Part 88

The decay of old Roman virtue became at the same time apparent in the great increase of luxury. This displayed itself in houses, villas, pleasure gardens, fish ponds, dress, food and drink. Extravagant prices--as much as one hundred thousand sesterces (five thousand dollars)--were paid for an exquisite cook. Costly foreign delicacies and wines were affected, and the Romans in their banquets vied with one another in displaying their hosts of slaves ministering to luxury, their bands of musicians, their dancing girls, their purple hangings, their carpets glittering with gold or pictorially embroidered, and their rich silver plate.

In the midst of the system there were not wanting some noble patterns of the old Roman type, among whom should be named Cato, who kept up a constant protest all his life against the growing luxury of his countrymen, and died declaring that they were a degenerate race. Such men were, however, rare exceptions; and we shall hereafter see that the evil system already operative in the second century went on increasing, till finally, a century afterwards, it resulted in the total subversion of the republic.

The picture just given of the state of Roman society in the last half of the second century B. C. prepares us for the period of civil strife on which we now enter.

IV. EPOCH OF THE CIVIL WARS, 146-31 B. C.--The fourth period extends from the capture of Carthage and Corinth to the establishment of the Imperial Government by the battle of Actium, B. C. 31. During this whole time the Roman history is a continued tale of domestic disturbances. From the fall of Carthage to the battle of Actium, it presents but a melancholy picture, a blood-stained record of sedition, conspiracy, and civil war.

A number of causes had resulted in the growth of an aristocracy founded purely on wealth; the old division of society into patricians and plebeians had ceased, and there arose a still worse division into classes,--the rich and the poor.

THE GRACCHI ESPOUSE THE CAUSE OF THE POOR

The cause of the poor against the rich was taken up by a noble young tribune of the people named Tiberius Gracchus. Tiberius and his afterwards distinguished younger brother Caius (the two being known in history as the Gracchi) were sons of a noble Roman matron, Cornelia, daughter of the great Scipio Africanus.

Tiberius Gracchus proposed a land-law (agrarian law), which would limit the amount of public land that could be held by any one individual and provided for the distribution of the rest in small homesteads. The aristocracy immediately raised a storm, and induced another tribune to veto the measure. Now, according to the Roman code, no proposal could become law unless all the tribunes were unanimous. Gracchus then secured a popular vote expelling his colleague from the tribuneship, and the land-law was passed by the people, 133 B. C. In the meantime, however, Gracchus’s year of office expired, and he came up for re-election. The nobles resolved to prevent this by violence.

MURDER OF THE TRIBUNE, TIBERIUS GRACCHUS

Gracchus, learning this, bade his friends arm themselves with staves; and when the people began to inquire the cause of this, he put his hand to his head, intimating that his life was in danger. Some of his enemies ran to the senate and reported that Tiberius openly demanded a crown. A body of the aristocrats with their clients and dependents then rushed among the unarmed crowd, and murdered Gracchus with three hundred of his adherents,--133 B. C.

Tiberius Gracchus was dead, but his work remained; that is to say, the measure which he had proposed was law, and the commissioners intrusted with the task of allotting the lands prosecuted their labors for two or three years. The nobles, however, obstructed the work as much as possible, so that between them and the champions of the people there was a continuous struggle.

THE STRUGGLES AND DEATH OF THE YOUNGER GRACCHUS

This struggle became still more fierce when Caius Gracchus, ten years after the death of his brother, claimed and obtained the tribuneship, and then took up that brother’s work. The agitation for the agrarian law was renewed, an enactment was made for a monthly distribution of corn to the city poor, and various other reforms were proposed by him. After holding the tribuneship for two years, however, he lost the office through the intrigues of his opponents. The nobles were determined to crush Gracchus; accordingly, at one of the public assemblies they attacked the partisans of the popular leader, and there ensued a bloody combat (121 B. C.) in which three thousand of his adherents were slain. Gracchus himself fled into a wood across the Tiber; but, being pursued, he chose to die by the hands of a faithful slave rather than fall into the power of his enemies.

RISE OF MARIUS AND SULLA

The ill-will between the nobles and the people continued just as bitter after the death of Gracchus; and matters finally shaped themselves in such a way that the nobles, or senatorial party, came to be represented by a leader named Sulla, and the democracy, or Commons, by another, called Marius. These men came to prominence in the course of two or three wars in which Rome was engaged for twenty-five or thirty years after the time of which we have been speaking; and finally they acquired such power as to bring on a civil strife that deluged Italy with blood.

The wars just referred to were: the Jugurthine war (111-106 B. C.), the war against the Cimbri (113-101 B. C.), and the Social war (90-89 B. C.), with the details of which we need not concern ourselves; but the fourth contest was of more moment, and needs notice here. This was the Mithridatic war.

BOLD DESIGN OF MITHRIDATES AGAINST ROME

Mithridates, king of Pontus, a bold and able soldier, formed the design of uniting the Asiatic states and Greece in a vast confederacy against the Roman dominion. He began by causing about eighty thousand Romans who dwelt in the cities of Asia Minor to be massacred in one day (88 B. C.). He then invaded Greece.

The command in this important war was eagerly sought by both Marius and Sulla. Sulla prevailed; he was elected consul and put in command. Marius, being chagrined at this, succeeded in having the popular party set aside Sulla. But the aristocratic general marched to Rome and compelled Marius to flee into Africa. Sulla then set out for Greece, all of which submitted to him, the army of Mithridates being defeated (86-84 B. C.)

HORRIBLE MASSACRES ATTEND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN MARIUS AND SULLA

During the absence of Sulla, Marius returned to Italy. Entering Rome in 86 B. C., he filled the entire city with slaughter, and in particular he caused the murder of the leading senators that had supported his rival. Marius then caused himself to be proclaimed consul without going through an election; but a fortnight later he died.

Notwithstanding the death of Marius, the Marian party still continued in power. Sulla, hearing of their successes, hastily concluded a peace with Mithridates, and hurried to Italy (83 B. C.). After a severe struggle, Sulla utterly overthrew the Marians. The blood of massacre then flowed a second time,--in a yet greater stream. Lists of proscribed persons, embracing all who belonged to the people’s party, were published every day, and the porch of Sulla’s house was full of heads.

Having put down all his enemies, Sulla caused himself to be proclaimed dictator for an unlimited time (81 B. C.). He then proceeded to re-organize the government wholly in the interest of the aristocratic party; but to the great surprise of every one he three years afterward resigned his power and retired to private life. Sulla died in 78 B. C.; he was honored with a magnificent funeral, and a monument with the following epitaph written by himself:

“I am Sulla the Fortunate, who in the course of my life have surpassed both friends and enemies; the former by the good, the latter by the evil, I have done them.”

RISE OF POMPEY THE GREAT

After the death of Sulla, the most prominent figure among all the men of the aristocratic party was Cneius Pompey, who had distinguished himself as a lieutenant of Sulla, and afterwards won renown by his management of several important matters in which Rome was engaged--especially in the suppression of a formidable revolution in Spain under a very able leader named Sertorius (77-72 B. C.), and in stamping out a fire of revolt kindled by Spartacus, the leader of a band of gladiators, who, joined by a large force of discontented spirits, kept Italy in alarm for two or three years (73-71 B. C.). These exploits made Pompey a popular favorite, and in the year 70 B. C. he was rewarded by being made consul along with a rich senator named Crassus.

HIS MILITARY EXPLOITS IN THE EAST

At the expiration of his year of office he retired to private life, but was soon called upon to suppress a formidable combination of pirates who infested the Mediterranean Sea and had their headquarters in Cilicia (in Asia Minor). This task he accomplished in three months. These triumphs, aided by his political influence, enabled Pompey to procure the command in the war against Mithridates, who had renewed his scheme of conquering the Eastern Roman provinces. He was given powers such as never had been delegated to any Roman general. This war lasted for two years (66-64 B. C.), and was marked by a series of brilliant triumphs for Pompey. He utterly crushed Mithridates (who died by self-administered poison), as well as his son-in-law Tigranes, subdued Phœnicia, made Syria a Roman province, and took Jerusalem. Thus with the glory of having subjugated and settled the East he returned to Rome (62 B. C.), where a magnificent triumph awaited him.

FAMOUS STRUGGLES OF THE FOUR FACTIONS

Meanwhile there seem to have grown up, after the death of Sulla, four factions in Rome: the “oligarchical faction,” consisting of the small number of families the chiefs of which directed the senate, and in fact governed the republic; the “aristocratic faction,” comprising the mass of the senators anxious to obtain the power usurped by a few of their colleagues; the “Marian party,” including all those whose families had been prosecuted by Sulla, and who now began to rally, and aspire to power; the “military faction,” embracing a crowd of old officers of Sulla, who, having squandered the fortunes they had gained under him, were eager for some revolution that might give them the opportunity to improve their condition.

THE GREAT LEADERS OF THE FACTIONS--POMPEY, CICERO, CRASSUS, CAESAR AND CATILINE

At the head of the oligarchical faction was Pompey; but during his absence in Asia its representative was Marcus Tullius Cicero (born 106 B. C.), who had established his reputation as the first orator in Rome. He had risen through various offices to the prætorship, and at the time Pompey left for the East aspired to be consul. He did not himself belong to a noble family, but still he made himself the champion of the oligarchy. Though vain and boastful, he was a virtuous and patriotic man.

The leader of the aristocratic faction was Crassus, formerly the colleague of Pompey in the consulship, now his personal rival. He was a man of no great ability, but his position and his immense wealth made him influential. (After prodigious expenditures, he died worth ten million dollars.)

The leader of the third, or Marian party, was a man six years younger than Pompey or Cicero, who, distinguished in youth for his accomplishments and his extravagance, rose in the year 65 B. C. to the office of edile. This was Caius Julius Cæsar,--a man of pre-eminent ability, one of the greatest that ever lived. He was the nephew of Marius, and now stood forward as the leader of the Marian party. He was of an old patrician family, and took up the cause of the people to serve his own ends.

CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE

The leader of the military faction was Catiline, who had been one of the ablest and most ferocious of Sulla’s officers. He had a large following of debauched young patricians and ruined military men, who thought they would better their fortunes by making Catiline consul. Cicero was his rival, and, receiving the support of the senators, was elected. Enraged at his defeat, Catiline formed a conspiracy of which the murder of Cicero and the burning of Rome were parts. A woman betrayed the plot to Cicero, who denounced Catiline with such fiery eloquence that he had to flee from Rome. With a band of confederates he attempted to reach Gaul; but he was overtaken in Etruria and slain, 62 B. C.

THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE: CAESAR, POMPEY AND CRASSUS

Cæsar and Pompey, now finding that they agreed in many of their views, resolved to unite their forces. To cement their union more closely, Cæsar gave his only daughter, Julia, in marriage to Pompey. For various reasons it was found desirable to admit Crassus to their political partnership, and thus was formed (60 B. C.) that famous coalition known in Roman history as the “First Triumvirate.” The object of Cæsar and Pompey was to thwart the senatorial party in every way, and wield all the power themselves.

The formation of the triumvirate was followed by the election of Cæsar to the consulship (59 B. C.); and when his year of office expired he obtained for himself the government of Gaul for five years, and then for another five. This was probably the great object of Cæsar’s desires. No doubt he was already brooding over the design of making himself master of Rome; and for this purpose he would need an army.

During the years 58-50 B. C. Cæsar made eight campaigns in Gaul, forming the remarkable series of operations which he afterwards described with such pointed style in his _Commentaries_.

The result of his eight years’ campaigning was that, in the spring of 50 B. C., Cæsar was able to take up his residence in Cisalpine Gaul, leaving the three hundred tribes beyond the Alps, which he had conquered by such bloody means, not only pacified, but even attached to himself personally. His army, which included many Gauls and Germans, was so devoted to him that it would have marched to the end of the world in his service.

DOWNFALL OF CRASSUS AND RIVALRY OF CAESAR AND POMPEY

During Cæsar’s campaigns in Gaul (where his government was prolonged for a second five-year term), Crassus disappeared from the triumvirate. After holding the consulship with Pompey, in 55 B. C., he went as proconsul to the province of Syria, in 54 B. C. His greed of wealth, and desire for the military fame which he envied in Cæsar and Pompey, brought him to ruin, by inducing him to attack the kingdom of Parthia,[5] where he was soon afterward murdered. So that the triumvirate became a duumvirate, or league of two men,--Cæsar and Pompey.

[5] Parthia had the rare distinction of being a country the prowess of whose warriors baffled the efforts of Rome for her subjection. The Parthian kingdom, southeast of the Caspian Sea, came into existence about 250 B. C., by revolt from the Seleucids, the monarchs of Syria, and became a powerful realm after the death of Alexander the Great. It included Parthia proper, Hyrcania, and afterwards (130 B. C.) Bactria, so that at last its dominions stretched from the Euphrates to the Indus, and from the river Oxus to the Indian Ocean. The Parthians adopted the Greek religion, manners, and customs, which had been introduced into that part of Asia by Alexander’s conquests.

The renowned cavalry of Parthia seem to have been all-powerful only on their own soil, for their invasions of the Roman province of Syria in 39 and 38 B.C. were utterly defeated, while the invasion of Parthia by the great Roman general and triumvir, Mark Antony, in 36, was repulsed with loss of a great part of his army. In 20 B. C. the Parthian king Phraates restored, chiefly as a friendly concession, the standards and prisoners taken from Crassus and Antonius, and this is the event commemorated by the Roman poets of the day as equivalent to a submission by Parthia. Under the Roman emperors the Parthians sometimes courted and were sometimes at war with Rome, and were partially conquered for a time under Trajan. The Parthian kings encouraged Christianity. In A. D. 226 a revolt of the Persians put an end to the Parthian kingdom, revived the religion of Zoroaster, stopped the eastward progress of Christianity in Asia, and began modern history in Persia.

Now between these two men there had for some time been a growing coldness. It was said that Cæsar was a man who could brook no equal, and Pompey a man who could suffer no superior. A feeling of rivalry having once arisen, naturally grew till Cæsar and Pompey became the bitterest enemies. Pompey went over to the aristocratic party to which he had originally belonged, and having been made sole consul for the year 52 B. C., he began to exert his great influence against Cæsar. In this he was supported by the nobles, who dreaded Cæsar’s immense power.

FINAL STRUGGLE BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY

As the period of Cæsar’s command would expire in the year 49 B. C., he had determined to obtain the consulship for the year 48 B. C., since otherwise he would become a private citizen. Accordingly he demanded, though absent, to be permitted to put himself in the lists for the consulate. But it was proposed, through the influence of Pompey, that Cæsar should lay down his command by the thirteenth of November, 50 B. C. This was an unreasonable demand; for his term of government over Gaul had another year to run, and if he had gone to Rome as a private citizen to sue for the consulship, there can be no doubt that his life would have been sacrificed. Cæsar, still anxious to keep the peace, offered, at the beginning of the year 49 B. C., to lay down his command if Pompey would do the same; but this the senate refused to accede to, and a motion was passed that Cæsar should disband his army by a certain day, and that if he did not do so, he should be regarded as an enemy of the state.

THE CROSSING OF THE RUBICON

Cæsar promptly took his resolve: he would appeal to the arbitrament of arms. He had the enthusiastic devotion of his soldiers, the great mass of whom, being provincials or foreigners, cared very little for the country whose name they bore. Accordingly, in January, 49 B. C., he advanced from his headquarters at Ravenna to the little stream, the Rubicon, which separated his own province and command from Italy. The crossing of this river was in reality a declaration of war against the republic; and it is related that, upon arriving at the Rubicon, Cæsar long hesitated whether he should take this irrevocable step. After pondering many hours he at length exclaimed, “The die is cast!” and plunged into the river.

Pompey concluded not to attempt to defend Italy, but to retire upon the East, where he would gather a great army and then return to overwhelm the “usurper.” Accordingly he retreated to Greece.

CAESAR MASTER OF ITALY AND DICTATOR OF ROME

In sixty days Cæsar made himself master of all Italy. Then marching to Rome he had himself appointed dictator and consul for the year 48 B. C. He showed masterly statesmanship, and soon brought the general current of opinion completely over to his side.

BATTLE OF PHARSALIA AND DEATH OF POMPEY

Meantime, Pompey had gathered a powerful army in Thessaly, and thither Cæsar with his legions proceeded against him. The decisive battle between the two mighty rivals was fought at Pharsalia, in 48 B. C. It resulted in the utter defeat of Pompey; and as it left Cæsar the foremost man in the Roman world, it must be regarded as one of the great decisive battles of history.

Pompey, after his defeat, sought refuge in Egypt; but he was assassinated by the orders of Ptolemy, when seeking to land on the coast of that country. Cæsar, who followed in pursuit, did not hear of his death until his arrival in Alexandria, where messengers from Ptolemy brought him Pompey’s head. Cæsar, who was both a generous man and a compassionate foe, turned with horror from the spectacle, and with tears in his eyes gave orders that the head should be consumed with the costliest spices.

CAESAR, CLEOPATRA AND THE CONQUEST OF THE EAST

At Alexandria Cæsar became enamored of Cleopatra, the young, beautiful, and fascinating queen of Egypt. He even mixed himself up with a quarrel that was going on between her and her younger brother Ptolemy, to whom, according to the custom of the country, she was married, and with whom she shared the throne. This intermeddling led Cæsar, who had but a small force with him, into conflict with the troops of the king. A fierce battle was fought in the city. Cæsar succeeded in firing the Egyptian fleet; but unfortunately the flames extended to the celebrated Library of the city of Alexandria, and the greater part of the magnificent collection of manuscripts was burnt. Cæsar was finally successful: Ptolemy was killed, and Cleopatra was made queen of Egypt. From Alexandria Cæsar marched into Pontus to attack Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, whom he subdued so quickly that he described the campaign in the most laconic dispatch ever penned: _Veni, vidi, vici_,--“I came, I saw, I conquered.”

CAESAR’S FINAL VICTORY AND TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO ROME

Pompey’s forces that escaped from Pharsalia had established themselves in the Roman province of Africa. They were commanded by Scipio and Cato. Cæsar having settled matters in the East, now proceeded against this force, which he utterly destroyed at Thapsus, early in the year 46 B. C. Scipio and Cato killed themselves. One more rally the Pompeians made in Spain, but they were defeated by Cæsar in the decisive battle of Munda (March, 45 B. C).

Cæsar returned to Rome after the battle of Thapsus, the master of the Roman dominion. The republic went out when Cato fell upon his sword at Utica; the monarchy came in with the triumphal entry of Cæsar into Rome in the summer of 46 B. C. It is true Cæsar was not king (_rex_) in name, but he was so in substance. His position as chief of the state was this: he was invested with the dictatorship for ten years,--an arrangement changed soon afterwards to perpetual dictator,--and was hailed with the title of Imperator for life. The latter title, Imperator (meaning commander), was one which belonged under the republic to the victorious general; but it was a temporary title, always laid aside with the surrender of military command. Cæsar was allowed to use it in a special way and permanently, and in his case it had much the meaning of the term Emperor,--a word which is simply Imperator cut short.

FEELINGS OF THE ROMANS TOWARD CAESAR

There can be no doubt that the Romans were well satisfied to be under the rule of Cæsar. The republic was a mere name, for liberty had expired when the Gracchi were murdered, and subsequent dissensions were merely contests for power between different factions. Hence the Roman people, weary of revolution, were quite content to find peace under the just though absolute rule of one master.

It is important to recognize this as the real state of public feeling, because we shall now have to see that Cæsar fell a victim to assassination, and it might be thought that his overthrow was the people’s revolt from monarchical rule. But it was the act of a small knot of conspirators who, with the cry of “Liberty and the Republic” in their mouths, did away with the Imperator to serve their own ends.

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST CAESAR AND HIS ASSASSINATION