the nobles, and the magistrates of the towns. The Goths were settled permanently in south-western Gaul; the Burgundians in the east, and the Franks in the north of the same country; and except a small tract in southern Gaul, the Western empire now included only Italy and the region of the western Alps.

=248.= Aëtius defended the Gallic province against the Visi-Goths on one side, and the Franks on the other, until the latter called in a new and more terrible ally than all previous invaders, in At´tila, king of the Huns. This savage chief was known to the terror-stricken world of his time, as the Scourge of God. He had subdued to his authority all the barbarians between the Baltic and the Euxine, the Rhine and the Volga, and his army of 700,000 men was officered by a host of subject kings. He had been for nine years ravaging the Eastern empire to the very walls of Constantinople, and had only retired upon the promise of an enormous annual tribute, and the immediate payment of 6,000 pounds of gold. He now invaded Gaul, in behalf of a Frankish king who had been driven beyond the Rhine, and had sought his aid.

Theod´oric, the son of Alaric, now king of the Visi-Goths, had allied himself with the Romans, and their united armies came up with Attila, just as he had effected the capture of Orleans by battering down its walls. The Hun instantly drew off his hordes from the plunder of the city, and retreated across the Seine to the plains about Chalons´, where his Scythian cavalry could operate to better advantage. Then followed one of the most memorable battles in the history of the world. The aged king Theodoric was slain, but the victory was gained by the valor of his subjects. Attila was driven to his circle of wagons, and only the darkness of night prevented the total destruction of his hosts.

This was the last victory ever achieved in the name of the Western empire. It settled the great question, whether modern Europe should be Teuton or Tartar. The Goths were already Christian; their rude energy was well adapted to the laws and institutions of civilized life. The Huns were savage, heathen, destructive; mighty to ravage and desolate, but never, in their greatest power and wealth, known to build and organize a state. Most of what is admirable in European history would have been reversed by a different result of the battle of Chalons.

=249.= Attila retreated beyond the Rhine. Two years later, he descended into north-eastern Italy, reduced Aquileia, Alti´num, Concordia, and Padua to heaps of ashes, and plundered Pavia and Milan. The fugitives from the old territory of the Veneti took refuge upon the hundred low islets at the head of the Adriatic, and laid, in poverty and industry, the foundations of the Republic of Venice. While he was diverted from his threatened march upon Rome, by the intercessions of Pope Leo, Attila suddenly died, and his kingdom fell to pieces even more rapidly than it had been built up. Two of his sons perished in battle. Irnac, the youngest, retired into Scythia. Valentinian showed his relief from apprehension by murdering Aëtius with his own hand. Having in many ways disgusted and offended his subjects, he was himself assassinated in March, A. D. 455.

Maximus, his murderer, assumed the purple, but he continued in power less than three months. Eudox´ia, the widow of Valentinian, called in the aid of Genseric, the Vandal king of Africa, who, commanding the Mediterranean with his fleets, was only too eager for the spoils of Italy. The Romans, as soon as he had landed in Ostia, put to death their unworthy emperor; but this execution failed to appease the barbarian. Fourteen days the Eternal City was again given up to a pillage more unscrupulous than that of Alaric. The Vandal fleet, waiting at Ostia, was laden with all the wealth which the Goths had spared, and receiving on board the empress Eudoxia and her daughter, made a safe return to Carthage.

=250.= The Romans were too much paralyzed to appoint a new sovereign. When the news reached Gaul, Avi´tus, the general of the armies there, was proclaimed, through the influence of Theodoric II., and was acknowledged for more than a year throughout the Western empire. But, A. D. 456, Count Ric´imer, a Goth commanding the foreign auxiliaries in Italy, rebelled, and captured Avitus in a battle near Placentia. He set up Marjo´rian, whose talents and virtues revived some appearance of justice and energy in the government. A fleet was now prepared for the invasion of Africa, in the hope not only of retaliating upon Genseric for his plunder of Rome, but of stopping the ravages of the Vandal pirates upon the coasts of Italy. It was betrayed to the emissaries of Genseric, in the Spanish port of Carthagena.

Ricimer, by this time, was jealous of his _protégé_, and, forcing him to resign, set up a new puppet in the person of Lib´ius Severus, in whose name he hoped to exercise the real power. But the nominal rule of Severus was confined to Italy, while, beyond the Alps, two Roman generals—Marcellinus in Dalmatia, and Ægid´ius in Gaul—possessed the real sovereignty, though without the imperial titles. The coasts of Italy, Spain, and Greece were continually harassed by the Vandals, and Ricimer, two years after the death of Severus (A. D. 467), appealed to the court of Constantinople for aid against the common enemy, promising to accept any sovereign whom the emperor would appoint.

=251.= Anthe´mius, a Byzantine nobleman, was designated as emperor of the West, and received the allegiance of the Senate, the people, and the barbarian troops. The fidelity of Count Ricimer was thought to be secured by his marriage with the daughter of the new emperor. A formidable attack upon the Vandals was made by the combined forces of the East and the West; but it failed through the weakness or treachery of Bas´ilis´cus, the Greek commander, who lost his immense fleet through the secret management of Genseric. The Vandals recovered Sardinia and became possessed of Sicily, whence they could ravage Italy more constantly than ever.

The Goths, meanwhile, became dissatisfied with the foreign rule. Ricimer retired to Milan, where, in concert with his people, he openly revolted, marched with a Burgundian army to Rome, and forced the Senate to accept a new emperor in the person of Olyb´rius, A. D. 472. Anthemius was slain in the attack upon the city. Ricimer died forty days after his victory, bequeathing his power to his nephew, Gund´obald, a Burgundian. Olybrius died a month or two later, and Gundobald raised a soldier named Glyce´rius to the vacant throne. The emperor of the East interfered again, and appointed Julius Nepos—a nephew of Marcellinus of Dalmatia—who was accepted by the Romans and Gauls, Glycerius being consoled for the loss of his imperial titles by the safer and more peaceful dignity of Bishop of Salo´na.

=252.= Scarcely was Julius invested with the insignia of his rank, when he was driven from the country by a new sedition led by Ores´tes, master-general of the armies, who placed upon the throne his own son, Romulus Augustus. This last of the Western emperors, who bore, by a curious coincidence, the names of the two founders of Rome and the empire, was more commonly called Augus´tulus, in burlesque of the imperial grandeur which mocked his youth and insignificance.

The mercenaries demanded one-third of the lands of Italy as the reward of their services; and being refused, they sprang to arms again, slew Orestes, deposed Augustulus, and made their own chief, Odo´acer, king of Italy. The Roman Senate, in a letter to Zeno, emperor of the East, surrendered the claim of their country to imperial rank, consented to acknowledge Constantinople as the seat of government for the world, but requested that Odoacer, with the title of “Patrician,” should be intrusted with the diocese of Italy.

With the fall of the Western empire, Ancient History ends. But the establishment of kingdoms by the northern nations marks the rise of a new era, which, through centuries of turbulence, will open into the varied and brilliant scenes of Modern History.

RECAPITULATION.

Alaric, invading Italy, is defeated by Stilicho. Gladiatorial combats are forever abolished at Rome. Honorius fixes his capital at Ravenna. Italy and Gaul are overrun by a pagan host. Constantine becomes emperor in the extreme West, A. D. 407-411. Death of Stilicho and massacre of Gothic women and children lead Alaric to a second invasion of Italy, A. D. 408-410. Rome is three times besieged, and finally given up to plunder for six days. Alaric dies, A. D. 410, and is succeeded by Adolphus, who marries the sister of Honorius, and founds a Gothic kingdom in Spain and southern Gaul. Constantius, second husband of Placidia, reigns as colleague of Honorius, A. D. 421; and his son, Valentinian III., succeeds to the whole Western empire, A. D. 425-455. During the regency of Placidia, the general Boniface, deceived by Aëtius, betrays Africa to the Vandals. Gaul is invaded by Attila, king of the Huns, who is defeated by Goths and Romans near Chalons, A. D. 451. He ravages northern Italy; and fugitives from cities which he destroys, found Venice on the Adriatic, A. D. 452. Valentinian III. is assassinated; and his widow, to avenge his death, calls in the Vandals, who plunder Rome fourteen days. Avitus (A. D. 455, 456) is proclaimed emperor in Gaul. Count Ricimer rebels, and sets up first Marjorian (A. D. 457-461), then Severus (A. D. 461-465), and finally applies for an emperor to the Eastern court, which appoints Anthemius (A. D. 467-472). Ricimer revolts again, and crowns Olybrius, who dies in a few months. Glycerius (A. D. 473, 474) soon exchanges the crown for a miter, and Julius Nepos is installed as sovereign. Orestes sets up his own son, Romulus Augustus (A. D. 475, 476), the last Roman emperor of the West. Odoacer becomes king of Italy, and the Western empire is overthrown.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW.