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LIBRARY  of  the 
UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO 

by 

MRS.   FRED  WADE 


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THE 

HISTORY   OF    ROME 


MOMMSEN 


THE 

HISTORY  OF  ROME 

BY 

THEODOR    MOMMSEN 


TRANSLATED 
WITH  THE  SANCTION  OF  THE  AUTHOR 

BY 

WILLIAM   PURDIE   DICKSON,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  DIVINITY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  GLASGOW 


A  NEW  EDITION  REVISED  THROUGHOUT  AND 
EMBODYING  RECENT  ADDITIONS 

VOL.  V 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES     SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1905 


Da 


)66 


CONTENTS 

BOOK    FIFTH 

The  Establishment  of  the  Military  Monarchy  — 

Continued 

CHAPTER  VII 

PACE 

The  Subjugation  of  the  West        ...»  3 

CHAPTER  VIII 
The  Joint  Rule  of  Pompeius  and  Caesar  .  .      107 

CHAPTER  IX 
Death  of  Ckassus— Rupture  between  the  Joint  Rulers      150 

CHAPTER  X 
Brundisium,  Ilerda,  Pharsalus,  and  Thapsus    .  .       193 

CHAPTER  XI 
The  Old  Republic  and  the  New  Monarchy       .  .       305 

CHAPTER  XII 
Religion,  Culture,  Literature,  and  Art  .  .       443 

Index     ........       5J9 

Collation  of  Paging  of  other  Editions  for  verifying 

References  ......      589 


BOOK   FIFTH 

THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  MILITARY 
MONARCHY 

Continued 


vol.  v  1 34 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    SUBJUGATION    OF   THE    WEST 

When  the  course  of  history  turns  from  the  miserable  mono-  The 
tony  of  the  political   selfishness,  which  fought  its  battles  j^1"^" 
in  the  senate-house  and  in  the  streets  of  the  capital,  to  the  west 
matters  of  greater  importance  than  the  question  whether 
the  first  monarch  of  Rome  should  be  called  Gnaeus,  Gaius, 
or  Marcus,  we  may  well  be  allowed — on  the  threshold  of 
an  event,  the  effects  of  which  still  at  the  present  day  influ- 
ence the  destinies  of  the  world — to  look  round  us  for  a 
moment,  and   to  indicate  the  point  of  view  under  which 
the  conquest  of  what  is  now  France  by  the  Romans,  and 
their  first  contact  with  the  inhabitants  of  Germany  and  of 
Great  Britain,  are  to  be  apprehended  in  their  bearing  on 
the  general  history  of  the  world. 

By  virtue  of  the  law,  that  a  people  which  has  grown 
into  a  state  absorbs  its  neighbours  who  are  in  political 
nonage,  and  a  civilized  people  absorbs  its  neighbours  who 
are  in  intellectual  nonage — by  virtue  of  this  law,  which  is  as 
universally  valid  and  as  much  a  law  of  nature  as  the  law 
of  gravity — the  Italian  nation  (the  only  one  in  antiquity 
which  was  able  to  combine  a  superior  political  development 
and  a  superior  civilization,  though  it  presented  the  latter 
only  in  an  imperfect  and  external  manner)  was  entitled  to 
reduce  to  subjection  the  Greek  states  of  the  east  which 
were  ripe  for  destruction,  and  to  dispossess  the  peoples  c/ 


4  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

lower  grades  of  culture  in  the  west — Libyans,  Iberians, 
Celts,  Gerrnans — by  means  of  its  settlers ;  just  as  England 
with  equal  right  has  in  Asia  reduced  to  subjection  a  civil- 
ization of  rival  standing  but  politically  impotent,  and  in 
America  and  Australia  has  marked  and  ennobled,  and  still 
continues  to  mark  and  ennoble,  extensive  barbarian 
countries  with  the  impress  of  its  nationality.  The  Roman 
aristocracy  had  accomplished  the  preliminary  condition 
required  for  this  task — the  union  of  Italy ;  the  task  itself 
it  never  solved,  but  always  regarded  the  extra-Italian  con- 
quests either  as  simply  a  necessary  evil,  or  as  a  fiscal 
possession  virtually  beyond  the  pale  of  the  state.  It  is 
the  imperishable  glory  of  the  Roman  democracy  or  mon- 
archy— for  the  two  coincide — to  have  correctly  apprehended 
and  vigorously  realized  this  its  highest  destination.  What 
the  irresistible  force  of  circumstances  had  paved  the  way 
for,  through  the  senate  establishing  against  its  will  the 
foundations  of  the  future  Roman  dominion  in  the  west  as 
in  the  east ;  what  thereafter  the  Roman  emigration  to  the 
provinces — which  came  as  a  public  calamity,  no  doubt, 
but  also  in  the  western  regions  at  any  rate  as  a  pioneer  of 
a  higher  culture — pursued  as  matter  of  instinct ;  the  creator 
of  the  Roman  democracy,  Gaius  Gracchus,  grasped  and 
began  to  carry  out  with  statesmanlike  clearness  and  deci- 
sion. The  two  fundamental  ideas  of  the  new  policy — to 
reunite  the  territories  under  the  power  of  Rome,  so  far  as 
they  were  Hellenic,  and  to  colonize  them,  so  far  as  they 
were  not  Hellenic — had  already  in  the  Gracchan  age  been 
practically  recognized  by  the  annexation  of  the  kingdom  of 
Attalus  and  by  the  Transalpine  conquests  of  Flaccus :  but 
the  prevailing  reaction  once  more  arrested  their  application. 
The  Roman  state  remained  a  chaotic  mass  of  countries 
without  thorough  occupation  and  without  proper  limits. 
Spain  and  the  Graeco- Asiatic  possessions  were  separated 
rom   the  mother  country   by  wide   territories,  of  which 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  5 

barely  the  borders  along  the  coast  were  subject  to  the 
Romans ;  on  the  north  coast  of  Africa  the  domains  of 
Carthage  and  Cyrene  alone  were  occupied  like  oases ;  large 
tracts  even  of  the  subject  territory,  especially  in  Spain,  were 
but  nominally  subject  to  the  Romans.  Absolutely  nothing 
was  done  on  the  part  of  the  government  towards  concen- 
trating and  rounding  off  their  dominion,  and  the  decay  of 
the  fleet  seemed  at  length  to  dissolve  the  last  bond  of 
connection  between  the  distant  possessions.  The  demo- 
cracy no  doubt  attempted,  so  soon  as  it  again  raised  its 
head,  to  shape  its  external  policy  in  the  spirit  of  Gracchus 
— Marius  in  particular  cherished  such  ideas — but  as  it  did 
not  for  any  length  of  time  attain  the  helm,  its  projects  were 
left  unfulfilled.  It  was  not  till  the  democracy  practically 
took  in  hand  the  government  on  the  overthrow  of  the 
Sullan  constitution  in  684,  that  a  revolution  in  this  respect  70. 
occurred.  First  of  all  their  sovereignty  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean was  restored — the  most  vital  question  for  a  state 
like  that  of  Rome.  Towards  the  east,  moreover,  the 
boundary  of  the  Euphrates  was  secured  by  the  annexation 
of  the  provinces  of  Pontus  and  Syria.  But  there  still 
remained  beyond  the  Alps  the  task  of  at  once  rounding  off 
the  Roman  territory  towards  the  north  and  west,  and  of 
gaining  a  fresh  virgin  soil  there  for  Hellenic  civilization  and 
for  the  yet  unbroken  vigour  of  the  Italic  race. 

This  task  Gaius  Caesar  undertook.     It  is  more  than  an  Historical 
error,  it  is  an  outrage  upon  the  sacred  spirit  dominant  in  *!f™e' 
history,  to  regard  Gaul  solely  as  the  parade  ground  on  of  the 
which  Caesar  exercised   himself  and  his  legions  for  the  ££  Q^esar. 
impending  civil  war.     Though  the  subjugation  of  the  west 
was  for  Caesar  so  far  a  means  to  an  end  that  he  laid  the 
foundations  of  his  later  height  of  power  in  the  Transalpine 
wars,  it  is  the  especial  privilege  of  a  statesman  of  genius 
that  his  means  themselves  are  ends  in  their  turn.     Caesar 
needed  no  doubt  for  his  party  aims  a  military  power,  but 


(  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

he  did  not  conquer  Gaul  as  a  partisan.  There  was  a  direct 
political  necessity  for  Rome  to  meet  the  perpetually  threat- 
ened invasion  of  the  Germans  thus  early  beyond  the  Alps, 
and  to  construct  a  rampart  there  which  should  secure  the 
peace  of  the  Roman  world.  But  even  this  important  object 
was  not  the  highest  and  ultimate  reason  for  which  Gaul 
was  conquered  by  Caesar.  When  the  old  home  had 
become  too  narrow  for  the  Roman  burgesses  and  they  were 
in  danger  of  decay,  the  senate's  policy  of  Italian  conquest 
saved  them  from  ruin.  Now  the  Italian  home  had  become 
in  its  turn  too  narrow;  once  more  the  state  languished 
under  the  same  social  evils  repeating  themselves  in  similar 
fashion  only  on  a  greater  scale.  It  was  a  brilliant  idea,  a 
grand  hope,  which  led  Caesar  over  the  Alps — the  idea  and 
the  confident  expectation  that  he  should  gain  there  for 
his  fellow-burgesses  a  new  boundless  home,  and  regenerate 
the  state  a  second  time  by  placing  it  on  a  broader  basis. 
Caesar  [61.  The  campaign  which  Caesar  undertook  in  693  in  Further 
in  Spam.  Spa{n>  mav  De  m  some  sense  included  among  the  enterprises 
which  aimed  at  the  subjugation  of  the  west.  Long  as  Spain 
had  obeyed  the  Romans,  its  western  shore  had  remained  sub- 
stantially independent  of  them  even  after  the  expedition  of 
Decimus  Brutus  against  the  Callaeci  (iii.  232),  and  they  had 
not  even  set  foot  on  the  northern  coast ;  while  the  predatory 
raids,  to  which  the  subject  provinces  found  themselves 
continually  exposed  from  those  quarters,  did  no  small  injury 
to  the  civilization  and  Romanizing  of  Spain.  Against  these 
the  expedition  of  Caesar  along  the  west  coast  was  directed. 
He  crossed  the  chain  of  the  Herminian  mountains  (Sierra 
de  Estrella)  bounding  the  Tagus  on  the  north  ;  after  having 
conquered  their  inhabitants  and  transplanted  them  in  part 
to  the  plain,  he  reduced  the  country  on  both  sides  of  the 
Douro  and  arrived  at  the  north-west  point  of  the  peninsula, 
where  with  the  aid  of  a  flotilla  brought  up  from  Gades  he 
occupied    Brigantium    (Corunna).     By    this    means    the 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  7 

peoples  adjoining  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  Lusitanians  and  Cal- 
laecians,  were  forced  to  acknowledge  the  Roman  suprem- 
acy, while  the  conqueror  was  at  the  same  time  careful  to 
render  the  position  of  the  subjects  generally  more  tolerable 
by  reducing  the  tribute  to  be  paid  to  Rome  and  regulating 
the  financial  affairs  of  the  communities. 

But,  although  in  this  military  and  administrative  debut 
of  the  great  general  and  statesman  the  same  talents  and 
the  same  leading  ideas  are  discernible  which  he  afterwards 
evinced  on  a  greater  stage,  his  agency  in  the  Iberian  penin- 
sula was  much  too  transient  to  have  any  deep  effect ;  the 
more  especially  as,  owing  to  its  physical  and  national 
peculiarities,  nothing  but  action  steadily  continued  for  a 
considerable  time  could  exert  any  durable  influence  there. 

A  more  important  part  in  the  Romanic  development  of  Gaul, 
the  west  was  reserved  by  destiny  for  the  country  which 
stretches  between  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Rhine,  the  Medi- 
terranean and  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  which  since  the 
Augustan  age  has  been  especially  designated  by  the  name 
of  the  land  of  the  Celts — Gallia — although  strictly  speaking 
the  land  of  the  Celts  was  partly  narrower,  partly  much 
more  extensive,  and  the  country  so  called  never  formed  a 
national  unity,  and  did  not  form  a  political  unity  before 
Augustus.  For  this  very  reason  it  is  not  easy  to  present 
a  clear  picture  of  the  very  heterogeneous  state  of  things 
which  Caesar  encountered  on  his  arrival  there  in  696.  58. 

In  the  region  on  the  Mediterranean,  which,  embracing  The 
approximately  Languedoc  on  the  west  of  the  Rhone,  on  the  v^^ce 
east  Dauphine*  and  Provence,  had  been  for  sixty  years  a 
Roman  province,  the  Roman  arms  had  seldom  been  at  rest 
since  the  Cimbrian  invasion  which  had  swept  over  it.     In 
664  Gaius  Caelius  had  fought  with  the  Salyes  about  Aquae  Wars  [90. 
Sextiae,  and  in  674  Gaius  Flaccus  (iv.  93),  on  his  march  to  ^ereVrg0S 
Spain,  with  other  Celtic  nations.     When  in  the  Sertorian 
war  the  governor  Lucius  Manlius,  compelled  to  hasten  to 


8  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  BOOK  V 

the  aid  of  his  colleagues  beyond  the  Pyrenees,  returned 
defeated  from  Ilerda  (Lerida)  and  on  his  way  home  was 
vanquished  a  second  time  by  the  western  neighbours  of  the 
78.  Roman  province,  the  Aquitani  (about  676  ;  iv.  283^),  this 
seems  to  have  provoked  a  general  rising  of  the  provincials 
between  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Rhone,  perhaps  even  of 
those  between  the  Rhone  and  Alps.  Pompeius  had  to 
make  his  way  with  the  sword  through  the  insurgent  Gaul  to 
Spain  (iv.  293),  and  by  way  of  penalty  for  their  rebellion  gave 
the  territories  of  the  Volcae-Arecomici  and  the  Helvii  (dep. 
Gard  and  Ardeche)  over  to  the  Massiliots ;  the  governor 
76-74.  Manius  Fonteius  (678-680)  carried  out  these  arrangements 
and  restored  tranquillity  in  the  province  by  subduing  the 
Vocontii  (dep.  Drome),  protecting  Massilia  from  the 
insurgents,  and  liberating  the  Roman  capital  Narbo  which 
they  invested.  Despair,  however,  and  the  financial  em- 
barrassment which  the  participation  in  the  sufferings  of  the 
Spanish  war  (iv.  298)  and  generally  the  official  and  non- 
official  exactions  of  the  Romans  brought  upon  the  Gallic 
provinces,  did  not  allow  them  to  be  tranquil;  and  in 
particular  the  canton  of  the  Allobroges,  the  most  remote 
from  Narbo,  was  in  a  perpetual  ferment,  which  was  attested 
by  the  "  pacification "  that  Gaius  Piso  undertook  there  in 
66.  688  as  well  as  by  the  behaviour  of  the  Allobrogian  embassy 
63.  in  Rome  on  occasion  of  the  anarchist  plot  in  691  (iv.  480), 
61.  and  which  soon  afterwards  (693)  broke  into  open  revolt. 
Catugnatus  the  leader  of  the  Allobroges  in  this  war  of 
despair,  who  had  at  first  fought  not  unsuccessfully,  was 
conquered  at  Solonium  after  a  glorious  resistance  by  the 
governor  Gaius  Pomptinus. 
Bounds.  Notwithstanding  all  these  conflicts  the  bounds  of  the 

Roman  territory  were  not  materially  advanced;  Lugudunum 
Convenarum,  where  Pompeius  had  settled  the  remnant  of 
the  Sertorian  army  (iv.  304),  Tolosa,  Vienna  and  Genava 
were  still  the  most  remote  Roman  townships  towards  the 


chaf.  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  9 

west  and  north.  But  at  the  same  time  the  importance  of  Relation! 
these  Gallic  possessions  for  the  mother  country  was  con-  °  ome" 
tinually  on  the  increase.  The  glorious  climate,  akin  to 
that  of  Italy,  the  favourable  nature  of  the  soil,  the  large  and 
rich  region  lying  behind  so  advantageous  for  commerce 
with  its  mercantile  routes  reaching  as  far  as  Britain,  the 
easy  intercourse  by  land  and  sea  with  the  mother  country, 
rapidly  gave  to  southern  Gaul  an  economic  importance  for 
Italy,  which  much  older  possessions,  such  as  those  in  Spain, 
had  not  acquired  in  the  course  of  centuries ;  and  as  the 
Romans  who  had  suffered  political  shipwreck  at  this  period 
sought  an  asylum  especially  in  Massilia,  and  there  found 
once  more  Italian  culture  and  Italian  luxury,  voluntary 
emigrants  from  Italy  also  were  attracted  more  and  more  to 
the  Rhone  and  the  Garonne.  "  The  province  of  Gaul,"  it 
was  said  in  a  sketch  drawn  ten  years  before  Caesar's 
arrival,  "  is  full  of  merchants ;  it  swarms  with  Roman 
burgesses.  No  native  of  Gaul  transacts  a  piece  of  business 
without  the  intervention  of  a  Roman  ;  every  penny,  that 
passes  from  one  hand  to  another  in  Gaul,  goes  through  the 
account  books  of  the  Roman  burgesses."  From  the  same 
description  it  appears  that  in  addition  to  the  colonists  of 
Narbo  there  were  Romans  cultivating  land  and  rearing 
cattle,  resident  in  great  numbers  in  Gaul ;  as  to  which, 
however,  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that  most  of  the  pro- 
vincial land  possessed  by  Romans,  just  like  the  greater  part 
of  the  English  possessions  in  the  earliest  times  in  America, 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  high  nobility  living  in  Italy,  and 
those  farmers  and  graziers  consisted  for  the  most  part  of 
their  stewards — slaves  or  freedmen. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  how  under  such  circumstances  Indpiert 
civilization    and    Romanizing   rapidly   spread   among    the  izing> 
natives.     These  Celts  were  not  fond  of  agriculture ;   but 
their  new  masters  compelled  them  to  exchange  the  sword 
for  the  plough,  and  it  is  very  credible  that  the  embittered 


io  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

resistance  of  the  Allobroges  was  provoked  in  part  by  some 
such  injunctions.  In  earlier  timer  Hellenism  had  also  to 
a  certain  degree  dominated  those  regions  ;  the  elements  of  a 
higher  culture,  the  stimulus  to  the  cultivation  of  the  vine 
and  the  olive  (iii.  315),  to  the  use  of  writing1  and  to  the 
coining  of  money,  came  to  them  from  Massilia.  The 
Hellenic  culture  was  in  this  case  far  from  being  set  aside 
by  the  Romans;  Massilia  gained  through  them  more 
influence  than  it  lost ;  and  even  in  the  Roman  period 
Greek  physicians  and  rhetoricians  were  publicly  employed 
in  the  Gallic  cantons.  But,  as  may  readily  be  conceived, 
Hellenism  in  southern  Gaul  acquired  through  the  agency 
of  the  Romans  the  same  character  as  in  Italy;  the  dis- 
tinctively Hellenic  civilization  gave  place  to  the  Latino- 
Greek  mixed  culture,  which  soon  made  proselytes  here  in 
great  numbers.  The  "  Gauls  in  the  breeches,"  as  the 
inhabitants  of  southern  Gaul  were  called  by  way  of  contrast 
to  the  "Gauls  in  the  toga"  of  northern  Italy,  were  not 
indeed  like  the  latter  already  completely  Romanized,  but 
they  were  even  now  very  perceptibly  distinguished  from 
the  "longhaired  Gauls"  of  the  northern  regions  still 
unsubdued.  The  semiculture  becoming  naturalized  among 
them  furnished,  doubtless,  materials  enough  for  ridicule  of 
their  barbarous  Latin,  and  people  did  not  fail  to  suggest  to 
any  one  suspected  of  Celtic  descent  his  "  relationship  with 
the  breeches " ;  but  this  bad  Latin  was  yet  sufficient  to 
enable  even  the  remote  Allobroges  to  transact  business  with 
the  Roman  authorities,  and  even  to  give  testimony  in  the 
Roman  courts  without  an  interpreter. 

While  the  Celtic  and  Ligurian  population  of  these  regions 
was  thus  in  the  course  of  losing  its  nationality,  and  was 


1  There  was  found,  for  instance,  at  Vaison  in  the  Vocontian  canton  an 
inscription  written  in  the  Celtic  language  with  the  ord  nary  Greek  alphabet. 
It  runs  thus  :  aeyo/xapos  oviWoveos  toovtiovs  va/xavo  utis  eiupov  ^vXrjaa- 
fnffoaiv  yefxrp-oy.     The  last  word  means  "holy." 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  n 

languishing  and  pining  withal  under  a  political  and  economic 
oppression,  the  intolerable  nature  of  which  is  sufficiently 
attested  by  their  hopeless  insurrections,  the  decline  of  the 
native  population  here  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  natural- 
izing of  the  same  higher  culture  which  we  find  at  this  period 
in  Italy.  Aquae  Sextiae  and  still  more  Narbo  were  con- 
siderable townships,  which  might  probably  be  named  by  the 
side  of  Beneventum  and  Capua ;  and  Massilia,  the  best 
organized,  most  free,  most  capable  of  self-defence,  and  most 
powerful  of  all  the  Greek  cities  dependent  on  Rome,  under 
its  rigorous  aristocratic  government  to  which  the  Roman 
conservatives  probably  pointed  as  the  model  of  a  good  urban 
constitution,  in  possession  of  an  important  territory  which 
had  been  considerably  enlarged  by  the  Romans  and  of  an 
extensive  trade,  stood  by  the  side  of  those  Latin  towns 
as  Rhegium  and  Neapolis  stood  in  Italy  by  the  side  of 
Beneventum  and  Capua. 

Matters  wore  a  different  aspect,  when  one  crossed  the  Free  GauL 
Roman  frontier.  The  great  Celtic  nation,  which  in  the 
southern  districts  already  began  to  be  crushed  by  the  Italian 
immigration,  still  moved  to  the  north  of  the  Cevennes  in  its 
time-hallowed  freedom.  It  is  not  the  first  time  that  we 
meet  it :  the  Italians  had  already  fought  with  the  offsets  and 
advanced  posts  of  this  vast  stock  on  the  Tiber  and  on  the 
Po,  in  the  mountains  of  Castile  and  Carinthia,  and  even  in 
the  heart  of  Asia  Minor;  but  it  was  here  that  the  main 
stock  was  first  assailed  at  its  very  core  by  their  attacks.  The 
Celtic  race  had  on  its  settlement  in  central  Europe  diffused 
itself  chiefly  over  the  rich  river-valleys  and  the  pleasant 
hill-country  of  the  present  France,  including  the  western 
districts  of  Germany  and  Switzerland,  and  from  thence  had 
occupied  at  least  the  southern  part  of  England,  perhaps  even 
at  this  time  all  Great  Britain  and  Ireland ; 1  it  formed  here 

1  An  immigration  of  Belgic  Celts  to  Britain  continuing  for  a  considerable 
time  seems  indicated  by  the  names  of  English  tribes  on  both  banks  of  the 


12  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

more  than  anywhere  else  a  broad,  geographically  compact, 
mass  of  peoples.  In  spite  of  the  differences  in  language 
and  manners  which  naturally  were  to  be  found  within  this 
wide  territory,  a  close  mutual  intercourse,  an  innate  sense 
of  fellowship,  seems  to  have  knit  together  the  tribes  from 
the  Rhone  and  Garonne  to  the  Rhine  and  the  Thames ; 
whereas,  although  these  doubtless  were  in  a  certain  measure 
locally  connected  with  the  Celts  in  Spain  and  in  the  modern 
Austria,  the  mighty  mountain  barriers  of  the  Pyrenees  and 
the  Alps  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  encroachments  of  the 
Romans  and  the  Germans  which  also  operated  here  on  the 
other,  interrupted  the  intercourse  and  the  intrinsic  connec- 
tion of  the  cognate  peoples  far  otherwise  than  the  narrow 
arm  of  the  sea  interrupted  the  relations  of  the  continental 
and  the  British  Celts.  Unhappily  we  are  not  permitted  to 
trace  stage  by  stage  the  history  of  the  internal  development 
of  this  remarkable  people  in  these  its  chief  seats ;  we  must 
be  content  with  presenting  at  least  some  outline  of  its 
historical  culture  and  political  condition,  as  it  here  meets  us 
in  the  time  of  Caesar. 
Population.  Gaul  was,  according  to  the  reports  of  the  ancients,  com- 
paratively well  peopled.  Certain  statements  lead  us  to  infer 
that  in  the  Belgic  districts  there  were  some  200  persons  to 
the  square  mile — a  proportion  such  as  nearly  holds  at  present 
for  Wales  and  for  Livonia — in  the  Helvetic  canton  about 
245  ; x  it  is  probable  that  in  the  districts  which  were  more 

Thames  borrowed  from  Belgic  cantons  ;  such  as  the  Atrebates,  the  Belgae, 
and  even  the  Britanni  themselves,  which  word  appears  to  have  been  trans- 
ferred from  the  Brittones  settled  on  the  Somme  below  Amiens  first  to  an 
English  canton  and  then  to  the  whole  island.  The  English  gold  coinage 
was  also  derived  from  the  Belgic  and  originally  identical  with  it. 

1  The  first  levy  of  the  Belgic  cantons  exclusive  of  the  Remi,  that  is,  of 
the  country  between  the  Seine  and  the  Scheldt  and  eastward  as  far  as  the 
vicinity  of  Rheims  and  Andernach,  from  9000  to  10,000  square  miles,  is 
reckoned  at  about  300,000  men  ;  in  accordance  with  which,  if  we  regard 
the  proportion  of  the  first  levy  to  the  whole  men  capable  of  bearing  arms 
specified  for  the  Bellovaci  as  holding  good  generally,  the  number  of  the 
Belgae  capable  of  bearing  arms  would  amount  to  500,000  and  the  whole 
population  accordingly  to  at   least   2,000,000.     The   Helvetii  with   the 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  13 

cultivated  than  the  Belgic  and  less  mountainous  than  the 
Helvetian,  as  among  the  Bituriges,  Arverni,   Haedui,  the 
uumber  rose  still  higher.     Agriculture  was  no  doubt  prac-  Agriculture 
tised  in  Gaul — for  even  the  contemporaries  of  Caesar  were  *^r he  . 
surprised   in  the  region  of  the  Rhine  by  the  custom  of  cattle, 
manuring  with  marl,1  and  the  primitive  Celtic  custom  of 
preparing  beer  (ccrvesia)  from  barley  is  likewise  an  evidence 
of  the  early  and  wide  diffusion  of  the  culture  of  grain — but 
it  was  not  held  in  estimation.     Even  in  the  more  civilized 
south  it  was  reckoned  not  becoming  for  the  free  Celts  to 
handle  the  plough.     In  far  higher  estimation  among  the 
Celts  stood  pastoral  husbandry,  for  which  the  Roman  land- 
holders of  this  epoch  very  gladly  availed  themselves  both  of 
the  Celtic  breed  of  cattle,  and  of  the  brave  Celtic  slaves 
skilled  in  riding  and  familiar  with  the  rearing  of  animals.2 

adjoining  peoples  numbered  before  their  migration  336,000  ;  if  we  assume 
that  they  were  at  that  time  already  dislodged  from  the  right  bank  of  the 
Rhine,  their  territory  may  be  estimated  at  nearly  1350  square  miles. 
Whether  the  serfs  are  included  in  this,  we  can  the  less  determine,  as  we 
do  not  know  the  form  which  slavery  assumed  amongst  the  Celts ;  what 
Caesar  relates  (i.  4)  as  to  the  slaves,  clients,  and  debtors  of  Orgetorix  tells 
rather  in  favour  of,  than  against,  their  being  included. 

That,  moreover,  every  such  attempt  to  make  up  by  combinations  for 
the  statistical  basis,  in  which  ancient  history  is  especially  deficient,  must  be 
received  with  due  caution,  will  be  at  once  apprehended  by  the  intelligent 
reader,  while  he  will  not  absolutely  reject  it  on  that  account. 

1  "In  the  interior  of  Transalpine  Gaul  on  the  Rhine,"  says  Scrofa  in 
Varro,  De  R.  R.  i.  7,  8,  "when  I  commanded  there,  I  traversed  some 
districts,  where  neither  the  vine  nor  the  olive  nor  the  fruit-tree  appears, 
where  they  manure  the  fields  with  white  Pit-chalk,  where  they  have  neither 
rock-  nor  sea-salt,  but  make  use  of  the  saline  ashes  of  certain  burnt  wood 
instead  of  salt."  This  description  refers  probably  to  the  period  before 
Caesar  and  to  the  eastern  districts  of  the  old  province,  such  as  the  country 
of  the  Allobroges  ;  subsequently  Pliny  (H.  N.  xvii.  6,  42  seq. )  describes  at 
length  the  Gallo- Britannic  manuring  with  marl. 

*  "The  Gallic  oxen  especially  are  of  good  repute  in  Italy,  for  field  labour 
forsooth  ;  whereas  the  Ligurian  are  good  for  nothing  "  (Varro,  De  R.  R.  a. 
5,  9).  Here,  no  doubt,  Cisalpine  Gaul  is  referred  to,  but  the  cattle- 
husbandry  there  doubtless  goes  back  to  the  Celtic  epoch.  Plautus  already 
mentions  the  "Gallic  ponies"  (Gallici  canterii,  Aul.  iii.  5,  21).  "It  is 
not  every  race  that  is  suited  for  the  business  of  herdsmen  ;  neither  the 
Bastulians  nor  the  Turdulians"  (both  in  Andalusia)  "are  fit  for  it ;  the 
Celts  are  the  best,  especially  as  respects  beasts  for  riding  and  burder 
(lumenia) "  (Varro,  De  R.  R.  ii.  10,  4). 


14  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

Particularly  in  the  northern  Celtic  districts  pastoral 
husbandry  was  thoroughly  predominant.  Brittany  was  in 
Caesar's  time  a  country  poor  in  corn.  In  the  north-east 
dense  forests,  attaching  themselves  to  the  heart  of  the 
Ardennes,  stretched  almost  without  interruption  from  the 
German  Ocean  to  the  Rhine  ;  and  on  the  plains  of  Flanders 
and  Lorraine,  now  so  fertile,  the  Menapian  and  Treverian 
herdsman  then  fed  his  half-wild  swine  in  the  impenetrable 
oak-forest  Just  as  in  the  valley  of  the  Po  the  Romans 
made  the  production  of  wool  and  the  culture  of  corn  super- 
sede the  Celtic  feeding  of  pigs  on  acorns,  so  the  rearing  of 
sheep  and  the  agriculture  in  the  plains  of  the  Scheldt  and 
the  Maas  are  traceable  to  their  influence.  In  Britain 
even  the  threshing  of  corn  was  not  yet  usual ;  and  in 
its  more  northern  districts  agriculture  was  not  practised, 
and  the  rearing  of  cattle  was  the  only  known  mode  of  turning 
the  soil  to  account.  The  culture  of  the  olive  and 
vine,  which  yielded  rich  produce  to  the  Massiliots,  was 
not  yet  prosecuted  beyond  the  Cevennes  in  the  time 
of  Caesar. 
Urban  life.  The  Gauls  were  from  the  first  disposed  to  settle  in 
groups ;  there  were  open  villages  everywhere,  and  the 
68.  Helvetic  canton  alone  numbered  in  696  four  hundred  of 
these,  besides  a  multitude  of  single  homesteads.  But  there 
were  not  wanting  also  walled  towns,  whose  walls  of  alternate 
layers  surprised  the  Romans  both  by  their  suitableness  and 
by  the  elegant  interweaving  of  timber  and  stones  in  their 
construction  ;  while,  it  is  true,  even  in  the  towns  of  the 
Allobroges  the  buildings  were  erected  solely  of  wood.  Of 
such  towns  the  Helvetii  had  twelve  and  the  Suessiones  an 
equal  number ;  whereas  at  all  events  in  the  more  northern 
districts,  such  as  among  the  Nervii,  while  there  were  doubt- 
less also  towns,  the  population  during  war  sought  protection 
in  the  morasses  and  forests  rather  than  behind  their  walls, 
and  beyond  the  Thames  the  primitive  defence  of  the  wooden 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  15 

barricade  altogether  took  the  place  of  towns  and  was  in  war 
the  only  place  of  refuge  for  men  and  herds. 

In  close  association  with  the  comparatively  consider-  Inter- 
able  development  of  urban  life  stands  the  activity  of  inter-  cour>** 
course  by  land  and  by  water.  Everywhere  there  were 
roads  and  bridges.  The  river -navigation,  which  streams 
like  the  Rhone,  Garonne,  Loire,  and  Seine,  of  themselves 
invited,  was  considerable  and  lucrative.  But  far  more 
remarkable  was  the  maritime  navigation  of  the  Celts.  Not 
only  were  the  Celts,  to  all  appearance,  the  nation  that  first 
regularly  navigated  the  Atlantic  ocean,  but  we  find  that  the 
art  of  building  and  of  managing  vessels  had  attained  among 
them  a  remarkable  development.  The  navigation  of  the 
peoples  of  the  Mediterranean  had,  as  may  readily  be 
conceived  from  the  nature  of  the  waters  traversed  by  them, 
for  a  comparatively  long  period  adhered  to  the  oar ;  the 
war-vessels  of  the  Phoenicians,  Hellenes,  and  Romans  were 
at  all  times  oared  galleys,  in  which  the  sail  was  applied 
only  as  an  occasional  aid  to  the  oar;  the  trading  vessels 
alone  were  in  the  epoch  of  developed  ancient  civilization 
"  sailers "  properly  so  called.1  On  the  other  hand  the 
Gauls  doubtless  employed  in  the  Channel  in  Caesar's  time, 
as  for  long  afterwards,  a  species  of  portable  leathern  skiffs, 
which  seem  to  have  been  in  the  main  common  oared  boats, 
but  on  the  west  coast  of  Gaul  the  Santones,  the  Pictones, 
and  above  all  the  Veneti  sailed  in  large  though  clumsily 
built  ships,  which  were  not  impelled  by  oars  but  were 
provided  with  leathern  sails  and  iron  anchor-chains ;  and 
they  employed  these  not  only  for  their  traffic  with  Britain, 

1  We  are  led  to  this  conclusion  by  the  designation  of  the  trading  or 
"round"  as  contrasted  with  the  "long"  or  war  vessel,  and  the  similar 
contrast  of  the  "oared  ships"  (iirlicwwoi.  vijes)  and  the  "merchantmen" 
(oXnades,  Dionys.  iii.  44) ;  and  moreover  by  the  smallness  of  the  crew  in 
the  trading  vessels,  which  in  the  very  largest  amounted  to  not  more  than 
200  men  {Rhein.  Mus.  N.  F.  xl.  625),  while  it,  the  ordinary  galley  of 
three  decks  there  were  employed  170  rowers  (ii.  174).  Conip.  Movers, 
Pkoen.  ii.  3,  167  seq . 


16  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

but  also  in  naval  combat.  Here  therefore  we  not  only 
.fleet  for  the  first  time  with  navigation  in  the  open  ocean, 
but  we  find  that  here  the  sailing  vessel  first  fully  took  the 
place  of  the  oared  boat — an  improvement,  it  is  true,  which 
the  declining  activity  of  the  old  world  did  not  know  how 
to  turn  to  account,  and  the  immeasurable  results  of  which 
our  own  epoch  of  renewed  culture  is  employed  in  gradually 
reaping. 

Commerce.  With  this  regular  maritime  intercourse  between  the 
British  and  Gallic  coasts,  the  very  close  political  connection 
between  the  inhabitants  on  both  sides  of  the  Channel  is  as 
easily  explained  as  the  flourishing  of  transmarine  commerce 
and  of  fisheries.  It  was  the  Celts  of  Brittany  in  particular, 
that  brought  the  tin  of  the  mines  of  Cornwall  from  England 
and  carried  it  by  the  river  and  land  routes  of  Gaul  to  Narbo 
and  Massilia.  The  statement,  that  in  Caesar's  time  certain 
tribes  at  the  mouth  of  the  Rhine  subsisted  on  fish  and 
birds'  eggs,  may  probably  refer  to  the  circumstance  that 
marine  fishing  and  the  collection  of  the  eggs  of  sea-birds 
were  prosecuted  there  on  an  extensive  scale.  When  we 
put  together  and  endeavour  to  fill  up  the  isolated  and 
scanty  statements  which  have  reached  us  regarding  the 
Celtic  commerce  and  intercourse,  we  come  to  see  why  the 
tolls  of  the  river  and  maritime  ports  play  a  great  part  in  the 
budgets  of  certain  cantons,  such  as  those  of  the  Haedui 
and  the  Veneti,  and  why  the  chief  god  of  the  nation  was 
regarded  by  them  as  the  protector  of  the  roads  and  of 
commerce,  and  at  the  same  time  as  the  inventor  of  manu- 

Manufac-  factures.  Accordingly  the  Celtic  industry  cannot  have  been 
wholly  undeveloped ;  indeed  the  singular  dexterity  of  the 
Celts,  and  their  peculiar  skill  in  imitating  any  model  and 
executing  any  instructions,  are  noticed  by  Caesar.  In  most 
branches,  however,  their  handicraft  does  not  appear  to  have 
risen  above  the  ordinary  level ;  the  manufacture  of  linen  and 
woollen  stuffs,  that  subsequently  flourished  in  central  and 


ghap.  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  17 

northern  Gaul,  was  demonstrably  called  into  existence  only 
by  the  Romans.  The  elaboration  of  metals  forms  an 
exception,  and  so  far  as  we  know  the  only  one.  The 
copper  implements  not  unfrequently  of  excellent  work- 
manship and  even  now  malleable,  which  are  brought  to  light 
in  the  tombs  of  Gaul,  and  the  carefully  adjusted  Arvernian 
gold  coins,  are  still  at  the  present  day  striking  witnesses  of 
the  skill  of  the  Celtic  workers  in  copper  and  gold;  and 
with  this  the  reports  of  the  ancients  well  accord,  that  the 
Romans  learned  the  art  of  tinning  from  the  Bituriges  and 
that  of  silvering  from  the  Alesini — inventions,  the  first  of 
which  was  naturally  suggested  by  the  traffic  in  tin,  and  both 
of  which  were  probably  made  in  the  period  of  Celtic 
freedom. 

Hand  in  hand  with  dexterity  in  the  elaboration  of  the  Mining, 
metals  went  the  art  of  procuring  them,  which  had  attained, 
more  especially  in  the  iron  mines  on  the  Loire,  such  a  degree 
of  professional  skill  that  the  miners  played  an  important 
part  in  the  sieges.  The  opinion  prevalent  among  the 
Romans  of  this  period,  that  Gaul  was  one  of  the  richest 
gold  countries  in  the  world,  is  no  doubt  refuted  by  the 
well-known  nature  of  the  soil  and  by  the  character  of  the 
articles  found  in  the  Celtic  tombs,  in  which  gold  appears 
but  sparingly  and  with  far  less  frequency  than  in  the 
similar  repositories  of  the  true  native  regions  of  gold ;  this 
conception  no  doubt  had  its  origin  merely  from  the 
descriptions  which  Greek  travellers  and  Roman  soldiers, 
doubtless  not  without  strong  exaggeration,  gave  to  their 
countrymen  of  the  magnificence  of  the  Arvernian  kings 
(iii.  416),  and  of  the  treasures  of  the  Tolosan  temples  (iii. 
436).  But  their  stories  were  not  pure  fictions.  It  may  well 
be  believed  that  in  and  near  the  rivers  which  flow  from  the 
Alps  and  the  Pyrenees  gold-washing  and  searches  for  gold, 
which  are  unprofitable  at  the  present  value  of  labour,  were 
worked  with  profit  and  on  a  considerable  scale  in  ruder 
vol.  v  135 


18 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 


Art  and 
science. 


Political 
organiza- 
tion. 


times  and  with  a  system  of  slavery ;  besides,  the  commercial 
relations  of  Gaul  may,  as  is  not  unfrequently  the  case  with 
half-civilized  peoples,  have  favoured  the  accumulation  of  a 
dead  stock  of  the  precious  metals. 

The  low  state  of  the  arts  of  design  is  remarkable,  and 
is  the  more  striking  by  the  side  of  this  mechanical  skill  in 
handling  the  metals.  The  fondness  for  parti-coloured  and 
brilliant  ornaments  shows  the  want  of  a  proper  taste,  which 
is  sadly  confirmed  by  the  Gallic  coins  with  their  representa- 
tions sometimes  exceedingly  simple,  sometimes  odd,  but 
always  childish  in  design,  and  almost  without  exception 
rude  beyond  parallel  in  their  execution.  It  is  perhaps 
unexampled  that  a  coinage  practised  for  centuries  with  a 
certain  technical  skill  should  have  essentially  limited  itself 
to  always  imitating  two  or  three  Greek  dies,  and  always 
with  increasing  deformity.  On  the  other  hand  the  art  of 
poetry  was  highly  valued  by  the  Celts,  and  intimately 
blended  with  the  religious  and  even  with  the  political 
institutions  of  the  nation ;  we  find  religious  poetry,  as  well 
as  that  of  the  court  and  of  the  mendicant,  flourishing 
(iii.  416).  Natural  science  and  philosophy  also  found, 
although  subject  to  the  forms  and  fetters  of  the  theology  of 
the  country,  a  certain  amount  of  attention  among  the 
Celts ;  and  Hellenic  humanism  met  with  a  ready  reception 
wherever  and  in  whatever  shape  it  approached  them.  The 
knowledge  of  writing  was  general  at  least  among  the 
priests.  For  the  most  part  in  free  Gaul  the  Greek  writing 
was  made  use  of  in  Caesar's  time,  as  was  done  among  others 
by  the  Helvetii;  but  in  its  most  southern  districts  even 
then,  in  consequence  of  intercourse  with  the  Romanized 
Celts,  the  Latin  attained  predominance — we  meet  with  it, 
for  instance,  on  the  Arvernian  coins  of  this  period. 

The  political  development  of  the  Celtic  nation  also 
presents  very  remarkable  phenomena.  The  constitution  of 
the  state  was  based  in  this  case,  as  everywhere,  on  the  clan- 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  19 

canton,  with  its   prince,  its   council  of  the  elders,  and  its 
community  of  freemen  capable  of  bearing  arms  ;  but  the 
peculiarity  in  this  case  was  that  it  never  got  beyond  this 
cantonal  constitution.      Among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  Cantonal 
the   canton    was  very  early   superseded   by  the  ring -wall  jj!^     " 
as  the  basis  of  political  unity ;  where  two  cantons  found 
themselves    together   within    the    same   walls,    they   amal- 
gamated   into    one    commonwealth ;    where    a    body   of 
burgesses  assigned  to  a  portion  of  their  fellow -burgesses 
a  new  ring-wall,  there  regularly  arose  in  this  way  a  new 
state    connected    with    the    mother   community   only   by 
ties    of  piety   and,    at   most,    of  clientship.     Among  the 
Celts  on  the  other  hand  the  "  burgess-body  "  continued  at 
all  times  to  be  the  clan ;  prince  and  council  presided  over 
the  canton  and  not  over  any  town,  and  the  general  diet  of 
the  canton  formed  the  authority  of  last  resort  in  the  state. 
The    town    had,  as   in   the   east,   merely   mercantile   and 
strategic,  not  political  importance ;    for  which  reason  the 
Gallic  townships,  even  when  walled  and  very  considerable 
such  as  Vienna  and  Genava,  were  in  the  view  of  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  nothing  but  villages.     In  the  time  of  Caesar 
the  original   clan -constitution  still   subsisted    substantially 
unaltered  among  the   insular  Celts  and    in  the  northern 
cantons  of  the  mainland ;    the  general  assembly  held  the 
supreme  authority ;  the  prince  was  in  essential  questions 
bound  by  its  decrees ;  the  common  council  was  numerous 
— it  numbered  in  certain  clans  six  hundred  members — 
but  does  not  appear  to  have  had  more  importance  than  the 
senate  under  the  Roman  kings.    In  the  more  stirring  southern 
portion  of  the  land,  again,  one  or  two  generations  before 
Caesar — the  children  of  the  last  kings  were  still  living  in 
his  time — there  had   occurred,  at  least  among  the  larger 
clans,  the  Arverni,  Haedui,  Sequani,  Helvetii,  a  revolution 
which  set  aside  the  royal  dominion  and  gave  the  power  into 
the  hands  of  the  nobility. 


20  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

Develop  It  is  simply  the  reverse  side  of  the  total  want  of  urban 

knigh°        commonwealths  among    the  Celts   just   noticed,   that    the 
hood.  opposite    pole    of   political    development,    knighthood,    so 

thoroughly  preponderates  in  the  Celtic  clan- constitution. 
The  Celtic  aristocracy  was  to  all  appearance  a  high  nobility, 
for  the  most  part  perhaps  the  members  of  the  royal  or 
formerly  royal  families ;  as  indeed  it  is  remarkable  that  the 
heads  of  the  opposite  parties  in  the  same  clan  very  fre- 
quently belong  to  the  same  house.  These  great  families 
combined  in  their  hands  financial,  warlike,  and  political 
ascendency.  They  monopolized  the  leases  of  the  profitable 
rights  of  the  state.  They  compelled  the  free  commons, 
who  were  oppressed  by  the  burden  of  taxation,  to  borrow 
from  them,  and  to  surrender  their  freedom  first  de  facto  as 
debtors,  then  de  jure  as  bondmen.  They  developed  the 
system  of  retainers,  that  is,  the  privilege  of  the  nobility  to 
surround  themselves  with  a  number  of  hired  mounted 
servants — the  ambacti  as  they  were  called 1 — and  thereby 

1  This  remarkable  word  must  have  been  in  use  as  early  as  the  sixth 
century  of  Rome  among  the  Celts  in  the  valley  of  the  Po  ;  for  Ennius  is 
already  acquainted  with  it,  and  it  can  only  have  reached  the  Italians  at 
so  early  a  period  from  that  quarter.  It  is  not  merely  Celtic,  however, 
but  also  German,  the  root  of  our  "  Arat,"  as  indeed  the  retainer-system 
itself  is  common  to  the  Celts  and  the  Germans.  It  would  be  of  great 
historical  importance  to  ascertain  whether  the  word — and  so  also  the  thing 
— came  to  the  Celts  from  the  Germans,  or  to  the  Germans  from  the  Celts. 
If,  as  is  usually  supposed,  the  word  is  originally  German  and  primarily 
signified  the  servant  standing  in  battle  "  against  the  back  "  {and — against 
bak  =  back)  of  his  master,  this  is  not  wholly  irreconcileable  with  the  singu- 
larly early  occurrence  of  this  word  among  the  Celts.  According  to  all 
analogy  the  right  to  keep  ambacti,  that  is,  5o£\oi  luaBunol,  cannot  have 
belonged  to  the  Celtic  nobility  from  the  outset,  but  must  only  have  de- 
veloped itself  gradually  in  antagonism  to  the  older  monarchy  and  to  the 
equality  of  the  free  commons.  If  thus  the  system  of  ambacti  among  the 
Celts  was  not  an  ancient  and  national,  but  a  comparatively  recent  institu- 
tion, it  is — looking  to  the  relation  which  had  subsisted  for  centuries  between 
the  Celts  and  Germans,  and  which  is  to  be  explained  farther  on—  not 
merely  possible  but  even  probable  that  the  Celts,  in  Italy  as  in  Gaul, 
employed  Germans  chiefly  as  those  hired  servants-at-arms.  The  "  Swiss 
guard"  would  therefore  in  that  case  be  some  thousands  of  years  older 
than  people  suppose.  Should  the  term  by  which  the  Romans,  perhaps 
after  the  example  of  the  Celts,  designate  the  Germans  as  a  nation — the 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  21 

to  form  a  state  within  the  state;  and,  resting  on  the  sup- 
port of  these  troops  of  their  own,  they  defied   the  legal 
authorities  and  the  common  levy  and  practically  broke  up 
the  commonwealth.     If  in  a  clan,  which  numbered  about  Breaking 
80,000  men  capable  of  arms,  a  single  noble  could  appear  upofthe 
at  the  diet  with  10,000  retainers,  not  reckoning  the  bond-  tonal  con- 
men  and  the  debtors,  it  is  clear  that  such  an  one  was  more  stltution' 
an  independent  dynast  than  a  burgess  of  his  clan.     More- 
over, the  leading  families  of  the  different  clans  were  closely 
connected  and  through  intermarriages  and  special  treaties 
formed  virtually  a  compact  league,  in  presence  of  which 
the  single  clan  was  powerless.     Therefore  the  communities 
were  no  longer  able  to  maintain  the  public  peace,  and  the 
law  of  the  strong  arm  reigned  throughout.     The  dependent 
found  protection   only  from  his  master,  whom  duty  and 
interest  compelled   to  redress   the  injury  inflicted  on  his 
client ;  the  state  had  no  longer  the  power  to  protect  those 
who   were   free,  and   consequently  these  gave   themselves 
over  in  numbers  to  some  powerful  man  as  clients. 

The  common  assembly  lost  its  political  importance;  Abolition 
and  even  the  power  of  the  prince,  which  should  have  ofthe  . 
checked  the  encroachments  of  the  nobility,  succumbed  to 
it  among  the  Celts  as  well  as  in  Latium.  In  place  of  the 
king  came  the  "judgment-worker"  or  Vergobretus,1  who 
was  like  the  Roman  consul  nominated  only  for  a  year. 
So  far  as  the  canton  still  held  together  at  all,  it  was  led  by 
the  common  council,  in  which  naturally  the  heads  of  the 
aristocracy  usurped  the  government.     Of  course  under  such 

name  Germani — be  really  of  Celtic  origin,  this  obviously  accords  very  well 
with  that  hypothesis. — No  doubt  these  assumptions  must  necessarily  give 
way,  should  the  word  ambactus  be  explained  in  a  satisfactory  way  from  a 
Celtic  root ;  as  in  fact  Zeuss  (Gramm.  p.  796),  though  doubtfully,  traces 
it  to  ambi  =  around  and  aig—agere,  viz.  one  moving  round  or  moved  round, 
and  so  attendants,  servants.  The  circumstance  that  the  word  occurs  also 
as  a  Celtic  proper  name  (Zeuss,  p.  77),  and  is  perhaps  preserved  in  the 
Cambrian  amaeth  —  peasant,  labourer  (Zeuss,  p.  156),  cannot  decide  the 
point  either  way. 

1  From  the  Celtic  words  guerg— worker  and  breth  —  judgment. 


2t  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

circumstances  there  was  agitation  in  the  several  clans  much 
in  the  same  way  as  there  had  been  agitation  in  Latium  for 
centuries  after  the  expulsion  of  the  kings  :  while  the  nobility 
of  the  different  communities  combined  to  form  a  separate 
alliance  hostile  to  the  power  of  the  community,  the  multi- 
tude ceased  not  to  desire  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy ; 
and  not  unfrequently  a  prominent  nobleman  attempted,  as 
Spurius  Cassius  had  done  in  Rome,  with  the  support  of  the 
mass  of  those  belonging  to  the  canton  to  break  down  the 
power  of  his  peers,  and  to  reinstate  the  crown  in  its  rights 
for  his  own  special  benefit. 
Efforts  While  the  individual  cantons  were  thus  irremediably 

t01tional  declining,  the  sense  of  unity  was  at  the  same  time  power- 
unity,  fully  stirring  in  the  nation  and  seeking  in  various  ways  to 
take  shape  and  hold.  That  combination  of  the  whole 
Celtic  nobility  in  contradistinction  to  the  individual  canton- 
unions,  while  disturbing  the  existing  order  of  things, 
awakened  and  fostered  the  conception  of  the  collective  unity 
of  the  nation.  The  attacks  directed  against  the  nation  from 
without,  and  the  continued  diminution  of  its  territory  in 
war  with  its  neighbours,  operated  in  the  same  direction. 
Like  the  Hellenes  in  their  wars  with  the  Persians,  and  the 
Italians  in  their  wars  with  the  Celts,  the  Transalpine  Gauls 
seem  to  have  become  conscious  of  the  existence  and  the 
power  of  their  national  unity  in  the  wars  against  Rome. 
Amidst  the  dissensions  of  rival  clans  and  all  their  feudal 
quarrelling  there  might  still  be  heard  the  voices  of  those 
who  were  ready  to  purchase  the  independence  of  the  nation 
at  the  cost  of  the  independence  of  the  several  cantons,  and 
even  at  that  of  the  seignorial  rights  of  the  knights.  The 
thorough  popularity  of  the  opposition  to  a  foreign  yoke  was 
shown  by  the  wars  of  Caesar,  with  reference  to  whom  the 
Celtic  patriot  party  occupied  a  position  entirely  similar  to 
that  of  the  German  patriots  towards  Napoleon ;  its  extent 
and  organization  are  attested,  among  other  things,  by  the 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  23 

telegraphic  rapidity  with  which   news  was  communicated 
from  one  point  to  another. 

The  universality  and  the  strength  of  the  Celtic  national  Religions 
feeling  would  be  inexplicable  but  for  the  circumstance  that,  j£"on  °.f 
amidst  the  greatest  political  disruption,  the  Celtic  nation 
had  for  long  been  centralized  in  respect  of  religion  and 
even  of  theology.  The  Celtic  priesthood  or,  to  use  the  Druids, 
native  name,  the  corporation  of  the  Druids,  certainly 
embraced  the  British  islands  and  all  Gaul,  and  perhaps 
also  other  Celtic  countries,  in  a  common  religious-national 
bond.  It  possessed  a  special  head  elected  by  the  priests 
themselves ;  special  schools,  in  which  its  very  compre- 
hensive tradition  was  transmitted ;  special  privileges,  par- 
ticularly exemption  from  taxation  and  military  service,  which 
every  clan  respected ;  annual  councils,  which  were  held  near 
Chartres  at  the  "  centre  of  the  Celtic  earth  " ;  and  above 
all,  a  believing  people,  who  in  painful  piety  and  blind 
obedience  to  their  priests  seem  to  have  been  nowise  inferior 
to  the  Irish  of  modern  times.  It  may  readily  be  conceived 
that  such  a  priesthood  attempted  to  usurp,  as  it  partially 
did  usurp,  the  secular  government;  where  the  annual 
monarchy  subsisted,  it  conducted  the  elections  in  the  event 
of  an  interregnum ;  it  successfully  laid  claim  to  the  right  of 
excluding  individuals  and  whole  communities  from  religious, 
and  consequently  also  from  civil,  society ;  it  was  careful  to 
draw  to  itself  the  most  important  civil  causes,  especially 
processes  as  to  boundaries  and  inheritance ;  on  the  ground, 
apparently,  of  its  right  to  exclude  from  the  community,  and 
perhaps  also  of  the  national  custom  that  criminals  should 
be  by  preference  taken  for  the  usual  human  sacrifices,  it 
developed  an  extensive  priestly  criminal  jurisdiction,  which 
was  co-ordinate  with  that  of  the  kings  and  vergobrets ;  it 
even  claimed  the  right  of  deciding  on  war  and  peace.  The 
Gauls  were  not  far  removed  from  an  ecclesiastical  state 
with  its  pope  and  councils,  its  immunities,  interdicts,  and 


Want  of 

political 
central- 
ization. 


The 

canton- 
leagues. 


The  Belgic 
league. 


24  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

spiritual  courts ;  only  this  ecclesiastical  state  did  not,  like 
that  of  recent  times,  stand  aloof  from  the  nations,  but  was 
on  the  contrary  pre-eminently  national. 

But  while  the  sense  of  mutual  relationship  was  thus 
vividly  awakened  among  the  Celtic  tribes,  the  nation  was 
still  precluded  from  attaining  a  basis  of  political  centraliza- 
tion such  as  Italy  found  in  the  Roman  burgesses,  and  the 
Hellenes  and  Germans  in  the  Macedonian  and  Frank  kings. 
The  Celtic  priesthood  and  likewise  the  nobility — although 
both  in  a  certain  sense  represented  and  combined  the 
nation — were  yet,  on  the  one  hand,  incapable  of  uniting  it 
in  consequence  of  their  particular  class-interests,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  sufficiently  powerful  to  allow  no  king  and 
no  canton  to  accomplish  the  work  of  union.  Attempts  at 
this  work  were  not  wanting ;  they  followed,  as  the  cantonal 
constitution  suggested,  the  system  of  hegemony.  A  powerful 
canton  induced  a  weaker  to  become  subordinate,  on  such 
a  footing  that  the  leading  canton  acted  for  the  other  as 
well  as  for  itself  in  its  external  relations  and  stipulated  for 
it  in  state-treaties,  while  the  dependent  canton  bound  itself 
to  render  military  service  and  sometimes  also  to  pay  a 
tribute.  In  this  way  a  series  of  separate  leagues  arose; 
but  there  was  no  leading  canton  for  all  Gaul — no  tie, 
however  loose,  combining  the  nation  as  a  whole. 

It  has  been  already  mentioned  (iii.  416)  that  the  Romans 
at  the  commencement  of  their  Transalpine  conquests  found 
in  the  north  a  Britanno-Belgic  league  under  the  leadership 
of  the  Suessiones,  and  in  central  and  southern  Gaul  the 
confederation  of  the  Arverni,  with  which  latter  the  Haedui, 
although  having  a  weaker  body  of  clients,  carried  on  a 
rivalry.  In  Caesar's  time  we  find  the  Belgae  in  north-eastern 
Gaul  between  the  Seine  and  the  Rhine  still  forming  such  an 
association,  which,  however,  apparently  no  longer  extends  to 
Britain;  by  their  side  there  appears,  in  the  modern  Normandy 
and  Brittany,  the  league  of  the  Aremorican  or  the  maritime 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  25 

cantons  :  in  central  or  proper  Gaul  two  parties  as  formerly  The 

contended  far  the  hegemony,  the  one  headed  by  the  Haedui,  maritime 

.  .  cantoni. 

the  other  by  the  Sequani  after  the  Arvernians  weakened  by 

the  wars  with  Rome  had  retired.     These  different  confed-  The 
eracies  subsisted  independently  side  by  side ;   the  leading  £^tnl  ° 
states  of  central  Gaul  appear  never  to  have  extended  their  GaoL 
clientship  to  the  north-east  nor,  seriously,  perhaps  even  to 
the  north-west  of  Gaul. 

The  impulse  of  the  nation  towards  freedom  found  doubt-  Character 
less  a  certain  gratification  in  these  cantonal  unions ;  but  they  ^  ^ 
were  in  every  respect  unsatisfactory.  The  union  was  of  the 
loosest  kind,  constantly  fluctuating  between  alliance  and 
hegemony ;  the  representation  of  the  whole  body  in  peace 
by  the  federal  diets,  in  war  by  the  general,1  was  in  the 
highest  degree  feeble.  The  Belgian  confederacy  alone  seems 
to  have  been  bound  together  somewhat  more  firmly ;  the 
national  enthusiasm,  from  which  the  successful  repulse  of  the 
Cimbri  proceeded  (iii.  430  /.),  may  have  proved  beneficial 
to  it  The  rivalries  for  the  hegemony  made  a  breach  in 
every  league,  which  time  did  not  close  but  widened,  because 
the  victory  of  one  competitor  still  left  his  opponent  in  pos- 
session of  political  existence,  and  it  always  remained  open 
to  him,  even  though  he  had  submitted  to  clientship, 
subsequently  to  renew  the  struggle.  The  rivalry  among  the 
more  powerful  cantons  not  only  set  these  at  variance,  but 
spread  into  every  dependent  clan,  into  every  village,  often 
indeed  into  every  house,  for  each  individual  chose  his  side 
according  to  his  personal  relations.  As  Hellas  exhausted 
its  strength  not  so  much  in  the  struggle  of  Athens  against 
Sparta  as  in  the  internal  strife  of  the  Athenian  and  Lace- 
daemonian factions  in  every  dependent  community,  and  even 
in  Athens  itself,  so  the  rivalry  of  the  Arverni  and  Haedui 

1  The  position  which  such  ,1  federal  general  occupied  with  reference  to 
his  troops,  is  shown  by  the  accusation  of  high  treason  raised  against 
Vercingetorix  (Caesar,  B.  G.  vii.  20). 


26  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

with  its  repetitions  on  a  smaller  and  smaller  scale  destroyed 

the  Celtic  people. 
The  Celtic         The  military  capability  of  the  nation  felt  the  reflex  in- 
military       fluence  0f  these  political  and  social  relations.     The  cavalry 

system.  r  J 

Cavalry.  was  throughout  the  predominant  arm ;  alongside  of  which 
among  the  Belgae,  and  still  more  in  the  British  islands,  the 
old  national  war-chariots  appear  in  remarkable  perfection. 
These  equally  numerous  and  efficient  bands  of  combatants 
on  horseback  and  in  chariots  were  formed  from  the  nobility 
and  its  vassals;  for  the  nobles  had  a  genuine  knightly 
delight  in  dogs  and  horses,  and  were  at  much  expense  to 
procure  noble  horses  of  foreign  breed.  It  is  characteristic 
of  the  spirit  and  the  mode  of  fighting  of  these  nobles  that, 
when  the  levy  was  called  out,  whoever  could  keep  his  seat 
on  horseback,  even  the  gray-haired  old  man,  took  the  field, 
and  that,  when  on  the  point  of  beginning  a  combat  with  an 
enemy  of  whom  they  made  little  account,  they  swore  man  by 
man  that  they  would  keep  aloof  from  house  and  homestead, 
unless  their  band  should  charge  at  least  twice  through  the 
enemy's  line.  Among  the  hired  warriors  the  free-lance  spirit 
prevailed  with  all  its  demoralized  and  stolid  indifference 
towards  their  own  life  and  that  of  others.  This  is  apparent 
from  the  stories — however  anecdotic  their  colouring — of  the 
Celtic  custom  of  tilting  by  way  of  sport  and  now  and  then 
fighting  for  life  or  death  at  a  banquet,  and  of  the  usage 
(which  prevailed  among  the  Celts,  and  outdid  even  the 
Roman  gladiatorial  games)  of  selling  themselves  to  be  killed 
for  a  set  sum  of  money  or  a  number  of  casks  of  wine,  and 
voluntarily  accepting  the  fatal  blow  stretched  on  their  shield 
before  the  eyes  of  the  whole  multitude. 

infantry.  By  the  side  of  these  mounted  warriors  the  infantry  fell 

into  the  background.  In  the  main  it  essentially  resembled 
the  bands  of  Celts,  with  whom  the  Romans  had  fought  in 
Italy  and  Spain.  The  large  shield  was,  as  then,  the  prin- 
cipal weapon  of  defence ;  among  the  offensive  arms,  on  the 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  27 

other  hand,  the  long  thrusting  lance  now  played  the  chief 
part  in  room  of  the  sword.  Where  several  cantons  waged 
war  in  league,  they  naturally  encamped  and  fought  clan 
against  clan ;  there  is  no  trace  of  their  giving  to  the  levy  of 
each  canton  military  organization  and  forming  smaller  and 
more  regular  tactical  subdivisions.  A  long  train  of  waggons 
still  dragged  the  baggage  of  the  Celtic  army ;  instead  of  an 
entrenched  camp,  such  as  the  Romans  pitched  every  night, 
the  poor  substitute  of  a  barricade  of  waggons  still  sufficed 
In  the  case  of  certain  cantons,  such  as  the  Nervii,  the 
efficiency  of  their  infantry  is  noticed  as  exceptional ;  it  is 
remarkable  that  these  had  no  cavalry,  and  perhaps  were 
not  even  a  Celtic  but  an  immigrant  German  tribe.  But  in 
general  the  Celtic  infantry  of  this  period  appears  as  an 
unwarlike  and  unwieldy  levy  en  masse ;  most  of  all  in  the 
more  southern  provinces,  where  along  with  barbarism  valour 
had  also  disappeared.  The  Celt,  says  Caesar,  ventures  not 
to  face  the  German  in  battle.  The  Roman  general  passed 
a  censure  still  more  severe  than  this  judgment  on  the  Celtic 
infantry,  seeing  that,  after  having  become  acquainted  with 
them  in  his  first  campaign,  he  never  again  employed  them 
in  connection  with  Roman  infantry. 

If  we  survey  the  whole  condition  of  the  Celts  as  Caesar  Stage  of 
found  it  in  the  Transalpine  regions,  there  is  an  unmistake-  develoPr 
able  advance  in  civilization,  as  compared  with  the  stage  of  the  Celtic 
culture  at  which  the  Celts  came  before  us  a  century  and  a  C1V1  lzatl0n' 
half  previously  in  the  valley  of  the  Po.     Then  the  militia, 
excellent  of  its   kind,  thoroughly  preponderated    in  their 
armies  (i.  423) ;  now  the  cavalry  occupies  the  first  place. 
Then  the  Celts  dwelt  in  open  villages ;  now  well-constructed 
walls  surrounded  their  townships.     The  objects  too  found  in 
the  tombs  of  Lombardy  are,  especially  as  respects  articles 
of  copper  and  glass,  far  inferior  to  those  of  northern  Gaul. 
Perhaps  the  most  trustworthy  measure  of  the  increase  of 
culture  is  the  sense  of  a  common  relationship  in  the  nation ; 


28  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  V 

so  little  of  it  comes  to  light  in  the  Celtic  battles  fought 
on  the  soil  of  what  is  now  Lombardy,  while  it  strikingly 
appears  in  the  struggles  against  Caesar.  To  all  appearance 
the  Celtic  nation,  when  Caesar  encountered  it,  had  already 
reached  the  maximum  of  the  culture  allotted  to  it,  and  was 
even  now  on  the  decline.  The  civilization  of  the  Trans- 
alpine Celts  in  Caesar's  time  presents,  even  for  us  who  are 
but  very  imperfectly  informed  regarding  it,  several  aspects 
that  are  estimable,  and  yet  more  that  are  interesting ;  in 
some  respects  it  is  more  akin  to  the  modern  than  to  the 
Hellenic-Roman  culture,  with  its  sailing  vessels,  its  knight- 
hood, its  ecclesiastical  constitution,  above  all  with  its 
attempts,  however  imperfect,  to  build  the  state  not  on  the 
city,  but  on  the  tribe  and  in  a  higher  degree  on  the  nation. 
But  just  because  we  here  meet  the  Celtic  nation  at  the 
culminating  point  of  its  development,  its  lesser  degree  of 
moral  endowment  or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  its  lesser 
capacity  of  culture,  comes  more  distinctly  into  view.  It 
was  unable  to  produce  from  its  own  resources  either  a 
national  art  or  a  national  state ;  it  attained  at  the  utmost 
a  national  theology  and  a  peculiar  type  of  nobility.  The 
original  simple  valour  was  no  more ;  the  military  courage 
based  on  higher  morality  and  judicious  organization,  which 
comes  in  the  train  of  increased  civilization,  had  only  made 
its  appearance  in  a  very  stunted  form  among  the  knights. 
Barbarism  in  the  strict  sense  was  doubtless  outlived ;  the 
times  had  gone  by,  when  in  Gaul  the  fat  haunch  was 
assigned  to  the  bravest  of  the  guests,  but  each  of  his 
fellow-guests  who  thought  himself  offended  thereby  was  at 
liberty  to  challenge  the  receiver  on  that  score  to  combat, 
and  when  the  most  faithful  retainers  of  a  deceased  chief 
were  burnt  along  with  him.  But  human  sacrifices  still 
continued,  and  the  maxim  of  law,  that  torture  was  inad- 
missible in  the  case  of  the  free  man  but  allowable  in  that 
of  the  free  woman  as  well  as  of  slaves,  throws  a  far  from 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  29 

pleasing  light  on  the  position  which  the  female  sex  held 
among  the  Celts  even  in  their  period  of  culture.  The  Celts 
had  lost  the  advantages  which  specially  belong  to  the 
primitive  epoch  of  nations,  but  had  not  acquired  those 
which  civilization  brings  with  it  when  it  intimately  and 
thoroughly  pervades  a  people. 

Such  was  the  internal  condition  of  the  Celtic  nation.  External 
It  remains  that  we  set  forth  their  external  relations  with  relatlons" 
their  neighbours,  and  describe  the  part  which  they  sustained 
at  this  moment  in  the  mighty  rival  race  and  rival  struggle 
of  the  nations,  in  which  it  is  everywhere  still  more  difficult 
to   maintain   than   to   acquire.      Along  the  Pyrenees    the  Celts  and 
relations  of  the  peoples  had  for  long  been  peaceably  settled,  Ibenans- 
and   the  times  had  long  gone   by  when   the   Celts  there 
pressed    hard    on,   and    to    some    extent    supplanted,    the 
Iberian,   that    is,   the   Basque,   original    population.      The 
valleys  of  the  Pyrenees  as  well  as  the  mountains  of  Beam 
and  Gascony,  and  also  the  coast-steppes  to  the  south  of  the 
Garonne,  were  at  the  time  of  Caesar  in   the  undisputed 
possession  of  the  Aquitani,  a  great  number  of  small  tribes 
of  Iberian  descent,  coming  little  into  contact  with  each  other 
and  still  less  with  the  outer  world ;    in  this  quarter  only 
the  mouth  of  the  Garonne  with  the  important  port  of  Bur- 
digala  (Bordeaux)  was  in  the  hands  of  a  Celtic  tribe,  the 
Bituriges-Vivisci. 

Of  far  greater  importance  was  the  contact  of  the  Celtic  Celts  and 
nation  with  the  Roman  people,  and  with  the  Germans.  Roman3, 
We  need  not  here  repeat — what  has  been  related  already — 
how  the  Romans  in  their  slow  advance  had  gradually 
pressed  back  the  Celts,  had  at  last  occupied  the  belt  of 
coast  between  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees,  and  had  thereby 
totally  cut  them  off  from  Italy,  Spain  and  the  Mediterranean 
Sea — a  catastrophe,  for  which  the  way  had  already  been 
prepared  centuries  before  by  the  laying  out  of  the  Hellenic 
stronghold  at   the  mouth  of  the  Rhone.      But  we  must 


3o  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

Advance  of  here  recall  the  fact  that  it  was  not  merely  the  superiority  of 
Ro™annd     the  Roman  arms  which   pressed  hard  on  the  Celts,   but 
commerce    quite  as   much    that    of  Roman    culture,   which   likewise 
GauL™8      reaped  the  ultimate  benefit  of  the  respectable  beginnings  of 
Hellenic   civilization    in    Gaul.       Here    too,    as    so    often 
happens,  trade  and  commerce  paved  the  way  for  conquest 
The  Celt  after  northern  fashion  was  fond  of  fiery  drinks ; 
the  fact  that  like  the  Scythian  he  drank  the  generous  wine 
unmingled  and  to  intoxication,  excited  the  surprise  and  the 
disgust  of  the  temperate  southern ;  but  the  trader  has  no 
objection  to  deal   with  such  customers.     Soon  the  trade 
with  Gaul  became  a  mine  of  gold  for  the  Italian  merchant ; 
it  was  nothing  unusual    there   for   a   jar  of  wine   to    be 
exchanged  for  a  slave.     Other  articles  of  luxury,  such  as 
Italian  horses,  found  advantageous  sale  in  Gaul.     There 
were  instances  even  already  of  Roman  burgesses  acquiring 
landed  property  beyond  the  Roman  frontier,  and  turning 
it  to  profit  after  the  Italian  fashion  ;  there  is  mention,  for 
example,  of  Roman  estates  in  the  canton  of  the  Segusiavi 
81.  (near  Lyons)  as  early  as  about  673.     Beyond  doubt  it  was 
a  consequence  of  this  that,  as  already  mentioned  (p.  18) 
in  free  Gaul   itself,  e.g.  among  the  Arverni,  the    Roman 
language   was   not    unknown    even    before   the  conquest ; 
although  this  knowledge  was  presumably  still  restricted  to 
few,  and  even  the  men  of  rank  in  the  allied  canton  of  the 
Haedui  had  to  be   conversed  with    through  interpreters. 
Just  as  the  traffickers  in  fire-water  and  the  squatters  led  the 
way  in  the  occupation  of  North  America,  so  these  Roman 
wine-traders  and  landlords  paved  the  way  for,  and  beckoned 
onward,  the  future  conqueror  of  Gaul.      How  vividly  this 
was  felt  even  on  the  opposite  side,  is  shown  by  the  pro- 
hibition which  one  of  the  most  energetic  tribes  of  Gaul,  the 
canton  of  the  Nervii,   like  some  German  peoples,  issued 
against  trafficking  with  the  Romans. 

Still  more  violent  even  than  the  pressure  of  the  Romans 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  31 

from  the  Mediterranean  was  that  of  the  Germans  downward  Celts  and 
from  the  Baltic  and  the  North  Sea— a  fresh  stock  from  the  German*- 
great  cradle  of  peoples  in  the  east,  which  made  room  for 
itself  by  the  side  of  its  elder  brethren  with  youthful  vigour, 
although  also  with  youthful  rudeness.  Though  the  tribes 
of  this  stock  dwelling  nearest  to  the  Rhine — the  Usipetes, 
Tencteri,  Sugambri,  Ubii — had  begun  to  be  in  some  degree 
civilized,  and  had  at  least  ceased  voluntarily  to  change  their 
abodes,  all  accounts  yet  agree  that  farther  inland  agriculture 
was  of  little  importance,  and  the  several  tribes  had  hardly 
yet  attained  fixed  abodes.  It  is  significant  in  this  respect 
that  their  western  neighbours  at  this  time  hardly  knew  how 
to  name  any  one  of  the  peoples  of  the  interior  of  Germany 
by  its  cantonal  name  ;  these  were  only  known  to  them  under 
the  general  appellations  of  the  Suebi,  that  is,  the  roving 
people  or  nomads,  and  the  Marcomani,  that  is,  the  land- 
guard1 — names  which  were  hardly  cantonal  names  in 
Caesar's  time,  although  they  appeared  as  such  to  the 
Romans  and  subsequently  became  in  various  cases  names  of 
cantons. 

The  most  violent  onset  of  this  great  nation  fell  upon  The  right 
the  Celts.     The  struggles,  in  which  the  Germans  probably  the  Rhine 
engaged  with  the  Celts  for  the  possession  of  the  regions  to  lost  to  tiw* 
the  east  of  the  Rhine,  are  wholly  withdrawn  from  our  view. 
We  are  only  able  to  perceive,  that  about  the  end  of  the 
seventh  century  of  Rome  all  the  land  as  far  as  the  Rhine 

1  Caesar's  Suebi  thus  were  probably  the  Chatti ;  but  that  designation 
certainly  belonged  in  Caesar's  time,  and  even  much  later,  also  to  every 
other  German  stock  which  could  be  described  as  a  regularly  wandering 
one.  Accordingly  if,  as  is  not  to  be  doubted,  the  "king  of  the  Suebi" 
in  Mela  (iii.  1)  and  Pliny  {H.  N.  ii.  67,  170)  was  Ariovistus,  it  by  no 
means  therefore  follows  that  Ariovistus  was  a  Chattan.  The  Marcomani 
cannot  be  demonstrated  asa  distinct  people  before  Marbod ;  it  is  very  possible 
that  the  word  up  to  that  point  indicates  nothing  but  what  it  etymologically 
signifies — the  land,  or  frontier,  guard.  When  Caesar  (i.  51)  mentions 
Marcomani  among  the  peoples  fighting  in  the  army  of  Ariovistus,  he  may 
in  this  instance  have  misunderstood  a  merely  appellative  designation, 
just  as  he  has  decidedly  done  in  the  case  of  the  Suebi. 


3* 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 


German 
tribes  on 
the  left 
bank  of 
the  Rhine. 


was  already  lost  to  the  Celts ;  that  the  Boii,  who  were  prob 
ably  once  settled  in  Bavaria  and  Bohemia  (in.  423),  were 
homeless  wanderers;  and  that  even  the  Black  Forest  for- 
merly possessed  by  the  Helvetii  (iii.  423),  if  not  yet  taken 
possession  of  by  the  German  tribes  dwelling  in  the  vicinity, 
was  at  least  waste  debateable  border-land,  and  was  presum- 
ably even  then,  what  it  was  afterwards  called,  the  Helvetian 
desert.  The  barbarous  strategy  of  the  Germans — which 
secured  them  from  hostile  attacks  by  laying  waste  the 
neighbourhood  for  miles — seems  to  have  been  applied  here 
on  the  greatest  scale. 

But  the  Germans  had  not  remained  stationary  at  the 
Rhine.  The  march  of  the  Cimbrian  and  Teutonic  host, 
composed,  as  respects  its  flower,  of  German  tribes,  which 
had  swept  with  such  force  fifty  years  before  over  Pannonia, 
Gaul,  Italy,  and  Spain,  seemed  to  have  been  nothing  but  a 
grand  reconnaissance.  Already  different  German  tribes  had 
formed  permanent  settlements  to  the  west  of  the  Rhine, 
especially  of  its  lower  course ;  having  intruded  as  conquerors, 
these  settlers  continued  to  demand  hostages  and  to  levy 
annual  tribute  from  the  Gallic  inhabitants  in  their  neigh- 
bourhood, as  if  from  subjects.  Among  these  German  tribes 
were  the  Aduatuci,  who  from  a  fragment  of  the  Cimbrian 
horde  (iii.  445)  had  grown  into  a  considerable  canton,  and  a 
number  of  other  tribes  afterwards  comprehended  under  the 
name  of  the  Tungri  on  the  Maas  in  the  region  of  Liege ; 
even  the  Treveri  (about  Treves)  and  the  Nervii  (in 
Hainault),  two  of  the  largest  and  most  powerful  peoples  of 
this  region,  are  directly  designated  by  respectable  author- 
ities as  Germans.  The  complete  credibility  of  these  accounts 
must  certainly  remain  doubtful,  since,  as  Tacitus  remarks  in 
reference  to  the  two  peoples  last  mentioned,  it  was 
subsequently,  at  least  in  these  regions,  reckoned  an  honour 
to  be  descended  of  German  blood  and  not  to  belong  to  the 
little-esteemed    Celtic  nation;    yet    the  population   in  the 


chak  vn      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  33 

region  of  the  Scheldt,  Maas,  and  Moselle  seems  certainly  to 
have  become,  in  one  way  or  another,  largely  mingled  with 
German  elements,  or  at  any  rate  to  have  come  under  German 
influences.  The  German  settlements  themselves  were 
perhaps  small ;  they  were  not  unimportant,  for  amidst  the 
chaotic  obscurity,  through  which  we  see  the  stream  of 
peoples  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine  ebbing  and  flowing 
about  this  period,  we  can  well  perceive  that  larger  German 
hordes  were  preparing  to  cross  the  Rhine  in  the  track  of 
these  advanced  posts.  Threatened  on  two  sides  by  foreign 
domination  and  torn  by  internal  dissension,  it  was  scarcely 
to  be  expected  that  the  unhappy  Celtic  nation  would  now 
rally  and  save  itself  by  its  own  vigour.  Dismemberment, 
and  decay  in  virtue  of  dismemberment,  had  hitherto  been 
its  history ;  how  should  a  nation,  which  could  name  no  day 
like  those  of  Marathon  and  Salamis,  of  Aricia  and  the 
Raudine  plain — a  nation  which,  even  in  its  time  of  vigour, 
had  made  no  attempt  to  destroy  Massilia  by  a  united  effort 
— now  when  evening  had  come,  defend  itself  against  so 
formidable  foes? 

The  less  the  Celts,  left  to  themselves,  were  a  match  for  The 
the  Germans,  the  more  reason  had  the  Romans  carefully  to  poi™^^ 
watch  over   the  complications  in  which    the   two  nations  reference 
might    be    involved.     Although    the    movements    thence  Qerman 
arising  had  not  up  to  the  present  time  directly  affected  them,  invasion, 
they  and  their  most  important  interests  were  yet  concerned 
in  the  issue  of  those  movements.     As  may  readily  be  con- 
ceived, the  internal  demeanour  of  the  Celtic  nation  had 
become  speedily  and  permanently  influenced  by  its  outward 
relations.     As  in  Greece  the  Lacedaemonian  party  combined 
with  Persia  against  the  Athenians,  so  the  Romans  from  their 
first  appearance    beyond    the  Alps  had    found  a  support 
against  the  Arverni,  who  were  then  the  ruling  power  among 
the  southern  Celts,  in  their  rivals  for  the  hegemony,  the 
Haedui :  and  with  the  aid  of  these  new  "  brothers  of  the 
vol.  v  136 


34  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

Roman  nation  "  they  had  not  merely  reduced  to  subjection 
the  Allobroges  and  a  great  portion  of  the  indirect  territory 
of  the  Arverni,  but  had  also,  in  the  Gaul  that  remained  free, 
occasioned  by  their  influence  the  transference  of  the  hege- 
mony from  the  Arverni  to  these  Haedui.  But  while  the 
Greeks  were  threatened  with  danger  to  their  nationality  only 
from  one  side,  the  Celts  found  themselves  hard  pressed 
simultaneously  by  two  national  foes ;  and  it  was  natural  that 
they  should  seek  from  the  one  protection  against  the  other, 
and  that,  if  the  one  Celtic  party  attached  itself  to  the 
Romans,  their  opponents  should  on  the  contrary  form 
alliance  with  the  Germans.  This  course  was  most  natural 
for  the  Belgae,  who  were  brought  by  neighbourhood  and 
manifold  intermixture  into  closer  relation  to  the  Germans 
who  had  crossed  the  Rhine,  and  moreover,  with  their  less- 
developed  culture,  probably  felt  themselves  at  least  as  much 
akin  to  the  Suebian  of  alien  race  as  to  their  cultivated 
Allobrogian  or  Helvetic  countryman.  But  the  southern 
Celts  also,  among  whom  now,  as  already  mentioned,  the 
considerable  canton  of  the  Sequani  (about  Besangon)  stood 
at  the  head  of  the  party  hostile  to  the  Romans,  had  every 
reason  at  this  very  time  to  call  in  the  Germans  against  the 
Romans  who  immediately  threatened  them ;  the  remiss 
government  of  the  senate  and  the  signs  of  the  revolution 
preparing  in  Rome,  which  had  not  remained  unknown  to 
the  Celts,  made  this  very  moment  seem  suitable  for  ridding 
themselves  of  the  Roman  influence  and  primarily  for 
humbling  the  Roman  clients,  the  Haedui.  A  rupture  had 
taken  place  between  the  two  cantons  respecting  the  tolls 
on  the  Saone,  which  separated  the  territory  of  the  Haedui 
71.  from  that  of  the  Sequani,  and  about  the  year  683  the 
German  prince  Ariovistus  with  some  15,000  armed  men 
had  crossed  the  Rhine  as  condottiere  of  the  Sequani. 

The  war  was  prolonged    for  some    years  with  varying 
success;  on  the  whole  the  results  were  unfavourable  to  the 


CHAP,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  35 

Haedui.  Their  leader  Eporedorix  at  length  called  out  Ariovistaa 
their  whole  clients,  and  marched  forth  with  an  enormous  £jjddlg 
superiority  of  force  against  the  Germans.  These  obstinately  Rhine, 
refused  battle,  and  kept  themselves  under  cover  of  morasses 
and  forests.  It  was  not  till  the  clans,  weary  of  waiting, 
began  to  break  up  and  disperse,  that  the  Germans  appeared 
in  the  open  field,  and  then  Ariovistus  compelled  a  battle  at 
Admagetobriga,  in  which  the  flower  of  the  cavalry  of  the 
Haedui  were  left  on  the  field.  The  Haedui,  forced  by  this 
defeat  to  conclude  peace  on  the  terms  which  the  victor 
proposed,  were  obliged  to  renounce  the  hegemony,  and  to 
consent  with  their  whole  adherents  to  become  clients  of  the 
Sequani ;  they  had  to  bind  themselves  to  pay  tribute  to  the 
Sequani  or  rather  to  Ariovistus,  and  to  furnish  the  children 
of  their  principal  nobles  as  hostages ;  and  lastly  they  had  to 
swear  that  they  would  never  demand  back  these  hostages 
nor  invoke  the  intervention  of  the  Romans. 

This    peace    was    concluded    apparently    about    693. l  61. 
Honour  and    advantage    enjoined    the   Romans  to  come  0f^e°D 
forward  in  opposition  to  it ;  the  noble  Haeduan  Divitiacus,  Romans, 
the  head  of  the   Roman  party  in  his  clan,  and  for  that 
reason  now  banished  by  his  countrymen,  went  in  person  to 
Rome  to  solicit  their  intervention.      A  still  more  serious  warn- 
ing was  the  insurrection  of  the  Allobroges  in  693  (p.  8) —  61. 
the  neighbours  of  the  Sequani — which  was  beyond  doubt 
connected  with  these  events.     In  reality  orders  were  issued 
to  the  Gallic  governors  to  assist  the  Haedui ;  they  talked  of 
sending  consuls  and  consular  armies  over  the  Alps  ;  but  the 
senate,  to  whose    decision    these  affairs   primarily  fell,  at 
length   here  also  crowned   great  words  with  little  deeds. 
The  insurrection  of  the  Allobroges  was  suppressed  by  arms, 

1  The  arrival  of  Ariovistus   in  Gaul   has  been   placed,  according  to 
Caesar,  i.  36,  in  683,  and  the  battle  of  Admagetobriga  (for  such  was  the  71. 
name  of  the  place  now  usually,  in  accordance  with  a  false  inscription, 
called  Magetobriga),  according  to  Caesar  i.  35  and  Cicero  Ad.  Ait.  i.  19, 
in  693.  61. 


36  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

but  nothing  was  done  for  the  Haedui ;   on  the  contrary, 
59.  Ariovistus  was  even  enrolled   in   695    in  the  list  of  kings 
friendly  with  the  Romans.1 
Founda-  The   German    warrior- prince   naturally   took   this   as  a 

Germaif  renunciation  by  the  Romans  of  the  Celtic  land  which  they 
empire  in  had  not  occupied  ;  he  accordingly  took  up  his  abode  there, 
and  began  to  establish  a  German  principality  on  Gallic 
soil.  It  was  his  intention  that  the  numerous  bands  which 
he  had  brought  with  him,  and  the  still  more  numerous 
bands  that  afterwards  followed  at  his  call  from  home — it 
58.  was  reckoned  that  up  to  696  some  120,00c  Germans  had 
crossed  the  Rhine — this  whole  mighty  immigration  of  the 
German  nation,  which  poured  through  the  once  opened 
sluices  like  a  stream  over  the  beautiful  west,  should  become 
settled  there  and  form  a  basis  on  which  he  might  build  his 
dominion  over  Gaul.  The  extent  of  the  German  settle- 
ments which  he  called  into  existence  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Rhine  cannot  be  determined ;  beyond  doubt  it  was 
great,  and  his  projects  were  far  greater  still.  The  Celts 
were  treated  by  him  as  a  wholly  subjugated  nation,  and 
no  distinction  was  made  between  the  several  cantons. 
Even  the  Sequani,  as  whose  hired  commander-in-chief  he 
had  crossed  the  Rhine,  were  obliged,  as  if  they  were  van- 
quished enemies,  to  cede  to  him  for  his  people  a  third  of 
their  territory — presumably  upper  Alsace  afterwards  in- 
habited by  the  Triboci — where  Ariovistus  permanently 
settled  with  his  followers ;  nay,  as  if  this  were  not  enough, 
a  second  third  was  afterwards  demanded  of  them  for  the 
Harudes  who  arrived  subsequently.  Ariovistus  seemed  as 
if  he  wished  to  take  up  in  Gaul  the  part  of  Philip  of 
Macedonia,  and  to  play  the  master  over  the  Celts  who  were 

1  That  we  may  not  deem  this  course  of  things  incredible,  or  even  impute 
to  it  deeper  motives  than  ignorance  and  laziness  in  statesmen,  we  shall  do 
well  to  realize  the  frivolous  tone  in  which  a  distinguished  senator  like 
Cicero  expresses  himself  in  his  correspondence  respecting  these  important 
Transalpine  affairs. 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  37 

friendly  to  the  Germans  no  less  than  over  those  who  ad- 
hered to  the  Romans. 

The  appearance  of  the  energetic  German  prince  in  so  The 

dangerous  proximity,  which  could  not  but  in  itself  excite  Germans 
,  .  .  on  the 

the  most  serious  apprehension   in   the  Romans,  appeared  Lower 

still  more  threatening,  inasmuch  as  it  stood  by  no  means  Rhme- 

alone.     The  Usipetes  and   Tencteri   settled   on  the  right 

bank  of  the  Rhine,  weary  of  the  incessant  devastation  of 

their  territory  by  the  overbearing  Suebian  tribes,  had,  the 

year  before  Caesar  arrived  in  Gaul  (695),  set  out   from  69. 

their  previous  abodes  to  seek  others  at  the  mouth  of  the 

Rhine.     They  had  already  taken  away  from  the  Menapii 

there  the  portion  of  their  territory  situated  on  the  right 

bank,  and  it  might  be  foreseen  that  they  would  make  the 

attempt  to  establish  themselves  also  on  the  left.     Suebian 

bands,  moreover,  assembled  between  Cologne  and  Mayence, 

and    threatened    to   appear    as    uninvited    guests    in    the  The 

opposite  Celtic  canton  of  the  Treveri.     Lastly,  the  terri-  Gennans 
"  -"on  the 

tory  of  the  most  easterly  clan  of  the  Celts,  the  warlike  and  Upper 
numerous  Helvetii,  was  visited  with  growing  frequency  by  Rhme* 
the  Germans,  so  that  the  Helvetii,  who  perhaps  even  apart 
from  this  were  suffering  from  over-population  through  the 
reflux  of  their  settlers  from  the  territory  which  they  had 
lost  to  the  north  of  the  Rhine,  and  besides  were  liable  to 
be  completely  isolated  from  their  kinsmen  by  the  settle- 
ment of  Ariovistus  in  the  territory  of  the  Sequani,  conceived 
the    desperate    resolution    of   voluntarily    evacuating    the 
territory  hitherto  in  their  possession  to  the  Germans,  and  Spread 
acquiring  larger  and  more  fertile  abodes  to  the  west  of  the  „  l.he  . 
Tura,  along  with,  if  possible,  the  hegemony  in  the  interior  invasion 
of  Gaul — a  plan  which  some  of  their  districts  had  already  *°  th-e     t 

^  J    interior  01 

formed    and    attempted    to  execute   during  the   Cimbrian  Gaul, 
invasion  (iii.   435).     The   Rauraci  whose   territory  (Basle 
and  southern  Alsace)  was  similarly  threatened,  the  remains, 
moreover,  of  the  Boii  who  had  already  at  an  earlier  period 


38  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

been  compelled  by  the  Germans  to  forsake  their  homes 
and  were  now  unsettled  wanderers,  and  other  smaller  tribes, 
«1.  made  common  cause  with  the  Helvetii.  As  early  as  693 
their  flying  parties  came  over  the  Jura  and  even  as  far  as 
the  Roman  province ;  their  departure  itself  could  not  be 
much  longer  delayed;  inevitably  German  settlers  would 
then  advance  into  the  important  region  between  the  lakes 
of  Constance  and  Geneva  forsaken  by  its  defenders.  From 
the  sources  of  the  Rhine  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean  the  German 
tribes  were  in  motion ;  the  whole  line  of  the  Rhine  was 
threatened  by  them ;  it  was  a  moment  like  that  when  the 
Alamanni  and  the  Franks  threw  themselves  on  the  falling 
empire  of  the  Caesars ;  and  even  now  there  seemed  on  the 
eve  of  being  carried  into  effect  against  the  Celts  that  very 
movement  which  was  successful  five  hundred  years  after- 
wards against  the  Romans. 
Caesar  Under    these    circumstances    the   new  governor  Gaius 

proceeds^  caesar  arrived  in  the  spring  of  696  in  Narbonese  Gaul, 
GauL  which  had  been  added  by  decree  of  the  senate   to  his 

original  province  embracing  Cisalpine  Gaul  along  with 
Istria  and  Dalmatia.  His  office,  which  was  committed  to 
54.  55.  him  first  for  five  years  (to  the  end  of  700),  then  in  699 
49.  for  five  more  (to  the  end  of  705),  gave  him  the  right  to 
nominate  ten  lieutenants  of  propraetorian  rank,  and  (at 
least  according  to  his  own  interpretation)  to  fill  up  his 
legions,  or  even  to  form  new  ones  at  his  discretion  out  of 
the  burgess-population — who  were  especially  numerous  in 
Cisalpine  Gaul — of  the  territory  under  his  sway.  The 
army,  which  he  received  in  the  two  provinces,  consisted, 
as  regards  infantry  of  the  line,  of  four  legions  trained  and 
inured  to  war,  the  seventh,  eighth,  ninth,  and  tenth,  or  at 
the  utmost  24,000  men,  to  which  fell  to  be  added,  as 
usual,  the  contingents  of  the  subjects.  The  cavalry  and 
light-armed  troops,  moreover,  were  represented  by  horse- 
men from  Spain,  and  bv  Numidian,  Cretan,  and  Balearic 


Caesar  s 
army. 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  39 

archers  and  slingers.     The  staff  of  Caesar — the  elite  of  the 

democracy  of  the  capital — contained,  along  with  not  a  few 

useless  young  men  of  rank,   some  able  officers,   such  as 

Publius  Crassus  the  younger  son  of  the  old  political  ally  of 

Caesar,  and  Titus  Labienus,  who  followed  the  chief  of  the 

democracy  as  a  faithful  adjutant  from  the  Forum  to  the 

battle-field.     Caesar  had  not  received  definite  instructions ; 

to  one  who  was    discerning  and    courageous  these   were 

implied  in  the  circumstances  with  which  he  had  to  deal. 

Here  too  the  negligence  of  the  senate  had  to  be  retrieved, 

and   first  of  all  the  stream  of  migration  of  the  German 

peoples  had  to  be  checked. 

Just   at   this    time   the   Helvetic   invasion,   which    was  Repulse 

closely  interwoven  with  the  German  and  had  been  in  Dre-  of  the 

r        H  ?'etH. 
paration  for  years,  began.     That  they  might  not  make  a 

grant  of  their  abandoned  huts  to  the  Germans  and  might 
render  their  own  return  impossible,  the  Helvetii  had  burnt 
their  towns  and  villages ;  and  their  long  trains  of  waggons, 
laden  with  women,  children,  and  the  best  part  of  their 
moveables,  arrived  from  all  sides  at  the  Leman  lake  near 
Genava  (Geneva),  where  they  and  their  comrades  had 
fixed  their  rendezvous  for  the  28th  of  March1  of  this  year. 
According  to  their  own  reckoning  the  whole  body  consisted 
of  368,000  persons,  of  whom  about  a  fourth  part  were  able 
to  bear  arms.  As  the  mountain  chain  of  the  Jura,  stretch- 
ing from  the  Rhine  to  the  Rhone,  almost  completely  closed 
in  the  Helvetic  country  towards  the  west,  and  its  narrow 
defiles  were  as  ill  adapted  for  the  passage  of  such  a  caravan 
as  they  were  well  adapted  for  defence,  the  leaders  had 
resolved  to  go  round  in  a  southerly  direction,  and  to  open 
up  for  themselves  a  way  to  the  west  at  the  point,  where 
the  Rhone  has  broken  through  the  mountain-chain  between 

1  According  to  the  uncorrected  calendar.  According  to  the  current 
rectification,  which  however  here  by  no  means  rests  on  sufficiently  trust- 
worthy data,  this  day  corresponds  to  the  16th  of  April  of  the  Julian 
calendar. 


4o  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  V 

the  south-western  and  highest  part  of  the  Jura  and  the 
Savoy  mountains,  near  the  modern  Fort  de  1'Ecluse.  But 
on  the  right  bank  here  the  rocks  and  precipices  come  so 
close  to  the  river  that  there  remained  only  a  narrow  path 
which  could  easily  be  blocked  up,  and  the  Sequani,  to 
whom  this  bank  belonged,  could  with  ease  intercept  the 
route  of  the  Helvetii.  They  preferred  therefore  to  pass 
over,  above  the  point  where  the  Rhone  breaks  through, 
to  the  left  Allobrogian  bank,  with  the  view  of  regaining  the 
right  bank  further  down  the  stream  where  the  Rhone 
enters  the  plain,  and  then  marching  on  towards  the  level 
west  of  Gaul ;  there  the  fertile  canton  of  the  Santones 
(Saintonge,  the  valley  of  the  Charente)  on  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  was  selected  by  the  wanderers  for  their  new  abode. 
This  march  led,  where  it  touched  the  left  bank  of  the 
Rhone,  through  Roman  territory ;  and  Caesar,  otherwise 
not  disposed  to  acquiesce  in  the  establishment  of  the 
Helvetii  in  western  Gaul,  was  firmly  resolved  not  to  permit 
their  passage.  But  of  his  four  legions  three  were  stationed 
far  off  at  Aquileia ;  although  he  called  out  in  haste  the 
militia  of  the  Transalpine  province,  it  seemed  scarcely 
possible  with  so  small  a  force  to  hinder  the  innumerable 
Celtic  host  from  crossing  the  Rhone,  between  its  exit  from 
the  Leman  lake  at  Geneva  and  the  point  of  its  breaking 
through  the  mountains,  over  a  distance  of  more  than 
fourteen  miles.  Caesar,  however,  by  negotiations  with  the 
Helvetii,  who  would  gladly  have  effected  by  peaceable 
means  the  crossing  of  the  river  and  the  march  through 
the  Allobrogian  territory,  gained  a  respite  of  fifteen  days, 
which  was  employed  in  breaking  down  the  bridge  over  the 
Rhone  at  Genava,  and  barring  the  southern  bank  of  the 
Rhone  against  the  enemy  by  an  entrenchment  nearly 
nineteen  miles  long :  it  was  the  first  application  of  the 
system— afterwards  carried  out  on  so  immense  a  scale  by 
the  Romans — of  guarding  the  frontier  of  the  empire  in  a 


CHAr.  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  41 

military  point  of  view  by  a  chain  of  forts  placed  in  connec- 
tion with  each  other  by  ramparts  and  ditches.  The 
a  tempts  of  the  Helvetii  to  gain  the  other  bank  at  different 
places  in  boats  or  by  means  of  fords  were  successfully 
frustrated  by  the  Romans  in  these  lines,  and  the  Helvetii 
were  compelled  to  desist  from  the  passage  of  the  Rhone. 

On   the  other  hand,  the  party  in  Gaul  hostile  to   the  The 

Romans,  which  hoped  to  obtain  a  powerful  reinforcement  Helveti* 

...  move 

in  the   Helvetii,  more   especially  the    Haeduan   Dumnorix  towards 

brother  of  Divitiacus,  and  at  the  head  of  the  national  party  Gaul* 

in  his  canton  as  the  latter  was  at  the  head  of  the  Romans, 

procured  for  them  a  passage  through  the  passes  of  the  Jura 

and  the  territory  of  the  Sequani.     The  Romans  had  no 

legal   title   to  forbid  this ;   but  other  and   higher  interests 

were  at  stake  for  them  in  the  Helvetic  expedition  than  the 

question  of  the  formal  integrity  of  the  Roman  territory — 

interests  which  could  only  be  guarded,  if  Caesar,  instead  of 

confining  himself,  as  all  the  governors  of  the  senate  and 

even   Marius  (iii.   444)  had  done,  to  the  modest  task  of 

watching  the  frontier,  should  cross  what  had  hitherto  been 

the  frontier  at  the  head  of  a  considerable  army.     Caesar 

was  general  not  of  the  senate,  but  of  the  state ;  he  showed 

no    hesitation.       He    had    immediately    proceeded    from 

Genava  in  person  to  Italy,  and  with  characteristic  speed 

brought  up  the  three  legions  cantoned  there  as  well  as  two 

newly-formed  legions  of  recruits. 

These  troops   he  united  with    the  corps   stationed    at  The 

Genava,  and  crossed  the  Rhone  with  his  whole  force.      His  Helvet,an 

war. 

unexpected  appearance  in  the  territory  of  the  Haedui 
naturally  at  once  restored  the  Roman  party  there  to  power, 
which  was  not  unimportant  as  regarded  supplies.  He 
found  the  Helvetii  employed  in  crossing  the  Saone,  and 
moving  from  the  territory  of  the  Sequani  into  that  of  the 
Haedui  ;  those  of  them  that  were  still  on  the  left  bank  of 
the    Saone,    especially    the   corps    of    the    Tigorini,    were 


42  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

caught  and  destroyed  by  the  Romans  rapidly  advancing. 
The  bulk  of  the  expedition,  however,  had  already  crossed 
to  the  right  bank  of  the  river ;  Caesar  followed  them  and  in 
twenty-four  hours  effected  the  passage,  which  the  unwieldy 
host  of  the  Helvetii  had  not  been  able  to  accomplish  in 
twenty  days.  The  Helvetii,  prevented  by  this  passage  of  the 
river  on  the  part  of  the  Roman  army  from  continuing  their 
march  westward,  turned  in  a  northerly  direction,  doubtless 
under  the  supposition  that  Caesar  would  not  venture  to 
follow  them  far  into  the  interior  of  Gaul,  and  with  the 
intention,  if  he  should  desist  from  following  them,  of  turning 
again  toward  their  proper  destination.  For  fifteen  days 
the  Roman  army  marched  behind  that  of  the  enemy  at  a 
distance  of  about  four  miles,  clinging  to  its  rear,  and 
hoping  for  an  advantageous  opportunity  of  assailing  the 
Helvetic  host  under  conditions  favourable  to  victory,  and 
destroying  it  But  this  moment  came  not :  unwieldy  as 
was  the  march  of  the  Helvetic  caravan,  the  leaders  knew 
how  to  guard  against  a  surprise,  and  appeared  to  be 
copiously  provided  with  supplies  as  well  as  most  accurately 
informed  by  their  spies  of  every  event  in  the  Roman  camp. 
On  the  other  hand  the  Romans  began  to  suffer  from  want 
of  necessaries,  especially  when  the  Helvetii  removed  from 
the  Saone  and  the  means  of  river-transport  ceased.  The 
non-arrival  of  the  supplies  promised  by  the  Haedui,  from 
which  this  embarrassment  primarily  arose,  excited  the  more 
suspicion,  as  both  armies  were  still  moving  about  in  their 
territory.  Moreover  the  considerable  Roman  cavalry, 
numbering  almost  4000  horse,  proved  utterly  untrustworthy 
— which  doubtless  admitted  of  explanation,  for  they  consisted 
almost  wholly  of  Celtic  horsemen,  especially  of  the  mounted 
retainers  of  the  Haedui,  under  the  command  of  Dumnorix 
the  well-known  enemy  of  the  Romans,  and  Caesar  himself 
had  taken  them  over  still  more  as  hostages  than  as  soldiers. 
There  was  good  reason  to  believe  that  a  defeat  which  they 


chap,  vii     THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  43 

suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  far  weaker  Helvetic  cavalry  was 
occasioned  by  themselves,  and  that  the  enemy  was  informed 
by  them  of  all  occurrences  in  the  Roman  camp.  The 
position  of  Caesar  grew  critical ;  it  was  becoming  disagree- 
ably evident,  how  much  the  Celtic  patriot  party  could 
effect  even  with  the  Haedui  in  spite  of  their  official  alliance 
with  Rome,  and  of  the  distinctive  interests  of  this  canton 
•'nclining  it  towards  the  Romans  ;  what  was  to  be  the  issue, 
if  they  ventured  deeper  and  deeper  into  a  country  full  of 
excitement,  and  if  they  removed  daily  farther  from  their 
means  of  communication  ?  The  armies  were  just  marching 
past  Bibracte  (Autun),  the  capital  of  the  Haedui,  at  a 
moderate  distance  ;  Caesar  resolved  to  seize  this  important 
place  by  force  before  he  continued  his  march  into  the 
interior ;  and  it  is  very  possible,  that  he  intended  to  desist 
altogether  from  farther  pursuit  and  to  establish  himself  in 
Bibracte.  But  when  he  ceased  from  the  pursuit  and  turned 
against  Bibracte,  the  Helvetii  thought  that  the  Romans  were 
making  preparations  for  flight,  and  now  attacked  in  their 
turn. 

Caesar  desired  nothing  better.  The  two  armies  posted  Battle  at 
themselves  on  two  parallel  chains  of  hills ;  the  Celts  began 
the  engagement,  broke  up  the  Roman  cavalry  which  had 
advanced  into  the  plain,  and  rushed  on  against  the  Roman 
legions  posted  on  the  slope  of  the  hill,  but  were  there 
obliged  to  give  way  before  Caesar's  veterans.  When  the 
Romans  thereupon,  following  up  their  advantage,  descended 
in  their  turn  to  the  plain,  the  Celts  again  advanced  against 
them,  and  a  reserved  Celtic  corps  took  them  at  the  same 
time  in  flank.  The  reserve  of  the  Roman  attacking  column 
was  pushed  forward  against  the  latter;  it  forced  it  away 
from  the  main  body  towards  the  baggage  and  the  barricade 
of  waggons,  where  it  was  destroyed.  The  bulk  of  the 
Helvetic  host  was  at  length  brought  to  give  way,  and  com- 
pelled  to   beat    a    retreat    in    an    easterly   direction — the 


44 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  * 


The 
Helretil 

sent  back 
to  their 
original 
abodes. 


opposite  of  that  towards  which  their  expedition  led  them. 
This  day  had  frustrated  the  scheme  of  the  Helvetii  to 
establish  for  themselves  new  settlements  on  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  and  handed  them  over  to  the  pleasure  of  the  victor ; 
but  it  had  been  a  hot  day  also  for  the  conquerors.  Caesar, 
who  had  reason  for  not  altogether  trusting  his  staff  of 
officers,  had  at  the  very  outset  sent  away  all  the  officers' 
horses,  so  as  to  make  the  necessity  of  holding  their  ground 
thoroughly  clear  to  his  troops ;  in  fact  the  battle,  had  the 
Romans  lost  it,  would  have  probably  brought  about  the 
annihilation  of  the  Roman  army.  The  Roman  troops  were 
too  much  exhausted  to  pursue  the  conquered  with  vigour ; 
but  in  consequence  of  the  proclamation  of  Caesar  that  he 
would  treat  all  who  should  support  the  Helvetii  as  like  the 
Helvetii  themselves  enemies  of  the  Romans,  all  support 
was  refused  to  the  beaten  army  whithersoever  it  went — in 
the  first  instance,  in  the  canton  of  the  Lingones  (about 
Langres) — and,  deprived  of  all  supplies  and  of  their  baggage 
and  burdened  by  the  mass  of  camp-followers  incapable  of 
fighting,  they  were  under  the  necessity  of  submitting  to  the 
Roman  general. 

The  lot  of  the  vanquished  was  a  comparatively  mild 
one.  The  Haedui  were  directed  to  concede  settlements 
in  their  territory  to  the  homeless  Boii ;  and  this  settlement 
of  the  conquered  foe  in  the  midst  of  the  most  powerful 
Celtic  cantons  rendered  almost  the  services  of  a  Roman 
colony.  The  survivors  of  the  Helvetii  and  Rauraci,  some- 
thing more  than  a  third  of  the  men  that  had  marched  forth, 
were  naturally  sent  back  to  their  former  territory.  It  was 
incorporated  with  the  Roman  province,  but  the  inhabitants 
were  admitted  to  alliance  with  Rome  under  favourable 
conditions,  in  order  to  defend,  under  Roman  supremacy, 
the  frontier  along  the  upper  Rhine  against  the  Germans. 
Only  the  south-western  point  of  the  Helvetic  canton  was 
directly  taken  into  the  possession  of  the  Romans,  and  there 


chap,  vii     THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  45 

subsequently,  on  the  charming  shore  of  the  Lenian  lake, 
the  old  Celtic  town  Noviodunum  (now  Nyon)  was  converted 
into  a  Roman  frontier- fortress,  the  "Julian  equestrian 
colony." * 

Thus  the  threatening  invasion  of  the  Germans  on  the  Caesar  and 
upper  Rhine  was  obviated,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  party  Ariovistufc 
hostile  to  the  Romans  among  the  Celts  was  humbled.  On 
the  middle  Rhine  also,  where  the  Germans  had  already 
crossed  years  ago,  and  where  the  power  of  Ariovistus  which 
vied  with  that  of  Rome  in  Gaul  was  daily  spreading,  there 
was  need  of  similar  action,  and  the  occasion  for  a  rupture 
was  easily  found.  In  comparison  with  the  yoke  threatened  Negotia- 
or  already  imposed  on  them  by  Ariovistus,  the  Roman  tl0ns* 
supremacy  probably  now  appeared  to  the  greater  part  of 
the  Celts  in  this  quarter  the  lesser  evil ;  the  minority,  who 
retained  their  hatred  of  the  Romans,  had  at  least  to  keep 
silence.  A  diet  of  the  Celtic  tribes  of  central  Gaul,  held 
under  Roman  influence,  requested  the  Roman  general  in 
name  of  the  Celtic  nation  for  aid  against  the  Germans. 
Caesar  consented.  At  his  suggestion  the  Haedui  stopped 
the  payment  of  the  tribute  stipulated  to  be  paid  to 
Ariovistus,  and  demanded  back  the  hostages  furnished ; 
and  when  Ariovistus  on  account  of  this  breach  of  treaty 
attacked  the  clients  of  Rome,  Caesar  took  occasion  thereby 
to  enter  into  direct  negotiation  with  him  and  specially  to 
demand,  in  addition  to  the  return  of  the  hostages  and  a 
promise  to  keep  peace  with  the  Haedui,  that  Ariovistus 
should  bind  himself  to  allure  no  more  Germans  over  the 
Rhine.  The  German  general  replied  to  the  Roman,  in  the 
full  consciousness  of  equality  of  rights,  that  northern  Gaul 
had  become  subject  to  him  by  right  of  war  as  fairly  as 

1  Julia  Equestris,  where  the  last  surname  is  to  be  taken  as  in  other 
colonies  of  Caesar  the  surnames  of  sextanorum,  decimanorutn,  etc.  It  was 
Celtic  or  German  horsemen  of  Caesar,  who,  of  course  with  the  bestowal  of 
the  Roman  or,  at  any  rate,  Latin  franchise,  received  land-allotments  there. 


46  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

southern  Gaul  to  the  Romans;  and  that,  as  he  did  not 
hinder  the  Romans  from  taking  tribute  from  the  Allobroges, 
so  they  should  not  prevent  him  from  taxing  his  subjects. 
In  later  secret  overtures  it  appenred  that  the  prince  was 
well  aware  of  the  circumstances  of  the  Romans ;  he  men- 
tioned the  invitations  which  had  been  addressed  to  him 
from  Rome  to  put  Caesar  out  of  the  way,  and  offered,  if 
Caesar  would  leave  to  him  northern  Gaul,  to  assist  him  in 
turn  to  obtain  the  sovereignty  of  Italy — as  the  party-quarrels 
of  the  Celtic  nation  had  opened  up  an  entrance  for  him 
into  Gaul,  he  seemed  to  expect  from  the  party-quarrels  of 
the  Italian  nation  the  consolidation  of  his  rule  there.  For 
centuries  no  such  language  of  power  completely  on  a  footing 
of  equality  and  bluntly  and  carelessly  expressing  its  inde- 
pendence had  been  held  in  presence  of  the  Romans,  as 
was  now  heard  from  the  king  of  the  German  host ;  he 
summarily  refused  to  come,  when  the  Roman  general 
suggested  that  he  should  appear  personally  before  him 
according  to  the  usual  practice  with  client-princes. 
Ariovistus  It  was  the  more  necessary  not  to  delay ;  Caesar  imme- 

diately set  out  against  Ariovistus.  A  panic  seized  his  troops, 
especially  his  officers,  when  they  were  to  measure  their 
strength  with  the  flower  of  the  German  troops  that  for  four- 
teen years  had  not  come  under  shelter  of  a  roof:  it  seemed 
as  if  the  deep  decay  of  Roman  moral  and  military  discipline 
would  assert  itself  and  provoke  desertion  and  mutiny  even 
in  Caesar's  camp.  But  the  general,  while  declaring  that 
in  case  of  need  he  would  march  with  the  tenth  legion  alone 
against  the  enemy,  knew  not  merely  how  to  influence  these 
by  such  an  appeal  to  honour,  but  also  how  to  bind  the 
other  regiments  to  their  eagles  by  warlike  emulation,  and 
to  inspire  the  troops  with  something  of  his  own  energy. 
Without  leaving  them  time  for  reflection,  he  led  them 
onward  in  rapid  marches,  and  fortunately  anticipated 
Ariovistus  in  the  occupation  of  Vesontio  (Besancon),  the 


attacked, 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  47 

capital  of  the  Sequani.  A  personal  conference  between 
the  two  generals,  which  took  place  at  the  request  of 
Ariovistus,  seemed  as  if  solely  meant  to  cover  an  attempt 
against  the  person  of  Caesar;  arms  alone  could  decide 
between  the  two  oppressors  of  Gaul.  The  war  came 
temporarily  to  a  stand.  In  lower  Alsace  somewhere  in  the 
region  of  Miihlhausen,  five  miles  from  the  Rhine,1  the  two 
armies  lay  at  a  little  distance  from  each  other,  till  Ariovistus 
with  his  very  superior  force  succeeded  in  marching  past  the 
Roman  camp,  placing  himself  in  its  rear,  and  cutting  off 
the  Romans  from  their  base  and  their  supplies.  Caesar 
attempted  to  free  himself  from  his  painful  situation  by  a 
battle ;  but  Ariovistus  did  not  accept  it.  Nothing  remained 
for  the  Roman  general  but,  in  spite  of  his  inferior  strength, 
to  imitate  the  movement  of  the  Germans,  and  to  recover 
his  communications  by  making  two  legions  march  past  the 
enemy  and  take  up  a  position  beyond  the  camp  of  the 
Germans,  while  four  legions  remained  behind  in  the  former 
camp.  Ariovistus,  when  he  saw  the  Romans  divided, 
attempted  an  assault  on  their  lesser  camp ;  but  the  Romans 

1  Goler  {Caesars gall.  Krieg,  p.  45,  etc.)  thinks  that  he  has  found  the 
field  of  battle  at  Cernay  not  far  from  Miihlhausen,  which,  on  the  whole, 
agrees  with  Napoleon's  {Precis,  p.  35)  placing  of  the  battle-field  in  the 
district  of  Belfort.  This  hypothesis,  although  not  certain,  suits  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  ;  for  the  fact  that  Caesar  required  seven  days' 
march  for  the  short  space  from  Besancon  to  that  point,  is  explained  by 
his  own  remark  (i.  41)  that  he  had  taken  a  circuit  of  fifty  miles  to  avoid 
the  mountain  paths  ;  and  the  whole  description  of  the  pursuit  continued 
as  far  as  the  Rhine,  and  evidently  not  lasting  for  several  days  but  ending  on 
the  very  day  of  the  battle,  decides — the  authority  of  tradition  being  equally 
balanced — in  favour  of  the  view  that  the  battle  was  fought  five,  not  fifty, 
miles  from  the  Rhine.  The  proposal  of  Riistow  {Einleitung  zu  Caesars 
Comtn.  p.  117)  to  transfer  the  field  of  battle  to  the  upper  Saar  rests  on  a 
misunderstanding.  The  corn  expected  from  the  Sequani,  Leuci,  Lingones 
was  not  to  come  to  the  Roman  army  in  the  course  of  their  march  against 
Ariovistus,  but  to  be  delivered  at  Besancon  before  their  departure,  and 
taken  by  the  troops  along  with  them  ;  as  is  clearly  apparent  from  the 
fact  that  Caesar,  while  pointing  his  troops  to  those  supplies,  comforts 
them  at  the  same  time  with  the  hope  of  corn  to  be  brought  in  on  the  route. 
From  Besancon  Caesar  commanded  the  region  of  Langres  and  Epinal, 
and,  as  may  be  well  conceived,  preferred  to  levy  his  requisitions  there 
rather  than  in  the  exhausted  districts  from  which  he  came. 


48  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

and  repulsed  it.     Under  the  impression  made  by  this  success, 

be**e"*        the  whole  Roman  army  was  brought  forward  to  the  attack ; 

and  the  Germans  also  placed  themselves  in  battle  array,  in 

a  long  line,  each  tribe  for  itself,  the  cars  of  the  army  with 

the  baggage  and  women   being   placed   behind  them  to 

render  flight  more  difficult.     The  right  wing  of  the  Romans, 

led  by  Caesar  himself,  threw  itself  rapidly  on  the  enemy, 

and  drove  them  before  it ;  the  right  wing  of  the  Germans 

was  in  like  manner  successful.     The   balance  still  stood 

equal ;  but  the  tactics  of  the  reserve,  which  had  decided 

so  many  other  conflicts  with  barbarians,  decided  the  conflict 

with  the  Germans   also  in  favour  of  the  Romans;  their 

third  line,  which  Publius  Crassus  seasonably  sent  to  render 

help,   restored   the  battle   on   the  left   wing  and  thereby 

decided  the  victory.     The  pursuit  was  continued  to  the 

Rhine ;   only   a    few,    including    the    king,  succeeded   in 

58.  escaping  to  the  other  bank  (696). 

German  Thus  brilliantly  the  Roman  rule  announced  its  advent 

settlements  t0  ^e  mighty  stream,  which  the  Italian  soldiers  here  saw 

on  the  left  . 

bank  of  the  for  the  first  time;  by  a  single  fortunate  battle  the  line  of 

ne*  the  Rhine  was  won.  The  fate  of  the  German  settlements 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  lay  in  the  hands  of  Caesar ; 
the  victor  could  destroy  them,  but  he  did  not  do  so.  The 
neighbouring  Celtic  cantons — the  Sequani,  Leuci,  Medio- 
matrici — were  neither  capable  of  self-defence  nor  trust- 
worthy ;  the  transplanted  Germans  promised  to  become 
not  merely  brave  guardians  of  the  frontier  but  also  better 
subjects  of  Rome,  for  their  nationality  severed  them  from 
the  Celts,  and  their  own  interest  in  the  preservation  of 
their  newly-won  settlements  severed  them  from  their 
countrymen  across  the  Rhine,  so  that  in  their  isolated 
position  they  could  not  avoid  adhering  to  the  central 
power.  Caesar  here,  as  everywhere,  preferred  conquered 
foes  to  doubtful  friends ;  he  left  the  Germans  settled  by 
Ariovistus  along  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine — the  Triboci 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  49 

about  Strassburg,  the  Nemetes  about  Spires,  the  Vangiones 
about  Worms — in  possession  of  their  new  abodes,  and 
entrusted  them  with  the  guarding  of  the  Rhine-frontier 
against  their  countrymen.1 

The  Suebi,  who  threatened  the  territory  of  the  Treveri 
on  the  middle  Rhine,  on  receiving  news  of  the  defeat  of 
Ariovistus,  again  retreated  into  the  interior  of  Germany; 
on  which  occasion  they  sustained  considerable  loss  by  the 
way  at  the  hands  of  the  adjoining  tribes. 

The  consequences  of  this  one  campaign  were  immense ;  The  Rhine 
they  were  felt  for  many  centuries  after.  The  Rhine  had 
become  the  boundary  of  the  Roman  empire  against  the 
Germans.  In  Gaul,  which  was  no  longer  able  to  govern 
itself,  the  Romans  had  hitherto  ruled  on  the  south  coast, 
while  lately  the  Germans  had  attempted  to  establish  them- 
selves farther  up.  The  recent  events  had  decided  that 
Gaul  was  to  succumb  not  merely  in  part  but  wholly  to  the 
Roman  supremacy,  and  that  the  natural  boundary  presented 
by  the  mighty  river  was  also  to  become  the  political 
boundary.  The  senate  in  its  better  times  had  not  rested, 
till  the  dominion  of  Rome  had  reached  the  natural  bounds 
of  Italy — the  Alps  and  the  Mediterranean — and  its 
adjacent  islands.  The  enlarged  empire  also  needed  a 
similar  military  rounding  off;  but  the  present  government 
left  the  matter  to  accident,  and  sought  at  most  to  see,  not 
that  the  frontiers  were  capable  of  defence,  but  that  they 
should  not  need  to  be  defended  directly  by  itself.     People 

1  This  seems  the  simplest  hypothesis  regarding  the  origin  of  these 
Germanic  settlements.  That  Ariovistus  settled  those  peoples  on  the 
middle  Rhine  is  probable,  because  they  fight  in  his  army  (Caes.  i.  51)  and 
do  not  appear  earlier ;  that  Caesar  left  them  in  possession  of  their 
setdements  is  probable,  because  he  in  presence  of  Ariovistus  declared 
himself  ready  to  tolerate  the  Germans  already  settled  in  Gaul  (Caes.  i.  35, 
43),  and  because  we  find  them  afterwards  in  these  abodes.  Caesar  does 
not  mention  the  directions  given  after  the  battle  concerning  these 
Germanic  settlements,  because  he  keeps  silence  on  principle  regarding  all 
the  organic  arrangements  made  by  him  in  Gaul. 

voi*  v  »37 


tion  of 
GauL 


So  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  Book  V 

felt  that  now  another  spirit  and  another  arm  began  to  guide 
the  destinies  of  Rome. 
Subjuga-  The  foundations  of  the  future  edifice  were  laid ;  but  in 

order  to  finish  the  building  and  completely  to  secure  the 
recognition  of  the  Roman  rule  by  the  Gauls,  and  that  of 
the  Rhine- frontier  by  the  Germans,  very  much  still 
remained  to  be  done.  All  central  Gaul  indeed  from  the 
Roman  frontier  as  far  up  as  Chartres  and  Treves  submitted 
without  objection  to  the  new  ruler;  and  on  the  upper  and 
middle  Rhine  also  no  attack  was  for  the  present  to  be 
apprehended  from  the  Germans.  But  the  northern 
provinces  —  as  well  the  Aremorican  cantons  in  Brittany 
and  Normandy  as  the  more  powerful  confederation  of  the 
Belgae — were  not  affected  by  the  blows  directed  against 
central  Gaul,  and  found  no  occasion  to  submit  to  the 
conqueror  of  Ariovistus.  Moreover,  as  was  already 
remarked,  very  close  relations  subsisted  between  the 
Belgae  and  the  Germans  over  the  Rhine,  and  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Rhine  also  Germanic  tribes  made  themselves 
Belgic  ready  to  cross  the  stream.  In  consequence  of  this  Caesar 
expedition.  set  out  wjtj1  ^g  army}  now  increased  to  eight  legions,  in 
57.  the  spring  of  697  against  the  Belgic  cantons.  Mindful  of 
the  brave  and  successful  resistance  which  fifty  years  before 
they  had  with  united  strength  presented  to  the  Cimbri  on 
the  borders  of  their  land  (iii.  444),  and  stimulated  by  the 
patriots  who  had  fled  to  them  in  numbers  from  central 
Gaul,  the  confederacy  of  the  Belgae  sent  their  whole  first 
levy — 300,000  armed  men  under  the  leadership  of  Galba 
the  king  of  the  Suessiones — to  their  southern  frontier  to 
receive  Caesar  there.  A  single  canton  alone,  that  of  the 
powerful  Remi  (about  Rheims)  discerned  in  this  invasion 
of  the  foreigners  an  opportunity  to  shake  off  the  rule  which 
their  neighbours  the  Suessiones  exercised  over  them,  and 
prepared  to  take  up  in  the  north  the  part  which  the 
Haedui  had  played  in  central  Gaul.     The  Roman  and  the 


CHAP,  va     THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEoT  51 


Belgic  armies  arrived  in  their  territory  almost  at  the  same 

time. 

Caesar    did    not  venture  to  give   battle  to   the  brave  Conflict* 

on  the 
Aisnc. 


enemy  six  times  as  strong ;  to  the  north  of  the  Aisne,  not  ° 


far  from  the  modern  Pontavert  between  Rheims  and  Laon, 
he  pitched  his  camp  on  a  plateau  rendered  almost  unas- 
sailable on  all  sides  partly  by  the  river  and  by  morasses, 
partly  by  fosses  and  redoubts,  and  contented  himself  with 
thwarting  by  defensive  measures  the  attempts  of  the  Belgae 
to  cross  the  Aisne  and  thereby  to  cut  him  off  from  his 
communications.     When    he    counted    on    the    likelihood 
that  the  coalition  would  speedily  collapse  under  its  own 
weight,   he    had    reckoned    rightly.     King   Galba  was   an 
honest  man,  held  in  universal   respect ;   but   he  was  not 
equal  to  the  management  of  an  army  of  300,000  men  on 
hostile  soil.     No  progress  was  made,  and  provisions  began 
to    fail ;    discontent   and    dissension    began    to    insinuate 
themselves    into    the    camp    of    the    confederates.       The 
Bellovaci  in  particular,  equal  to  the  Suessiones  in  power, 
and  already  dissatisfied  that  the  supreme  command  of  the 
confederate  army  had  not  fallen  to  them,  could  no  longer 
be  detained  after   news  had  arrived  that  the  Haedui  as 
allies  of  the  Romans  were  making  preparations  to  enter 
the   Bellovacic  territory.     They  determined   to   break  up 
and  go  home ;  though  for  honour's  sake  all  the  cantons  at 
the  same  time  bound  themselves  to  hasten  with  their  united 
strength  to  the  help  of  the  one  first  attacked,  the  miserable 
dispersion  of  the  confederacy  was  but  miserably  palliated 
by  such  impracticable  stipulations.     It  was  a  catastrophe 
which  vividly  reminds  us  of  that  which  occurred  almost  on 
the  same  spot  in  1792  ;  and,  just  as  with  the  campaign  in 
Champagne,  the  defeat  was  all  the  more  severe  that  it  took 
place  without  a  battle.     The  bad  leadership  of  the  retreat- 
ing army  allowed  the  Roman  general  to  pursue  it  as  if  it 
were  beaten,  and  to  destroy  a  portion  of  the  contingents 


52  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

Submission  that  had  remained  to  the  last.     But  the  consequences  of 
western       tne   victory    were  not  confined   to  this.     As   Caesar  ad- 
cantons,      vanced  into  the  western  cantons  of  the  Belgae,  one  after 
another  gave  themselves  up  as  lost  almost  without  resist- 
ance ;  the  powerful  Suessiones  (about  Soissons),  as  well  as 
their    rivals,    the    Bellovaci    (about    Beauvais)    and    the 
Ambiani  (about  Amiens).     The  towns  opened  their  gates 
when  they  saw  the  strange  besieging  machines,  the  towers 
rolling  up  to  their  walls ;  those  who  would  not  submit  to  the 
foreign  masters  sought  a  refuge  beyond  the  sea  in  Britain. 
Tn*  .  But  in  the  eastern  cantons   the   national  feeling  was 

with  the  more  energetically  roused.  The  Viromandui  (about  Arras), 
Nervii  the  Atrebates  (about  St.  Quentin),  the  German  Aduatuci 
(about  Namur),  but  above  all  the  Nervii  (in  Hainault)  with 
their  not  inconsiderable  body  of  clients,  little  inferior  in 
number  to  the  Suessiones  and  Bellovaci,  far  superior  to 
them  in  valour  and  vigorous  patriotic  spirit,  concluded  a 
second  and  closer  league,  and  assembled  their  forces  on 
the  upper  Sambre.  Celtic  spies  informed  them  most 
accurately  of  the  movements  of  the  Roman  army ;  their 
own  local  knowledge,  and  the  high  tree- barricades  which 
were  formed  everywhere  in  these  districts  to  obstruct  the 
bands  of  mounted  robbers  who  often  visited  them,  allowed 
the  allies  to  conceal  their  own  operations  for  the  most  part 
from  the  view  of  the  Romans.  When  these  arrived  on  the 
Sambre  not  far  from  Bavay,  and  the  legions  were  occupied 
in  pitching  their  camp  on  the  crest  of  the  left  bank,  while 
the  cavalry  and  light  infantry  were  exploring  the  opposite 
heights,  the  latter  were  all  at  once  assailed  by  the  whole 
mass  of  the  enemy's  forces  and  driven  down  the  hill  into 
the  river.  In  a  moment  the  enemy  had  crossed  this  also, 
and  stormed  the  heights  of  the  left  bank  with  a  determina- 
tion that  braved  death.  Scarcely  was  there  time  left  for 
the  entrenching  legionaries  to  exchange  the  mattock  for  the 
sword ;  the  soldiers,  many  without  helmets,  had  to  fight 


chap,  vii     THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  53 

just  as  they  stood,  without  line  of  battle,  without  plan, 
without  proper  command ;  for,  owing  to  the  suddenness  of 
the  attack  and  the  intersection  of  the  ground  by  tall 
hedges,  the  several  divisions  had  wholly  lost  their  com- 
munications. Instead  of  a  battle  there  arose  a  number  of 
unconnected  conflicts.  Labienus  with  the  left  wing  over- 
threw the  Atrebates  and  pursued  them  even  across  the 
river.  The  Roman  central  division  forced  the  Viromandui 
down  the  declivity.  But  the  right  wing,  where  the  general 
himself  was  present,  was  outflanked  by  the  far  more 
numerous  Nervii  the  more  easily,  as  the  central  division 
carried  away  by  its  own  success  had  evacuated  the  ground 
alongside  of  it,  and  even  the  half-ready  camp  was  occupied 
by  the  Nervii;  the  two  legions,  each  separately  rolled 
together  into  a  dense  mass  and  assailed  in  front  and  on 
both  flanks,  deprived  of  most  of  their  officers  and  their 
best  soldiers,  appeared  on  the  point  of  being  broken  and 
cut  to  pieces.  The  Roman  camp-followers  and  the  allied 
troops  were  already  fleeing  in  all  directions ;  of  the  Celtic 
cavalry  whole  divisions,  like  the  contingent  of  the  Treveri, 
galloped  off  at  full  speed,  that  from  the  battle-field  itself 
they  might  announce  at  home  the  welcome  news  of  the 
defeat  which  had  been  sustained.  Everything  was  at 
stake.  The  general  himself  seized  his  shield  and  fought 
among  the  foremost;  his  example,  his  call  even  now 
inspiring  enthusiasm,  induced  the  wavering  ranks  to  rally. 
They  had  already  in  some  measure  extricated  themselves 
and  had  at  least  restored  the  connection  between  the  two 
legions  of  this  wing,  when  help  came  up — -partly  down 
from  the  crest  of  the  bank,  where  in  the  interval  the 
Roman  rearguard  with  the  baggage  had  arrived,  partly 
from  the  other  bank  of  the  river,  where  Labienus  had 
meanwhile  penetrated  to  the  enemy's  camp  and  taken 
possession  of  it,  and  now,  perceiving  at  length  the  danger 
that  menaced  the  right  wing,  despatched  the  victorious 


of  the 

Belgae. 


54  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

tenth    legion    to    the   aid    of  his   general.       The    Nervii, 
separated    from    their    confederates    and    simultaneously 
assailed  on  all  sides,  now  showed,  when  fortune  turned, 
the  same  heroic  courage  as  when  they  believed  themselves 
victors;    still    over    the    pile    of    corpses    of    their    fallen 
comrades  they  fought  to  the  last  man.     According  to  theii 
own  statement,  of  their  six  hundred  senators  only  three 
survived  this  day. 
Subjection         After  this  annihilating  defeat  the  Nervii,  Atrebates,  and 
Viromandui  could  not  but  recognize  the  Roman  supremacy. 
The  Aduatuci,   who  arrived    too  late  to  take  part  in  the 
fight  on  the  Sambre,  attempted  still  to  hold  their  ground 
in  the  strongest  of  their  towns  (on  the  mount  Falhize  near 
the  Maas  not  far  from  Huy),  but  they  too  soon  submitted. 
A  nocturnal  attack  on  the  Roman  camp  in  front  of  the 
town,  which  they  ventured  after  the  surrender,  miscarried ; 
and  the  perfidy  was  avenged  by  the  Romans  with  fearful 
severity.     The  clients  of  the  Aduatuci,  consisting  of  the 
Eburones  between  the   Maas  and  Rhine  and  other  small 
adjoining  tribes,  were  declared  independent  by  the  Romans, 
while  the  Aduatuci    taken  prisoners  were  sold  under  the 
hammer  en  masse  for  the  benefit  of  the  Roman  treasury. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  fate  which  had  befallen  the  Cimbri  still 
pursued    even  this  last  Cimbrian  fragment.      Caesar    con- 
tented himself  with  imposing  on  the  other  subdued  tribes  a 
general    disarmament    and    furnishing    of    hostages.     The 
Remi  became  naturally  the  leading  canton  in  Belgic,  like 
the  Haedui  in  central  Gaul ;  even  in  the  latter  several  clans 
at  enmity  with  the  Haedui  preferred  to  rank  among  the 
clients  of  the  Remi.     Only  the  remote  maritime  cantons  of 
the  Morini  (Artois)  and  the  Menapii  (Flanders  and  Brabant), 
and    the    country    between    the    Scheldt    and    the    Rhine 
inhabited  in  great  part  by  Germans,  remained  still  for  the 
present  exempt  from  Roman  invasion  and  in  possession  of 
their  hereditary  freedom. 


chap,  vn     THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  55 

The    turn  of   the  Aremorican  cantons  came.     In    the  Expedi- 

autumn  of  697   Publius  Crassus  was  sent  thither  with  a  tl0n.s  Al7* 
*  ,  against  tne 

Roman  corps ;  he  induced  the  Veneti — who  as  masters  of  maritime 
the  ports  of  the  modern  Morbihan  and  of  a  respectable  fleet  cantons- 
occupied  the  first  place  among  all  the  Celtic  cantons  in 
navigation  and  commerce — and  generally  the  coast-districts 
between  the  Loire  and  Seine,  to  submit  to  the  Romans  and 
give  them  hostages.     But  they  soon  repented.     When  in 
the  following  winter  (697-698)  Roman  officers  came  to  these  57-56. 
legions    to    levy    requisitions    of    grain    there,    they   were 
detained  by  the  Veneti  as  counter-hostages.     The  example 
thus  set  was  quickly  followed  not  only  by  the  Aremorican 
cantons,  but  also  by  the  maritime  cantons  of  the  Belgae 
that  still  remained    free ;    where,  as    in  some  cantons  of 
Normandy,    the    common    council    refused    to    join    the 
insurrection,  the  multitude  put  them  to  death  and  attached 
itself  with  redoubled  zeal  to  the  national  cause.     The  whole  Venetian 
coast  from  the  mouth  of  the  Loire  to  that  of  the  Rhine  war* 
rose  against  Rome ;  the  most  resolute  patriots  from  all  the 
Celtic  cantons  hastened  thither  to  co-operate  in  the  great 
work  of  liberation  ;  they  already  calculated  on  the  rising  of 
the  whole  Belgic  confederacy,  on  aid  from  Britain,  on  the 
arrival  of  Germans  from  beyond  the  Rhine. 

Caesar  sent  Labienus  with  all  the  cavalry  to  the  Rhine, 
with  a  view  to  hold  in  check  the  agitation  in  the  Belgic 
province,  and  in  case  of  need  to  prevent  the  Germans  from 
crossing  the  river;  another  of  his  lieutenants,  Quintus 
Titurius  Sabinus,  went  with  three  legions  to  Normandy, 
where  the  main  body  of  the  insurgents  assembled  But  the 
powerful  and  intelligent  Veneti  were  the  true  centre  of  the 
insurrection ;  the  chief  attack  by  land  and  sea  was  directed 
against  them.  Caesar's  lieutenant,  Decimus  Brutus,  brought 
up  the  fleet  formed  partly  of  the  ships  of  the  subject  Celtic 
cantons,  partly  of  a  number  of  Roman  galleys  hastily  built 
on  the  Loire  and  manned  with  rowers  from  the  Narbonese 


56  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

province ;  Caesar  himself  advanced  with  the  flower  of  his 
infantry  into  the  territory  of  the  Veneti.  But  these  were 
prepared  beforehand,  and  had  with  equal  skill  and  resolu- 
tion availed  themselves  of  the  favourable  circumstances 
which  the  nature  of  the  ground  in  Brittany  and  the 
possession  of  a  considerable  naval  power  presented.  The 
country  was  much  intersected  and  poorly  furnished  with 
grain,  the  towns  were  situated  for  the  most  part  on  cliffs 
and  tongues  of  land,  and  were  accessible  from  the  mainland 
only  by  shallows  which  it  was  difficult  to  cross ;  the  provi- 
sion of  supplies  and  the  conducting  of  sieges  were  equally 
difficult  for  the  army  attacking  by  land,  while  the  Celts  by 
means  of  their  vessels  could  furnish  the  towns  easily  with 
everything  needful,  and  in  the  event  of  the  worst  could 
accomplish  their  evacuation.  The  legions  expended  their 
time  and  strength  in  the  sieges  of  the  Venetian  townships. 
only  to  see  the  substantial  fruits  of  victory  ultimately  carried 
off  in  the  vessels  of  the  enemy. 
Naval  Accordingly  when  the  Roman  fleet,  long  detained  by 

?attle  storms  at  the  mouth  of  the  Loire,  arrived  at  length  on  the 

between  m  '  ° 

the  coast  of  Brittany,  it  was  left  to  decide  the  struggle  by  a 

R°dUinS  naval  battle.  The  Celts,  conscious  of  their  superiority  on 
Veneti.  this  element,  brought  forth  their  fleet  against  that  of  the 
Romans  commanded  by  Brutus.  Not  only  did  it  number 
220  sail,  far  more  than  the  Romans  had  been  able  to  bring 
up,  but  their  high-decked  strong  sailing-vessels  with  flat 
bottoms  were  also  far  better  adapted  for  the  high-running 
waves  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  than  the  low,  lightly-built 
oared  galleys  of  the  Romans  with  their  sharp  keels. 
Neither  the  missiles  nor  the  boarding-bridges  of  the  Roman? 
could  reach  the  high  deck  of  the  enemy's  vessels,  and  th( 
iron  beaks  recoiled  powerless  from  the  strong  oaken  planks. 
But  the  Roman  mariners  cut  the  ropes,  by  which  the  yards 
were  fastened  to  the  masts,  by  means  of  sickles  fastened  to 
long  poles  ;  the  yards  and  sails  fell  down,  and,  as  they  did 


chap,  vii     THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  57 

not  know  how  to  repair  the  damage  speedily,  the  ship  v*as 

thus  rendered  a  wreck  just  as  it  is  at  the  present  day  by  the 

falling  of  the  masts,  and  the  Roman  boats  easily  succeeded 

by  a  joint  attack  in  mastering  the  maimed  vessel  of  the 

enemy.     When  the  Gauls  perceived  this  manoeuvre,  they 

attempted  to  move  from  the  coast  on  which  they  had  taken 

up  the  combat  with  the  Romans,  and  to  gain  the  high  seas, 

whither   the  Roman  galleys  could   not  follow  them ;   but 

unhappily  for  them  there  suddenly  set  in  a  dead  calm,  and 

the  immense    fleet,  towards  the  equipment  of  which  the 

maritime  cantons  had  applied  all  their  energies,  was  almost 

wholly  destroyed    by  the  Romans.     Thus  was  this  naval 

battle — so  far  as  historical  knowledge  reaches,  the  earliest 

fought  on  the  Atlantic  Ocean — just  like  the  engagement  at 

Mylae  two  hundred  years  before  (ii.  175),  notwithstanding 

the  most  unfavourable  circumstances,  decided  in  favour  of 

the  Romans  by  a  lucky  invention  suggested  by  necessity. 

The  consequence  of  the  victory  achieved  by  Brutus  was  the  Sabmlnloa 

surrender  of  the  Veneti  and  of  all  Brittany.     More  with  a  ™^rjlltJ 

view   to    impress    the    Celtic    nation,    after    so   manifold  cantom. 

evidences  of  clemency  towards  the  vanquished,  by  an  example 

of  fearful  severity  now  against  those  whose  resistance  had 

been  obstinate,  than  with  the  view  of  punishing  the  breach 

of  treaty  and  the  arrest  of  the   Roman   officers,   Caesar 

caused  the  whole  common  council  to  be  executed  and  the 

people  of  the  Venetian  canton  to  the  last  man  to  be  sold 

into  slavery.     By  this  dreadful  fate,  as  well  as  by  their 

intelligence  and  their  patriotism,  the   Veneti   have  more 

than  any  other  Celtic  clan  acquired  a  title  to  the  sympathy 

of  posterity. 

Sabinus  meanwhile  opposed  to  the  levy  of  the  coast- 
states  assembled  on  the  Channel  the  same  tactics  by  which 
Caesar  had  in  the  previous  year  conquered  the  Belgic 
general  levy  on  the  Aisne ;  he  stood  on  the  defensive  till 
impatience  and  want  invaded  the  ranks  of  the  enemy,  and 


58  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 

then  managed  by  deceiving  them  as  to  the  temper  and 
strength  of  his  troops,  and  above  all  by  means  of  their  own 
impatience,  to  allure  them  to  an  imprudent  assault  upon  the 
Roman  camp,  in  which  they  were  defeated  ;  whereupon  the 
militia  dispersed  and  the  country  as  far  as  the  Seine  submitted- 
Expedi-  The  Morini  and  Menapii  alone  persevered  in  withhold- 

against  the  m§  tneu"  recognition  of  the  Roman  supremacy.  To  compel 
Morini  and  them  to  this,  Caesar  appeared  on  their  borders ;  but, 
enapn.  rendered  wiser  by  the  experiences  of  their  countrymen, 
they  avoided  accepting  battle  on  the  borders  of  their  land, 
and  retired  into  the  forests  which  then  stretched  almost 
without  interruption  from  the  Ardennes  towards  the  German 
Ocean.  The  Romans  attempted  to  make  a  road  through 
the  forest  with  the  axe,  ranging  the  felled  trees  on  each 
side  as  a  barricade  against  the  enemy's  attacks ;  but  even 
Caesar,  daring  as  he  was,  found  it  advisable  after  some 
days  of  most  laborious  marching,  especially  as  it  was  verg- 
ing towards  winter,  to  order  a  retreat,  although  but  a  small 
portion  of  the  Morini  had  submitted  and  the  powerful 
Menapii  had  not  been  reached  at  alL  In  the  following 
55.  year  (699),  while  Caesar  himself  was  employed  in  Britain, 
the  greater  part  of  the  army  was  sent  afresh  against  these 
tribes ;  but  this  expedition  also  remained  in  the  main  un- 
successful. Nevertheless  the  result  of  the  last  campaigns 
was  the  almost  complete  reduction  of  Caul  under  the 
dominion  of  the  Romans.  While  central  Gaul  had  sub- 
57.  mitted  to  it  without  resistance,  during  the  campaign  of  697 
the  Belgic,  and  during  that  of  the  following  year  the  mari- 
time, cantons  had  been  compelled  by  force  of  arms  to 
acknowledge  the  Roman  rule.  The  lofty  hopes,  with 
which  the  Celtic  patriots  had  begun  the  last  campaign, 
had  nowhere  been  fulfilled.  Neither  Germans  nor  Britons 
had  come  to  their  aid ;  and  in  Belgica  the  presence  of 
Labienus  had  sufficed  to  prevent  the  renewal  of  the  con- 
flicts of  the  previous  year. 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  59 

While  Caesar  was  thus  forming  the  Roman  domain  in  Establish- 

the  west  by  force  of  arms  into  a  compact  whole,  he  did  ment  of . 
'  r  '  communi- 

not  neglect  to  open  up  for  the  newly-conquered  country —  cations 
which  was  destined  in  fact  to  fill  up  the  wide  gap  in  that  r11^11^ 
domain  between  Italy  and   Spain — communications  both  Valais, 
with  the  Italian   home   and  with   the   Spanish  provinces. 
The  communication  between  Gaul  and  Italy  had  certainly 
been  materially  facilitated  by  the  military  road  laid  out  by 
Pompeius  in  677  over  Mont  Genevre  (iv.  293);  but  since  the  77. 
whole  of  Gaul  had  been  subdued  by  the  Romans,  there  was 
need  of  a  route  crossing  the  ridge  of  the  Alps  from  the  valley 
of  the  Po,  not  in  a  westerly  but  in  a  northerly  direction, 
and  furnishing  a  shorter  communication  between  Italy  and 
central  Gaul.     The  way  which   leads   over  the  Great  St. 
Bernard  into  the  Valais  and  along  the  lake  of  Geneva  had 
long  served  the  merchant  for  this  purpose ;  to  get  this  road 
into  his  power,  Caesar  as  early  as  the  autumn  of  697  caused  57. 
Octodurum  (Martigny)  to  be  occupied  by  Servius  Galba, 
and  the  inhabitants  of  the  Valais  to  be  reduced  to  subjec- 
tion— a  result   which  was,  of  course,    merely  postponed, 
not  prevented,  by  the  brave  resistance  of  these  mountain- 
peoples. 

To  gain  communication  with  Spain,  moreover,  Publius  and  with 
Crassus  was  sent  in  the  following  year  (698)  to  Aquitania  fgain" 
with  instructions  to  compel  the  Iberian  tribes  dwelling 
there  to  acknowledge  the  Roman  rule.  The  task  was  not 
without  difficulty ;  the  Iberians  held  together  more  com- 
pactly than  the  Celts  and  knew  better  than  these  how  to 
learn  from  their  enemies.  The  tribes  beyond  the  Pyrenees, 
especially  the  valiant  Cantabri,  sent  a  contingent  to  their 
threatened  countrymen ;  with  this  there  came  experienced 
officers  trained  under  the  leadership  of  Sertorius  in  the 
Roman  fashion,  who  introduced  as  far  as  possible  the 
principles  of  the  Roman  art  of  war,  and  especially  of  en- 
campment, among  the  Aquitanian  levy  already  respectable 


60  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  pock  v 

from  its  numbers  and  its  valour.  But  the  excellent  officer 
who  led  the  Romans  knew  how  to  surmount  all  difficulties, 
and  after  some  hardly-contested  but  successful  battles  he 
induced  the  peoples  from  the  Garonne  to  the  vicinity  of 
the  Pyrenees  to  submit  to  the  new  masters. 
Fresh  One  of  the  objects  which  Caesar  had  proposed  to  him- 

of°the°nS     se^ — tne  subjugation  of  Gaul — had  been  in  substance,  with 
Rhine-        exceptions  scarcely  worth  mentioning,  attained  so  far  as  it 
bythe*17     could  be  attained  at  all  by  the  sword.     But  the  other  half 
Germans,     of  the  work  undertaken  by  Caesar  was  still  far  from  being 
satisfactorily  accomplished,  and  the  Germans  had  by  no 
means  as  yet  been  everywhere  compelled  to  recognize  the 
66-65.  Rhine  as  their  limit.     Even  now,  in  the  winter  of  698-699, 
a  fresh  crossing  of  the  boundary  had  taken  place  on  the 
lower  course  of  the  river,  whither  the  Romans  had   not 
The  yet  penetrated.     The  German  tribes  of  the  Usipetes  and 

^petes  Tencteri  whose  attempts  to  cross  the  Rhine  in  the  territory 
Tencteri.  of  the  Menapii  have  been  already  mentioned  (p.  37),  had  at 
length,  eluding  the  vigilance  of  their  opponents  by  a  feigned 
retreat,  crossed  in  the  vessels  belonging  to  the  Menapii — 
an  enormous  host,  which  is  said,  including  women  and 
children,  to  have  amounted  to  430,000  persons.  They  still 
lay,  apparently,  in  the  region  of  Nimeguen  and  Cleves ;  but 
it  was  said  that,  following  the  invitations  of  the  Celtic  patriot 
party,  they  intended  to  advance  into  the  interior  of  Gaul ; 
and  the  rumour  was  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  bands  of 
their  horsemen  already  roamed  as  far  as  the  borders  of  the 
Treveri.  But  when  Caesar  with  his  legions  arrived  oppo- 
site to  them,  the  sorely-harassed  emigrants  seemed  not 
desirous  of  fresh  conflicts,  but  very  ready  to  accept  land 
from  the  Romans  and  to  till  it  in  peace  under  their 
supremacy.  While  negotiations  as  to  this  were  going  on, 
a  suspicion  arose  in  the  mind  of  the  Roman  general  that 
the  Germans  only  sought  to  gain  time  till  the  bands  of 
horsemen  sent  out  by  them  had  returned.     Whether  this 


chap,  vii     THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  61 

suspicion  was  well  founded  or  not,  we  cannot  tell,  but 
confirmed  in  it  by  an  attack,  which  in  spite  of  the  de  facto 
suspension  of  arms  a  troop  of  the  enemy  made  on  his  van- 
guard, and  exasperated  by  the  severe  loss  thereby  sustained, 
Caesar  believed  himself  entitled  to  disregard  every  consi- 
deration of  international  law.  When  on  the  second  morning 
the  princes  and  elders  of  the  Germans  appeared  in  the 
Roman  camp  to  apologize  for  the  attack  made  without 
their  knowledge,  they  were  arrested,  and  the  multitude* 
anticipating  no  assault  and  deprived  of  their  leaders  were 
suddenly  fallen  upon  by  the  Roman  army.  It  was  rather  a 
man-hunt  than  a  battle ;  those  that  did  not  fall  under  the 
swords  of  the  Romans  were  drowned  in  the  Rhine ;  almost 
none  but  the  divisions  detached  at  the  time  of  the  attack 
escaped  the  massacre  and  succeeded  in  recrossing  the 
Rhine,  where  the  Sugambri  gave  them  an  asylum  in  their 
territory,  apparently  on  the  Lippe.  The  behaviour  of 
Caesar  towards  these  German  immigrants  met  with  severe 
and  just  censure  in  the  senate ;  but,  however  little  it  can 
be  excused,  the  German  encroachments  were  emphatically 
checked  by  the  terror  which  it  occasioned. 

Caesar  however  found  it  advisable  to  take  yet  a  further  Ca«w  on 
step  and  to  lead  the  legions  over  the  Rhine.     He  was  not  !^e  J?8^* 
without  connections  beyond  the  river.     The  Germans  at  the  Rhine, 
the  stage  of  culture  which  they  had  then  reached,  lacked 
as  yet  any  national  coherence ;  in  political  distraction  they 
— though   from   other  causes — fell   nothing  short  of  the 
Celts.     The  Ubii  (on  the  Sieg  and  Lahn),  the  most  cityl- 
ired  among  the  German  tribes,  had  recently  been  made 
subject  and  tributary  by  a  powerful  Suebian  canton  of  the 
interior,  and  had  as  early  as  697  through  their  envoys  en-  57. 
treated  Caesar  to  free  them  like  the  Gauls  from  the  Suebian 
rule.     It  was  not  Caesar's  design  seriously  to  respond  to 
this  suggestion,  which  would  have  involved  him  in  endless 
enterprises ;  but  it  seemed  advisable,  with  the  view  of  pre- 


62  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

venting  the  appearance  of  the  Germanic  arms  on  the  south 
of  the  Rhine,  at  least  to  show  the  Roman  arms  beyond  it. 
The  protection  which  the  fugitive  Usipetes  and  Tencteri 
had  found  among  the  Sugambri  afforded  a  suitable  occa- 
sion. In  the  region,  apparently  between  Coblentz  and 
Andernach,  Caesar  erected  a  bridge  of  piles  over  the 
Rhine  and  led  his  legions  across  from  the  Treverian  to  the 
Ubian  territory.  Some  smaller  cantons  gave  in  their  sub- 
mission ;  but  the  Sugambri,  against  whom  the  expedition 
was  primarily  directed,  withdrew,  on  the  approach  of  the 
Roman  army,  with  those  under  their  protection  into  the 
interior.  In  like  manner  the  powerful  Suebian  canton 
which  oppressed  the  Ubii — presumably  the  same  which 
subsequently  appears  under  the  name  of  the  Chatti — 
caused  the  districts  immediately  adjoining  the  Ubian  terri- 
tory to  be  evacuated  and  the  non-combatant  portion  of  the 
people  to  be  placed  in  safety,  while  all  the  men  capable  of 
arms  were  directed  to  assemble  at  the  centre  of  the  canton. 
The  Roman  general  had  neither  occasion  nor  desire  to 
accept  this  challenge ;  his  object — partly  to  reconnoitre, 
partly  to  produce  an  impressive  effect  if  possible  upon  the 
Germans,  or  at  least  on  the  Celts  and  his  countrymen  at 
home,  by  an  expedition  over  the  Rhine — was  substantially 
attained ;  after  remaining  eighteen  days  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  Rhine  he  again  arrived  in  Gaul  and  broke  down  the 
65.  Rhine  bridge  behind  him  (699). 
Expedi-  There  remained   the    insular   Celts.      From   the  close 

tions  to       connection  between  them  and  the  Celts  of  the  continent. 

Britain.  ' 

especially  the  maritime  cantons,  it  may  readily  be  conceived 
that  they  had  at  least  sympathized  with  the  national  resist- 
ance, and  that  if  they  did  not  grant  armed  assistance  to  the 
patriots,  they  gave  at  any  rate  an  honourable  asylum  in 
their  sea-protected  isle  to  every  one  who  was  no  longer  safe 
in  his  native  land.  This  certainly  involved  a  danger,  if  not 
for  the  present,  at  any  rate  for  the  future ;  it  seemed  judi- 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  63 

cious — if  not  to  undertake  the  conquest  of  the  island  itself 
— at  any  rate  to  conduct  there  also  defensive  operations  by 
offensive  means,  and  to  show  the  islanders  by  a  landing  on 
the  coast  that  the  arm  of  the  Romans  reached  even  across 
the  Channel.  The  first  Roman  officer  who  entered  Brittany, 
Publius  Crassus,  had  already  (697)  crossed  thence  to  the  57. 
"tin-islands"  at  the  south-west  point  of  England  (Scilly 
islands) ;  in  the  summer  of  699  Caesar  himself  with  only  55. 
two  legions  crossed  the  Channel  at  its  narrowest  part.1 
He  found  the  coast  covered  with  masses  of  the  enemy's 
troops  and  sailed  onward  with  his  vessels ;  but  the  British 
war-chariots  moved  on  quite  as  fast  by  land  as  the  Roman 
galleys  by  sea,  and  it  was  only  with  the  utmost  difficulty 
that  the  Roman  soldiers  succeeded  in  gaining  the  shore  in 
the  face  of  the  enemy,  partly  by  wading,  partly  in  boats, 
under  the  protection  of  the  ships  of  war,  which  swept  the 
beach  with  missiles  thrown  from  machines  and  by  the  hand. 
In  the  first  alarm  the  nearest  villages  submitted ;  but  the 
islanders   soon  perceived  how  weak  the   enemy  was,   and 

1  The  nature  of  the  case  as  well  as  Caesar's  express  statement  proves 
that  the  passages  of  Caesar  to  Britain  were  made  from  ports  of  the  coast 
between  Calais  and  Boulogne  to  the  coast  of  Kent.  A  more  exact  deter- 
mination of  the  localities  has  often  been  attempted,  but  without  success. 
All  that  is  recorded  is,  that  on  the  first  voyage  the  infantry  embarked  at 
one  port,  the  cavalry  at  another  distant  from  the  former  eight  miles  in  an 
easterly  direction  (iv.  22,  23,  28),  and  that  the  second  voyage  was  made 
from  that  one  of  those  two  ports  which  Caesar  had  found  most  convenient, 
the  (otherwise  not  further  mentioned)  Portus  Itius,  distant  from  the  British 
coast  30  (so  according  to  the  MSS.  of  Caesar  v.  2)  or  40  miles  (  =  320 
stadia,  according  to  Strabo  iv.  5,  2,  who  doubtless  drew  his  account  from 
Caesar).  From  Caesar's  words  (iv.  21)  that  he  had  chosen  "the  shortest 
crossing,"  we  may  doubtless  reasonably  infer  that  he  crossed  not  the 
Channel  but  the  Straits  of  Calais,  but  by  no  means  that  he  crossed  the 
latter  by  the  mathematically  shortest  line.  It  requires  the  implicit  faith  of 
local  topographers  to  proceed  to  the  determination  of  the  locality  with  such 
data  in  hand — data  of  which  the  best  in  itself  becomes  almost  useless  from 
the  variation  of  the  authorities  as  to  the  number  ;  but  among  the  many 
possibilities  most  may  perhaps  be  said  in  favour  of  the  view  that  the  Itian 
port  (which  Strabo  I.e.  is  probably  right  in  identifying  with  that  from 
which  the  infantry  crossed  in  the  first  voyage)  is  to  be  sought  near  Amble- 
teuse  to  the  west  of  Cape  Gris  Nez,  and  the  cavalry-harbour  near  Ecale 
(Wissant)  to  the  east  of  the  same  promontory,  and  that  the  landing  took 
place  to  the  east  of  Dover  near  Walmer  Castle. 


64  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

how  he  did  not  venture  to  move  far  from  the  shore.  The 
natives  disappeared  into  the  interior  and  returned  only  to 
threaten  the  camp ;  and  the  fleet,  which  had  been  left  in 
the  open  roads,  suffered  very  considerable  damage  from  the 
first  tempest  that  burst  upon  it.  The  Romans  had  to 
reckon  themselves  fortunate  in  repelling  the  attacks  of  the 
barbarians  till  they  had  bestowed  the  necessary  repairs  on 
the  ships,  and  in  regaining  with  these  the  Gallic  coast 
before  the  bad  season  of  the  year  came  on. 

Caesar  himself  was  so  dissatisfied  with  the  results  of  this 
expedition  undertaken  inconsiderately  and  with  inadequate 
M-54.  means,  that  he  immediately  (in  the  winter  of  699-700) 
ordered  a  transport  fleet  of  800  sail  to  be  fitted  out, 
54.  and  in  the  spring  of  700  sailed  a  second  time  for  the 
Kentish  coast,  on  this  occasion  with  five  legions  and  2000 
cavalry.  The  forces  of  the  Britons,  assembled  this  time 
also  on  the  shore,  retired  before  the  mighty  armada  without 
risking  a  battle ;  Caesar  immediately  set  out  on  his  march 
into  the  interior,  and  after  some  successful  conflicts  crossed 
the  river  Stour;  but  he  was  obliged  to  halt  very  much  against 
his  will,  because  the  fleet  in  the  open  roads  had  been  again 
half  destroyed  by  the  storms  of  the  Channel.  Before  they 
got  the  ships  drawn  up  upon  the  beach  and  the  extensive 
arrangements  made  for  their  repair,  precious  time  was  lost, 
which  the  Celts  wisely  turned  to  account. 
Cassivel-  The    brave    and    cautious    prince    Cassivellaunus,   who 

ruled  in  what  is  now  Middlesex  and  the  surrounding  district 
— formerly  the  terror  of  the  Celts  to  the  south  of  the 
Thames,  but  now  the  protector  and  champion  of  the  whole 
nation — had  headed  the  defence  of  the  land.  He  soon 
saw  that  nothing  at  all  could  be  done  with  the  Celtic 
infantry  against  the  Roman,  and  that  the  mass  of  the 
general  levy — which  it  was  difficult  to  feed  and  difficult  to 
control — was  only  a  hindrance  to  the  defence ;  he  therefore 
dismissed  it  and  retained  only  the  war-chariots,  of  which 


chap,  va      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  65 

he  collected  4000,  and  in  which  the  warriors,  accustomed 
to  leap  down  from  their  chariots  and  fight  on  foot,  could 
be  employed  in  a  twofold  manner  like  the  burgess-cavalry 
of  the  earliest  Rome.  When  Caesar  was  once  more  able 
to  continue  his  march,  he  met  with  no  interruption  to  it; 
but  the  British  war-chariots  moved  always  in  front  and 
alongside  of  the  Roman  army,  induced  the  evacuation  of 
the  country  (which  from  the  absence  of  towns  proved  no 
great  difficulty),  prevented  the  sending  out  of  detachments, 
and  threatened  the  communications.  The  Thames  was 
crossed  —  apparently  between  Kingston  and  Brentford 
above  London — by  the  Romans ;  they  moved  forward,  but 
made  no  real  progress ;  the  general  achieved  no  victory, 
the  soldiers  made  no  booty,  and  the  only  actual  result,  the 
submission  of  the  Trinobantes  in  the  modern  Essex,  was 
less  the  effect  of  a  dread  of  the  Romans  than  of  the  deep 
hostility  between  this  canton  and  Cassivellaunus.  The 
danger  increased  with  every  onward  step,  and  the  attack, 
which  the  princes  of  Kent  by  the  orders  of  Cassivellaunus 
made  on  the  Roman  naval  camp,  although  it  was  repulsed, 
was  an  urgent  warning  to  turn  back.  The  taking  by  storm 
of  a  great  British  tree-barricade,  in  which  a  multitude  of 
cattle  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  furnished  a  pass- 
able conclusion  to  the  aimless  advance  and  a  tolerable 
pretext  for  returning.  Cassivellaunus  was  sagacious  enough 
not  to  drive  the  dangerous  enemy  to  extremities,  and  pro- 
mised, as  Caesar  desired  him,  to  abstain  from  disturbing 
the  Trinobantes,  to  pay  tribute  and  to  furnish  hostages; 
nothing  was  said  of  delivering  up  arms  or  leaving  behind  a 
Roman  garrison,  and  even  those  promises  were,  it  may  be 
presumed,  so  far  as  they  concerned  the  future,  neither  given 
nor  received  in  earnest.  After  receiving  the  hostages  Caesar 
returned  to  the  naval  camp  and  thence  to  Gaul.  If  he,  as 
it  would  certainly  seem,  had  hoped  on  this  occasion  to 
conquer  Britain,  the  scheme  was  totally  thwarted  partly  by 
VOL.  V  I38 


66  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

the  wise  defensive  system  of  Cassivellaunus,  partly  and 
chiefly  by  the  unserviceableness  of  the  Italian  oared  fleet 
in  the  waters  of  the  North  Sea ;  for  it  is  certain  that  the 
stipulated  tribute  was  never  paid.  But  the  immediate 
object — of  rousing  the  islanders  out  of  their  haughty 
security  and  inducing  them  in  their  own  interest  no  longer 
to  allow  their  island  to  be  a  rendezvous  for  continental 
emigrants — seems  certainly  to  have  been  attained ;  at  least 
no  complaints  are  afterwards  heard  as  to  the  bestowal  of 
such  protection. 
The  The  work  of  repelling  the  Germanic  invasion  and  of 

of'the1™0*  subduing  the  continental  Celts  was  completed.  But  it  is 
patriots.  often  easier  to  subdue  a  free  nation  than  to  keep  a  subdued 
one  in  subjection.  The  rivalry  for  the  hegemony,  by  which 
more  even  than  by  the  attacks  of  Rome  the  Celtic  nation 
had  been  ruined,  was  in  some  measure  set  aside  by  the 
conquest,  inasmuch  as  the  conqueror  took  the  hegemony 
to  himself.  Separate  interests  were  silent ;  under  the  com- 
mon oppression  at  any  rate  they  felt  themselves  again  as 
one  people ;  and  the  infinite  value  of  that  which  they  had 
with  indifference  gambled  away  when  they  possessed  it — 
freedom  and  nationality — was  now,  when  it  was  too  late, 
fully  appreciated  by  their  infinite  longing.  But  was  it, 
then,  too  late?  With  indignant  shame  they  confessed  to 
themselves  that  a  nation,  which  numbered  at  least  a  million 
of  men  capable  of  arms,  a  nation  of  ancient  and  well-founded 
warlike  renown,  had  allowed  the  yoke  to  be  imposed  upon 
it  by,  at  the  most,  50,000  Romans.  The  submission  of 
the  confederacy  of  central  Gaul  without  having  struck  even 
a  blow ;  the  submission  of  the  Belgic  confederacy  without 
having  done  more  than  merely  shown  a  wish  to  strike ;  tht 
heroic  fall  on  the  other  hand  of  the  Nervii  and  the  Veneti, 
the  sagacious  and  successful  resistance  of  the  Morini,  and 
of  the  Britons  under  Cassivellaunus — all  that  in  each  case 
had  been  done  or  neglected,  had  failed  or  had  succeeded — 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  67 

spurred  the  minds  of  the  patriots  to  new  attempts,  if  possible, 
more  united  and  more  successful.  Especially  among  the 
Celtic  nobility  there  prevailed  an  excitement,  which  seemed 
every  moment  as  if  it  must  break  out  into  a  general  insur- 
rection. Even  before  the  second  expedition  to  Britain  in 
the  spring  of  700  Caesar  had  found  it  necessary  to  go  in  54. 
person  to  the  Treveri,  who,  since  they  had  compromised 
themselves  in  the  Nervian  conflict  in  697,  had  no  longer  57. 
appeared  at  the  general  diets  and  had  formed  more  than 
suspicious  connections  with  the  Germans  beyond  the  Rhine. 
At  that  time  Caesar  had  contented  himself  with  carrying 
the  men  of  most  note  among  the  patriot  party,  particularly 
Indutiomarus,  along  with  him  to  Britain  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Treverian  cavalry-contingent ;  he  did  his  utmost  to  over- 
look the  conspiracy,  that  he  might  not  by  strict  measures 
ripen  it  into  insurrection.  But  when  the  Haeduan  Dum- 
norix,  who  likewise  was  present  in  the  army  destined 
for  Britain,  nominally  as  a  cavalry  officer,  but  really  as  a 
hostage,  peremptorily  refused  to  embark  and  rode  home 
instead,  Caesar  could  not  do  otherwise  than  have  him 
pursued  as  a  deserter  ;  he  was  accordingly  overtaken  by  the 
division  sent  after  him  and,  when  he  stood  on  his  defence, 
was  cut  down  (700).  That  the  most  esteemed  knight  of  the  64. 
most  powerful  and  still  the  least  dependent  of  the  Celtic 
cantons  should  have  been  put  to  death  by  the  Romans,  was 
a  thunder-clap  for  the  whole  Celtic  nobility  ;  every  one  who 
was  conscious  of  similar  sentiments — and  they  formed  the 
great  majority — saw  in  that  catastrophe  the  picture  of  what 
was  in  store  for  himself. 

If  patriotism  and  despair  had  induced  the  heads  of  the  Insurrec 
Celtic  nobility  to  conspire,  fear  and  self-defence  now  drove  tlon" 
the  conspirators  to  strike.     In  the  winter  of  700—701,  with  54-53. 
the  exception  of  a  legion  stationed  in  Brittany  and  a  second 
in  the  very  unsettled  canton  of  the  Carnutes  (near  Chartres), 
the  whole   Roman   army   numbering  six  legions   was   en- 


68  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

camped  in  the  Belgic  territory.  The  scantiness  of  the 
supplies  of  grain  had  induced  Caesar  to  station  his  troops 
farther  apart  than  he  was  otherwise  wont  to  do — in  six 
different  camps  constructed  in  the  cantons  of  the  Bellovaci, 
Ambiani,  Morini,  Nervii,  Remi,  and  Eburones.  The  fixed 
camp  placed  farthest  towards  the  east  in  the  territory  of  the 
Eburones,  probably  not  far  from  the  later  Aduatuca  (the 
modern  Tongern),  the  strongest  of  all,  consisting  of  a 
legion  under  one  of  the  most  respected  of  Caesar's  leaders 
of  division,  Quintus  Titurius  Sabinus,  besides  different 
detachments  led  by  the  brave  Lucius  Aurunculeius  Cotta1 
and  amounting  together  to  the  strength  of  half  a  legion, 
found  itself  all  of  a  sudden  surrounded  by  the  general 
levy  of  the  Eburones  under  the  kings  Ambiorix  and  Catu- 
volcus.  The  attack  came  so  unexpectedly,  that  the  very 
men  absent  from  the  camp  could  not  be  recalled  and  were 
cut  of  by  the  enemy ;  otherwise  the  immediate  danger  was 
not  great,  as  there  was  no  lack  of  provisions,  and  the 
assault,  which  the  Eburones  attempted,  recoiled  powerless 
from  the  Roman  intrenchments.  But  king  Ambiorix 
informed  the  Roman  commander  that  all  the  Roman 
camps  in  Gaul  were  similarly  assailed  on  the  same  day, 
and  that  the  Romans  would  undoubtedly  be  lost  if  the 
several  corps  did  not  quickly  set  out  and  effect  a  junction ; 
that  Sabinus  had  the  more  reason  to  make  haste,  as  the 


1  That  Cotta,  although  not  lieutenant-general  of  Sabinus,  but  like  him 
legate,  was  yet  the  younger  and  less  esteemed  general  and  was  probably 
directed  in  the  event  of  a  difference  to  yield,  may  be  inferred  both  from 
the  earlier  services  of  Sabinus  and  from  the  fact  that,  where  the  two  are 
named  together  (iv.  22,  38  ;  v.  24,  26,  52  ;  vi.  32  ;  otherwise  in  vi.  37) 
Sabinus  regularly  takes  precedence,  as  also  from  the  narrative  of  the  cata- 
strophe itself.  Besides  we  cannot  possibly  suppose  that  Caesar  should  have 
placed  over  a  camp  two  officers  with  equal  authority,  and  have  made  no 
arrangement  at  all  for  the  case  of  a  difference  of  opinion.  The  five  cohorts 
are  not  counted  as  part  of  a  legion  (comp.  vi.  32,  33)  any  more  than  the 
twelve  cohorts  at  the  Rhine  bridge  (vi.  29,  comp.  32,  33),  and  appear  to 
have  consisted  of  detachments  of  other  portions  of  the  army,  which  had 
been  assigned  to  reinforce  this  camp  situated  nearest  to  the  Germans. 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  69 

Germans  too  from  beyond  the  Rhine  were  already  advanc- 
ing against  him ;  that  he  himself  out  of  friendship  for  the 
Romans  would  promise  them  a  free  retreat  as  far  as  the 
nearest  Roman  camp,  only  two  days'  march  distant. 
Some  things  in  these  statements  seemed  no  fiction ;  that  the 
little  canton  of  the  Eburones  specially  favoured  by  the 
Romans  (p.  54)  should  have  undertaken  the  attack  of  its  own 
accord  was  in  reality  incredible,  and,  owing  to  the  difficulty 
of  effecting  a  communication  with  the  other  far -distant 
camps,  the  danger  of  being  attacked  by  the  whole  mass 
of  the  insurgents  and  destroyed  in  detail  was  by  no  means 
to  be  esteemed  slight ;  nevertheless  it  could  not  admit  of 
the  smallest  doubt  that  both  honour  and  prudence  required 
them  to  reject  the  capitulation  offered  by  the  enemy  and 
to  maintain  the  post  entrusted  to  them.  Yet,  although  in 
the  council  of  war  numerous  voices  and  especially  the 
weighty  voice  of  Lucius  Aurunculeius  Cotta  supported 
this  view,  the  commandant  determined  to  accept  the  pro- 
posal of  Ambiorix.  The  Roman  troops  accordingly 
marched  off  next  morning;  but  when  they  had  arrived 
at  a  narrow  valley  about  two  miles  from  the  camp  they 
found  themselves  surrounded  by  the  Eburones  and  every 
outlet  blocked.  They  attempted  to  open  a  way  for  them- 
selves by  force  of  arms ;  but  the  Eburones  would  not 
enter  into  any  close  combat,  and  contented  themselves 
with  discharging  their  missiles  from  their  unassailable  posi- 
tions into  the  dense  mass  of  the  Romans.  Bewildered,  as 
if  seeking  deliverance  from  treachery  at  the  hands  of  the 
(traitor,  Sabinus  requested  a  conference  with  Ambiorix ;  it 
was  granted,  and  he  and  the  officers  accompanying  him 
were  first  disarmed  and  then  slain.  After  the  fall  of  the 
commander  the  Eburones  threw  themselves  from  all  sides 
at  once  on  the  exhausted  and  despairing  Romans,  and 
broke  their  ranks  ;  most  of  them,  including  Cotta  who  had 
already  been  wounded,  met  their  death  in  this  attack;  a 


70  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

small  portion,  who  had  succeeded  in  regaining  the  aban- 
doned camp,  flung  themselves  on  their  own  swords  during 
ibe  following  night.     The  whole  corps  was  annihilated. 
Cicero  This   success,  such   as   the   insurgents   themselves   had 

Attacked  • 

hardly  ventured  to  hope  for,  increased  the  ferment  among 
the  Celtic  patriots  so  greatly  that  the  Romans  were  no 
longer  sure  of  a  single  district  with  the  exception  of  the 
Haedui  and  Remi,  and  the  insurrection  broke  out  at  the 
most  diverse  points.  First  of  all  the  Eburones  followed 
up  their  victory.  Reinforced  by  the  levy  of  the  Aduatuci, 
who  gladly  embraced  the  opportunity  of  requiting  the 
injury  done  to  them  by  Caesar,  and  of  the  powerful  and 
still  unsubdued  Menapii,  they  appeared  in  the  territory  of 
the  Nervii,  who  immediately  joined  them,  and  the  whole 
host  thus  swelled  to  60,000  moved  forward  to  confront 
the  Roman  camp  formed  in  the  Nervian  canton.  Quintus 
Cicero,  who  commanded  there,  had  with  his  weak  corps 
a  difficult  position,  especially  as  the  besiegers,  learning 
from  the  foe,  constructed  ramparts  and  trenches,  testudines 
and  moveable  towers  after  the  Roman  fashion,  and 
showered  fire  -  balls  and  burning  spears  over  the  straw- 
covered  huts  of  the  camp.  The  only  hope  of  the  besieged 
rested  on  Caesar,  who  lay  not  so  very  far  off  with  three 
legions  in  his  winter  encampment  in  the  region  of  Amiens. 
But — a  significant  proof  of  the  feeling  that  prevailed  in 
Gaul — for  a  considerable  time  not  the  slightest  hint  reached 
the  general  either  of  the  disaster  of  Sabinus  or  of  the  peril- 
ous situation  of  Cicero. 
Caesar  At  length  a  Celtic  horseman  from  Cicero's  camp  suc- 

his°reiieft0  ceeded  m  stealing  through  the  enemy  to  Caesar.  On 
receiving  the  startling  news  Caesar  immediately  set  out, 
although  only  with  two  weak  legions,  together  numbering 
about  7000,  and  400  horsemen ;  nevertheless  the  an- 
nouncement that  Caesar  was  advancing  sufficed  to  induce 
the  insurgents  to  raise  the  siege.     It  was  time;  not  one- 


chap,  vu      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  7  1 

tenth  of  the  men  in  Cicero's  camp  remained  unwounded. 
Caesar,  against  whom  the  insurgent  army  had  turned,  The  insur- 
deceived  the  enemy,  in  the  way  which  he  had  already  on  checked 
several  occasions  successfully  applied,  as  to  his  strength ; 
under  the  most  unfavourable  circumstances  they  ventured 
an  assault  upon  the  Roman  camp  and  in  doing  so  suffered 
a  defeat.  It  is  singular,  but  characteristic  of  the  Celtic 
nation,  that  in  consequence  of  this  one  lost  battle,  or 
perhaps  rather  in  consequence  of  Caesar's  appearance  in 
person  on  the  scene  of  conflict,  the  insurrection,  which 
had  commenced  so  victoriously  and  extended  so  widely, 
suddenly  and  pitiably  broke  off  the  war.  The  Nervii, 
Menapii,  Aduatuci,  Eburones,  returned  to  their  homes. 
The  forces  of  the  maritime  cantons,  who  had  made  pre- 
parations for  assailing  the  legion  in  Brittany,  did  the 
same.  The  Treveri,  through  whose  leader  Indutiomarus 
the  Eburones,  the  clients  of  the  powerful  neighbouring 
canton,  had  been  chiefly  induced  to  that  so  successful 
attack,  had  taken  arms  on  the  news  of  the  disaster  of 
Aduatuca  and  advanced  into  the  territory  of  the  Remi 
with  the  view  of  attacking  the  legion  cantoned  there  under 
the  command  of  Labienus  ;  they  too  desisted  for  the  present 
from  continuing  the  struggle.  Caesar  not  unwillingly 
postponed  farther  measures  against  the  revolted  districts 
till  the  spring,  in  order  not  to  expose  his  troops  which 
had  suffered  much  to  the  whole  severity  of  the  Gallic 
winter,  and  with  the  view  of  only  reappearing  in  the  field 
when  the  fifteen  cohorts  destroyed  should  have  been  re- 
placed in  an  imposing  manner  by  the  levy  of  thirty  new 
cohorts  which  he  had  ordered.  The  insurrection  mean- 
while pursued  its  course,  although  there  was  for  the 
moment  a  suspension  of  arms.  Its  chief  seats  in  central 
Gaul  were,  partly  the  districts  of  the  Carnutes  and  the 
neighbouring  Senones  (about  Sens),  the  latter  of  whom 
drove  the  king  appointed  by  Caesar  out  of  their  country; 


72  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

partly  the  region  of  the  Treveri,  who  invited  the  whole 
Celtic  emigrants  and  the  Germans  beyond  the  Rhine  to 
take  part  in  the  impending  national  war,  and  called  out 
their  whole  force,  with  a  view  to  advance  in  the  spring  a 
second  time  into  the  territory  of  the  Remi,  to  capture  the 
corps  of  Labienus,  and  to  seek  a  communication  with  the 
insurgents  on  the  Seine  and  Loire.  The  deputies  of  these 
three  cantons  remained  absent  from  the  diet  convoked  by 
Caesar  in  central  Gaul,  and  thereby  declared  war  just  as 
openly  as  a  part  of  the  Belgic  cantons  had  done  by  the 
attacks  on  the  camps  of  Sabinus  and  Cicero. 
and  sup-  The  winter  was  drawing  to  a  close  when  Caesar  set  out 

pressed.  wjth  ^  arrny,  which  meanwhile  had  been  considerably  re- 
inforced, against  the  insurgents.  The  attempts  of  the 
Treveri  to  concentrate  the  revolt  had  not  succeeded ;  the 
agitated  districts  were  kept  in  check  by  the  marching  in  of 
Roman  troops,  and  those  in  open  rebellion  were  attacked 
in  detail.  First  the  Nervii  were  routed  by  Caesar  in 
person.  The  Senones  and  Carnutes  met  the  same  fate. 
The  Menapii,  the  only  canton  which  had  never  submitted 
to  the  Romans,  were  compelled  by  a  grand  attack  simul- 
taneously directed  against  them  from  three  sides  to  re- 
nounce their  long-preserved  freedom.  Labienus  meanwhile 
was  preparing  the  same  fate  for  the  Treveri.  Their  first 
attack  had  been  paralyzed,  partly  by  the  refusal  of  the 
adjoining  German  tribes  to  furnish  them  with  mercenaries, 
partly  by  the  fact  that  Indutiomarus,  the  soul  of  the  whole 
movement,  had  fallen  in  a  skirmish  with  the  cavalry  of 
Labienus.  But  they  did  not  on  this  account  abandon 
their  projects.  With  their  whole  levy  they  appeared  in 
front  of  Labienus  and  waited  for  the  German  bands  that 
were  to  follow,  for  their  recruiting  agents  found  a  better 
reception  than  they  had  met  with  from  the  dwellers  on  the 
Rhine,  among  the  warlike  tribes  of  the  interior  of  Germany, 
especially,  as  it  would  appear,  among  the  Chatti.     But 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  73 

when  Labienus  seemed  as  if  he  wished  to  avoid  these  and 
to  march  off  in  all  haste,  the  Treveri  attacked  the  Romans 
even  before  the  Germans  arrived  and  in  a  most  unfavour- 
able spot,  and  were  completely  defeated.  Nothing  remained 
for  the  Germans  who  came  up  too  late  but  to  return, 
nothing  for  the  Treverian  canton  but  to  submit;  its 
government  reverted  to  the  head  of  the  Roman  party 
Cingetorix,  the  son-in-law  of  Indutiomarus.  After  these 
expeditions  of  Caesar  against  the  Menapii  and  of  Labienus 
against  the  Treveri  the  whole  Roman  army  was  again 
united  in  the  territory  of  the  latter.  With  the  view  of 
rendering  the  Germans  disinclined  to  come  back,  Caesar 
once  more  crossed  the  Rhine,  in  order  if  possible  to  strike 
an  emphatic  blow  against  the  troublesome  neighbours; 
but,  as  the  Chatti,  faithful  to  their  tried  tactics,  assembled 
not  on  their  western  boundary,  but  far  in  the  interior, 
apparently  at  the  Harz  mountains,  for  the  defence  of  the 
land,  he  immediately  turned  back  and  contented  himself 
with  leaving  behind  a  garrison  at  the  passage  of  the  Rhine. 

Accounts  had  thus  been  settled  with  all  the  tribes  that  Retaliatory 
took  part  in  the  rising;  the  Eburones  alone  were  passed  aglaLst'the 
over  but  not  forgotten.  Since  Caesar  had  met  with  the  Eburones. 
disaster  of  Aduatuca,  he  had  worn  mourning  and  had 
sworn  that  he  would  only  lay  it  aside  when  he  should  have 
avenged  his  soldiers,  who  had  not  fallen  in  honourable 
war,  but  had  been  treacherously  murdered.  Helpless  and 
passive  the  Eburones  sat  in  their  huts  and  looked  on,  as 
the  neighbouring  cantons  one  after  another  submitted  to 
the  Romans,  till  the  Roman  cavalry  from  the  Treverian 
territory  advanced  through  the  Ardennes  into  their  land. 
So  little  were  they  prepared  for  the  attack,  that  the  cavalry 
had  almost  seized  the  king  Ambiorix  in  his  house;  with 
great  difficulty,  while  his  attendants  sacrificed  themselves 
on  his  behalf,  he  escaped  into  the  neighbouring  thicket. 
Ten  Roman  legions  soon  followed  the  cavalry      At  the 


74  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         fook  \ 

same  time  a  summons  was  issued  to  the  surrounding  tribes 
to  hunt  the  outlawed  Eburones  and  pillage  their  land  in 
concert  with  the  Roman  soldiers ;  not  a  few  complied 
with  the  call,  including  even  an  audacious  band  of 
Sugambrian  horsemen  from  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine, 
who  for  that  matter  treated  the  Romans  no  better  than 
the  Eburones,  and  had  almost  by  a  daring  coup  de  main 
surprised  the  Roman  camp  at  Aduatuca.  The  fate  of  the 
Eburones  was  dreadful.  However  they  might  hide  them- 
selves in  forests  and  morasses,  there  were  more  hunters 
than  game.  Many  put  themselves  to  death  like  the  gray- 
haired  prince  Catuvolcus ;  only  a  few  saved  life  and  liberty, 
but  among  these  few  was  the  man  whom  the  Romans 
sought  above  all  to  seize,  the  prince  Ambiorix;  with  but 
four  horsemen  he  escaped  over  the  Rhine.  This  execution 
against  the  canton  which  had  transgressed  above  all  the 
rest  was  followed  in  the  other  districts  by  processes  of 
high  treason  against  individuals.  The  season  for  clemency 
was  past.  At  the  bidding  of  the  Roman  proconsul  the 
eminent  Carnutic  knight  Acco  was  beheaded  by  Roman 
53.  lictors  (701)  and  the  rule  of  the  fasces  was  thus  formally 
inaugurated.  Opposition  was  silent ;  tranquillity  every- 
where prevailed.  Caesar  went  as  he  was  wont  towards 
58.  the  end  of  the  year  (701)  over  the  Alps,  that  through  the 
winter  he  might  observe  more  closely  the  daily-increasing 
complications  in  the  capital. 
Second  in-  The  sagacious  calculator  had  on  this  occasion  miscal- 
surrection.  cuiated.  The  fire  was  smothered,  but  not  extinguished. 
The  stroke,  under  which  the  head  of  Acco  fell,  was  felt 
by  the  whole  Celtic  nobility.  At  this  very  moment  the 
position  of  affairs  presented  better  prospects  than  ever. 
The  insurrection  of  the  last  winter  had  evidently  failed 
only  through  Caesar  himself  appearing  on  the  scene  of 
action  ;  now  he  was  at  a  distance,  detained  on  the  Po  by 
the  imminence  of  civil  war,  and  the  Gallic  army,  which 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  75 

was  collected  on  the  upper  Seine,  was  far  separated  from 
its  dreaded  leader.  If  a  general  insurrection  now  broke 
out  in  central  Gaul,  the  Roman  army  might  be  surrounded, 
and  the  almost  undefended  old  Roman  province  be  over- 
run, before  Caesar  reappeared  beyond  the  Alps,  even  if 
the  Italian  complications  did  not  altogether  prevent  him 
from  further  concerning  himself  about  Gaul. 

Conspirators    from    all    the    cantons    of   central    Gaul  The 
assembled ;  the  Carnutes,  as  most  directly  affected  by  the  Carnutes' 
execution  of  Acco,  offered  to  take  the  lead.     On  a  set 
day   in    the    winter    of    701-702    the    Carnutic    knights  53-52. 
Gutruatus    and    Conconnetodumnus    gave    at    Cenabum 
(Orleans)  the  signal  for  the  rising,  and  put  to  death  in  a 
body  the  Romans  who  happened  to  be  there.     The  most 
vehement  agitation  seized  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
great  Celtic  land ;  the  patriots  everywhere  bestirred  them- 
selves.    But  nothing  stirred  the  nation  so  deeply  as  the 
insurrection    of   the   Arverni.     The   government    of   this  The 
community,  which  had  formerly  under  its  kings  been  the  Arvemi* 
first  in  southern  Gaul,  and   had  still  after  the  fall  of  its 
principality  occasioned    by   the    unfortunate  wars   against 
Rome  (iii.  418)  continued  to  be   one  of  the  wealthiest, 
most  civilized,  and  most  powerful  in  all  Gaul,  had  hitherto 
inviolably  adhered  to  Rome.     Even  now  the  patriot  party 
in  the  governing  common  council   was  in  the  minority; 
an  attempt  to  induce  it  to  join   the  insurrection  was  in 
vain.     The  attacks  of  the  patriots  were  therefore  directed 
against  the  common  council  and  the  existing  constitution 
itself;  and  the  more  so,  that  the  change  of  constitution 
which  among  the  Arverni  had   substituted  the  common 
council  for  the  prince  (p.   19)  had  taken  place  after  the 
victories  of  the  Romans  and  probably  under  their  influence. 

The  leader  of  the  Arvernian  patriots  Vercingetorix,  one  Vercinge- 
of  those  nobles  whom  we  meet  with  among  the  Celts,  of  torix* 
almost    regal    repute  in  and    beyond    his  canton,   and   a 


the  insur 
rection. 


76  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

stately,  brave,  sagacious  man  to  boot,  left  the  capital  and 
summoned  the  country  people,  who  were  as  hostile  to  the 
ruling  oligarchy  as  to  the  Romans,  at  once  to  re-establish 
the  Arvernian  monarchy  and  to  go  to  war  with  Rome. 
The  multitude  quickly  joined  him ;  the  restoration  of  the 
throne  of  Luerius  and  Betuitus  was  at  the  same  time  the 
declaration  of  a  national  war  against  Rome.  The  centre 
of  unity,  from  the  want  of  which  all  previous  attempts  of 
the  nation  to  shake  off  the  foreign  yoke  had  failed,  was 
now  found  in  the  new  self-nominated  king  of  the  Arverni. 
Vercingetorix  became  for  the  Celts  of  the  continent  what 
Cassivellaunus  was  for  the  insular  Celts ;  the  feeling 
strongly  pervaded  the  masses  that  he,  if  any  one,  was  the 
man  to  save  the  nation. 
Spread  of  The  west  from  the  mouth  of  the  Garonne  to  that  of  the 

Seine  was  rapidly  infected  by  the  insurrection,  and  Ver- 
cingetorix was  recognized  by  all  the  cantons  there  as 
commander-in-chief;  where  the  common  council  made 
any  difficulty,  the  multitude  compelled  it  to  join  the 
movement;  only  a  few  cantons,  such  as  that  of  the 
Bituriges,  required  compulsion  to  join  it,  and  these  per- 
haps only  for  appearance'  sake.  The  insurrection  found 
a  less  favourable  soil  in  the  regions  to  the  east  of  the 
upper  Loire.  Everything  here  depended  on  the  Haedui ; 
and  these  wavered.  The  patriotic  party  was  very  strong 
in  this  canton ;  but  the  old  antagonism  to  the  leading  of 
the  Arverni  counterbalanced  their  influence — to  the  most 
serious  detriment  of  the  insurrection,  as  the  accession  of 
the  eastern  cantons,  particularly  of  the  Sequani  and 
Helvetii,  was  conditional  on  the  accession  of  the  Haedui, 
and  generally  in  this  part  of  Gaul  the  decision  rested  with 
them.  While  the  insurgents  were  thus  labouring  partly  to 
induce  the  cantons  that  still  hesitated,  especially  the 
Haedui,  to  join  them,  partly  to  get  possession  of  Narbo — 
one  of  their  leaders,   the   daring   Lucterius,   had   already 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  77 

appeared  on  the  Tarn  within  the  limits  of  the  old  pro- 
vince— the  Roman  commander-in-chief  suddenly  presented  Appear- 
himself  in  the  depth  of  winter,  unexpected  alike  by  friend  £Pce  °f 
and  foe,  on  this  side  of  the  Alps.  He  quickly  made  the 
necessary  preparations  to  cover  the  old  province,  and  not 
only  so,  but  sent  also  a  corps  over  the  snow -covered 
Cevennes  into  the  Arvernian  territory;  but  he  could  not 
remain  here,  where  the  accession  of  the  Haedui  to  the 
Gallic  alliance  might  any  moment  cut  him  off  from  his 
army  encamped  about  Sens  and  Langres.  With  all  secrecy 
he  went  to  Vienna,  and  thence,  attended  by  only  a  few 
horsemen,  through  the  territory  of  the  Haedui  to  his  troops. 
The  hopes,  which  had  induced  the  conspirators  to  declare 
themselves,  vanished ;  peace  continued  in  Italy,  and  Caesar 
stood  once  more  at  the  head  of  his  army. 

But  what  were  they  to  do?     It  was  folly  under  such  The 

circumstances  to  let  the  matter  come  to  the  decision  of  G,allic  Flan 

of  war. 
arms ;  for  these  had  already  decidedly  irrevocably.     They 

might  as  well  attempt  to  shake  the  Alps  by  throwing  stones 
at  them  as  to  shake  the  legions  by  means  of  the  Celtic 
bands,  whether  these  might  be  congregated  in  huge  masses 
or  sacrificed  in  detail  canton  after  canton.  Vercingetorix 
despaired  of  defeating  the  Romans.  He  adopted  a  system 
of  warfare  similar  to  that  by  which  Cassivellaunus  had 
saved  the  insular  Celts.  The  Roman  infantry  was  not  to 
be  vanquished ;  but  Caesar's  cavalry  consisted  almost 
exclusively  of  the  contingent  of  the  Celtic  nobility,  and  was 
practically  dissolved  by  the  general  revolt.  It  was  possible 
for  the  insurrection,  which  was  in  fact  essentially  composed 
of  the  Celtic  nobility,  to  develop  such  a  superiority  in  this 
arm,  that  it  could  lay  waste  the  land  far  and  wide,  burn 
down  towns  and  villages,  destroy  the  magazines,  and  en- 
danger the  supplies  and  the  communications  of  the  enemy, 
without  his  being  able  seriously  to  hinder  it.  Vercinge- 
torix accordingly  directed  all  his  efforts  to  the  increase  of  his 


78  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

cavalry,  and  of  the  infantry-archers  who  were  according  to 

the  mode  of  fighting  of  that  time  regularly  associated  with 

it.     He  did  not  send  the  immense  and  self- obstructing 

masses  of  the  militia  of  the  line  to  their  homes,  but  he  did 

not  allow  them  to  face  the  enemy,  and  attempted  to  impart 

to  them  gradually  some  capacity  of  intrenching,  marching, 

and  manoeuvring,  and  some  perception  that  the  soldier  is 

not  destined  merely  for  hand-to-hand  combat.      Learning 

from   the  enemy,   he   adopted    in   particular    the    Roman 

system  of  encampment,   on  which    depended   the  whole 

secret  of  the  tactical  superiority  of  the  Romans ;  for  in 

consequence  of  it  every  Roman  corps  combined  all  the 

advantages    of    the   garrison    of  a   fortress    with   all    the 

advantages  of  an  offensive  army.1     It  is  true  that  a  system 

completely  adapted  to  Britain  which  had  few  towns  and  to 

its  rude,  resolute,  and  on  the  whole  united  inhabitants  was 

not  absolutely  transferable  to  the  rich  regions  on  the  Loire 

and  their  indolent  inhabitants  on  the  eve  of  utter  political 

dissolution.    Vercingetorix  at  least  accomplished  this  much, 

that  they  did  not  attempt  as  hitherto  to  hold  every  town 

with  the  result  of  holding  none  ;  they  agreed  to  destroy  the 

townships  not  capable  of  defence  before  attack  reached 

them,    but   to   defend    with    all    their   might   the    strong 

fortresses.     At  the  same  time  the  Arvernian  king  did  what 

he  could  to  bind  to  the  cause  of  their  country  the  cowardly 

and  backward  by  stern  seventy,  the  hesitating  by  entreaties 

and   representations,   the   covetous  by  gold,   the   decided 

opponents   by  force,  and  to  compel  or  allure  the  rabble 

high  or  low  to  some  manifestation  of  patriotism. 

Beginning         Even  before  the  winter  was  at  an  end,  he  threw  himself 
of  the 


struggle. 


1  This,  it  is  true,  was  only  possible,  so  long  as  offensive  weapons  chiefly 
aimed  at  cutting  and  stabbing.  In  the  modern  mode  of  warfare,  as 
Napoleon  has  excellently  explained,  this  system  has  become  inapplicable, 
because  with  our  offensive  weapons  operating  from  a  distance  the  deployed 
position  is  more  advantageous  than  the  concentrated.  In  Caesar's  time 
the  reverse  was  the  case. 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  79 

on  the  Boii  settled  by  Caesar  in  the  territory  of  the  Haedui, 
with  the  view  of  annihilating  these,  almost  the  sole  trust- 
worthy allies  of  Rome,  before  Caesar  came  up.  The  news 
of  this  attack  induced  Caesar,  leaving  behind  the  baggage 
and  two  legions  in  the  winter  quarters  of  Agedincum 
(Sens),  to  march  immediately  and  earlier  than  he  would 
doubtless  otherwise  have  done,  against  the  insurgents.  He 
remedied  the  sorely-felt  want  of  cavalry  and  light  infantry  in 
some  measure  by  gradually  bringing  up  German  mercenaries, 
who  instead  of  using  their  own  small  and  weak  ponies  were 
furnished  with  Italian  and  Spanish  horses  partly  bought,  partly 
procured  by  requisition  of  the  officers.  Caesar,  after  having 
by  the  way  caused  Cenabum,  the  capital  of  the  Carnutes, 
which  had  given  the  signal  for  the  revolt,  to  be  pillaged 
and  laid  in  ashes,  moved  over  the  Loire  into  the  country  of 
the  Bituriges.  He  thereby  induced  Vercingetorix  to 
abandon  the  siege  of  the  town  of  the  Boii,  and  to  resort 
likewise  to  the  Bituriges.  Here  the  new  mode  of  warfare 
was  first  to  be  tried.  By  order  of  Vercingetorix  more  than 
twenty  townships  of  the  Bituriges  perished  in  the  flames  on 
one  day ;  the  general  decreed  a  similar  self-devastation  as 
to  the  neighbour  cantons,  so  far  as  they  could  be  reached 
by  the  Roman  foraging  parties. 

According  to  his  intention,  Avaricum  (Bourges),  the  Caesar 
rich  and  strong  capital  of  the  Bituriges,  was  to  meet  the  AvSum. 
same  fate ;  but  the  majority  of  the  war-council  yielded  to 
the  suppliant  entreaties  of  the  Biturigian  authorities,  and 
resolved  rather  to  defend  that  city  with  all  their  energy. 
Thus  the  war  was  concentrated  in  the  first  instance  around 
Avaricum.  Vercingetorix  placed  his  infantry  amidst  the 
morasses  adjoining  the  town  in  a  position  so  unapproach- 
able, that  even  without  being  covered  by  the  cavalry  they 
needed  not  to  fear  the  attack  of  the  legions.  The  Celtic 
cavalry  covered  all  the  roads  and  obstructed  the  communica- 
tion.    The  town  was  strongly  garrisoned,  and  the  connec- 


80  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

tion  between  it  and  the  army  before  the  walls  was  kept 
open.  Caesar's  position  was  very  awkward.  The  attempt 
to  induce  the  Celtic  infantry  to  fight  was  unsuccessful  \  it 
stirred  not  from  its  unassailable  lines.  Bravely  as  his 
soldiers  in  front  of  the  town  trenched  and  fought,  the 
besieged  vied  with  them  in  ingenuity  and  courage,  and  they 
had  almost  succeeded  in  setting  fire  to  the  siege  apparatus 
of  their  opponents.  The  task  withal  of  supplying  an  army 
of  nearly  60,000  men  with  provisions  in  a  country  devastated 
far  and  wide  and  scoured  by  far  superior  bodies  of  cavalry 
became  daily  more  difficult.  The  slender  stores  of  the  Boii 
were  soon  used  up  ;  the  supply  promised  by  the  Haedui 
failed  to  appear  ;  the  corn  was  already  consumed,  and  the 
soldier  was  placed  exclusively  on  flesh-rations.  But  the 
moment  was  approaching  when  the  town,  with  whatever 
contempt  of  death  the  garrison  fought,  could  be  held  no 
longer.  Still  it  was  not  impossible  to  withdraw  the  troops 
secretly  by  night  and  destroy  the  town,  before  the  enemy 
occupied  it  Vercingetorix  made  arrangements  for  this 
purpose,  but  the  cry  of  distress  raised  at  the  moment  of 
evacuation  by  the  women  and  children  left  behind  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  Romans ;  the  departure  miscarried. 
Avaricum  On  the  following  gloomy  and  rainy  day  the  Romans 

conquered.  scaie(j  ty,e  wa\\S}  an(j)  exasperated  by  the  obstinate  defence, 
spared  neither  age  nor  sex  in  the  conquered  town.  The 
ample  stores,  which  the  Celts  had  accumulated  in  it,  were 
welcome  to  the  starved  soldiers  of  Caesar.  With  the  capture 
52.  of  Avaricum  (spring  of  702),  a  first  success  had  been 
achieved  over  the  insurrection,  and  according  to  former  ex- 
perience Caesar  might  well  expect  that  it  would  now  dissolve, 
and  that  it  would  only  be  requisite  to  deal  with  the  cantons 
individually.  After  he  had  therefore  shown  himself  with 
his  whole  army  in  the  canton  of  the  Haedui  and  had  by 
this  imposing  demonstration  compelled  the  patriot  party  in 
a  ferment  there  to  keep  quiet  at  least  for  the  moment,  he 


chap,  vn      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  81 

divided  his  army  and  sent  Labienus  back  to  Agedincum,  Caesar 
that  in  combination  with  the  troops  left  there  he  might  at  g^J* 
the  head  of  four  legions  suppress  in  the  first  instance  the 
movement  in  the  territory  of  the  Carnutes  and  Senones, 
who  on  this  occasion  once  more  took  the  lead ;  while  he 
himself  with  the  six  remaining  legions  turned  to  the  south 
and  prepared  to  carry  the  war  into  the  Arvernian  mountains, 
the  proper  territory  of  Vercingetorix. 

Labienus  moved  from  Agedincum  up  the  left  bank  of  Labienus 
the  Seine  with  a  view  to  possess  himself  of  Lutetia  (Paris),  1^,°^ 
the  town  of  the  Parisii  situated  on  an  island  in  the  Seine, 
and  from  this  well -secured  position  in  the  heart  of  the 
insurgent  country  to  reduce  it  again  to  subjection.  But 
behind  Melodunum  (Melun),  he  found  his  route  barred  by 
the  whole  army  of  the  insurgents,  which  had  here  taken 
up  a  position  between  unassailable  morasses  under  the 
leadership  of  the  aged  Camulogenus.  Labienus  retreated 
a  certain  distance,  crossed  the  Seine  at  Melodunum,  and 
moved  up  its  right  bank  unhindered  towards  Lutetia; 
Camulogenus  caused  this  town  to  be  burnt  and  the  bridges 
leading  to  the  left  bank  to  be  broken  down,  and  took  up  a 
position  over  against  Labienus,  in  which  the  latter  could 
neither  bring  him  to  battle  nor  effect  a  passage  under  the 
eyes  of  the  hostile  army. 

The  Roman  main  army  in  its  turn  advanced  along  the  Caesar 
Allier  down  into  the  canton  of  the  Arverni.     Vercingetorix  Gergovjfc 
attempted  to  prevent  it  from  crossing  to  the  left  bank  of 
the  Allier,  but  Caesar  overreached   him   and  after  some 
days  stood  before  the  Arvernian  capital  Gergovia.1     Ver- 

1  This  place  has  been  sought  on  a  rising  ground  which  is  still  named 
Gergoie,  a  league  to  the  south  of  the  Arvernian  capital  Nemetum,  the 
modern  Clermont  ;  and  both  the  remains  of  rude  fortress-walls  brought  to 
light  in  excavations  there,  and  the  tradition  of  the  name  which  is  traced 
in  documents  up  to  the  tenth  century,  leave  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  the 
correctness  of  this  determination  of  the  locality.  Moreover  it  accords,  as 
with  the  other  statements  of  Caesar,  so  especially  with  the  fact  that  he 
pretty  clearly  indicates  Gergovia  as  the  chief  place  of  the  Arverni  (vii.  4). 

VOL.  V  139 


82 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 


Fruitless 
blockade. 


The 

Haedui 
waver. 


cingetorix,  however,  doubtless  even  while  he  was  confronting 
Caesar  on  the  Allier,  had  caused  sufficient  stores  to  be 
collected  in  Gergovia  and  a  fixed  camp  provided  with 
strong  stone  ramparts  to  be  constructed  for  his  troops  in 
front  of  the  walls  of  the  town,  which  was  situated  on  the 
summit  of  a  pretty  steep  hill ;  and,  as  he  had  a  sufficient 
start,  he  arrived  before  Caesar  at  Gergovia  and  awaited  the 
attack  in  the  fortified  camp  under  the  wall  of  the  fortress. 
Caesar  with  his  comparatively  weak  army  could  neither 
regularly  besiege  the  place  nor  even  sufficiently  blockade 
it ;  he  pitched  his  camp  below  the  rising  ground  occupied 
by  Vercingetorix,  and  was  compelled  to  preserve  an  attitude 
as  inactive  as  his  opponent.  It  was  almost  a  victory  for 
the  insurgents,  that  Caesar's  career  of  advance  from  triumph 
to  triumph  had  been  suddenly  checked  on  the  Seine  as  on 
the  Allier.  In  fact  the  consequences  of  this  check  for 
Caesar  were  almost  equivalent  to  those  of  a  defeat. 

The  Haedui,  who  had  hitherto  continued  vacillating, 
now  made  preparations  in  earnest  to  join  the  patriotic 
party;  the  body  of  men,  whom  Caesar  had  ordered  to 
Gergovia,  had  on  the  march  been  induced  by  its  officers  to 
declare  for  the  insurgents;  at  the  same  time  they  had 
begun  in  the  canton  itself  to  plunder  and  kill  the  Romans 
settled  there.  Caesar,  who  had  gone  with  two-thirds  of 
the  blockading  army  to  meet  that  corps  of  the  Haedui 
which  was  being  brought  up  to  Gergovia,  had  by  his 
sudden  appearance  recalled  it  to  nominal  obedience ;  but 
it  was  more  than  ever  a  hollow  and  fragile  relation,  the 
continuance  of  which  had  been  almost  too  dearly  purchased 
by  the  great  peril  of  the  two  legions  left  behind  in  front  of 
Gergovia.  For  Vercingetorix,  rapidly  and  resolutely 
availing   himself  of  Caesar's    departure,   had   during   his 


We  shall  have  accordingly  to  assume,  that  the  Arvernians  after  their 
defeat  were  compelled  to  transfer  their  settlement  from  Gergovia  to  the 
neighbouring  less  strong  Nemetum. 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  83 

absence  made  an  attack  on  them,  which  had  wellnigh 
ended  in  their  being  overpowered,  and  the  Roman  camp 
being  taken  by  storm.  Caesar's  unrivalled  celerity  alone 
averted  a  second  catastrophe  like  that  of  Aduatuca. 
Though  the  Haedui  made  once  more  fair  promises,  it 
might  be  foreseen  that,  if  the  blockade  should  still  be 
prolonged  without  result,  they  would  openly  range  them- 
selves on  the  side  of  the  insurgents  and  would  thereby 
compel  Caesar  to  raise  it;  for  their  accession  would 
interrupt  the  communication  between  him  and  Labienus, 
and  expose  the  latter  especially  in  his  isolation  to  the 
greatest  peril.  Caesar  was  resolved  not  to  let  matters 
come  to  this  pass,  but,  however  painful  and  even  dangerous 
it  was  to  retire  from  Gergovia  without  having  accomplished 
his  object,  nevertheless,  if  it  must  be  done,  rather  to  set 
out  immediately  and  by  marching  into  the  canton  of  the 
Haedui  to  prevent  at  any  cost  their  formal  desertion. 

Before  entering  however  on  this  retreat,  which  was  far  Caesar 
from  agreeable  to  his  quick  and  confident  temperament,  he  1*5^ 
made  yet  a  last  attempt  to  free  himself  from  his  painful  Gergovia, 
perplexity  by  a  brilliant  success.  While  the  bulk  of  the 
garrison  of  Gergovia  was  occupied  in  intrenching  the  side 
on  which  the  assault  was  expected,  the  Roman  general 
watched  his  opportunity  to  surprise  another  access  less 
conveniently  situated  but  at  the  moment  left  bare.  In 
reality  the  Roman  storming  columns  scaled  the  camp-wall, 
and  occupied  the  nearest  quarters  of  the  camp ;  but  the 
whole  garrison  was  already  alarmed,  and  owing  to  the 
small  distances  Caesar  found  it  not  advisable  to  risk  the 
second  assault  on  the  city-wall.  He  gave  the  signal  for 
retreat;  but  the  foremost  legions,  carried  away  by  the 
impetuosity  of  victory,  heard  not  or  did  not  wish  to  hear, 
and  pushed  forward  without  halting,  up  to  the  city-wall, 
some  even  into  the  city.  But  masses  more  and  mere 
dense  threw  themselves  in  front  of  the  intruders  j  the  fore- 


84 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 


Renewed 

Insurrec- 
tion. 


Rising 
of  the 

Haedui. 


Rising 
of  the 
Belgae. 


most  fell,  the  columns  stopped ;  in  vain  centurions  and 
legionaries  fought  with  the  most  devoted  and  heroic 
courage ;  the  assailants  were  chased  with  very  considerable 
loss  out  of  the  town  and  down  the  hill,  where  the  troops 
stationed  by  Caesar  in  the  plain  received  them  and 
prevented  greater  mischief.  The  expected  capture  of 
Gergovia  had  been  converted  into  a  defeat,  and  the  con- 
siderable loss  in  killed  and  wounded — there  were  counted 
700  soldiers  that  had  fallen,  including  46  centurions — was 
the  least  part  of  the  misfortune  suffered. 

The  imposing  position  of  Caesar  in  Gaul  depended 
essentially  on  the  halo  of  victory  that  surrounded  him ;  and 
this  began  to  grow  pale.  The  conflicts  around  Avaricum, 
Caesar's  vain  attempts  to  compel  the  enemy  to  fight,  the 
resolute  defence  of  the  city  and  its  almost  accidental 
capture  by  storm  bore  a  stamp  different  from  that  of  the 
earlier  Celtic  wars,  and  had  strengthened  rather  than 
impaired  the  confidence  of  the  Celts  in  themselves  and 
their  leader.  Moreover,  the  new  system  of  warfare — the 
making  head  against  the  enemy  in  intrenched  camps 
under  the  protection  of  fortresses — had  completely  approved 
itself  at  Lutetia  as  well  as  at  Gergovia.  Lastly,  this  defeat, 
the  first  which  Caesar  in  person  had  suffered  from  the 
Celts,  crowned  their  success,  and  it  accordingly  gave  as  it 
were  the  signal  for  a  second  outbreak  of  the  insurrection. 
The  Haedui  now  broke  formally  with  Caesar  and  entered 
into  union  with  Vercingetorix.  Their  contingent,  which 
was  still  with  Caesar's  army,  not  only  deserted  from  it,  but 
also  took  occasion  to  carry  off  the  depots  of  the  army  of 
Caesar  at  Noviodunum  on  the  Loire,  whereby  the  chests 
and  magazines,  a  number  of  remount-horses,  and  all  the 
hostages  furnished  to  Caesar,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
insurgents.  It  was  of  at  least  equal  importance,  that  on 
this  news  the  Belgae,  who  had  hitherto  kept  aloof  from  the 
whole    movement,    began    to    bestir    themselves.       The 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  85 

powerful  canton  of  the  Bellovaci  rose  with  the  view  of 
attacking  in  the  rear  the  corps  of  Labienus,  while  it 
confronted  at  Lutetia  the  levy  of  the  surrounding  cantons 
of  central  Gaul.  Everywhere  else  too  men  were  taking  to 
arms ;  the  strength  of  patriotic  enthusiasm  carried  along 
with  it  even  the  most  decided  and  most  favoured  partisans 
of  Rome,  such  as  Commius  king  of  the  Atrebates,  who  on 
account  of  his  faithful  services  had  received  from  the 
Romans  important  privileges  for  his  community  and  the 
hegemony  over  the  Morini.  The  threads  of  the  insurrec- 
tion ramified  even  into  the  old  Roman  province :  they 
cherished  the  hope,  perhaps  not  without  ground,  of 
inducing  the  Allobroges  themselves  to  take  arms  against 
the  Romans.  With  the  single  exception  of  the  Remi  and 
of  the  districts — dependent  immediately  on  the  Remi — of 
the  Suessiones,  Leuci,  and  Lingones,  whose  peculiar 
isolation  was  not  affected  even  amidst  this  general  en- 
thusiasm, the  whole  Celtic  nation  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the 
Rhine  was  now  in  reality,  for  the  first  and  for  the  last  time, 
in  arms  for  its  freedom  and  nationality ;  whereas,  singularly 
enough,  the  whole  German  communities,  who  in  the  former 
struggles  had  held  the  foremost  rank,  kept  aloof.  In  fact, 
the  Treveri,  and  as  it  would  seem  the  Menapii  also,  were 
prevented  by  their  feuds  with  the  Germans  from  taking  an 
active  part  in  the  national  war. 

It  was  a  grave  and  decisive  moment,  when  after  the  Caesar's 

retreat   from    Gergovia    and    the    loss  of  Noviodunum   a  p 

0  war. 

council  of  war  was  held  in  Caesar's  headquarters  regarding 
the  measures  now  to  be  adopted.  Various  voices  expressed 
themselves  in  favour  of  a  retreat  over  the  Cevennes  into 
the  old  Roman  province,  which  now  lay  open  on  all  sides 
to  the  insurrection  and  certainly  was  in  urgent  need  of  the 
legions  that  had  been  sent  from  Rome  primarily  for  its 
protection.  But  Caesar  rejected  this  timid  strategy 
suggested  not  by  the  position  of  affairs,  but  by  government- 


86 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 


Caesar 

unites 

with 

Labienus. 


Position 
of  the 
insurgents 
at  Alesia. 


instructions  and  fear  of  responsibility.  He  contented 
himself  with  calling  the  general  levy  of  the  Romans  settled 
in  the  province  to  arms,  and  having  the  frontiers  guarded 
by  that  levy  to  the  best  of  its  ability.  On  the  other  hand 
he  himself  set  out  in  the  opposite  direction  and  advanced 
by  forced  marches  to  Agedincum,  to  which  he  ordered 
Labienus  to  retreat  in  all  haste.  The  Celts  naturally 
endeavoured  to  prevent  the  junction  of  the  two  Roman 
armies.  Labienus  might  by  crossing  the  Marne  and 
marching  down  the  right  bank  of  the  Seine  have  reached 
Agedincum,  where  he  had  left  his  reserve  and  his  baggage ; 
but  he  preferred  not  to  allow  the  Celts  again  to  behold  the 
retreat  of  Roman  troops.  He  therefore  instead  of  crossing 
the  Marne  crossed  the  Seine  under  the  eyes  of  the  deluded 
enemy,  and  on  its  left  bank  fought  a  battle  with  the  hostile 
forces,  in  which  he  conquered,  and  among  many  others 
the  Celtic  general  himself,  the  old  Camulogenus,  was  left 
on  the  field.  Nor  were  the  insurgents  more  successful  in 
detaining  Caesar  on  the  Loire ;  Caesar  gave  them  no  time 
to  assemble  larger  masses  there,  and  without  difficulty 
dispersed  the  militia  of  the  Haedui,  which  alone  he  found 
at  that  point 

Thus  the  junction  of  the  two  divisions  of  the  army  was 
happily  accomplished.  The  insurgents  meanwhile  had  con- 
sulted as  to  the  farther  conduct  of  the  war  at  Bibracte 
(Autun)  the  capital  of  the  Haedui ;  the  soul  of  these  con- 
sultations was  again  Vercingetorix,  to  whom  the  nation  was 
enthusiastically  attached  after  the  victory  of  Gergovia. 
Particular  interests  were  not,  it  is  true,  even  now  silent ; 
the  Haedui  still  in  this  death-struggle  of  the  nation  asserted 
their  claims  to  the  hegemony,  and  made  a  proposal  in  the 
national  assembly  to  substitute  a  leader  of  their  own  for 
Vercingetorix.  But  the  national  representatives  had  not 
merely  declined  this  and  confirmed  Vercingetorix  in  the 
supreme  command,  but  had  also  adopted  his  plan  of  wai 


chap.  Vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  87 

without  alteration.  It  was  substantially  the  same  as  that 
on  which  he  had  operated  at  Avaricum  and  at  Gergovia. 
As  the  base  of  the  new  position  there  was  selected  the 
strong  city  of  the  Mandubii,  Alesia  (Alise  Sainte  Reine 
near  Semur  in  the  department  Cote  d'Or)1  and  another 
entrenched  camp  was  constructed  under  its  walls.  Im- 
mense stores  were  here  accumulated,  and  the  army  was 
ordered  thither  from  Gergovia,  having  its  cavalry  raised 
by  resolution  of  the  national  assembly  to  15,000  horse. 
Caesar  with  the  whole  strength  of  his  army  after  it  was 
reunited  at  Agedincum  took  the  direction  of  Besancon, 
with  the  view  of  now  approaching  the  alarmed  province 
and  protecting  it  from  an  invasion,  for  in  fact  bands  of 
insurgents  had  already  shown  themselves  in  the  territory 
of  the  Helvii  on  the  south  slope  of  the  Cevennes.  Alesia 
lay  almost  on  his  way ;  the  cavalry  of  the  Celts,  the  only 
arm  with  which  Vercingetorix  chose  to  operate,  attacked 
him  on  the  route,  but  to  the  surprise  of  all  was  worsted 
by  the  new  German  squadrons  of  Caesar  and  the  Roman 
infantry  drawn  up  in  support  of  them. 

Vercingetorix  hastened  the  more  to  shut  himself  up  in  Caesar 
Alesia ;   and  if   Caesar    was    not    disposed   altogether   to  ^^ ol 
renounce  the  offensive,  no  course  was  left  to  him  but  for 
the  third  time  in  this  campaign  to  proceed  by  way  of  attack 
with  a  far  weaker  force  against  an  army  encamped  under  a 
well-garrisoned  and  well-provisioned  fortress  and  supplied 
with  immense  masses  of  cavalry.     But,  while  the  Celts  had  Siege  of 
hitherto  been  opposed  by  only  a  part  of  the  Roman  legions,  Alesia* 
the  whole  forces  of  Caesar  were  united  in  the  lines  round 
Alesia,  and  Vercingetorix  did  not  succeed,  as  he  had  suc- 
ceeded at  Avaricum  and  Gergovia,  in  placing  his  infantry 
under  the  protection  of  the  walls  of  the  fortress  and  keeping 

1  The  question  so  much  discussed  of  late,  whether  Alesia  is  not  rather 
to  be  identified  with  Alaise  (25  kilometres  to  the  south  of  Besancon,  dep. 
Doubs),  has  been  rightly  answered  in  the  negative  by  all  judicious  inquirers. 


88  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  * 

his  external  communications  open  for  his  own  benefit  by 
his  cavalry,  while  he  interrupted  those  of  the  enemy.  The 
Celtic  cavalry,  already  discouraged  by  that  defeat  inflicted 
on  them  by  their  lightly  esteemed  opponents,  was  beaten 
by  Caesar's  German  horse  in  every  encounter.  The  line 
of  circumvallation  of  the  besiegers  extending  about  nine 
miles  invested  the  whole  town,  including  the  camp  attached 
to  it.  Vercingetorix  had  been  prepared  for  a  struggle 
under  the  walls,  but  not  for  being  besieged  in  Alesia ;  in 
that  point  of  view  the  accumulated  stores,  considerable  as 
they  were,  were  yet  far  from  sufficient  for  his  army — which 
was  said  to  amount  to  80,000  infantry  and  15,000  cavalry 
— and  for  the  numerous  inhabitants  of  the  town.  Vercinge- 
torix could  not  but  perceive  that  his  plan  of  warfare  had  on 
this  occasion  turned  to  his  own  destruction,  and  that  he 
was  lost  unless  the  whole  nation  hastened  up  to  the  rescue 
of  its  blockaded  general.  The  existing  provisions  were 
still,  when  the  Roman  circumvallation  was  closed,  sufficien 
for  a  month  and  perhaps  something  more;  at  the  lasl 
moment,  when  there  was  still  free  passage  at  least  foi 
horsemen,  Vercingetorix  dismissed  his  whole  cavalry,  and 
sent  at  the  same  time  to  the  heads  of  the  nation  instructions 
to  call  out  all  their  forces  and  lead  them  to  the  relief  of 
Alesia.  He  himself,  resolved  to  bear  in  person  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  plan  of  war  which  he  had  projected 
and  which  had  miscarried,  remained  in  the  fortress,  t> 
share  in  good  or  evil  the  fate  of  his  followers.  But  Caesar 
made  up  his  mind  at  once  to  besiege  and  to  be  besieged. 
He  prepared  his  line  of  circumvallation  for  defence  also 
on  its  outer  side,  and  furnished  himself  with  provisions  for 
a  longer  period.  The  days  passed ;  they  had  no  longer  a 
boll  of  grain  in  the  fortress,  and  they  were  obliged  to  drive 
out  the  unhappy  inhabitants  of  the  town  to  perish  miserably 
between  the  entrenchments  of  the  Celts  and  of  the  Romans, 
pitilessly  rejected  by  both. 


■     •-■ 


t.  «■, 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  89 

At  the  last  hour  there  appeared  behind  Caesar's  lines  Attempt 
the  interminable  array  of  the  Celto-Belgic  relieving  army,  at 
said  to  amount  to  250,000  infantry  and  8000  cavalry. 
From  the  Channel  to  the  Cevennes  the  insurgent  cantons 
had  strained  every  nerve  to  rescue  the  flower  of  their 
patriots  and  the  general  of  their  choice — the  Bellovaci 
alone  had  answered  that  they  were  doubtless  disposed  to 
fight  against  the  Romans,  but  not  beyond  their  own 
bounds.  The  first  assault,  which  the  besieged  of  Alesia  Conflicts 
and  the  relieving  troops  without  made  on  the  Roman  Alesia. 
double  line,  was  repulsed;  but,  when  after  a  day's  rest  it 
was  repeated,  the  Celts  succeeded — at  a  spot  where  the 
line  of  circumvallation  ran  over  the  slope  of  a  hill  and 
could  be  assailed  from  the  height  above — in  filling  up  the 
trenches  and  hurling  the  defenders  down  from  the  ram- 
part. Then  Labienus,  sent  thither  by  Caesar,  collected 
the  nearest  cohorts  and  threw  himself  with  four  legions 
on  the  foe.  Under  the  eyes  of  the  general,  who  himself 
appeared  at  the  most  dangerous  moment,  the  assailants 
were  driven  back  in  a  desperate  hand-to-hand  conflict, 
and  the  squadrons  of  cavalry  that  came  with  Caesar  taking 
the  fugitives  in  rear  completed  the  defeat. 

It  was  more  than  a  great  victory ;  the  fate  of  Alesia,  Alesia 
and  indeed  of  the  Celtic  nation,  was  thereby  irrevocably  ^^  ** 
decided.  The  Celtic  army,  utterly  disheartened,  dispersed 
at  once  from  the  battle-field  and  went  home.  Vercinge- 
torix  might  perhaps  have  even  now  taken  to  flight,  or  at 
least  have  saved  himself  by  the  last  means  open  to  a  free 
man ;  he  did  not  do  so,  but  declared  in  a  council  of  war 
that,  since  he  had  not  succeeded  in  breaking  off  the  alien 
yoke,  he  was  ready  to  give  himself  up  as  a  victim  and  to 
avert  as  far  as  possible  destruction  from  the  nation  by 
bringing  it  on  his  own  head.  This  was  done.  The  Celtic 
officers  delivered  their  general — the  solemn  choice  of  the 
whole  nation — over  to  the  enemy  of  their  country  for  such 


9° 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  \ 


52. 

Vercinge- 
torix 
executed. 


punishment  as  might  be  thought  fit.  Mounted  on  his 
steed  and  in  full  armour  the  king  of  the  Arverni  appeared 
before  the  Roman  proconsul  and  rode  round  his  tribunal ; 
then  he  surrendered  his  horse  and  arms,  and  sat  down  in 
silence  on  the  steps  at  Caesar's  feet  (702). 

Five  years  afterwards  he  was  led  in  triumph  through 
the  streets  of  the  Italian  capital,  and,  while  his  conqueror 
was  offering  solemn  thanks  to  the  gods  on  the  summit  of 
the  Capitol,  Vercingetorix  was  beheaded  at  its  foot  as  guilty 
of  high  treason  against  the  Roman  nation.  As  after  a  day 
of  gloom  the  sun  may  perhaps  break  through  the  clouds  at  its 
setting,  so  destiny  may  bestow  on  nations  in  their  decline 
yet  a  last  great  man.  Thus  Hannibal  stands  at  the  close 
of  the  Phoenician  history,  and  Vercingetorix  at  the  close 
of  the  Celtic.  They  were  not  able  to  save  the  nations  to 
which  they  belonged  from  a  foreign  yoke,  but  they  spared 
them  the  last  remaining  disgrace  —  an  inglorious  fall. 
Vercingetorix,  just  like  the  Carthaginian,  was  obliged  to 
contend  not  merely  against  the  public  foe,  but  also  and 
above  all  against  that  anti-national  opposition  of  wounded 
egotists  and  startled  cowards,  which  regularly  accompanies 
a  degenerate  civilization ;  for  him  too  a  place  in  history  is 
secured,  not  by  his  battles  and  sieges,  but  by  the  fact  that 
he  was  able  to  furnish  in  his  own  person  a  centre  and 
rallying -point  to  a  nation  distracted  and  ruined  by  the 
rivalry  of  individual  interests.  And  yet  there  can  hardly 
be  a  more  marked  contrast  than  between  the  sober  towns- 
man of  the  Phoenician  mercantile  city,  whose  plans  were 
directed  towards  one  great  object  with  unchanging  energy 
throughout  fifty  years,  and  the  bold  prince  of  the  Celtic 
land,  whose  mighty  deeds  and  high-minded  self-sacrifice 
fall  within  the  compass  of  one  brief  summer.  The  whole 
ancient  world  presents  no  more  genuine  knight,  whether 
as  regards  his  essential  character  or  his  outward  appear- 
ance,    But  man  ought  not  to  be  a  mere  knight,  and  least 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  91 

of  all  the  statesman.  It  was  the  knight,  not  the  hero,  who 
disdained  to  escape  from  Alesia,  when  for  the  nation  more 
depended  on  him  than  on  a  hundred  thousand  ordinary 
brave  men.  It  was  the  knight,  not  the  hero,  who  gave 
himself  up  as  a  sacrifice,  when  the  only  thing  gained  by 
that  sacrifice  was  that  the  nation  publicly  dishonoured 
itself  and  with  equal  cowardice  and  absurdity  employed 
its  last  breath  in  proclaiming  that  its  great  historical  death- 
struggle  was  a  crime  against  its  oppressor.  How  very 
different  was  the  conduct  of  Hannibal  in  similar  positions ! 
It  is  impossible  to  part  from  the  noble  king  of  the  Arverni 
without  a  feeling  of  historical  and  human  sympathy;  but 
it  is  a  significant  trait  of  the  Celtic  nation,  that  its  greatest 
man  was  after  all  merely  a  knight. 

The  fall  of  Alesia  and  the  capitulation  of  the  army  The  last 
enclosed  in  it  were  fearful  blows  for  the  Celtic  insurrection ;  conflicts 
but  blows  quite  as  heavy  had  befallen  the  nation  and  yet 
the  conflict  had  been  renewed.  The  loss  of  Vercingetorix, 
however,  was  irreparable.  With  him  unity  had  come  to 
the  nation ;  with  him  it  seemed  also  to  have  departed. 
We  do  not  find  that  the  insurgents  made  any  attempt  to 
continue  their  joint  defence  and  to  appoint  another  general- 
issimo; the  league  of  patriots  fell  to  pieces  of  itself,  and 
every  clan  was  left  to  fight  or  come  to  terms  with  the 
Romans  as  it  pleased.  Naturally  the  desire  after  rest 
everywhere  prevailed.  Caesar  too  had  an  interest  in  bring- 
ing the  war  quickly  to  an  end.  Of  the  ten  years  of  his 
governorship  seven  had  elapsed,  and  the  last  was  called  in 
question  by  his  political  opponents  in  the  capital ;  he  could 
only  reckon  with  some  degree  of  certainty  on  two  more 
summers,  and,  while  his  interest  as  well  as  his  honour 
required  that  he  should  hand  over  the  newly-acquired 
regions  to  his  successor  in  a  condition  of  tolerable  peace 
and  tranquillity,  there  was  in  truth  but  scanty  time  to  bring 
about  such  a  state  of  things.     To  exercise  mercy  was  in 


92 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  book  v 


with  the 
Bituriges 
and 
Carnutes, 

52-51. 


with  the 
Bellovaci, 


this  case  still  more  a  necessity  for  the  victor  than  for  the 
vanquished ;  and  he  might  thank  his  stars  that  the  internal 
dissensions  and  tne  easy  temperament  of  the  Celts  met 
him  in  this  respect  half  way.  Where — as  in  the  two  most 
eminent  cantons  of  central  Gaul,  those  of  the  Haedui  and 
Arverni — there  existed  a  strong  party  well  disposed  to 
Rome,  the  cantons  obtained  immediately  after  the  fall  of 
Alesia  a  complete  restoration  of  their  former  relations  with 
Rome,  and  even  their  captives,  20,000  in  number,  were 
released  without  ransom,  while  those  of  the  other  clans 
passed  into  the  hard  bondage  of  the  victorious  legionaries. 
The  greater  portion  of  the  Gallic  districts  submitted  like 
the  Haedui  and  Arverni  to  their  fate,  and  allowed  their 
inevitable  punishment  to  be  inflicted  without  farther  resist- 
ance. But  not  a  few  clung  in  foolish  frivolity  or  sullen 
despair  to  the  lost  cause,  till  the  Roman  troops  of  execution 
appeared  within  their  borders.  Such  expeditions  were  in 
the  winter  of  702-703  undertaken  against  the  Bituriges  and 
the  Carnutes. 

More  serious  resistance  was  offered  by  the  Bellovaci, 
who  in  the  previous  year  had  kept  aloof  from  the  relief  of 
Alesia  ;  they  seem  to  have  wished  to  show  that  their  absence 
on  that  decisive  day  at  least  did  not  proceed  from  want  of 
courage  or  of  love  for  freedom.  The  Atrebates,  Ambiani, 
Caletes,  and  other  Belgic  cantons  took  part  in  this  struggle ; 
the  brave  king  of  the  Atrebates  Commius,  whose  accession 
to  the  insurrection  the  Romans  had  least  of  all  forgiven, 
and  against  whom  recently  Labienus  had  even  directed  an 
atrocious  attempt  at  assassination,  brought  to  the  Bellovaci 
500  German  horse,  whose  value  the  campaign  of  the  pre- 
vious year  had  shown.  The  resolute  and  talented  Bello- 
vacian  Correus,  to  whom  the  chief  conduct  of  the  war  had 
fallen,  waged  warfare  as  Vercingetorix  had  waged  it,  and 
with  no  small  success.  Although  Caesar  had  gradually 
brought  up  the  greater  part  of  his  army,  he  could  neither 


chap,  vu       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  93 

bring  the  infantry  of  the  Bellovaci  to  a  battle,  nor  even 
prevent  it  from  taking  up  other  positions  which  afforded 
better  protection  against  his  augmented  forces ;  while  the 
Roman  horse,  especially  the  Celtic  contingents,  suffered 
most  severe  losses  in  various  combats  at  the  hands  of  the 
enemy's  cavalry,  especially  of  the  German  cavalry  of 
Commius.  But  after  Correus  had  met  his  death  in  a 
skirmish  with  the  Roman  foragers,  the  resistance  here  too 
was  broken ;  the  victor  proposed  tolerable  conditions,  to 
which  the  Bellovaci  along  with  their  confederates  submitted. 
The  Treveri  were  reduced  to  obedience  by  Labienus,  and 
incidentally  the  territory  of  the  outlawed  Eburones  was 
once  more  traversed  and  laid  waste.  Thus  the  last  resist- 
ance of  the  Belgic  confederacy  was  broken. 

The  maritime  cantons  still  made  an  attempt  to  defend  on  the 
themselves  against  the  Roman  domination  in  concert  with  oire* 
their  neighbours  on  the  Loire.  Insurgent  bands  from  the 
A.ndian,  Carnutic,  and  other  surrounding  cantons  assembled 
on  the  lower  Loire  and  besieged  in  Lemonum  (Poitiers) 
the  prince  of  the  Pictones  who  was  friendly  to  the  Romans. 
But  here  too  a  considerable  Roman  force  soon  appeared 
against  them ;  the  insurgents  abandoned  the  siege,  and 
retreated  with  the  view  of  placing  the  Loire  between  them- 
selves and  the  enemy,  but  were  overtaken  on  the  march 
and  defeated ;  whereupon  the  Carnutes  and  the  other 
revolted  cantons,  including  even  the  maritime  ones,  sent  in 
their  submission. 

The  resistance  was  at  an  end ;  save  that  an  isolated  and  ia 
leader  of  free  bands  still  here  and  there  upheld  the  national  i0dun"um. 
banner.  The  bold  Drappes  and  the  brave  comrade  in 
arms  of  Vercingetorix  Lucterius,  after  the  breaking  up  of 
the  army  united  on  the  Loire,  gathered  together  the  most 
resolute  men,  and  with  these  threw  themselves  into  the 
strong  mountain-town  of  Uxellodunum  on  the  Lot,1  which 
1  This  is  usually  sought  at  Capdenac  not  far  from  Figeac  ;  Goler  has 


94  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  V 

amidst  severe  and  fatal  conflicts  the)-  succeeded  in  suffi- 
ciently provisioning.  In  spite  of  the  loss  of  their  leaders, 
of  whom  Drappes  had  been  taken  prisoner,  and  Lucterius 
had  been  cut  off  from  the  town,  the  garrison  resisted  to  the 
uttermost ;  it  was  not  till  Caesar  appeared  in  person,  and 
under  his  orders  the  spring  from  which  the  besieged  derived 
their  water  was  diverted  by  means  of  subterranean  drains, 
that  the  fortress,  the  last  stronghold  of  the  Celtic  nation, 
fell.  To  distinguish  the  last  champions  of  the  cause  of 
freedom,  Caesar  ordered  that  the  whole  garrison  should 
have  their  hands  cut  off  and  should  then  be  dismissed,  each 
one  to  his  home.  Caesar,  who  felt  it  all-important  to  put 
an  end  at  least  to  open  resistance  throughout  Gaul,  allowed 
king  Commius,  who  still  held  out  in  the  region  of  Arras 
and  maintained  desultory  warfare  with  the  Roman  troops 
51-50.  there  down  to  the  winter  of  703-704,  to  make  his  peace, 
and  even  acquiesced  when  the  irritated  and  justly  distrustful 
man  haughtily  refused  to  appear  in  person  in  the  Roman 
camp.  It  is  very  probable  that  Caesar  in  a  similar  way 
allowed  himself  to  be  satisfied  with  a  merely  nominal  sub- 
mission, perhaps  even  with  a  de  facto  armistice,  in  the  less 
accessible  districts  of  the  north-west  and  north-east  of  Gaul.1 
Gaul  Thus  was  Gaul — or,  in  other  words,  the  land  west  of 

lubdued.  ^  Rhine  and  north  of  the  Pyrenees — rendered  subject 
58-51.  after  only  eight  years  of  conflict  (696-703)  to  the  Romans. 
Hardly  a  year  after  the  full  pacification  of  the  land,  at  the 
49.  beginning  of  705,  the  Roman  troops  had  to  be  withdrawn 
over  the  Alps  in  consequence  of  the  civil  war,  which  had 
now  at  length  broken  out  in  Italy,  and  there  remained 
nothing  but  at  the  most  some  weak  divisions  of  recruits  in 

recently  declared  himself  in  favour  of  Luzech  to  the  west  of  Cahors,  a  site 
which  had  been  previously  suggested. 

1  This  indeed,  as  may  readily  be  conceived,  is  not  recorded  by  Caesar 
himself ,  but  an  intelligible  hint  on  this  subject  is  given  by  Sallust  (Hist. 
\,  9  Kritz),  although  he  too  wrote  as  a  partisan  of  Caesar.  Further  proofs 
are  furnished  by  the  coins. 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  95 

Gaul.  Nevertheless  the  Celts  did  not  again  rise  against 
the  foreign  yoke ;  and,  while  in  all  the  old  provinces  of  the 
empire  there  was  fighting  against  Caesar,  the  newly-acquired 
country  alone  remained  continuously  obedient  to  its  con- 
queror. Even  the  Germans  did  not  during  those  decisive 
years  repeat  their  attempts  to  conquer  new  settlements  on 
the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine.  As  little  did  there  occur  in 
Gaul  any  national  insurrection  or  German  invasion  during 
the  crises  that  followed,  although  these  offered  the  most 
favourable  opportunities.  If  disturbances  broke  out  any- 
where, such  as  the  rising  of  the  Bellovaci  against  the 
Romans  in  708,  these  movements  were  so  isolated  and  so  46 
unconnected  with  the  complications  in  Italy,  that  they 
were  suppressed  without  material  difficulty  by  the  Roman 
governors.  Certainly  this  state  of  peace  was  most  probably, 
just  as  was  the  peace  of  Spain  for  centuries,  purchased  by 
provisionally  allowing  the  regions  that  were  most  remote 
and  most  strongly  pervaded  by  national  feeling — Brittany, 
the  districts  on  the  Scheldt,  the  region  of  the  Pyrenees — to 
withdraw  themselves  de  facto  in  a  more  or  less  definite 
manner  from  the  Roman  allegiance.  Nevertheless  the  build- 
ing of  Caesar — however  scanty  the  time  which  he  found  for 
it  amidst  other  and  at  the  moment  still  more  urgent  labours, 
however  unfinished  and  but  provisionally  rounded  off  he 
may  have  left  it — in  substance  stood  the  test  of  this  fiery 
trial,  as  respected  both  the  repelling  of  the  Germans  and 
the  subjugation  of  the  Celts. 

As   to   administration    in    chief,    the   territories    newly  Organiza- 
acquired  by  the  governor  of  Narbonese  Gaul  remained  for  ^ 
the  time  being  united  with  the  province  of  Narbo ;  it  was 
not  till    Caesar  gave  up    this  office  (710)    that   two  new  44. 
governorships — Gaul  proper  and  Belgica — were  formed  out 
of  the  territory  which  he  conquered.     That  the  individual 
cantons  lost  their  political  independence,  was  implied  in  the 
very  nature  of  conquest.     They  became  throughout  tributary 


96  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

Roman  to  the  Roman  community.  Their  system  of  tribute  however 
was,  of  course,  not  that  by  means  of  which  the  nobles  and 
financial  aristocracy  turned  Asia  to  profitable  account ;  but, 
as  was  the  case  in  Spain,  a  tribute  fixed  once  for  all  was 
imposed  on  each  individual  community,  and  the  levying 
of  it  was  left  to  itself.  In  this  way  forty  million  sesterces 
(^400,000)  flowed  annually  from  Gaul  into  the  chests  of 
the  Roman  government ;  which,  no  doubt,  undertook  in 
return  the  cost  of  defending  the  frontier  of  the  Rhine. 
Moreover,  the  masses  of  gold  accumulated  in  the  temples 
of  the  gods  and  the  treasuries  of  the  grandees  found  their 
way,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  Rome ;  when  Caesar  offered 
his  Gallic  gold  throughout  the  Roman  empire  and  brought 
such  masses  of  it  at  once  into  the  money  market  that  gold 
as  compared  with  silver  fell  about  25  per  cent,  we  may 
guess  what  sums  Gaul  lost  through  the  war. 

Indulgence        The  former  cantonal  constitutions  with  their  hereditary 

towards  •  •  ■ 

existing  kings,  or  their  presiding  feudal-oligarchies,  continued  in  the 
arrange-  main  to  subsist  after  the  conquest,  and  even  the  system  of 
clientship,  which  made  certain  cantons  dependent  on  others 
more  powerful,  was  not  abolished,  although  no  doubt  with 
the  loss  of  political  independence  its  edge  was  taken  off. 
The  sole  object  of  Caesar  was,  while  making  use  of  the 
existing  dynastic,  feudalist,  and  hegemonic  divisions,  to 
arrange  matters  in  the  interest  of  Rome,  and  to  bring 
everywhere  into  power  the  men  favourably  disposed  to  the 
foreign  rule.  Caesar  spared  no  pains  to  form  a  Roman 
party  in  Gaul ;  extensive  rewards  in  money  and  specially  in 
confiscated  estates  were  bestowed  on  his  adherents,  and 
places  in  the  common  council  and  the  first  offices  of  state 
in  their  cantons  were  procured  for  them  by  Caesar's 
influence.  Those  cantons  in  which  a  sufficiently  strong  and 
trustworthy  Roman  party  existed,  such  as  those  of  the  Remi, 
the  Lingones,  the  Haedui,  were  favoured  by  the  bestowal  of 
a  freer  communal  constitution — the  right  of  alliance,  as  it 


men  is. 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  97 

was  called — and  by  preferences  in  the  regulation  of  the 
matter  of  hegemony.  The  national  worship  and  its  priests 
seem  to  have  been  spared  by  Caesar  from  the  outset  as  far 
as  possible ;  no  trace  is  found  in  his  case  of  measures  such 
as  were  adopted  in  later  times  by  the  Roman  rulers  against 
the  Druidical  system,  and  with  this  is  probably  connected 
the  fact  that  his  Gallic  wars,  so  far  as  we  see,  do  not  at  all 
bear  the  character  of  religious  warfare  after  the  fashion 
which  formed  so  prominent  a  feature  of  the  Britannic  wars 
subsequently. 

While  Caesar  thus  showed  to  the  conquered  nation  Introduc- 
every  allowable  consideration  and  spared  their  national,  p^L 
political,  and  religious  institutions  as  far  as  was  at  all  com-  izing  of  the 
patible  with  their  subjection  to  Rome,  he  did  so,  not  as  countr3r* 
renouncing  the  fundamental  idea  of  his  conquest,  the 
Romanization  of  Gaul,  but  with  a  view  to  realize  it  in  the 
most  indulgent  way.  He  did  not  content  himself  with 
letting  the  same  circumstances,  which  had  already  in  great 
part  Romanized  the  south  province,  produce  their  effect 
likewise  in  the  north;  but,  like  a  genuine  statesman,  he 
sought  to  stimulate  the  natural  course  of  development  and, 
moreover,  to  shorten  as  far  as  possible  the  always  painful 
period  of  transition.  To  say  nothing  of  the  admission  of  a 
number  of  Celts  of  rank  into  Roman  citizenship  and  even 
of  several  perhaps  into  the  Roman  senate,  it  was  probably 
Caesar  who  introduced,  although  with  certain  restrictions, 
the  Latin  instead  of  the  native  tongue  as  the  official  language 
within  the  several  cantons  in  Gaul,  and  who  introduced  the 
Roman  instead  of  the  national  monetary  system  on  the 
footing  of  reserving  the  coinage  of  gold  and  of  denarii  to 
the  Roman  authorities,  while  the  smaller  money  was  to  be 
coined  by  the  several  cantons,  but  only  for  circulation  within 
the  cantonal  bounds,  and  this  too  in  accordance  with  the 
Roman  standard.  We  may  smile  at  the  Latin  jargon, 
which  the  dwellers  by  the  Loire  and  the  Seine  henceforth 

VOL.  V  I40 


98 


THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 


The  cata- 
strophe  of 
the  Celtic 
nation. 


employed  in  accordance  with  orders ;  *  but  these  barbarisms 
were  pregnant  with  a  greater  future  than  the  correct  Latin 
of  the  capital.  Perhaps  too,  if  the  cantonal  constitution  in 
Gaul  afterwards  appears  more  closely  approximated  to  the 
Italian  urban  constitution,  and  the  chief  places  of  the 
canton  as  well  as  the  common  councils  attain  a  more 
marked  prominence  in  it  than  was  probably  the  case  in  the 
original  Celtic  organization,  the  change  may  be  referred  to 
Caesar.  No  one  probably  felt  more  than  the  political  heir 
of  Gaius  Gracchus  and  of  Marius,  how  desirable  in  a 
military  as  well  as  in  a  political  point  of  view  it  would  have 
been  to  establish  a  series  of  Transalpine  colonies  as  bases 
of  support  for  the  new  rule  and  starting-points  of  the  new 
civilization.  If  nevertheless  he  confined  himself  to  the 
settlement  of  his  Celtic  or  German  horsemen  in  Noviodunum 
(p.  45)  and  to  that  of  the  Boii  in  the  canton  of  the 
Haedui  (p.  44) — which  latter  settlement  already  rendered 
quite  the  services  of  a  Roman  colony  in  the  war  with 
Vercingetorix  (p.  79)  —  the  reason  was  merely  that  his 
farther  plans  did  not  permit  him  to  put  the  plough  instead 
of  the  sword  into  the  hands  of  his  legions.  What  he  did  in 
later  years  for  the  old  Roman  province  in  this  respect,  will 
be  explained  in  its  own  place ;  it  is  probable  that  the  want 
of  time  alone  prevented  him  from  extending  the  same  system 
to  the  regions  which  he  had  recently  subdued. 

All  was  over  with  the  Celtic  nation.  Its  political 
dissolution  had  been  completed  by  Caesar;  its  national 
dissolution  was  begun  and  in  course  of  regular  progress. 
This  was  no  accidental  destruction,  such  as  destiny  some- 
times prepares  even  for  peoples  capable  of  development, 
but  a  self-incurred  and  in  some  measure  historically  necessary 

1  Thus  we  read  on  a  semis  which  a  Vergobretus  of  the  Lexovii  (Lisieux, 
dep.  Calvados)  caused  to  be  struck,  the  following  inscription  :  Cisiambos 
Cattos  vercobreto ;  simissos  (sic)  publicos  Lixovio.  The  often  scarcely 
legible  writing  and  the  incredibly  wretched  stamping  of  these  coins  are  in 
excellent  harmony  with  their  stammering  Latin. 


chap.  Vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  99 

catastrophe.  The  very  course  of  the  last  war  proves  this, 
whether  we  view  it  as  a  whole  or  in  detail.  When  the 
establishment  of  the  foreign  rule  was  in  contemplation,  only 
single  districts — mostly,  moreover.  German  or  half-German 
— offered  energetic  resistance.  When  the  foreign  rule  was 
actually  established,  the  attempts  to  shake  it  off  were  either 
undertaken  altogether  without  judgment,  or  they  were  to 
an  undue  extent  the  work  of  certain  prominent  nobles,  and 
were  therefore  immediately  and  entirely  brought  to  an  end 
with  the  death  or  capture  of  an  Indutiomarus,  Camulogenus, 
Vercingetorix,  or  Correus.  The  sieges  and  guerilla  warfare, 
in  which  elsewhere  the  whole  moral  depth  of  national 
struggles  displays  itself,  were  throughout  this  Celtic  struggle 
of  a  peculiarly  pitiable  character.  Every  page  of  Celtic 
history  confirms  the  severe  saying  of  one  of  the  few  Romans 
who  had  the  judgment  not  to  despise  the  so-called  bar- 
barians— that  the  Celts  boldly  challenge  danger  while  future, 
but  lose  their  courage  before  its  presence.  In  the  mighty 
vortex  of  the  world's  history,  which  inexorably  crushes  all 
peoples  that  are  not  as  hard  and  as  flexible  as  steel,  such  a 
nation  could  not  permanently  maintain  itself;  with  reason 
the  Celts  of  the  continent  suffered  the  same  fate  at  the 
hands  of  the  Romans,  as  their  kinsmen  in  Ireland  suffer 
down  to  our  own  day  at  the  hands  of  the  Saxons — the  fate 
of  becoming  merged  as  a  leaven  of  future  development  in  a 
politically  superior  nationality.     On  the  eve  of  parting  from  Traits 

this  remarkable  nation  we  may  be  allowed  to  call  attention  com™°n  to 

'  the  Celts 

to  the  fact,  that  in  the  accounts  of  the  ancients  as  to  the  and  Irish. 
Celts  on  the  Loire  and  Seine  we  find  almost  every  one  of 
the  characteristic  traits  which  we  are  accustomed  to  recognize 
as  marking  the  Irish.  Every  feature  reappears  :  the  laziness 
in  the  culture  of  the  fields ;  the  delight  in  tippling  and 
brawling;  the  ostentation — we  may  recall  that  sword  of 
Caesar  hung  up  in  the  sacred  grove  of  the  Arverni  after 
the  victory  of  Gergovia,  which  its  alleged  former  owner 


loo  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

viewed  with  a  smile  at  the  consecrated  spot  and  ordered 
the  sacred  property  to  be  carefully  spared ;  the  language 
full  of  comparisons  and  hyperboles,  of  allusions  and  quaint 
turns ;  the   droll   humour — an  excellent  example  of  which 
was  the  rule,  that  if  any  one  interrupted  a  person  speaking 
in  public,  a  substantial  and  very  visible  hole  should  be  cut, 
as  a  measure  of  police,  in  the  coat  of  the  disturber  of  the 
peace ;  the  hearty  delight  in  singing  and  reciting  the  deeds 
of  past  ages,  and  the  most  decided  gifts  of  rhetoric  and 
poetry ;  the  curiosity — no  trader  was  allowed  to  pass,  before 
he  had  told  in  the  open  street  what  he  knew,  or  did  not 
know,  in  the  shape  of  news — and  the  extravagant  credulity 
which  acted  on  such  accounts,  for  which    reason  in  the 
better  regulated  cantons  travellers  were  prohibited  on  pain 
of  severe  punishment  from  communicating  unauthenticated 
reports  to  others  than  the  public  magistrates ;  the  childlike 
piety,  which  sees  in  the  priest  a  father  and  asks  for  his 
counsel  in  all  things ;  the  unsurpassed  fervour  of  national 
feeling,  and  the  closeness  with  which  those  who  are  fellow- 
countrymen    cling    together    almost    like    one    family    in 
opposition  to  strangers ;    the   inclination  to  rise  in  revolt 
under  the  first  chance-leader  that  presents  himself  and  to 
form  bands,  but  at  the  same  time  the  utter  incapacity  to 
preserve  a  self-reliant  courage  equally  remote  from  presump- 
tion and  from  pusillanimity,  to  perceive  the  right  time  for 
waiting  and  for  striking  a  blow,  to  attain  or  even  barely  to 
tolerate    any   organization,    any   sort    of   fixed    military  or 
political  discipline.     It  is,  and  remains,  at  all  times  and  all 
places  the  same  indolent  and  poetical,  irresolute  and  fervid, 
inquisitive,  credulous,  amiable,  clever,  but — in  a  political 
point  of  view — thoroughly  useless  nation ;  and  therefore  its 
fate  has  been  always  and  everywhere  the  same. 
The  But  the  fact  that  this  great  people  was  ruined  by  the 

beginnings  Transalpine  wars  of  Caesar,  was  not  the  most  important 

of  Romanic  r 

develop-      result  of  that  grand  enterprise ;  far  more  momentous  than 
menU 


chap,  vii       THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  101 

the  negative  was  the  positive  result.  It  hardly  admits  of 
a  doubt  that,  if  the  rule  of  the  senate  had  prolonged  its 
semblance  of  life  for  some  generations  longer,  the  migration 
of  peoples,  as  it  is  called,  would  have  occurred  four 
hundred  years  sooner  than  it  did,  and  would  have  occurred 
at  a  time  when  the  Italian  civilization  had  not  become 
naturalized  either  in  Gaul,  or  on  the  Danube,  or  in  Africa 
and  Spain.  Inasmuch  as  the  great  general  and  statesman 
of  Rome  with  sure  glance  perceived  in  the  German  tribes 
the  rival  antagonists  of  the  Romano -Greek  world;  inas- 
much as  with  firm  hand  he  established  the  new  system  of 
aggressive  defence  down  even  to  its  details,  and  taught 
men  to  protect  the  frontiers  of  the  empire  by  rivers  or 
artificial  ramparts,  to  colonize  the  nearest  barbarian  tribes 
along  the  frontier  with  the  view  of  warding  off  the  more 
remote,  and  to  recruit  the  Roman  army  by  enlistment 
from  the  enemy's  country;  he  gained  for  the  Hellenico- 
Italian  culture  the  interval  necessary  to  civilize  the  west 
just  as  it  had  already  civilized  the  east.  Ordinary  men  see 
the  fruits  of  their  action ;  the  seed  sown  by  men  of  genius 
germinates  slowly.  Centuries  elapsed  before  men  under- 
stood that  Alexander  had  not  merely  erected  an  ephemeral 
kingdom  in  the  east,  but  had  carried  Hellenism  to  Asia ; 
centuries  again  elapsed  before  men  understood  that  Caesar 
had  not  merely  conquered  a  new  province  for  the  Romans, 
but  had  laid  the  foundation  for  the  Romanizing  of  the 
regions  of  the  west.  It  was  only  a  late  posterity  that 
perceived  the  meaning  of  those  expeditions  to  England 
and  Germany,  so  inconsiderate  in  a  military  point  of  view, 
and  so  barren  of  immediate  result.  An  immense  circle  of 
peoples,  whose  existence  and  condition  hitherto  were 
known  barely  through  the  reports — mingling  some  truth 
with  much  fiction — of  the  mariner  and  the  trader,  was 
disclosed  by  this  means  to  the  Greek  and  Roman  world. 
"Daily,"  it  is  said  in  a  Roman  writing  of  May  698,  "the  56. 


102  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

letters  and  messages  from  Gaul  are  announcing  names  of 
peoples,   cantons,   and  regions  hitherto  unknown  to  us." 
This  enlargement  of  the  historical  horizon  by  the  expedi- 
tions of  Caesar  beyond    the  Alps  was  as  significant  an 
event  in  the  world's  history  as  the  exploring  of  America  by 
European   bands.     To  the  narrow  circle  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean   states    were    added    the   peoples    of   central    and 
northern  Europe,  the   dwellers  on  the  Baltic  and   North 
seas ;  to  the  old  world  was  added  a  new  one,  which  thence- 
forth was  influenced  by  the  old  and  influenced  it  in  turn. 
What  the  Gothic  Theodoric  afterwards  succeeded  in,  came 
very    near   to    being   already   carried    out   by    Ariovistus. 
Had  it  so  happened,  our  civilization  would   have  hardly 
stood  in  any  more  intimate  relation  to  the  Romano-Greek 
than  to  the  Indian  and  Assyrian  culture.     That  there  is  a 
bridge  connecting  the  past  glory  of  Hellas  and  Rome  with 
the  prouder  fabric  of  modern  history ;  that  Western  Europe 
is  Romanic,  and  Germanic  Europe  classic ;  that  the  names 
of  Themistocles  and  Scipio   have  to  us  a  very   different 
sound  from  those  of  Asoka  and  Salmanassar ;  that  Homer 
and  Sophocles  are  not  merely  like  the  Vedas  and  Kalidasa 
attractive  to  the  literary  botanist,  but  bloom  for  us  in  our 
own  garden — all  this  is  the  work  of  Caesar;  and,  while 
the  creation  of  his  great  predecessor  in  the  east  has  been 
almost  wholly  reduced   to  ruin    by  the  tempests  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  structure  of  Caesar  has  outlasted  those 
thousands  of  years  which  have  changed  religion  and  polity 
for  the  human  race  and  even  shifted  for  it  the  centre  of 
civilization   itself,  and  it  stands  erect   for  what  we  may 
designate  as  eternity. 

To  complete  the  sketch  of  the  relations  of  Rome  to  the 

countries  ,  .     .  ,  ,  .  ... 

on  the         peoples  of  the   north   at   this  period,  it  remains   that  we 

Danube.      cast  a  glance  at  the  countries  which  stretch  to  the  north 

of  the  Italian  and  Greek  peninsulas,  from  the  sources  of 

the  Rhine  to  the  Black  Sea.     It  is  true  that  the  torch  of 


The 

countries 


chap,  vii      THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  103 

nistory  does  not  illumine  the  mighty  stir  and  turmoil  of 
peoples  which  probably  prevailed  at  that  time  there,  and 
the  solitary  gleams  of  light  that  fall  on  this  region  are,  like 
a  faint  glimmer  amidst  deep  darkness,  more  fitted  to  be- 
wilder than  to  enlighten.  But  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
historian  to  indicate  also  the  gaps  in  the  record  of  the 
history  of  nations;  he  may  not  deem  it  beneath  him  to 
mention,  by  the  side  of  Caesar's  magnificent  system  of 
defence,  the  paltry  arrangements  by  which  the  generals  of 
the  senate  professed  to  protect  on  this  side  the  frontier  of 
the  empire. 

North-eastern  Italy  was  still  as  before  (iii.  424)  left  ex-  Alpine 
posed  to  the  attacks  of  the  Alpine  tribes.     The  strong  peopes- 
Roman    army    encamped    at    Aquileia   in    695,    and    the  59. 
triumph  of  the  governor  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  Lucius  Afranius, 
lead  us  to  infer,  that  about  this  time  an  expedition  to  the 
Alps  took  place,  and  it  may  have  been  in  consequence  of 
this  that  we   find  the  Romans  soon  afterwards  in  closer 
connection  with  a  king  of  the  Noricans.     But  that  even 
subsequently  Italy  was  not  at  all  secure  on  this  side,  is 
shown  by  the  sudden  assault  of  the  Alpine  barbarians  on 
the  flourishing  town  of  Tergeste  in  702,  when  the  Trans-  52. 
alpine  insurrection  had  compelled  Caesar  to  divest  upper 
Italy  wholly  of  troops. 

The  turbulent  peoples  also,  who  had  possession  of  the  iiiyria. 
district  along  the  Illyrian  coast,  gave  their  Roman  masters 
constant  employment.  The  Dalmatians,  even  at  an  earlier 
period  the  most  considerable  people  of  this  region,  en- 
larged their  power  so  much  by  admitting  their  neighbours 
into  their  union,  that  the  number  of  their  townships  rose 
from  twenty  to  eighty.  When  they  refused  to  give  up 
once  more  the  town  of  Promona  (not  far  from  the  river 
Kerka),  which  they  had  wrested  from  the  Liburnians, 
Caesar  after  the  battle  of  Pharsalia  gave  orders  to  march 
against  them;  but  the  Romans  were  in  the  first  instance 


io4  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  > 

worsted,  and  in  consequence  of  this  Dalmatia  became  for 
some  time  a  rendezvous  of  the  party  hostile  to  Caesar,  and 
the  inhabitants  in  concert  with  the  Pompeians  and  with 
the  pirates  offered  an  energetic  resistance  to  the  generals 
of  Caesar  both  by  land  and  by  water. 
Mace-  Lastly  Macedonia  along  with  Epirus  and  Hellas  lay  in 

greater  desolation  and  decay  than  almost  any  other  part  of 
the  Roman  empire.  Dyrrhachium,  Thessalonica,  and  By- 
zantium had  still  some  trade  and  commerce ;  Athens 
attracted  travellers  and  students  by  its  name  and  its  philo- 
sophical school ;  but  on  the  whole  there  lay  over  the 
formerly  populous  little  towns  of  Hellas,  and  her  seaports 
once  swarming  with  men,  the  calm  of  the  grave.  But  if 
the  Greeks  stirred  not,  the  inhabitants  of  the  hardly 
accessible  Macedonian  mountains  on  the  other  hand  con- 
tinued after  the  old  fashion  their  predatory  raids  and  feuds  ; 

57-56.  for  instance  about  697—698  Agraeans  and  Dolopians  over- 
64.  ran  the  Aetolian  towns,  and  in  700  the  Pirustae  dwelling 
in  the  valleys  of  the  Drin  overran  southern  Illyria.  The 
neighbouring  peoples  did  likewise.  The  Dardani  on  the 
northern  frontier  as  well  as  the  Thracians  in  the  east  had 
no  doubt  been  humbled  by  the  Romans  in  the  eight  years' 

78-71.  conflicts  from  676  to  683;  the  most  powerful  of  the 
Thracian  princes,  Cotys,  the  ruler  of  the  old  Odrysian 
kingdom,  was  thenceforth  numbered  among  the  client 
kings  of  Rome.  Nevertheless  the  pacified  land  had  still 
as  before  to  suffer  invasions  from  the  north  and  east.  The 
governor  Gaius  Antonius  was  severely  handled  both  by 
the  Dardani  and  by  the  tribes  settled  in  the  modern 
Dobrudscha,  who,  with  the  help  of  the  dreaded  Bastarnae 
brought  up  from  the   left   bank   of  the  Danube,   inflicted 

62-61.  on  him  an  important  defeat  (692-693)  at  Istropolis  (Istere, 

not  far  from  Kustendji).     Gaius  Octavius  fought  with  better 

60.  fortune  against   the  Bessi  and  Thracians  (694).      Marcus 

67-66.  Piso  again  (697—698)  as  general-in-chief  wretchedly  mis- 


chap,  vii        THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST  105 

managed  matters ;  which  was  no  wonder,  seeing  that  for 
money  he  gave  friends  and  foes  whatever  they  wished. 
The  Thracian  Dentheletae  (on  the  Strymon)  under  his 
governorship  plundered  Macedonia  far  and  wide,  and 
even  stationed  their  posts  on  the  great  Roman  military 
road  leading  from  Dyrrhachium  to  Thessalonica;  the 
people  in  Thessalonica  made  up  their  minds  to  stand  a 
siege  from  them,  while  the  strong  Roman  army  in  the 
province  seemed  to  be  present  only  as  an  onlooker  when 
the  inhabitants  of  the  mountains  and  neighbouring  peoples 
levied  contributions  from  the  peaceful  subjects  of  Rome. 

Such  attacks  could  not  indeed  endanger  the  power  of  The  new 
Rome,  and  a  fresh  disgrace  had  long  ago  ceased  to  occasion  ^^ 
concern.  But  just  about  this  period  a  people  began  to 
acquire  political  consolidation  beyond  the  Danube  in  the 
wide  Dacian  steppes — a  people  which  seemed  destined  to 
play  a  different  part  in  history  from  that  of  the  Bessi  and 
the  Dentheletae.  Among  the  Getae  or  Dacians  in  primeval 
times  there  had  been  associated  with  the  king  of  the  people 
a  holy  man  called  Zalmoxis,  who,  after  having  explored  the 
ways  and  wonders  of  the  gods  in  distant  travel  in  foreign 
lands,  and  having  thoroughly  studied  in  particular  the 
wisdom  of  the  Egyptian  priests  and  of  the  Greek  Pytha- 
goreans, had  returned  to  his  native  country  to  end  his  life 
as  a  pious  hermit  in  a  cavern  of  the  "holy  mountain." 
He  remained  accessible  only  to  the  king  and  his  servants, 
and  gave  forth  to  the  king  and  through  him  to  the  people 
his  oracles  with  reference  to  every  important  undertaking. 
He  was  regarded  by  his  countrymen  at  first  as  priest  of  the 
supreme  god  and  ultimately  as  himself  a  god,  just  as  it  is 
said  of  Moses  and  Aaron  that  the  Lord  had  made  Aaron 
the  prophet  and  Moses  the  god  of  the  prophet.  This 
had  become  a  permanent  institution ;  there  was  regularly 
associated  with  the  king  of  the  Getae  such  a  god,  from 
whose  mouth  everything  which  the  king  ordered  proceeded 


io6  THE  SUBJUGATION  OF  THE  WEST         book  v 

or  appeared  to  proceed.  This  peculiar  constitution,  in 
which  the  theocratic  idea  had  become  subservient  to  the 
apparently  absolute  power  of  the  king,  probably  gave  to 
the  kings  of  the  Getae  some  such  position  with  respect  to 
their  subjects  as  the  caliphs  had  with  respect  to  the  Arabs ; 
and  one  result  of  it  was  the  marvellous  religious-political 
reform  of  the  nation,  which  was  carried  out  about  this 
time  by  the  king  of  the  Getae,  Burebistas,  and  the  god 
Dekaeneos.  The  people,  which  had  morally  and  politically 
fallen  into  utter  decay  through  unexampled  drunkenness, 
was  as  it  were  metamorphosed  by  the  new  gospel  of 
temperance  and  valour;  with  his  bands  under  the  influ- 
ence, so  to  speak,  of  puritanic  discipline  and  enthusiasm 
king  Burebistas  founded  within  a  few  years  a  mighty 
kingdom,  which  extended  along  both  banks  of  the  Danube 
and  reached  southward  far  into  Thrace,  Illyria,  and 
Noricum.  No  direct  contact  with  the  Romans  had  yet 
taken  place,  and  no  one  could  tell  what  might  come  out  of 
this  singular  state,  which  reminds  us  of  the  early  times  of 
Islam ;  but  this  much  it  needed  no  prophetic  gift  to  foretell, 
that  proconsuls  like  Antonius  and  Piso  were  not  called  to 
contend  with  gods. 


chap,  via      RULE  OF  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  107 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   JOINT   RULE   OF    POMPEIUS   AND    CAESAR 

Among  the  democratic  chiefs,  who  from  the  time  of  the  Pompehw 
consulate  of  Caesar  were  recognized  officially,  so  to  speak,  fnjuxta. 
as  the  joint  rulers  of  the  commonwealth,  as  the  governing  position. 
"  triumvirs,"  Pompeius  according  to  public  opinion  occupied 
decidedly  the  first  place.  It  was  he  who  was  called  by  the 
Optimates  the  "  private  dictator " ;  it  was  before  him  that 
Cicero  prostrated  himself  in  vain ;  against  him  were  directed 
the  sharpest  sarcasms  in  the  wall-placards  of  Bibulus,  and 
the  most  envenomed  arrows  of  the  talk  in  the  saloons  of  the 
opposition.  This  was  only  to  be  expected.  According  to 
the  facts  before  the  public  Pompeius  was  indisputably  the 
first  general  of  his  time ;  Caesar  was  a  dexterous  party- 
leader  and  party -orator,  of  undeniable  talents,  but  as 
notoriously  of  unwarlike  and  indeed  of  effeminate  tempera- 
ment Such  opinions  had  been  long  current;  it  could 
not  be  expected  of  the  rabble  of  quality  that  it  should 
trouble  itself  about  the  real  state  of  things  and  abandon 
once  established  platitudes  because  of  obscure  feats  of 
heroism  on  the  Tagus.  Caesar  evidently  played  in  the 
league  the  mere  part  of  the  adjutant  who  executed  for  his 
chief  the  work  which  Flavins,  Afranius,  and  other  less 
capable  instruments  had  attempted  and  not  performed. 
Even  his  governorship  seemed  not  to  alter  this  state  of 
things.     Afranius  had  but  recently  occupied  a  very  similar 


io8 


THE  JOINT  RULE  OF 


BOOK  V 


Pompeius 
and  the 
capital 


Anarchy. 


position,  without  thereby  acquiring  any  special  importance  j 
several  provinces  at  once  had  been  of  late  years  repeatedly 
placed  under  one  governor,  and  often  far  more  than  four 
legions  had  been  united  in  one  hand;  as  matters  were 
again  quiet  beyond  the  Alps  and  prince  Ariovistus  was 
recognized  by  the  Romans  as  a  friend  and  neighbour,  there 
was  no  prospect  of  conducting  a  war  of  any  moment  there. 
It  was  natural  to  compare  the  position  which  Pompeius 
had  obtained  by  the  Gabinio-Manilian  law  with  that  which 
Caesar  had  obtained  by  the  Vatinian  ;  but  the  comparison 
did  not  turn  out  to  Caesar's  advantage.  Pompeius  ruled 
over  nearly  the  whole  Roman  empire ;  Caesar  over  two 
provinces.  Pompeius  had  the  soldiers  and  the  treasures 
of  the  state  almost  absolutely  at  his  disposal  j  Caesar  had 
only  the  sums  assigned  to  him  and  an  army  of  24,000 
men.  It  was  left  to  Pompeius  himself  to  fix  the  point  of 
time  for  his  retirement ;  Caesar's  command  was  secured  to 
him  for  a  long  period  no  doubt,  but  yet  only  for  a  limited 
term.  Pompeius,  in  fine,  had  been  entrusted  with  the 
most  important  undertakings  by  sea  and  land ;  Caesar  was 
sent  to  the  north,  to  watch  over  the  capital  from  upper 
Italy  and  to  take  care  that  Pompeius  should  rule  it  undis- 
turbed. 

But  when  Pompeius  was  appointed  by  the  coalition  to 
be  ruler  of  the  capital,  he  undertook  a  task  far  exceeding 
his  powers.  Pompeius  understood  nothing  further  of 
ruling  than  may  be  summed  up  in  the  word  of  command. 
The  waves  of  agitation  in  the  capital  were  swelled  at  once 
by  past  and  by  future  revolutions ;  the  problem  of  ruling 
this  city — which  in  every  respect  might  be  compared  to 
the  Paris  of  the  nineteenth  century — without  an  armed 
force  was  infinitely  difficult,  and  for  that  stiff  and  stately 
pattern -soldier  altogether  insoluble.  Very  soon  matters 
reached  such  a  pitch  that  friends  and  foes,  both  equally 
inconvenient  to  him,  could,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  do 


chap,  viii  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  109 

what  they  pleased ;  after  Caesar's  departure  from  Rome 
the  coalition  ruled  doubtless  still  the  destinies  of  the  world, 
but  not  the  streets  of  the  capital.  The  senate  too,  to 
whom  there  still  belonged  a  sort  of  nominal  government, 
allowed  things  in  the  capital  to  follow  their  natural  course ; 
partly  because  the  section  of  this  body  controlled  by  the 
coalition  lacked  the  instructions  of  the  regents,  partly 
because  the  angry  opposition  kept  aloof  out  of  indifference 
or  pessimism,  but  chiefly  because  the  whole  aristocratic 
corporation  began  to  feel  at  any  rate,  if  not  to  comprehend, 
its  utter  impotence.  For  the  moment  therefore  there  was 
nowhere  at  Rome  any  power  of  resistance  in  any  sort  of 
government,  nowhere  a  real  authority.  Men  were  living 
in  an  interregnum  between  the  ruin  of  the  aristocratic,  and 
the  rise  of  the  military,  rule ;  and,  if  the  Roman  common- 
wealth has  presented  all  the  different  political  functions 
and  organizations  more  purely  and  normally  than  any  other 
in  ancient  or  modern  times,  it  has  also  exhibited  political 
disorganization — anarchy — with  an  unenviable  clearness. 
It  is  a  strange  coincidence  that  in  the  same  years,  in  which 
Caesar  was  creating  beyond  the  Alps  a  work  to  last  for 
ever,  there  was  enacted  in  Rome  one  of  the  most  extra- 
vagant political  farces  that  was  ever  produced  upon  the 
stage  of  the  world's  history.  The  new  regent  of  the 
commonwealth  did  not  rule,  but  shut  himself  up  in  his 
house  and  sulked  in  silence.  The  former  half- deposed 
government  likewise  did  not  rule,  but  sighed,  sometimes 
in  private  amidst  the  confidential  circles  of  the  villas, 
sometimes  in  chorus  in  the  senate-house.  The  portion  of 
the  burgesses  which  had  still  at  heart  freedom  and  order 
was  disgusted  with  the  reign  of  confusion,  but  utterly 
without  leaders  and  counsel  it  maintained  a  passive  attitude 
— not  merely  avoiding  all  political  activity,  but  keeping 
aloof,  as  far  as  possible,  from  the  political  Sodom  itself. 
On  the  other  hand  the  rabble  of  every  sort  never  had 


"o  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

The  better  days,  never  found  a  merrier  arena.     The  number 

of  little  great  men  was  legion.  Demagogism  became  quite 
a  trade,  which  accordingly  did  not  lack  its  professional 
insignia — the  threadbare  mantle,  the  shaggy  beard,  the 
long  streaming  hair,  the  deep  bass  voice ;  and  not  seldom 
it  was  a  trade  with  golden  soil.  For  the  standing  declama- 
tions the  tried  gargles  of  the  theatrical  staff  were  an  article 
in  much  request ; l  Greeks  and  Jews,  freedmen  and  slaves, 
were  the  most  regular  attenders  and  the  loudest  criers  in 
the  public  assemblies ;  frequently,  even  when  it  came  to  a 
vote,  only  a  minority  of  those  voting  consisted  of  burgesses 

*  constitutionally  entitled  to  do  so.      "  Next  time,"  it  is  said 

in  a  letter  of  this  period,  "  we  may  expect  our  lackeys  to 
outvote  the  emancipation-tax."  The  real  powers  of  the  day 
were  the  compact  and  armed  bands,  the  battalions  of 
anarchy  raised  by  adventurers  of  rank  out  of  gladiatorial 
slaves  and  blackguards.  Their  possessors  had  from  the 
outset  been  mostly  numbered  among  the  popular  party ; 
but  since  the  departure  of  Caesar,  who  alone  understood 
how  to  impress  the  democracy,  and  alone  knew  how  to 
manage  it,  all  discipline  had  departed  from  them  and 
every  partisan  practised  politics  at  his  own  hand.  Even 
now,  no  doubt,  these  men  fought  with  most  pleasure 
under  the  banner  of  freedom;  but,  strictly  speaking,  they 
were  neither  of  democratic  nor  of  anti-democratic  views ; 
they  inscribed  on  the — in  itself  indispensable — banner, 
as  it  happened,  now  the  name  of  the  people,  anon  that 
of  the  senate  or  that  of  a  party -chief;  Clodius  for 
instance  fought  or  professed  to  fight  in  succession  for  the 
ruling  democracy,  for  the  senate,  and  for  Crassus.  The 
leaders  of  these  bands  kept  to  their  colours  only  so  far  as 
they  inexorably  persecuted  their  personal  enemies — as  in 
the    case    of   Clodius    against    Cicero    and    Milo    against 

1  This  is  the  meaning  of  cantor um  convitio  condones  celebrare  (Cic 
fro  Sest.  55,  118). 


chap,  viii  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  ill 

Clodius — while  their  partisan  position  served  them  merely 
as  a  handle  in  these  personal  feuds.  We  might  as  well 
seek  to  set  a  charivari  to  music  as  to  write  the  history 
of  this  political  witches'  revel ;  nor  is  it  of  any  moment 
to  enumerate  all  the  deeds  of  murder,  besiegings  of 
houses,  acts  of  incendiarism  and  other  scenes  of  violence 
within  a  great  capital,  and  to  reckon  up  how  often  the 
gamut  was  traversed  from  hissing  and  shouting  to  spitting 
on  and  trampling  down  opponents,  and  thence  to  throwing 
stones  and  drawing  swords. 

The  principal  performer  in  this  theatre  of  political  ciodlu* 
rascality  was  that  Publius  Clodius,  of  whose  services,  as 
already  mentioned  (iv.  517),  the  regents  availed  themselves 
against  Cato  and  Cicero.  Left  to  himself,  this  influential, 
talented,  energetic  and — in  his  trade — really  exemplary 
partisan  pursued  during  his  tribunate  of  the  people  (696)  58. 
an  ultra-democratic  policy,  gave  the  citizens  corn  gratis, 
restricted  the  right  of  the  censors  to  stigmatize  immoral 
burgesses,  prohibited  the  magistrates  from  obstructing  the 
course  of  the  comitial  machinery  by  religious  formalities, 
set  aside  the  limits  which  had  shortly  before  (690),  for  the  64. 
purpose  of  checking  the  system  of  bands,  been  imposed  on 
the  right  of  association  of  the  lower  classes,  and  re- 
established the  "  street-clubs  "  {collegia  compitaliria)  at  that 
time  abolished,  which  were  nothing  else  than  a  formal 
organization — subdivided  according  to  the  streets,  and  with 
an  almost  military  arrangement — of  the  whole  free  or  slave 
proletariate  of  the  capital.  If  in  addition  the  further  law, 
which  Clodius  had  likewise  already  projected  and  purposed 
to  introduce  when  praetor  in  702,  should  give  to  freedmen  62. 
and  to  slaves  living  in  de  facto  possession  of  freedom  the 
same  political  rights  with  the  freeborn,  the  author  of  all 
these  brave  improvements  of  the  constitution  might  declare 
his  work  complete,  and  as  a  second  Numa  of  freedom  and 
equality  might  invite  the  sweet  rabble  of  the  capital  to  see 


112 


THE  JOINT  RULE  OF 


BOOK  V 


Quarrel  of 
Pompeius 
with 
Clodius. 


him  celebrate  high  mass  in  honour  of  the  arrival  of  the 
democratic  millennium  in  the  temple  of  Liberty  which  he 
had  erected  on  the  site  of  one  of  his  burnings  at  the 
Palatine.  Of  course  these  exertions  in  behalf  of  freedom 
did  not  exclude  a  traffic  in  decrees  of  the  burgesses ;  like 
Caesar  himself,  Caesar's  ape  kept  governorships  and  other 
posts  great  and  small  on  sale  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellow- 
citizens,  and  sold  the  sovereign  rights  of  the  state  for  the 
benefit  of  subject  kings  and  cities. 

At  all  these  things  Pompeius  looked  on  without  stirring. 
If  he  did  not  perceive  how  seriously  he  thus  compromised 
himself,  his  opponent  perceived  it.  Clodius  had  the 
hardihood  to  engage  in  a  dispute  with  the  regent  of  Rome 
on  a  question  of  little  moment,  as  to  the  sending  back  of 
a  captive  Armenian  prince ;  and  the  variance  soon  became 
a  formal  feud,  in  which  the  utter  helplessness  of  Pompeius 
was  displayed.  The  head  of  the  state  knew  not  how  to 
meet  the  partisan  otherwise  than  with  his  own  weapons, 
only  wielded  with  far  less  dexterity.  If  he  had  been 
tricked  by  Clodius  respecting  the  Armenian  prince,  he 
offended  him  in  turn  by  releasing  Cicero,  who  was  pre- 
eminently obnoxious  to  Clodius,  from  the  exile  into  which 
Clodius  had  sent  him ;  and  he  attained  his  object  so 
thoroughly,  that  he  converted  his  opponent  into  an 
implacable  foe.  If  Clodius  made  the  streets  insecure  with 
his  bands,  the  victorious  general  likewise  set  slaves  and 
pugilists  to  work;  in  the  frays  which  ensued  the  general 
naturally  was  worsted  by  the  demagogue  and  defeated  in 
the  street,  and  Gaius  Cato  was  kept  almost  constantly 
under  siege  in  his  garden  by  Clodius  and  his  comrades. 
It  is  not  the  least  remarkable  feature  in  this  remarkable 
spectacle,  that  the  regent  and  the  rogue  amidst  their 
quarrel  vied  in  courting  the  favour  of  the  fallen  govern- 
ment ;  Pompeius,  partly  to  please  the  senate,  permitted 
Cicero's  recall,  Clodius  on  the  other  hand  declared  the 


CHAP.  VIII  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  113 

Julian  laws  null  and  void,  and  called  on  Marcus  Bibulus 
publicly  to  testify  to  their  having  been  unconstitutionally 
passed. 

Naturally    no    positive    result    could    issue    from    this 
imbroglio  of  dark  passions;  its  most  distinctive  character 
was  just  its  utterly  ludicrous  want  of  object.     Even  a  man 
of  Caesar's  genius  had  to  learn  by  experience  that  demo- 
cratic agitation  was  completely  worn   out,  and  that  even 
the  way  to  the  throne  no  longer  lay  through  demagogism. 
It  was  nothing  more  than  a  historical  makeshift,  if  now,  in 
the   interregnum   between    republic  and  monarchy,   some 
whimsical  fellow  dressed  himself  out  with  the  prophet's 
mantle  and  staff  which  Caesar  had  himself  laid  aside,  and 
the  great  ideals  of  Gaius  Gracchus  came  once  more  upon 
the  stage  distorted  into  a  parody ;  the  so-called  party  from 
which   this   democratic  agitation  proceeded  was  so  little 
such   in  reality,  that  afterwards  it  had   not  even  a  part 
falling  to  it  in  the  decisive  struggle.     It  cannot  even  be 
asserted  that  by  means  of  this  anarchical  state  of  things 
the   desire  after  a  strong  government  based  on  military 
power  had  been  vividly  kindled  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
were  indifferent  to  politics.     Even  apart  from  the  fact  that 
such  neutral  burgesses  were  chiefly  to  be  sought  outside 
of  Rome,  and  thus  were  not  directly  affected  by  the  rioting 
in  the  capital,  those  minds  which  could  be  at  all  influenced 
by    such    motives    had    been    already    by    their    former 
experiences,  and  especially  by  the  Catilinarian  conspiracy, 
thoroughly  converted  to  the  principle  of  authority;  but 
those  that  were   really  alarmed  were    affected    far   more 
emphatically  by  a  dread  of  the  gigantic  crisis  inseparable 
from  an  overthrow  of  the  constitution,  than  by  dread  of 
the    mere   continuance    of   the — at    bottom  withal    very 
superficial — anarchy  in  the  capital.     The  only  result  of  it 
which  historically  deserves  notice  was  the  painful  position 
in    which   Pompeius    was   placed   by  the   attacks  of  the 
VOL.  V  141 


H4  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  BOOK  V 

Clodians,  and  which  had  a  material  share  in  determining 
his  farther  steps. 
Pompeius  Little  as   Pompeius  liked  and  understood  taking  the 

to  the  initiative,  he  was  yet  on  this  occasion  compelled  by  the 

Gallic  change  of  his  position  towards  both  Clodius  and  Caesar  to 

Caesar.  depart  from  his  previous  inaction.  The  irksome  and 
disgraceful  situation  to  which  Clodius  had  reduced  him, 
could  not  but  at  length  arouse  even  his  sluggish  nature  to 
hatred  and  anger.  But  far  more  important  was  the  change 
which  took  place  in  his  relation  to  Caesar.  While,  of  the 
two  confederate  regents,  Pompeius  had  utterly  failed  in 
the  functions  which  he  had  undertaken,  Caesar  had  the 
skill  to  turn  his  official  position  to  an  account  which  left 
all  calculations  and  all  fears  far  behind.  Without  much 
inquiry  as  to  permission,  Caesar  had  doubled  his  army  by 
levies  in  his  southern  province  inhabited  in  great  measure 
by  Roman  burgesses ;  had  with  this  army  crossed  the  Alps 
instead  of  keeping  watch  over  Rome  from  Northern  Italy ; 
had  crushed  in  the  bud  a  new  Cimbrian  invasion,  and 
68,  67.  within  two  years  (696,  697)  had  carried  the  Roman  arms 
to  the  Rhine  and  the  Channel.  In  presence  of  such  facts 
even  the  aristocratic  tactics  of  ignoring  and  disparaging 
were  baffled.  He  who  had  often  been  scoffed  at  as 
effeminate  was  now  the  idol  of  the  army,  the  celebrated 
victory-crowned  hero,  whose  fresh  laurels  outshone  the 
faded  laurels  of  Pompeius,  and  to  whom  even  the  senate 
67.  as  early  as  697  accorded  the  demonstrations  of  honour 
usual  after  successful  campaigns  in  richer  measure  than 
had  ever  fallen  to  the  share  of  Pompeius.  Pompeius 
stood  towards  his  former  adjutant  precisely  as  after  the 
Gabinio-Manilian  laws  the  latter  had  stood  towards  him. 
Caesar  was  now  the  hero  of  the  day  and  the  master  of 
the  most  powerful  Roman  army ;  Pompeius  was  an  ex- 
general  who  had  once  been  famous.  It  is  true  that  no 
collision  had  yet  occurred  between  father-in-law  and  son- 


CHAP.  Vlli  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  115 

in-law,  and  the  relation  was  externally  undisturbed;  but 
every  political  alliance  is  inwardly  broken  up,  when  the 
relative  proportions  of  the  power  of  the  parties  are  materi- 
ally altered.  While  the  quarrel  with  Clodius  was  merely 
annoying,  the  change  in  the  position  of  Caesar  involved  a 
very  serious  danger  for  Pompeius ;  just  as  Caesar  and  his 
confederates  had  formerly  sought  a  military  support  against 
him,  he  found  himself  now  compelled  to  seek  a  military 
support  against  Caesar,  and,  laying  aside  his  haughty 
privacy,  to  come  forward  as  a  candidate  for  some  extra- 
ordinary magistracy,  which  would  enable  him  to  hold  his 
place  by  the  side  of  the  governor  of  the  two  Gauls  with 
equal  and,  if  possible,  with  superior  power.  His  tactics,  like 
his  position,  were  exactly  those  of  Caesar  during  the  Mithra- 
datic  war.  To  balance  the  military  power  of  a  superior 
but  still  remote  adversary  by  the  obtaining  of  a  similar 
command,  Pompeius  required  in  the  first  instance  the 
official  machinery  of  government.  A  year  and  a  half  ago 
this  had  been  absolutely  at  his  disposal.  The  regents 
then  ruled  the  state  both  by  the  comitia,  which  absolutely 
obeyed  them  as  the  masters  of  the  street,  and  by  the 
senate,  which  was  energetically  overawed  by  Caesar;  as 
representative  of  the  coalition  in  Rome  and  as  its  ac- 
knowledged head,  Pompeius  would  have  doubtless  ob- 
tained from  the  senate  and  from  the  burgesses  any  decree 
which  he  wished,  even  if  it  were  against  Caesar's  interest. 
But  by  the  awkward  quarrel  with  Clodius,  Pompeius  had 
lost  the  command  of  the  streets,  and  could  not  expect  to 
carry  a  proposal  in  his  favour  in  the  popular  assembly. 
Things  were  not  quite  so  unfavourable  for  him  in  the 
senate ;  but  even  there  it  was  doubtful  whether  Pompeius 
after  that  long  and  fatal  inaction  still  held  the  reins  of  the 
majority  firmly  enough  in  hand  to  procure  such  a  decree 
as  he  needed. 

The  position  of  the  senate  also,  or  rather  of  the  nobility 


n6  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

The  generally,  had  meanwhile  undergone  a  change.     From  the 

opposition    velT  ^act  °*"  *ts  cornplete  abasement  it  drew  fresh  energy. 

among  the  In  the  coalition  of  694  various  things  had  come  to  light, 
°  60  wn'cn  were  by  no  means  as  yet  ripe  for  it.  The  banish- 
ment of  Cato  and  Cicero — which  public  opinion,  however 
much  the  regents  kept  themselves  in  the  background  and 
even  professed  to  lament  it,  referred  with  unerring  tact  to 
its  real  authors — and  the  marriage -relationship  formed 
between  Caesar  and  Pompeius  suggested  to  men's  minds 
with  disagreeable  clearness  monarchical  decrees  of  banish- 
ment and  family  alliances.  The  larger  public  too,  which 
stood  more  aloof  from  political  events,  observed  the 
foundations  of  the  future  monarchy  coming  more  and 
more  distinctly  into  view.  From  the  moment  when  the 
public  perceived  that  Caesar's  object  was  not  a  modification 
of  the  republican  constitution,  but  that  the  question  at 
stake  was  the  existence  or  non-existence  of  the  republic, 
many  of  the  best  men,  who  had  hitherto  reckoned  them- 
selves of  the  popular  party  and  honoured  in  Caesar  its 
head,  must  infallibly  have  passed  over  to  the  opposite  side. 
It  was  no  longer  in  the  saloons  and  the  country  houses 
of  the  governing  nobility  alone  that  men  talked  of  the 
"three  dynasts,"  of  the  "three-headed  monster."  The 
dense  crowds  of  people  listened  to  the  consular  orations  of 
Caesar  without  a  sound  of  acclamation  or  approval ;  not  a 
hand  stirred  to  applaud  when  the  democratic  consul 
entered  the  theatre.  But  they  hissed  when  one  of  the 
tools  of  the  regents  showed  himself  in  public,  and  even 
staid  men  applauded  when  an  actor  uttered  an  anti- 
monarchic  sentence  or  an  allusion  against  Pompeius. 
Nay,  when  Cicero  was  to  be  banished,  a  great  number  of 
burgesses — it  is  said  twenty  thousand — mostly  of  the  middle 
classes,  put  on  mourning  after  the  example  of  the  senate. 
"Nothing  is  now  more  popular,"  it  is  said  in  a  letter  of 
this  period,  "  than  hatred  of  the  popular  party." 


chap,  viii  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  117 

The  regents  dropped  hints,  that  through  such  opposi-  Attempt! 
tion  the  equites  might  easily  lose  their  new  special  places  regents  t0 
in  the  theatre,  and  the  commons  their  bread-corn ;  people  check  it 
were  therefore  somewhat  more  guarded  perhaps  in  the 
expression  of  their  displeasure,  but  the  feeling  remained 
the  same.  The  lever  of  material  interests  was  applied  with 
better  success.  Caesar's  gold  flowed  in  streams.  Men  of 
seeming  riches  whose  finances  were  in  disorder,  influential 
ladies  who  were  in  pecuniary  embarrassment,  insolvent 
young  nobles,  merchants  and  bankers  in  difficulties,  either 
went  in  person  to  Gaul  with  the  view  of  drawing  from  the 
fountain-head,  or  applied  to  Caesar's  agents  in  the  capital  ; 
and  rarely  was  any  man  outwardly  respectable — Caesar 
avoided  dealings  with  vagabonds  who  were  utterly  lost — 
rejected  in  either  quarter.  To  this  fell  to  be  added  the 
enormous  buildings  which  Caesar  caused  to  be  executed 
on  his  account  in  the  capital — and  by  which  a  countless 
number  of  men  of  all  ranks  from  the  consular  down  to  the 
common  porter  found  opportunity  of  profiting — as  well  as 
the  immense  sums  expended  for  public  amusements. 
Pompeius  did  the  same  on  a  more  limited  scale;  to  him 
the  capital  was  indebted  for  the  first  theatre  of  stone,  and 
he  celebrated  its  dedication  with  a  magnificence  never  seen 
before.  Of  course  such  distributions  reconciled  a  number 
of  men  who  were  inclined  towards  opposition,  more 
especially  in  the  capital,  to  the  new  order  of  things  up  to  a 
certain  extent ;  but  the  marrow  of  the  opposition  was  not 
to  be  reached  by  this  system  of  corruption.  Every  day 
more  and  more  clearly  showed  how  deeply  the  existing 
constitution  had  struck  root  among  the  people,  and  how 
little,  in  particular,  the  circles  more  aloof  from  direct  party- 
agitation,  especially  the  country  towns,  were  inclined 
towards  monarchy  or  even  simply  ready  to  let  it  take  its 
course. 

If  Rome  had  had  a  representative  constitution,   the 


ti8  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

Increasing  discontent  of  the  burgesses  would  have  found  its  natural 
oTthe  nCC  expression  in  the  elections,  and  have  increased  by  so  ex- 
senate,  pressing  itself;  under  the  existing  circumstances  nothing 
was  left  for  those  true  to  the  constitution  but  to  place 
themselves  under  the  senate,  which,  degraded  as  it  was, 
still  appeared  the  representative  and  champion  of  the 
legitimate  republic.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  senate, 
now  when  it  had  been  overthrown,  suddenly  found  at  its 
disposal  an  army  far  more  considerable  and  far  more 
earnestly  faithful,  than  when  in  its  power  and  splendour 
it  overthrew  the  Gracchi  and  under  the  protection  of  Sulla's 
sword  restored  the  state.  The  aristocracy  felt  this ;  it 
began  to  bestir  itself  afresh.  Just  at  this  time  Marcus  Cicero, 
after  having  bound  himself  to  join  the  obsequious  party  in 
the  senate  and  not  only  to  offer  no  opposition,  but  to 
work  with  all  his  might  for  the  regents,  had  obtained  from 
them  permission  to  return.  Although  Pompeius  in  this 
matter  only  made  an  incidental  concession  to  the  oligarchy, 
and  intended  first  of  all  to  play  a  trick  on  Clodius,  and 
secondly  to  acquire  in  the  fluent  consular  a  tool  rendered 
pliant  by  sufficient  blows,  the  opportunity  afforded  by  the 
return  of  Cicero  was  embraced  for  republican  demonstra- 
tions, just  as  his  banishment  had  been  a  demonstration 
against  the  senate.  With  all  possible  solemnity,  protected 
moreover  against  the  Clodians  by  the  band  of  Titus  Annius 
Milo,  the  two  consuls,  following  out  a  resolution  of  the 
senate,  submitted  a  proposal  to  the  burgesses  to  permit  the 
return  of  the  consular  Cicero,  and  the  senate  called  on  all 
burgesses  true  to  the  constitution  not  to  be  absent  from 
the  vote.  An  unusual  number  of  worthy  men,  especially 
from  the  country  towns,  actually  assembled  in  Rome  on 
67.  the  day  of  voting  (4  Aug.  697).  The  journey  of  the  con- 
sular from  Brundisium  to  the  capital  gave  occasion  to  a 
series  of  similar,  but  not  less  brilliant  manifestations  of 
public  feeling.     The  new  alliance  between  the  senate  and 


chap,  viii  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  119 

the  burgesses  faithful  to  the  constitution  was  on  this 
occasion  as  it  were  publicly  proclaimed,  and  a  sort  of 
review  of  the  latter  was  held,  the  singularly  favourable 
result  of  which  contributed  not  a  little  to  revive  the  sunken 
courage  of  the  aristocracy. 

The  helplessness  of  Pompeius  in  presence  of  these  daring  Helpless- 
demonstrations,   as   well    as   the   undignified    and   almost  °ess  of. 

'         ,  °  Pompeius. 

ridiculous  position  into  which  he  had  fallen  with  reference 
to  Clodius,  deprived  him  and  the  coalition  of  their  credit ; 
and  the  section  of  the  senate  which  adhered  to  the 
regents,  demoralized  by  the  singular  inaptitude  of  Pompeius 
and  helplessly  left  to  itself,  could  not  prevent  the  republican- 
aristocratic  party  from  regaining  completely  the  ascendency 
in  the  corporation.  The  game  of  this  party  really  at  that 
time  (697)  was  still  by  no  means  desperate  for  a  courageous  57. 
and  dexterous  player.  It  had  now — what  it  had  not 
possessed  for  a  century  past — a  firm  support  in  the  people ; 
if  it  trusted  the  people  and  itself,  it  might  attain  its  object 
in  the  shortest  and  most  honourable  way.  Why  not  attack 
the  regents  openly  and  avowedly?  Why  should  not  a 
resolute  and  eminent  man  at  the  head  of  the  senate  cancel 
the  extraordinary  powers  as  unconstitutional,  and  summon 
all  the  republicans  of  Italy  to  arms  against  the  tyrants  and 
their  following  ?  It  was  possible  perhaps  in  this  way  once 
more  to  restore  the  rule  of  the  senate  Certainly  the 
republicans  would  thus  play  a  bold  game ;  but  perhaps  in 
this  case,  as  often,  the  most  courageous  resolution  might 
have  been  at  the  same  time  the  most  prudent.  Only,  it  is 
true,  the  indolent  aristocracy  of  this  period  was  scarcely 
capable  of  so  simple  and  bold  a  resolution.  There  was 
however  another  way  perhaps  more  sure,  at  any  rate  better 
adapted  to  the  character  and  nature  of  these  constitu- 
tionalists ;  they  might  labour  to  set  the  two  regents  at 
variance  and  through  this  variance  to  attain  ultimately  to 
the  helm  themselves.     The  relations  between  the  two  men 


120  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  V 

ruling  the  state  had  become  altered  and  relaxed,  now  that 
Caesar  had  acquired  a  standing  of  preponderant  power  by  the 
side  of  Pompeius  and  had  compelled  the  latter  to  canvass 
for  a  new  position  of  command ;  it  was  probable  that,  if  he 
obtained  it,  there  would  arise  in  one  way  or  other  a  rupture 
and  struggle  between  them.  If  Pompeius  remained  un- 
supported in  this,  his  defeat  was  scarcely  doubtful,  and  the 
constitutional  party  would  in  that  event  find  themselves 
after  the  close  of  the  conflict  under  the  rule  of  one  master 
instead  of  two.  But  if  the  nobility  employed  against 
Caesar  the  same  means  by  which  the  latter  had  won  his 
previous  victories,  and  entered  into  alliance  with  the  weaker 
competitor,  victory  would  probably,  with  a  general  like 
Pompeius,  and  with  an  army  such  as  that  of  the  constitu- 
tionalists, fall  to  the  coalition ;  and  to  settle  matters  with 
Pompeius  after  the  victory  could  not — judging  from  the 
proofs  of  political  incapacity  which  he  had  already  given — 
appear  a  specially  difficult  task. 
Attempts  Things  had  taken  such  a  turn  as  naturally  to  suggest  an 

°f       .       understanding  between  Pompeius  and  the  republican  party, 
to  obtain  a  Whether  such  an  approximation  was  to  take  place,  and  what 
command     shape  the  mutual  relations  of  the  two  regents  and  of  the 
the  senate,   aristocracy,  which    had   become  utterly  enigmatical,   were 
next  to  assume,  fell  necessarily  to  be  decided,  when  in  the 
67.  autumn  of  697    Pompeius  came  to  the  senate  with  the 
proposal  to  entrust  him  with  extraordinary  official  power. 
Adminis-      He  based  his  proposal  once  more  on  that  by  which  he  had 
of  the"         eleven  years  before  laid  the  foundations  of  his  power,  the 
supplies  of   price  of  bread   in    the  capital,  which   had  just  then — as 
previously  to  the  Gabinian    law — reached    an  oppressive 
height.      Whether    it    had    been    forced    up   by    special 
machinations,    such    as    Clodius    imputed    sometimes    to 
Pompeius,  sometimes  to  Cicero,   and  these  in  their   turn 
charged  on  Clodius,  cannot  be  determined;  the  continuance 
of  piracy,  the   emptiness   of  the   public   chest,  and   the 


chap,  vin  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  121 

negligent  and  disorderly  supervision  of  the  supplies  of  corn 
by  the  government  were  already  quite  sufficient  of  them- 
selves, even  without  political  forestalling,  to  produce 
scarcities  of  bread  in  a  great  city  dependent  almost  solely 
on  transmarine  supplies.  The  plan  of  Pompeius  was  to  get 
the  senate  to  commit  to  him  the  superintendence  of  the 
matters  relating  to  corn  throughout  the  whole  Roman  empire, 
and,  with  a  view  to  this  ultimate  object,  to  entrust  him  on 
the  one  hand  with  the  unlimited  disposal  of  the  Roman 
state-treasure,  and  on  the  other  hand  with  an  army  and 
fleet,  as  well  as  a  command  which  not  only  stretched  over 
the  whole  Roman  empire,  but  was  superior  in  each  province 
to  that  of  the  governor — in  short  he  designed  to  institute 
an  improved  edition  of  the  Gabinian  law,  to  which  the 
conduct  of  the  Egyptian  war  just  then  pending  (iii.  451) 
would  therefore  quite  as  naturally  have  been  annexed  as 
the  conduct  of  the  Mithradatic  war  to  the  razzia  against  the 
pirates.  However  much  the  opposition  to  the  new  dynasts 
had  gained  ground  in  recent  years,  the  majority  of  the 
senate  was  still,  when  this  matter  came  to  be  discussed  in 
Sept.  697,  under  the  constraint  of  the  terror  excited  by  57. 
Caesar.  It  obsequiously  accepted  the  project  in  principle, 
and  that  on  the  proposition  of  Marcus  Cicero,  who  was  ex- 
pected to  give,  and  gave,  in  this  case  the  first  proof  of  the 
pliableness  learned  by  him  in  exile.  But  in  the  settlement 
of  the  details  very  material  portions  were  abated  from  the 
original  plan,  which  the  tribune  of  the  people  Gaius  Messius 
submitted.  Pompeius  obtained  neither  free  control  over 
the  treasury,  nor  legions  and  ships  of  his  own,  nor  even  an 
authority  superior  to  that  of  the  governors ;  but  they 
contented  themselves  with  granting  to  him,  for  the  purpose 
of  his  organizing  due  supplies  for  the  capital,  considerable 
sums,  fifteen  adjutants,  and  in  all  affairs  relating  to  the 
supply  of  grain  full  proconsular  power  throughout  the 
Roman  dominions  for  the  next  five  years,  and  with  having 


122  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

this  decree  confirmed  by  the  burgesses.  There  were  many 
different  reasons  which  led  to  this  alteration,  almost 
equivalent  to  a  rejection,  of  the  original  plan  :  a  regard  to 
Caesar,  with  reference  to  whom  the  most  timid  could  not 
but  have  the  greatest  scruples  in  investing  his  colleague 
not  merely  with  equal  but  with  superior  authority  in  Gaul 
itself;  the  concealed  opposition  of  Pompeius'  hereditary 
enemy  and  reluctant  ally  Crassus,  to  whom  Pompeius 
himself  attributed  or  professed  to  attribute  primarily  the 
failure  of  his  plan ;  the  antipathy  of  the  republican  opposi- 
tion in  the  senate  to  any  decree  which  really  or  nominally 
enlarged  the  authority  of  the  regents ;  lastly  and  mainly, 
the  incapacity  of  Pompeius  himself,  who  even  after  having 
been  compelled  to  act  could  not  prevail  on  himself  to 
acknowledge  his  own  action,  but  chose  always  to  bring 
forward  his  real  design  as  it  were  in  incognito  by  means  of 
his  friends,  while  he  himself  in  his  well-known  modesty 
declared  his  willingness  to  be  content  with  even  less.  No 
wonder  that  they  took  him  at  his  word,  and  gave  him  the 
less. 
Egyptian  Pompeius  was  nevertheless  glad  to  have  found  at  any 

rate  a  serious  employment,  and  above  all  a  fitting  pretext 
for  leaving  the  capital.  He  succeeded,  moreover,  in  pro- 
viding it  with  ampler  and  cheaper  supplies,  although  not 
without  the  provinces  severely  feeling  the  reflex  effect. 
But  he  had  missed  his  real  object ;  the  proconsular  title, 
which  he  had  a  right  to  bear  in  all  the  provinces,  remained 
an  empty  name,  so  long  as  he  had  not  troops  of  his  own  at 
his  disposal.  Accordingly  he  soon  afterwards  got  a  second 
proposition  made  to  the  senate,  that  it  should  confer  on 
him  the  charge  of  conducting  back  the  expelled  king  of 
Egypt,  if  necessary  by  force  of  arms,  to  his  home.  But 
the  more  that  his  urgent  need  of  the  senate  became  evident, 
the  senators  received  his  wishes  with  a  less  pliant  and  less 
respectful  spirit.      It  was   immediately  discovered  in  the 


expedition. 


chap,  viii  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  123 

Sibylline  oracles  that  it  was  impious  to  send  a  Roman 
army  to  Egypt;  whereupon  the  pious  senate  almost 
unanimously  resolved  to  abstain  from  armed  intervention. 
Pompeius  was  already  so  humbled,  that  he  would  have 
accepted  the  mission  even  without  an  army ;  but  in  his 
incorrigible  dissimulation  he  left  this  also  to  be  declared 
merely  by  his  friends,  and  spoke  and  voted  for  the  despatch 
of  another  senator.  Of  course  the  senate  rejected  a  pro- 
posal which  wantonly  risked  a  life  so  precious  to  his 
country ;  and  the  ultimate  issue  of  the  endless  discussions 
was  the  resolution  not  to  interfere  in  Egypt  at  all  (Jan.  698).  56. 
These  repeated  repulses  which  Pompeius  met  with  in  Attempt 

the  senate  and,  what  was  worse,  had  to  acquiesce  in  with-  at.an 

'  *  aristocratic 

out  retaliation,  were  naturally  regarded — come  from  what  restoration, 
side  they  would  —  by  the  public  at  large  as  so  many 
victories  of  the  republicans  and  defeats  of  the  regents 
generally ;  the  tide  of  republican  opposition  was  accord- 
ingly always  on  the  increase.  Already  the  elections  for 
698  had  gone  but  partially  according  to  the  minds  of  58. 
the  dynasts ;  Caesar's  candidates  for  the  praetorship, 
Publius  Vatinius  and  Gaius  Alfius,  had  failed,  while  two 
decided  adherents  of  the  fallen  government,  Gnaeus 
Lentulus  Marcellinus  and  Gnaeus  Domitius  Calvinus,  had 
been  elected,  the  former  as  consul,  the  latter  as  praetor. 
But  for  699  there  even  appeared  as  candidate  for  the  65. 
consulship  Lucius  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  whose  election 
it  was  difficult  to  prevent  owing  to  his  influence  in  the 
capital  and  his  colossal  wealth,  and  who,  it  was  sufficiently 
well  known,  would  not  be  content  with  a  concealed  opposi- 
tion. The  comitia  thus  rebelled ;  and  the  senate  chimed 
in.  It  solemnly  deliberated  over  an  opinion,  which 
Etruscan  soothsayers  of  acknowledged  wisdom  had  fur- 
nished respecting  certain  signs  and  wonders  at  its  special 
request.  The  celestial  revelation  announced  that  through 
the  dissension  of  the  upper  classes  the  whole  power  over 


I24  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

the  army  and  treasure  threatened  to  pass  to  one  ruler,  and 
the  state  to  incur  loss  of  freedom — it  seemed  that  the  gods 
pointed  primarily  at  the  proposal  of  Gaius  Messius.     The  re- 
Attack  on    publicans  soon  descended  from  heaven  to  earth.    The  law  as 
£*"'*      t0  the  domain  of  Capua  and  the  other  laws  issued  by  Caesar 
as  consul  had  been  constantly  described  by  them  as  null 
and  void,  and  an  opinion  had  been  expressed  in  the  senate 
57.  as  early  as  Dec.   697  that  it  was  necessary  to  cancel  them 
56.  on  account  of  their  informalities.     On  the  6th  April  698 
the  consular  Cicero  proposed  in  a  full  senate  to  put  the 
consideration  of  the  Campanian  land   distribution  in  the 
order  of  the  day  for  the   15  th  May.     It  was  the  formal 
declaration  of  war ;  and  it  was  the  more  significant,  that 
it  came  from  the  mouth  of  one  of  those  men  who  only 
show  their  colours  when  they  think  that  they  can  do  so 
with    safety.       Evidently   the    aristocracy   held    that   the 
moment   had  come  for  beginning  the  struggle  not  with 
Pompeius  against  Caesar,  but  against  the  tyrannis  gener- 
ally.     What  would  further  follow  might  easily  be  seen. 
Domitius  made  no  secret  that  he  intended  as  consul  to 
propose  to  the  burgesses  the  immediate  recall  of  Caesar 
from  Gaul.     An  aristocratic  restoration  was  at  work ;  and 
with  the  attack  on  the  colony  of  Capua  the  nobility  threw 
down  the  gauntlet  to  the  regents. 
Conference        Caesar,   although   receiving  from  day  to  day  detailed 
regents  at    accounts  of  the  events  in  the  capital  and,  whenever  military 
Luca.  considerations   allowed,  watching   their   progress  from  as 

near  a  point  of  his  southern  province  as  possible,  had  not 
hitherto,  visibly  at  least,  interfered  in  them.  But  now  war 
had  been  declared  against  him  as  well  as  his  colleague,  in 
fact  against  him  especially ;  he  was  compelled  to  act,  and 
he  acted  quickly.  He  happened  to  be  in  the  very  neigh- 
bourhood ;  the  aristocracy  had  not  even  found  it  advisable 
to  delay  the  rupture,  till  he  should  have  again  crossed  the 
56.  Alps.      In  the  beginning  of  April  698  Crassus  left  the 


chap.  VHI  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  125 

capital,  to  concert  the  necessary  measures  with  his  more 
powerful  colleague ;  he  found  Caesar  in  Ravenna.     Thence 
both  proceeded  to  Luca,  and  there  they  were  joined  by 
Pompeius,  who  had  departed  from  Rome  soon  after  Crassus 
(1 1  April),  ostensibly  for  the  purpose  of  procuring  supplies 
of  grain  from  Sardinia  and  Africa.     The  most  noted  ad- 
herents of  the  regents,  such  as  Metellus  Nepos  the  pro- 
consul of  Hither  Spain,  Appius  Claudius  the  propraetor 
of  Sardinia,  and  many  others,  followed  them ;  a  hundred 
and  twenty  lictors,  and  upwards  of  two  hundred  senators 
were  counted  at  this  conference,  where  already  the  new 
monarchical  senate  was  represented  in  contradistinction  to 
the  republican.     In   every  respect  the  decisive  voice  lay 
with  Caesar.     He  used  it  to  re-establish  and  consolidate 
the  existing  joint  rule  on  a  new  basis  of  more  equal  dis- 
tribution of  power.     The  governorships  of  most  importance 
in  a  military  point  of  view,  next  to  that  of  the  two  Gauls, 
were  assigned  to  his  two  colleagues — that  of  the  two  Spains 
to  Pompeius,  that  of  Syria  to  Crassus;  and  these  offices 
were  to  be  secured  to  them  by  decree  of  the  people  for 
five  years  (700-704),  and  to  be  suitably  provided  for  in  a  5150. 
military  and  financial  point  of  view.     On  the  other  hand 
Caesar  stipulated  for  the   prolongation   of  his  command, 
which  expired  with  the  year  700,  to  the  close  of  705,  as  54.    49 
well  as  for  the  prerogative  of  increasing  his  legions  to  ten 
and  of  charging  the  pay  for  the  troops  arbitrarily  levied  by 
him  on  the  state-chest.     Pompeius  and  Crassus  were  more- 
over promised  a  second  consulship  for  the  next  year  (699)  55. 
before  they  departed  for  their  governorships,  while  Caesar 
kept  it  open  to  himself  to  administer  the  supreme  magis- 
tracy a  second  time  after  the  termination  of  his  governor- 
ship in  706,  when  the  ten  years'  interval  legally  requisite  48 
between  two  consulships  should  have  in  his  case  elapsed. 
The  military  support,  which  Pompeius  and  Crassus  required 
for  regulating  the  affairs  of  the  capital  all  the  more  that  the 


126 


THE  JOINT  RULE  OF 


BOOK  V 


legions  of  Caesar  originally  destined  for  this  purpose  could 
not  now  be  withdrawn  from  Transalpine  Gaul,  was  to  be 
found  in  new  legions,  which  they  were  to  raise  for  the 
Spanish  and  Syrian  armies  and  were  not  to  despatch  from 
Italy  to  their  several  destinations  until  it  should  seem  to 
themselves  convenient  to  do  so.  The  main  questions  were 
thus  settled ;  subordinate  matters,  such  as  the  settlement 
of  the  tactics  to  be  followed  against  the  opposition  in  the 
capital,  the  regulation  of  the  candidatures  for  the  ensuing 
years,  and  the  like,  did  not  long  detain  them.  The  great 
master  of  mediation  composed  the  personal  differences 
which  stood  in  the  way  of  an  agreement  with  his  wonted 
ease,  and  compelled  the  most  refractory  elements  to  act  in 
concert.  An  understanding  befitting  colleagues  was  re- 
established, externally  at  least,  between  Pompeius  and 
Crassus.  Even  Publius  Clodius  was  induced  to  keep 
himself  and  his  pack  quiet,  and  to  give  no  farther  annoy- 
ance to  Pompeius — not  the  least  marvellous  feat  of  the 
mighty  magician. 

That  this  whole  settlement  of  the  pending  questions 
proceeded,  not  from  a  compromise  among  independent 
mngement.  and  rival  regents  meeting  on  equal  terms,  but  solely  from 
the  good  will  of  Caesar,  is  evident  from  the  circumstances. 
Pompeius  appeared  at  Luca  in  the  painful  position  of  a 
powerless  refugee,  who  comes  to  ask  aid  from  his  opponent. 
Whether  Caesar  chose  to  dismiss  him  and  to  declare  the 
coalition  dissolved,  or  to  receive  him  and  to  let  the  league 
continue  just  as  it  stood — Pompeius  was  in  either  view 
politically  annihilated.  If  he  did  not  in  this  case  break 
with  Caesar,  he  became  the  powerless  client  of  his  con- 
federate. If  on  the  other  hand  he  did  break  with  Caesar 
and,  which  was  not  very  probable,  effected  even  now  a 
coalition  with  the  aristocracy,  this  alliance  between  op- 
ponents, concluded  under  pressure  of  necessity  and  at  the 
last  moment,  was  so  little  formidable  that  it  was  hardly  for 


Designs  of 
Caesar  in 
this  ar- 


chap,  viii  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  127 

the  sake  of  averting  it  that  Caesar  agreed  to  those  conces- 
sions. A  serious  rivalry  on  the  part  of  Crassus  with  Caesar 
was  utterly  impossible.  It  is  difficult  to  say  what  motives 
induced  Caesar  to  surrender  without  necessity  his  superior 
position,  and  now  voluntarily  to  concede — what  he  had 
refused  to  his  rival  even  on  the  conclusion  of  the  league 
of  694,  and  what  the  latter  had  since,  with  the  evident  60« 
design  of  being  armed  against  Caesar,  vainly  striven  in 
different  ways  to  attain  without,  nay  against,  Caesar's  will 
— the  second  consulate  and  military  power.  Certainly  it 
was  not  Pompeius  alone  that  was  placed  at  the  head  of  an 
army,  but  also  his  old  enemy  and  Caesar's  ally  throughout 
many  years,  Crassus ;  and  undoubtedly  Crassus  obtained 
his  respectable  military  position  merely  as  a  counterpoise 
to  the  new  power  of  Pompeius.  Nevertheless  Caesar  was 
a  great  loser,  when  his  rival  exchanged  his  former  power- 
lessness  for  an  important  command.  It  is  possible  that 
Caesar  did  not  yet  feel  himself  sufficiently  master  of  his 
soldiers  to  lead  them  with  confidence  to  a  warfare  against 
the  formal  authorities  of  the  land,  and  was  therefore  anxious 
not  to  be  forced  to  civil  war  now  by  being  recalled  from 
Gaul ;  but  whether  civil  war  should  come  or  not,  depended 
at  the  moment  far  more  on  the  aristocracy  of  the  capital 
than  on  Pompeius,  and  this  would  have  been  at  most  a 
reason  for  Caesar  not  breaking  openly  with  Pompeius,  so 
that  the  opposition  might  not  be  emboldened  by  this 
breach,  but  not  a  reason  for  conceding  to  him  what  he 
did  concede.  Purely  personal  motives  may  have  con- 
tributed to  the  result ;  it  may  be  that  Caesar  recollected 
how  he  had  once  stood  in  a  position  of  similar  powerless- 
ness  in  presence  of  Pompeius,  and  had  been  saved  from 
destruction  only  by  his — pusillanimous,  it  is  true,  rather 
than  magnanimous — retirement ;  it  is  probable  that  Caesar 
hesitated  to  break  the  heart  of  his  beloved  daughter  who 
was  sincerely  attached  to  her  husband — in  his  soul  there 


128  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

was  room  for  much  besides  the  statesman.  But  the 
decisive  reason  was  doubtless  the  consideration  of  Gaul. 
Caesar — differing  from  his  biographers — regarded  the  sub- 
jugation of  Gaul  not  as  an  incidental  enterprise  useful  to 
him  for  the  gaining  of  the  crown,  but  as  one  on  which 
depended  the  external  security  and  the  internal  reorganiza- 
tion, in  a  word  the  future,  of  his  country.  That  he  might 
be  enabled  to  complete  this  conquest  undisturbed  and 
might  not  be  obliged  to  take  in  hand  just  at  once  the 
extrication  of  Italian  affairs,  he  unhesitatingly  gave  up  his 
superiority  over  his  rivals  and  granted  to  Pompeius  suffi- 
cient power  to  settle  matters  with  the  senate  and  its 
adherents.  This  was  a  grave  political  blunder,  if  Caesar 
had  no  other  object  than  to  become  as  quickly  as  possible 
king  of  Rome ;  but  the  ambition  of  that  rare  man  was  not 
confined  to  the  vulgar  aim  of  a  crown.  He  had  the  bold- 
ness to  prosecute  side  by  side,  and  to  complete,  two  labours 
equally  vast — the  arranging  of  the  internal  affairs  of  Italy, 
and  the  acquisition  and  securing  of  a  new  and  fresh  soil 
for  Italian  civilization.  These  tasks  of  course  interfered 
with  each  other ;  his  Gallic  conquests  hindered  much  more 
than  helped  him  on  his  way  to  the  throne.  It  was  fraught 
to  him  with  bitter  fruit  that,  instead  of  settling  the  Italian 

66.  48.  revolution  in  698,  he  postponed  it  to  706.  But  as  a  states- 
man as  well  as  a  general  Caesar  was  a  peculiarly  daring 
player,  who,  confiding  in  himself  and  despising  his  op- 
ponents, gave  them  always  great  and  sometimes  extravagant 
odds. 

The  It  was  now  therefore  the  turn  of  the  aristocracy  to  make 

submitraCy  £00(*  ^e^r  k*Sn  gaSe>  anc*  to  wa§e  war  as  boldly  as  they 
had  boldly  declared  it  But  there  is  no  more  pitiable 
spectacle  than  when  cowardly  men  have  the  misfortune  to 
take  a  bold  resolution.  They  had  simply  exercised  no 
foresight  at  all.  It  seemed  to  have  occurred  to  nobody 
that  Caesar  would  possibly  stand  on  his  defence,  or  that 


chap,  via  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  129 

even  now  Pompeius  and  Crassus  would  combine  with  him 
afresh  and  more  closely  than  ever.  This  seems  incredible ; 
but  it  becomes  intelligible,  when  we  glance  at  the  persons 
who  then  led  the  constitutional  opposition  in  the  senate. 
Cato  was  still  absent ; l  the  most  influential  man  in  the 
senate  at  this  time  was  Marcus  Bibulus,  the  hero  of  passive 
resistance,  the  most  obstinate  and  most  stupid  of  all  con- 
sulars.  They  had  taken  up  arms  only  to  lay  them  down, 
so  soon  as  the  adversary  merely  put  his  hand  to  the  sheath ; 
the  bare  news  of  the  conferences  in  Luca  sufficed  to  suppress 
all  thought  of  a  serious  opposition  and  to  bring  the  mass 
of  the  timid — that  is,  the  immense  majority  of  the  senate — 
back  to  their  duty  as  subjects,  which  in  an  unhappy  hour 
they  had  abandoned.  There  was  no  further  talk  of  the 
appointed  discussion  to  try  the  validity  of  the  Julian  laws ; 
the  legions  raised  by  Caesar  on  his  own  behalf  were  charged 
by  decree  of  the  senate  on  the  public  chest ;  the  attempts 
on  occasion  of  regulating  the  next  consular  provinces  to 
take  away  both  Gauls  or  one  of  them  by  decree  from  Caesar 
were  rejected  by  the  majority  (end  of  May  698).  Thus  M. 
the  corporation  did  public  penance.  In  secret  the  indi- 
vidual lords,  one  after  another,  thoroughly  frightened  at 
their  own  temerity,  came  to  make  their  peace  and  vow 
unconditional  obedience — none  more  quickly  than  Marcus 
Cicero,  who  repented  too  late  of  his  perfidy,  and  in  respect 
of  the  most  recent  period  of  his  life  clothed  himself  with 
titles  of  honour  which  were  altogether  more  appropriate  than 
flattering.2     Of  course  the  regents  agreed  to  be  pacified; 

1  Cato  was  not  yet  in  Rome  when  Cicero  spoke  on  nth  March  698  in  56 
favour  of  Sestius  (Pro  Sesi.  28,  60)  and  when  the  discussion  took  place  in 
the  senate  in  consequence  of  the  resolutions  of  Luca  respecting  Caesar's 
legions  (Plut.  Caes.  21) ;  it  is  not  till  the  discussions  at  the  beginning  of 
699  that  we  find  him  once  more  busy,  and,  as  he  travelled  in  winter  (Plut    55. 
Cato  Min.  38),  he  thus  returned  to  Rome  in  the  end  of  698.     He  cannot  56. 
therefore,  as  has  been  mistakenly  inferred  from  Asconius  (p.  35,  S3)>  have 
defended  Milo  in  Feb.  698.  56. 

J  Me  aiinum  germanum  fuisse  (Ad  Att.  iv.  5,  3), 

VOL.  V  X4> 


130  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF 


BOOK  V 


they  refused  nobody  pardon,  for  there  was  nobody  who  was 

worth  the  trouble  of  making  him  an  exception.     That  we 

may  see  how  suddenly  the  tone  in  aristocratic  circles  changed 

after  the  resolutions  of  Luca  became  known,  it  is  worth  while 

to  compare  the  pamphlets  given  forth  by  Cicero  shortly 

before  with  the  palinode  which  he  caused  to  be  issued  to 

evince  publicly  his  repentance  and  his  good  intentions.1 

Settlement         The  regents  could  thus  arrange  Italian  affairs  at  their 

of  the  new      .  ° 

monarch-     pleasure  and  more  thoroughly  than  before.      Italy  and  the 

icalrule.  capital  obtained  practically  a  garrison  although  not  as- 
sembled in  arms,  and  one  of  the  regents  as  commandant. 
Of  the  troops  levied  for  Syria  and  Spain  by  Crassus  and 
Pompeius,  those  destined  for  the  east  no  doubt  took  their 
departure  ;  but  Pompeius  caused  the  two  Spanish  provinces 
to  be  administered  by  his  lieutenants  with  the  garrison 
hitherto  stationed  there,  while  he  dismissed  the  officers  and 
soldiers  of  the  legions  which  were  newly  raised — nominally 
for  despatch  to  Spain — on  furlough,  and  remained  himself 
with  them  in  Italy. 

Doubtless  the  tacit  resistance  of  public  opinion  increased, 
the  more  clearly  and  generally  men  perceived  that  the 
regents  were  working  to  put  an  end  to  the  old  constitution 
and  with  as  much  gentleness  as  possible  to  accommodate 
the  existing  condition  of  the  government  and  administration 
to  the  forms  of  the  monarchy ;  but  they  submitted,  because 
they  were  obliged  to  submit.  First  of  all,  all  the  more 
important  affairs,  and  particularly  aU  that  related  to  military 
matters  and  external   relations,   were   disposed  of  without 

1  This  palinode  is  the  still  extant  oration  on  the  Provinces  to  be  assigned 
5&.  56.  to  the  consuls  of  699.  It  was  delivered  in  the  end  of  May  698.  The 
pieces  contrasting  with  it  are  the  orations  for  Sestius  and  against  Vatinius 
and  that  upon  the  opinion  of  the  Etruscan  soothsayers,  dating  from  the 
months  of  March  and  April,  in  which  the  aristocratic  regime  is  glorified  to 
the  best  of  his  ability  and  Caesar  in  particular  is  treated  in  a  very  cavalier 
tone.  It  was  but  reasonable  that  Cicero  should,  as  he  himself  confesses 
(Ad  Att.  iv.  s,  1),  be  ashamed  to  transmit  even  to  intimate  friends  that 
attestation  of  his  resumed  allegiance. 


chap,  vin  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  131 

consulting  the  senate  upon  them,  sometimes  by  decree  of 
the  people,  sometimes  by  the  mere  good  pleasure  of  the 
rulers.  The  arrangements  agreed  on  at  Luca  respecting 
the  military  command  of  Gaul  were  submitted  directly  to 
the  burgesses  by  Crassus  and  Pompeius,  those  relating  to 
Spain  and  Syria  by  the  tribune  of  the  people  Gaius  Tre- 
bonius,  and  in  other  instances  the  more  important  governor- 
ships were  frequently  filled  up  by  decree  of  the  people. 
That  the  regents  did  not  need  the  consent  of  the  authorities 
to  increase  their  troops  at  pleasure,  Caesar  had  already 
sufficiently  shown :  as  little  did  they  hesitate  mutually  to 
borrow  troops ;  Caesar  for  instance  received  such  col- 
legiate support  from  Pompeius  for  the  Gallic,  and  Crassus 
from  Caesar  for  the  Parthian,  war.  The  Transpadanes, 
who  possessed  according  to  the  existing  constitution  only 
Latin  rights,  were  treated  by  Caesar  during  his  administra- 
tion practically  as  full  burgesses  of  Rome.1    While  formerly 

1  This  is  not  stated  by  our  authorities.  But  the  view  that  Caesar  levied 
no  soldiers  at  all  from  the  Latin  communities,  that  is  to  say  from  by  far 
the  greater  part  of  his  province,  is  in  itself  utterly  incredible,  and  is 
directly  refuted  by  the  fact  that  the  opposition-party  slightingly  designates 
the  force  levied  by  Caesar  as  ' '  for  the  most  part  natives  of  the  Transpadane 
colonies"  (Caes.  B.  C.  iii.  87);  for  here  the  Latin  colonies  of  Strabo 
(Ascon.  in  Pison.  p.  3  ;  Sueton.  Caes.  8)  are  evidently  meant.  Yet  there 
is  no  trace  of  Latin  cohorts  in  Caesar's  Gallic  army  ;  on  the  contrary 
according  to  his  express  statements  all  the  recruits  levied  by  him  in  Cis- 
alpine Gaul  were  added  to  the  legions  or  distributed  into  legions.  It  is 
possible  that  Caesar  combined  with  the  levy  the  bestowal  of  the  franchise  ; 
but  more  probably  he  adhered  in  this  matter  to  the  standpoint  of  his 
party,  which  did  not  so  much  seek  to  procure  for  the  Transpadanes  the 
Roman  franchise  as  rather  regarded  it  as  already  legally  belonging  to  them 
(iv.  457).  Only  thus  could  the  report  spread,  that  Caesar  had  introduced 
of  his  own  authority  the  Roman  municipal  constitution  among  the  Trans- 
padane communities  (Cic.  Ad  Att.  v.  3,  2  ;  Ad  Fam.  viii.  1,  2).  This 
hypothesis  too  explains  why  Hirtius  designates  the  Transpadane  towns  as 
"  colonies  of  Roman  burgesses"  (B.  G.  viii.  24),  and  why  Caesar  treated 
the  colony  of  Comum  founded  by  him  as  a  burgess-colony  (Sueton.  Caes. 
28  ;  Strabo,  v.  1,  p.  213  ;  Plutarch,  Caes.  29),  while  the  moderate  party 
of  the  aristocracy  conceded  to  it  only  the  same  rights  as  to  the  other 
Transpadane  communities,  viz.  Latin  rights,  and  the  ultras  even  declared 
the  civic  rights  conferred  on  the  settlers  as  altogether  null,  and  conse- 
quently did  not  concede  to  the  Comenses  the  privileges  attached  to  the 
holding  of  a  Latin  municipal  magistracy  (Cic  Ad  Att.  v.  11,  2  ;  Appian, 
B.  C.  ii.  26).      Comp.  Hermes,  xvi.  30. 


13*  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  V 

the  organization  of  newly-acquired  territories  had  been 
managed  by  a  senatorial  commission,  Caesar  organized  his 
extensive  Gallic  conquests  altogether  according  to  his  own 
judgment,  and  founded,  for  instance,  without  having  received 
any  farther  full  powers  burgess-colonies,  particularly  Novum- 
Comum  (Como)  with  five  thousand  colonists.  Piso  con- 
ducted the  Thracian,  Gabinius  the  Egyptian,  Crassus  the 
Parthian  war,  without  consulting  the  senate,  and  without 
even  reporting,  as  was  usual,  to  that  body ;  in  like  manner 
triumphs  and  other  marks  of  honour  were  accorded  and 
carried  out,  without  the  senate  being  asked  about  them. 
Obviously  this  did  not  arise  from  a  mere  neglect  of  forms, 
which  would  be  the  less  intelligible,  seeing  that  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  no  opposition  from  the  senate  was  to  be 
expected.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  a  well-calculated  design 
to  dislodge  the  senate  from  the  domain  of  military  arrange- 
ments and  of  higher  politics,  and  to  restrict  its  share  of 
administration  to  financial  questions  and  internal  affairs; 
and  even  opponents  plainly  discerned  this  and  protested, 
so  far  as  they  could,  against  this  conduct  of  the  regents  by 
means  of  senatorial  decrees  and  criminal  actions.  While 
the  regents  thus  in  the  main  set  aside  the  senate,  they  still 
made  some  use  of  the  less  dangerous  popular  assemblies — 
care  was  taken  that  in  these  the  lords  of  the  street  should 
put  no  farther  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  lords  of  the  state ; 
in  many  cases  however  they  dispensed  even  with  this  empty 
shadow,  and  employed  without  disguise  autocratic  forms. 
The  senate  The  humbled  senate  had  to  submit  to  its  position 
monarchy  wnetner  lt  would  or  not  The  leader  of  the  compliant 
Cicero  majority  continued  to  be  Marcus  Cicero.  He  was  useful 
majority.  on  account  or"  ms  lawyer's  talent  of  finding  reasons,  or  at 
any  rate  words,  for  everything;  and  there  was  a  genuine 
Caesarian  irony  in  employing  the  man,  by  means  of  whom 
mainly  the  aristocracy  had  conducted  their  demonstrations 
against  the  regents,  as  the  mouthpiece  of  servility.    Accord- 


chap,  vni  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  133 

ingly  they  pardoned  him  for  his  brief  desire  to  kick  against 
the  pricks,  not  however  without  having  previously  assured 
themselves  of  his  submissiveness  in  every  way.  His  brother 
had  been  obliged  to  take  the  position  of  an  officer  in  the 
Gallic  army  to  answer  in  some  measure  as  a  hostage  for 
him ;  Pompeius  had  compelled  Cicero  himself  to  accept  a 
lieutenant-generalship  under  him,  which  furnished  a  handle 
for  politely  banishing  him  at  any  moment.  Clodius  had 
doubtless  been  instructed  to  leave  him  meanwhile  at  peace, 
but  Caesar  as  little  threw  off  Clodius  on  account  of  Cicero 
as  he  threw  off  Cicero  on  account  of  Clodius ;  and  the 
great  saviour  of  his  country  and  the  no  less  great  hero  of 
liberty  entered  into  an  antechamber-rivalry  in  the  head- 
quarters of  Samarobriva,  for  the  befitting  illustration  of 
which  there  lacked,  unfortunately,  a  Roman  Aristophanes. 
But  not  only  was  the  same  rod  kept  in  suspense  over 
Cicero's  head,  which  had  once  already  descended  on  him  so 
severely ;  golden  fetters  were  also  laid  upon  him.  Amidst 
the  serious  embarrassment  of  his  finances  the  loans  of 
Caesar  free  of  interest,  and  the  joint  overseership  of  those 
buildings  which  occasioned  the  circulation  of  enormous 
sums  in  the  capital,  were  in  a  high  degree  welcome  to  him ; 
and  many  an  immortal  oration  for  the  senate  was  nipped 
in  the  bud  by  the  thought  of  Caesar's  agent,  who  might 
present  a  bill  to  him  after  the  close  of  the  sitting.  Conse- 
quently he  vowed  "  in  future  to  ask  no  more  after  right  and 
honour,  but  to  strive  for  the  favour  of  the  regents,"  and 
"  to  be  as  flexible  as  an  ear-lap."  They  used  him  accord- 
ingly as — what  he  was  good  for — an  advocate;  in  which 
capacity  it  was  on  various  occasions  his  lot  to  be  obliged 
to  defend  his  very  bitterest  foes  at  a  higher  bidding,  and 
that  especially  in  the  senate,  where  he  almost  regularly 
served  as  the  organ  of  the  dynasts  and  submitted  the  pro- 
posals "to  which  others  probably  consented,  but  not  he 
himself " ;  indeed,  as  recognized  leader  of  the  majority  of 


U4  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

the  compliant,  he  obtained  even  a  certain  political  import- 
ance. They  dealt  with  the  other  members  of  the  governing 
corporation  accessible  to  fear,  flattery,  or  gold  in  the  same 
way  as  they  had  dealt  with  Cicero,  and  succeeded  in  keeping 
it  on  the  whole  in  subjection. 
Ca*°  Certainly  there  remained  a  section  of  their  opponents, 

minority,      who  at  least  kept  to  their  colours  and  were  neither  to  be 
terrified  nor  to  be  won.      The  regents  had  become  con- 
vinced that  exceptional   measures,  such  as   those  against 
Cato  and  Cicero,  did  their  cause  more  harm  than  good, 
and  that  it  was  a  lesser  evil  to  tolerate  an  inconvenient 
republican    opposition    than    to    convert    their    opponents 
into   martyrs   for    the  republic       Therefore   they  allowed 
fi6.  Cato  to  return   (end  of  698)  and  thenceforward  in  the 
senate  and   in  the  Forum,  often  at   the  peril  of  his  life, 
to    offer   a   continued    opposition    to   the   regents,    which 
was   doubtless   worthy  of  honour,    but   unhappily   was  at 
the  same  time  ridiculous.     They  allowed  him  on  occasion 
of  the  proposals  of  Trebonius  to  push  matters  once  more 
to  a  hand-to-hand  conflict  in  the  Forum,  and  to  submit 
to  the  senate  a  proposal  that  the  proconsul  Caesar  should 
be  given  over  to  the  Usipetes  and  Tencteri  on  account 
of  his  perfidious  conduct  toward  those  barbarians  (p.  60). 
They  were  patient  when  Marcus  Favonius,  Cato's  Sancho, 
after  the  senate  had  adopted  the  resolution  to  charge  the 
legions  of  Caesar  on  the  state-chest,  sprang  to  the  door 
of  the  senate -house  and   proclaimed    to  the  streets    the 
danger  of   the  country  ;    when    the   same  person   in  his 
scurrilous  fashion  called   the  white  bandage,  which  Pom- 
peius  wore  round  his  weak  leg,  a  displaced  diadein  ;  when 
the  consular   Lentulus   Marcellinus,   on   being  applauded, 
called  out  to  the  assembly  to  make  diligent  use  of  this 
privilege  of  expressing  their  opinion  now  while  they  were 
still  allowed  to  do  so  ;   when  the  tribune  of  the  people 
Gaius  Ateius  Capito  consigned  Crassus  on  his  departure 


chap,  viii  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  135 

for  Syria,  with  all  the  formalities  of  the  theology  of  the 
day,  publicly  to  the  evil  spirits.  These  were,  on  the 
whole,  vain  demonstrations  of  an  irritated  minority  ;  yet 
the  little  party  from  which  they  issued  was  so  far  of 
importance,  that  it  on  the  one  hand  fostered  and  gave 
the  watchword  to  the  republican  opposition  fermenting 
in  secret,  and  on  the  other  hand  now  and  then  dragged 
the  majority  of  the  senate,  which  withal  cherished  at 
bottom  quite  the  same  sentiments  with  reference  to  the 
regents,  into  an  isolated  decree  directed  against  them. 
For  even  the  majority  felt  the  need  of  giving  vent,  at  least 
sometimes  and  in  subordinate  matters  to  their  suppressed 
indignation,  and  especially — after  the  manner  of  those  who 
are  servile  with  reluctance — of  exhibiting  their  resentment 
towards  the  great  foes  in  rage  against  the  small.  Wherever 
it  was  possible,  a  gentle  blow  was  administered  to  the 
instruments  of  the  regents ;  thus  Gabinius  was  refused  the 
thanksgiving -festival  that  he  asked  (698) ;  thus  Piso  was  66. 
recalled  from  his  province  ;  thus  mourning  was  put  on 
by  the  senate,  when  the  tribune  of  the  people  Gaius  Cato 
hindered  the  elections  for  699  as  long  as  the  consul  Mar-  56. 
cellinus  belonging  to  the  constitutional  party  was  in  office. 
Even  Cicero,  however  humbly  he  always  bowed  before 
the  regents,  issued  an  equally  envenomed  and  insipid 
pamphlet  against  Caesar's  father-in-law.  But  both  these 
feeble  signs  of  opposition  by  the  majority  of  the  senate 
and  the  ineffectual  resistance  of  the  minority  show  only 
the  more  clearly,  that  the  government  had  now  passed 
from  the  senate  to  the  regents  as  it  formerly  passed  from 
the  burgesses  to  the  senate  ;  and  that  the  senate  was 
already  not  much  more  than  a  monarchical  council  of  state 
employed  also  to  absorb  tha  anti- monarchical  elements. 
"  No  man,"  the  adherents  of  the  fallen  government  com- 
plained, "is  of  the  slightest  account  except  the  three ;  the 
regents  are  all-powerful,  and  they  take  care  that  no  one 


I3« 


THE  JOINT  RULE  OF 


BOOK  V 


shall  remain  in  doubt  about  it ;  the  whole  senate  is  virtu- 
ally transformed  and  obeys  the  dictators  ;  our  generation 
will  not  live  to  see  a  change  of  things."  They  were 
living  in  fact  no  longer  under  the  republic,  but  under 
monarchy. 
Continued  But  if  the  guidance  of  the  state  was  at  the  absolute  dis- 
°PP°sltl0n  posal  of  the  regents,  there  remained  still  a  political  domain 
elections,  separated  in  some  measure  from  the  government  proper, 
which  it  was  more  easy  to  defend  and  more  difficult  to  con- 
quer ;  the  field  of  the  ordinary  elections  of  magistrates,  and 
that  of  the  jury-courts.  That  the  latter  do  not  fall  directly 
under  politics,  but  everywhere,  and  above  all  in  Rome, 
come  partly  under  the  control  of  the  spirit  dominating 
state-affairs,  is  of  itself  clear.  The  elections  of  magistrates 
certainly  belonged  by  right  to  the  government  proper  of 
the  state ;  but,  as  at  this  period  the  state  was  administered 
substantially  by  extraordinary  magistrates  or  by  men  wholly 
without  title,  and  even  the  supreme  ordinary  magistrates, 
if  they  belonged  to  the  anti -monarchical  party,  were  not 
able  in  any  tangible  way  to  influence  the  state-machinery, 
the  ordinary  magistrates  sank  more  and  more  into  mere 
puppets — as,  in  fact,  even  those  of  them  who  were  most 
disposed  to  opposition  described  themselves  frankly  and 
with  entire  justice  as  powerless  ciphers — and  their  elections 
therefore  sank  into  mere  demonstrations.  Thus,  after  the 
opposition  had  already  been  wholly  dislodged  from  the 
proper  field  of  battle,  hostilities  might  nevertheless  be 
continued  in  the  field  of  elections  and  of  processes.  The 
regents  spared  no  pains  to  remain  victors  also  in  this  field. 
As  to  the  elections,  they  had  already  at  Luca  settled 
between  themselves  the  lists  of  candidates  for  the  next 
years,  and  they  left  no  means  untried  to  carry  the  can- 
didates agreed  upon  there.  They  expended  their  gold 
primarily  for  the  purpose  of  influencing  the  elections.  A 
great  number  of  soldiers  were  dismissed  annually  on  fur- 


chap,  vin  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  137 

lough  from  the  armies  of  Caesar  and  Pompekas  to  take 
part  in  the  voting  at  Rome.  Caesar  was  wont  himself 
to  guide,  and  watch  over,  the  election  movements  from 
as  near  a  point  as  possible  of  Upper  Italy.  Yet  the 
object  was  but  very  imperfectly  attained.  For  699  no  55. 
doubt  Pompeius  and  Crassus  were  elected  consuls,  agree- 
ably to  the  convention  of  Luca,  and  Lucius  Domitius, 
the  only  candidate  of  the  opposition  who  persevered,  was 
set  aside  ;  but  this  had  been  effected  only  by  open 
violence,  on  which  occasion  Cato  was  wounded  and  other 
extremely  scandalous  incidents  occurred.  In  the  next 
consular  elections  for  700,  in  spite  of  all  the  exertions  54. 
of  the  regents,  Domitius  was  actually  elected,  and  Cato 
likewise  now  prevailed  in  the  candidature  for  the  praetor- 
ship,  in  which  to  the  scandal  of  the  whole  burgesses 
Caesar's  client  Vatinius  had  during  the  previous  year 
beaten  him  off  the  field.  At  the  elections  for  701  the  5t. 
opposition  succeeded  in  so  indisputably  convicting  the 
candidates  of  the  regents,  along  with  others,  of  the  most 
shameful  electioneering  intrigues  that  the  regents,  on 
whom  the  scandal  recoiled,  could  not  do  otherwise  than 
abandon  them.  These  repeated  and  severe  defeats  of 
the  dynasts  on  the  battle-field  of  the  elections  may  be 
traceable  in  part  to  the  unmanageableness  of  the  rusty 
machinery,  to  the  incalculable  accidents  of  the  polling, 
to  the  opposition  at  heart  of  the  middle  classes,  to  the 
various  private  considerations  that  interfere  in  such  cases 
and  often  strangely  clash  with  those  of  party;  but  the  main 
cause  lies  elsewhere.  The  elections  were  at  this  time  essen- 
tially in  the  power  of  the  different  clubs  into  which  the 
aristocracy  had  grouped  themselves  ;  the  system  of  briber/ 
was  organized  by  them  on  the  most  extensive  scale  and 
with  the  utmost  method.  The  same  aristocracy  therefore, 
which  was  represented  in  the  senate,  ruled  also  the 
elections  ;    but   while   in   the   senate   it    yielded   with   a 


courts. 


138  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

grudge,  it  worked  and  voted  here — in  secret  and  secure 
from  all  reckoning — absolutely  against  the  regents.  That 
the  influence  of  the  nobility  in  this  field  was  by  no  means 
broken  by  the  strict  penal  law  against  the  electioneering 
65.  intrigues  of  the  clubs,  which  Crassus  when  consul  in  699 
caused  to  be  confirmed  by  the  burgesses,  is  self-evident, 
and  is  shown  by  the  elections  of  the  succeeding  years. 
*nd  in  the  The  jury-courts  occasioned  equally  great  difficulty  to 
the  regents.  As  they  were  then  composed,  while  the 
senatorial  nobility  was  here  also  influential,  the  decisive 
voice  lay  chiefly  with  the  middle  class.  The  fixing  of  a 
high -rated  census  for  jurymen  by  a  law  proposed  by 
55.  Pompeius  in  699  is  a  remarkable  proof  that  the  opposition 
to  the  regents  had  its  chief  seat  in  the  middle  class 
properly  so  called,  and  that  the  great  capitalists  showed 
themselves  here,  as  everywhere,  more  compliant  than  the 
latter.  Nevertheless  the  republican  party  was  not  yet 
deprived  of  all  hold  in  the  courts,  and  it  was  never  weary 
of  directing  political  impeachments,  not  indeed  against 
the  regents  themselves,  but  against  their  prominent  instru- 
ments. This  warfare  of  prosecutions  was  waged  the  more 
keenly,  that  according  to  usage  the  duty  of  accusation 
belonged  to  the  senatorial  youth,  and,  as  may  readily  be 
conceived,  there  was  more  of  republican  passion,  fresh 
talent,  and  bold  delight  in  attack  to  be  found  among  these 
youths  than  among  the  older  members  of  their  order. 
Certainly  the  courts  were  not  free ;  if  the  regents  were  in 
earnest,  the  courts  ventured  as  little  as  the  senate  to  refuse 
obedience.  None  of  their  antagonists  were  prosecuted  by 
the  opposition  with  such  hatred — so  furious  that  it  almost 
passed  into  a  proverb— -as  Vatinius,  by  far  the  most 
audacious  and  unscrupulous  of  the  closer  adherents  of 
Caesar;  but  his  master  gave  the  command,  and  he  was 
acquitted  in  all  the  processes  raised  against  him.  But 
impeachments  by  men  who  knew  how  to  wield  the  sword 


chap,  vin  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  139 

of  dialectics  and  the  lash  of  sarcasm  as  did  Gaius  Licinius 
Calvus  and  Gaius  Asinius  Pollio,  did  not  miss  their  mark 
even  when  they  failed ;  nor  were  isolated  successes  wanting. 
They  were  mostly,  no  doubt,  obtained  over  subordinate 
individuals,  but  even  one  of  the  most  high -placed  and 
most  hated  adherents  of  the  dynasts,  the  consular  Gabinius, 
was  overthrown  in  this  way.  Certainly  in  his  case  the 
implacable  hatred  of  the  aristocracy,  which  as  little  forgave 
him  for  the  law  regarding  the  conducting  of  the  war  with 
the  pirates  as  for  his  disparaging  treatment  of  the  senate 
during  his  Syrian  governorship,  was  combined  with  the 
rage  of  the  great  capitalists,  against  whom  he  had  when 
governor  of  Syria  ventured  to  defend  the  interests  of  the 
provincials,  and  even  with  the  resentment  of  Crassus,  with 
whom  he  had  stood  on  ceremony  in  handing  over  to  him 
the  province.  His  only  protection  against  all  these  foes 
was  Pompeius,  and  the  latter  had  every  reason  to  defend 
his  ablest,  boldest,  and  most  faithful  adjutant  at  any  price ; 
but  here,  as  everywhere,  he  knew  not  how  to  use  his  power 
and  to  defend  his  clients,  as  Caesar  defended  his ;  in  the 
end  of  700  the  jurymen  found  Gabinius  guilty  of  extortions  54. 
and  sent  him  into  banishment. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  in  the  sphere  of  the  popular 
elections  and  of  the  jury-courts  it  was  the  regents  that  fared 
worst.  The  factors  which  ruled  in  these  were  less  tangible, 
and  therefore  more  difficult  to  be  terrified  or  corrupted 
than  the  direct  organs  of  government  and  administration. 
The  holders  of  power  encountered  here,  especially  in  the 
popular  elections,  the  tough  energy  of  a  close  oligarchy — 
grouped  in  coteries — which  is  by  no  means  finally  disposed 
of  when  its  rule  is  overthrown,  and  which  is  the  more 
difficult  to  vanquish  the  more  covert  its  action.  They 
encountered  here  too,  especially  in  the  jury- courts,  the 
repugnance  of  the  middle  classes  towards  the  new  mon- 
archical rule,  which  with  all  the  perplexities  springing  out 


140 


THE  JOINT  RULE  OF 


IO0K  V 


Literature 
of  the 
opposition. 


of  it  they  were  as  little  able  to  remove.  They  suffered  in 
both  quarters  a  series  of  defeats.  The  election-victories  of 
the  opposition  had,  it  is  true,  merely  the  value  of  demon- 
strations, since  the  regents  possessed  and  employed  the 
means  of  practically  annulling  any  magistrate  whom  they 
disliked ;  but  the  criminal  trials  in  which  the  opposition 
carried  condemnations  deprived  them,  in  a  way  keenly 
felt,  of  useful  auxiliaries.  As  things  stood,  the  regents 
could  neither  set  aside  nor  adequately  control  the  popular 
elections  and  the  jury-courts,  and  the  opposition,  however 
much  it  felt  itself  straitened  even  here,  maintained  to  a 
certain  extent  the  field  of  battle. 

It  proved,  however,  yet  a  more  difficult  task  to  en- 
counter the  opposition  in  a  field,  to  which  it  turned  with 
the  greater  zeal  the  more  it  was  dislodged  from  direct 
political  action.  This  was  literature.  Even  the  judicial 
opposition  was  at  the  same  time  a  literary  one,  and  indeed 
pre-eminently  so,  for  the  orations  were  regularly  published 
and  served  as  political  pamphlets.  The  arrows  of  poetry 
hit  their  mark  still  more  rapidly  and  sharply.  The  lively 
youth  of  the  high  aristocracy,  and  still  more  energetically 
perhaps  the  cultivated  middle  class  in  the  Italian  country 
towns,  waged  the  war  of  pamphlets  and  epigrams  with  zeal 
and  success.     There  fought  side  by  side  on  this  field  the 

82-48.  genteel   senator's   son   Gaius   Licinius   Calvus   (672  —  706) 

who  was  as  much  feared  in  the  character  of  an  orator  and 

pamphleteer  as  of  a  versatile  poet,  and  the  municipals  of 

102-63.  Cremona  and  Verona  Marcus  Furius  Bibaculus  (652-691) 

87-54.  and  Quintus  Valerius  Catullus  (667-^.  700)  whose  elegant 
and  pungent  epigrams  flew  swiftly  like  arrows  through  Italy 
and  were  sure  to  hit  their  mark.  An  oppositional  tone 
prevails  throughout  the  literature  of  these  years.  It  is  full 
of  indignant  sarcasm  against  the  "great  Caesar."  "the 
unique  general,"  against  the  affectionate  father-in-law  and 
son-in-law,  who  ruin  the  whole  globe  in  order  to  give  their 


chap,  vhi  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  141 

dissolute  favourites  opportunity  to  parade  the  spoils  of  the 
long-haired  Celts  through  the  streets  of  Rome,  to  furnish 
royal  banquets  with  the  booty  of  the  farthest  isles  of  the 
west,  and  as  rivals  showering  gold  to  supplant  honest  youths 
at  home  in  the  favour  of  their  mistresses.  There  is  in  the 
poems  of  Catullus1  and  the  other  fragments  of  the  literature 
of  this  period  something  of  that  fervour  of  personal  and 
political  hatred,  of  that  republican  agony  overflowing  in 
riotous  humour  or  in  stern  despair,  which  are  more 
prominently  and  powerfully  apparent  in  Aristophanes  and 
Demosthenes. 

The  most  sagacious  of  the  three  rulers  at  least  saw  well 
that  it  was  as  impossible  to  despise  this  opposition  as  to 
suppress  it  by  word  of  command.  So  far  as  he  could, 
Caesar  tried  rather  personally  to  gain  over  the  more  notable 
authors.  Cicero  himself  had  to  thank  his  literary  reputa- 
tion in  good  part  for  the  respectful  treatment  which  he 
especially  experienced  from  Caesar;  but  the  governor  of 
Gaul  did  not  disdain  to  conclude  a  special  peace  even  with 
Catullus  himself  through  the  intervention  of  his  father  who 
had  become  personally  known  to  him  in  Verona;  and  the 
young  poet,  who  had  just  heaped  upon  the  powerful  general 
the  bitterest  and  most  personal  sarcasms,  was  treated  by 
him  with  the  most  flattering  distinction.  In  fact  Caesar 
was  gifted  enough  to  follow  his  literary  opponents  on  their 
own  domain  and  to  publish — as  an  indirect  way  of  repelling 
manifold  attacks — a  detailed   report  on   the  Gallic  wars, 

1  The  collection  handed  down  to  us  is  full  of  references  to  the  events 
of  699  and  700  and  was  doubtless  published  in  the  latter  year  ;  the  most   55.     54, 
recent  event,  which  it  mentions,  is  the  prosecution  of  Vatinius  (Aug.  700).    54. 
The  statement  of  Hieronymus  that  Catullus  died   in  697-698   requires   57-66. 
therefore  to  be  altered  only  by  a  few  years.     From  the  circumstance  that 
Vatinius  "swears  falsely  by  his  consulship,"  it  has  been  erroneously  in- 
ferred that  the  collection  did  not  appear  till  after  the  consulate  of  Vatinius 
(707) ;  it  only  follows  from  it  that  Vatinius,  when  the  collection  appeared,    47. 
might  already  reckon  on  becoming  consul  in  a  definite  year,  for  which  he 
had  every  reason  as  early  as  700  ;  for  his  name  certainly  stood  on  the  list  54. 
of  candidates  agreed  on  at  Luca  (Cicero,  Ad,  Att.  iv.  8  b.  2). 


142  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

which  set  forth  before  the  public,  with  happily  assumed 
naivete^  the  necessity  and  constitutional  propriety  of  his 
military  operations.  But  it  is  freedom  alone  that  is  abso- 
lutely and  exclusively  poetical  and  creative ;  it  and  it  alone 
is  able  even  in  its  most  wretched  caricature,  even  with  its 
latest  breath,  to  inspire  fresh  enthusiasm.  All  the  sound 
elements  of  literature  were  and  remained  anti-monarchical ; 
and,  if  Caesar  himself  could  venture  on  this  domain  with- 
out proving  a  failure,  the  reason  was  merely  that  even  now 
he  still  cherished  at  heart  the  magnificent  dream  of  a  free 
commonwealth,  although  he  was  unable  to  transfer  it  either 
to  his  adversaries  or  to  his  adherents.  Practical  politics 
was  not  more  absolutely  controlled  by  the  regents  than 
literature  by  the  republicans.1 

1  The  well-known  poem  of  Catullus  (numbered  as  xxix.)  was  written 
55.     54.   in  699  or  700  after  Caesar's  Britannic  expedition  and  before  the  death  of 
Julia : 

Quis  hoc  potest  videre,  quis  potest  pati, 
Nisi  impudicus  et  vorax  et  aleo, 
Mamurram  habere  quod  comata  Gallia 
Habebat  ante  et  ultima  Britannia  ?  etc. 

Mamurra  of  Formiae,  Caesar's  favourite  and  for  a  time  during  the 
Gallic  wars  an  officer  in  his  army,  had,  presumably  a  short  time  before 
the  composition  of  this  poem,  returned  to  the  capital  and  was  in  all  like- 
lihood then  occupied  with  the  building  of  his  much  -  talked- of  marble 
palace  furnished  with  lavish  magnificence  on  the  Caelian  hill.  The 
Iberian  booty  mentioned  in  the  poem  must  have  reference  to  Caesar's 
governorship  of  Further  Spain,  and  Mamurra  must  even  then,  as  certainly 
afterwards  in  Gaul,  have  been  found  at  Caesar's  headquarters ;  the 
Pontic  booty  presumably  has  reference  to  the  war  of  Pompeius  against 
Mithradates,  especially  as  according  to  the  hint  of  the  poet  it  was  not 
merely  Caesar  that  enriched  Mamurra. 

More  innocent  than  this  virulent  invective,  '^hich  was  bitterly  felt  by 
Caesar  (Suet.  Caes.  73),  is  another  nearly  contemporary  poem  of  the 
same  author  (xi. )  to  which  we  may  here  refer,  because  with  its  pathetic 
introduction  to  an  anything  but  pathetic  commission  it  very  cleverly  quizzes 
the  general  staff  of  the  new  regents  —  the  Gabiniuses,  Antoniuses,  and 
such  like,  suddenly  advanced  from  the  lowest  haunts  to  headquarters. 
Let  it  be  remembered  that  it  was  written  at  a  time  when  Caesar  was 
fighting  on  the  Rhine  and  on  the  Thames,  and  when  the  expeditions  of 
Crassus  to  Parthia  and  of  Gabinius  to  Egypt  were  in  preparation.  The 
poet,  as  if  he  too  expected  one  of  the  vacant  posts  from  one  of  the  regents, 
gives  to  two  of  his  clients  their  last  instructions  before  departure  : 

Furi  et  Aureli,  comites  Cat u Hi,  etc. 


chap,  vm  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  143 

It  became  necessary  to  take  serious  steps  against  this  New  ex- 
opposition,  which  was  powerless  indeed,  but  was  always  be-  measures 
coming  more  troublesome  and  audacious.     The  condemna-  resolved 
tion  of  Gabinius,  apparently,  turned  the  scale  (end  of  700).  ^ 
The  regents  agreed  to  introduce  a  dictatorship,  though  only 
a  temporary  one,  and  by  means  of  this  to  carry  new  coercive 
measures  especially  respecting  the  elections  and  the  jury- 
courts.    Pompeius,  as  the  regent  on  whom  primarily  devolved 
the  government  of  Rome  and  Italy,  was  charged  with  the 
execution    of  this    resolve;    which   accordingly   bore   the 
impress  of  the  awkwardness  in  resolution  and  action  that 
characterized  him,  and  of  his  singular  incapacity  of  speak- 
ing out  frankly,  even  where  he  would  and  could  command. 
Already  at  the  close  of  700  the  demand  for  a  dictatorship  54. 
was  brought  forward  in  the  senate  in  the  form  of  hints, 
and  that  not  by  Pompeius  himself.     There  served  as  its 
ostensible  ground  the  continuance  of  the  system  of  clubs 
and  bands  in  the  capital,  which   by  acts  of  bribery  and 
violence  certainly  exercised  the  most  pernicious  pressure 
on  the  elections  as  well  as  on  the  jury-courts  and  kept  it 
in  a  perpetual  state  of  disturbance ;    we  must  allow  that 
this  rendered   it  easy  for  the  regents  to  justify  their  ex- 
ceptional measures.     But,  as  may  well  be  conceived,  even 
the  servile  majority  shrank  from  granting  what  the  future 
dictator   himself  seemed    to  shrink    from   openly  asking. 
When  the  unparalleled  agitation  regarding  the  elections 
for  the  consulship  of  701  led  to  the  most  scandalous  scenes,  53. 
so  that  the  elections  were  postponed  a  full  year  beyond 
the  fixed  time  and  only  took  place  after  a  seven  months' 
interregnum  in  July  701,   Pompeius   found  in   this   state  53. 
of  things  the  desired  occasion  for  indicating  now  distinctly 
to   the   senate   that   the   dictatorship  was  the  only  means 
of  cutting,  if  not  of  loosing  the  knot;   but  the  decisive 
word  of  command  was  not  even  yet  spoken.     Perhaps  it 
would   have   still   remained  for   long   unuttered,   had   not 


144  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

the  most  audacious  partisan  of  the  republican  opposition 
Titus  Annius  Milo  stepped  into  the  field  at  the  consular 
62.  elections  for  702  as  a  candidate  in  opposition  to  the 
candidates  of  the  regents,  Quintus  Metellus  Scipio  and 
Publius  Plautius  Hypsaeus,  both  men  closely  connected 
with  Pompeius  personally  and  thoroughly  devoted  to  him. 
Milo.  Milo,   endowed  with   physical  courage,   with  a  certain 

talent  for  intrigue  and  for  contracting  debt,  and  above  all 
with  an  ample  amount  of  native  assurance  which  had  been 
carefully  cultivated,  had  made  himself  a  name  among  the 
political  adventurers  of  the  time,  and  was  the  greatest 
bully  in  his  trade  next  to  Clodius,  and  naturally  therefore 
through  rivalry  at  the  most  deadly  feud  with  the  latter. 
As  this  Achilles  of  the  streets  had  been  acquired  by  the 
regents  and  with  their  permission  was  again  playing  the 
ultra-democrat,  the  Hector  of  the  streets  became  as  a 
matter  of  course  an  aristocrat !  and  the  republican  opposi- 
tion, which  now  would  have  concluded  an  alliance  with 
Catilina  in  person,  had  he  presented  himself  to  them, 
readily  acknowledged  Milo  as  their  legitimate  champion 
in  all  riots.  In  fact  the  few  successes,  which  they  carried 
off  in  this  field  of  battle,  were  the  work  of  Milo  and  of 
his  well -trained  band  of  gladiators.  So  Cato  and  his 
friends  in  return  supported  the  candidature  of  Milo  for 
the  consulship ;  even  Cicero  could  not  avoid  recommend- 
ing one  who  had  been  his  enemy's  enemy  and  his  own 
protector  during  many  years ;  and  as  Milo  himself  spared 
neither  money  nor  violence  to  carry  his  election,  it  seemed 
secured.  For  the  regents  it  would  have  been  not  only 
a  new  and  keenly-felt  defeat,  but  also  a  real  danger ;  for 
it  was  to  be  foreseen  that  the  bold  partisan  would  not 
allow  himself  as  consul  to  be  reduced  to  insignificance  so 
easily  as  Domitius  and  other  men  of  the  respectable 
Killing  of  opposition.  It  happened  that  Achilles  and  Hector 
Clodius.       accidentally    encountered    each    other    not    far   from    the 


chap,  vill  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  145 

capital  on  the  Appian  Way,  and  a  fray  arose  between 
their  respective  bands,  in  which  Clodius  himself  received 
a  sword-cut  on  the  shoulder  and  was  compelled  to  take 
refuge  in  a  neighbouring  house.  This  had  occurred  with- 
out orders  from  Milo ;  but,  as  the  matter  had  gone  so 
far  and  as  the  storm  had  now  to  be  encountered  at  any 
rate,  the  whole  crime  seemed  to  Milo  more  desirable  and 
even  less  dangerous  than  the  half;  he  ordered  his  men 
to  drag  Clodius  forth  from  his  lurking  place  and  to  put 
him  to  death  (13  Jan.  702).  52. 

The  street  leaders  of  the  regents'  party — the  tribunes  Anarchy  ia 
of  the  people  Titus  Munatius  Plancus,  Quintus  Pompeius  Rome* 
Rufus,  and  Gaius  Sallustius  Crispus — saw  in  this  occurrence 
a  fitting  opportunity  to  thwart  in  the  interest  of  their 
masters  the  candidature  of  Milo  and  carry  the  dictator- 
ship of  Pompeius.  The  dregs  of  the  populace,  especially 
the  freedmen  and  slaves,  had  lost  in  Clodius  their  patron 
and  future  deliverer  (p.  in);  the  requisite  excitement 
was  thus  easily  aroused.  After  the  bloody  corpse  had 
been  exposed  for  show  at  the  orators'  platform  in  the 
Forum  and  the  speeches  appropriate  to  the  occasion  had 
been  made,  the  riot  broke  forth.  The  seat  of  the  perfidious 
aristocracy  was  destined  as  a  funeral  pile  for  the  great 
liberator ;  the  mob  carried  the  body  to  the  senate-house, 
and  set  the  building  on  fire.  Thereafter  the  multitude 
proceeded  to  the  front  of  Milo's  house  and  kept  it  under 
siege,  till  his  band  drove  off  the  assailants  by  discharges 
of  arrows.  They  passed  on  to  the  house  of  Pompeius  and 
of  his  consular  candidates,  of  whom  the  former  was  saluted 
as  dictator  and  the  latter  as  consuls,  and  thence  to  the 
house  of  the  interrex  Marcus  Lepidus,  on  whom  devolved 
the  conduct  of  the  consular  elections.  When  the  latter,  as 
in  duty  bound,  refused  to  make  arrangements  for  the  elections 
immediately,  as  the  clamorous  multitude  demanded,  he 
was  kept  during  five  days  under  siege  in  his  dwelling  house. 

VOL.  V  143 


146  THE  JOINT  RULE  OF  book  v 

d  ctator-  But  the  instigators  of  these  scandalous  scenes  had  over- 

Pompdus.    acted  their  Part      Certainly  their   lord  and  master  was 
resolved  to  employ  this  favourable  episode  in  order  not 
merely  to  set  aside  Milo,  but  also  to  seize  the  dictatorship ; 
he  wished,   however,  to  receive    it    not   from  a  mob   of 
bludgeon-men,  but  from  the  senate.     Pompeius  brought 
up  troops  to  put  down  the  anarchy  which  prevailed  in  the 
capital,  and  which  had  in   reality  become  intolerable  to 
everybody;  at  the  same  time  he  now  enjoined  what  he 
had  hitherto  requested,  and  the  senate  complied.     It  was 
merely  an  empty  subterfuge,  that  on  the  proposal  of  Cato 
and  Bibulus  the  proconsul  Pompeius,  retaining  his  former 
offices,    was    nominated    as    "consul   without    colleague" 
instead  of  dictator  (on  the  25  th  of  the  intercalary  month1 
62.  702) — a  subterfuge,  which  admitted  an  appellation  labour- 
ing under  a  double  incongruity 2  for  the  mere  purpose  of 
avoiding  one  which  expressed  the  simple  fact,  and  which 
vividly  reminds  us  of  the  sagacious  resolution  of  the  waning 
patriciate  to  concede  to  the  plebeians  not  the  consulship, 
but  only  the  consular  power  (i.  372). 
Changes  Thus  in  legal  possession  of  full  power,  Pompeius  set 

rangenSnt   to  work  and  proceeded  with  energy  against  the  republican 
of  magis-     party  which  was  powerful  in  the  clubs  and  the  jury-courts. 

tTctcics  3.nd    . . . 

the  jury-  Tne  existing  enactments  as  to  elections  were  repeated 
system.  and  enforced  by  a  special  law;  and  by  another  against 
electioneering  intrigues,  which  obtained  retrospective  force 
70.  for  all  offences  of  this  sort  committed  since  684,  the 
penalties  hitherto  imposed  were  augmented.  Still  more 
important  was  the  enactment,  that  the  governorships,  which 
were  by  far  the  more  important  and  especially  by  far  the 
more  lucrative  half  of  official  life,  should  be  conferred  on 
the  consuls  and  praetors  not  immediately  on  their  retire- 

1  In  this  year  the  January  with  29  and  the  February  with  23  days 
were  followed  by  the  intercalary  month  with  28,  and  then  by  March. 

2  Consul  signifies   "colleague"   (i.   318),   and  a  consul  who  is  at  the 
same  time  proconsul  is  at  once  an  actual  consul  and  a  consul's  substitute. 


chap,  viii  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  147 

ment  from  the  consulate  or  praetorship,  but  only  after  the 
expiry  of  other  five  years ;  an  arrangement  which  of  course 
could  only  come  into  effect  after  four  years,  and  therefore 
made  the  filling  up  of  the  governorships  for  the  next  few 
years  substantially  dependent  on  decrees  of  senate  which 
were  to  be  issued  for  the  regulation  of  this  interval,  and 
thus  practically  on  the  person  or  section  ruling  the  senate 
at  the  moment.  The  jury  -  commissions  were  left  in 
existence,  but  limits  were  put  to  the  right  of  counter-plea, 
and — what  was  perhaps  still  more  important — the  liberty 
of  speech  in  the  courts  was  done  away ;  for  both  the 
number  of  the  advocates  and  the  time  of  speaking  appor- 
tioned to  each  were  restricted  by  fixing  a  maximum,  and 
the  bad  habit  which  had  prevailed  of  adducing,  in  addition 
to  the  witnesses  as  to  facts,  witnesses  to  character  or  lauda- 
tores,  as  they  were  called,  in  favour  of  the  accused  was 
prohibited.  The  obsequious  senate  further  decreed  on  the 
suggestion  of  Pompeius  that  the  country  had  been  placed 
in  peril  by  the  quarrel  on  the  Appian  Way;  accordingly 
a  special  commission  was  appointed  by  an  exceptional 
law  for  all  crimes  connected  with  it,  the  members  of 
which  were  directly  nominated  by  Pompeius.  An  attempt 
was  also  made  to  give  once  more  a  serious  importance  to 
the  office  of  the  censors,  and  by  that  agency  to  purge  the 
deeply  disordered  burgess-body  of  the  worst  rabble. 

All  these  measures  were  adopted  under  the  pressure  of 
the  sword.  In  consequence  of  the  declaration  of  the  senate 
that  the  country  was  in  danger,  Pompeius  called  the  men 
capable  of  service  throughout  Italy  to  arms  and  made  them 
swear  allegiance  for  all  contingencies;  an  adequate  and 
trustworthy  corps  was  temporarily  stationed  at  the  Capitol  ; 
at  every  stirring  of  opposition  Pompeius  threatened  armed 
intervention,  and  during  the  proceedings  at  the  trial  re- 
specting the  murder  of  Clodius  stationed,  contrary  to  all 
precedent,  a  guard  over  the  place  of  trial  itself. 


148 


THE  JOINT  RULE  OF 


BOOK  V 


Humilia- 
tion of 
the  re- 
publicans. 


52. 
51. 


The  scheme  for  the  revival   of  the  censorship  failed, 
because  among  the  servile  majority  of  the  senate  no  one 
possessed  sufficient  moral  courage  and  authority  even  to 
become  a  candidate  for  such  an  office.     On  the  other  hand 
Milo  was  condemned  by  the  jurymen  (8  April  702)  and 
Cato's  candidature  for  the  consulship  of  703  was  frustrated. 
The  opposition  of  speeches  and  pamphlets  received  through 
the  new  judicial  ordinance  a  blow  from  which  it  never  re- 
covered ;  the  dreaded  forensic  eloquence  was  thereby  driven 
from  the  field  of  politics,  and  thenceforth  felt  the  restraints 
of  monarchy.      Opposition  of  course  had  not  disappeared 
either  from  the  minds  of  the  great  majority  of  the  nation 
or  even  wholly  from  public  life — to  effect  that  end  the 
popular  elections,  the  jury-courts,  and  literature  must  have 
been  not   merely  restricted,  but   annihilated.     Indeed,  in 
these  very  transactions  themselves,  Pompeius  by  his  un- 
skilfulness  and  perversity  helped   the  republicans  to  gain 
even   under    his   dictatorship   several    triumphs   which    he 
severely  felt.     The  special  measures,  which  the  rulers  took 
to  strengthen  their  power,  were  of  course  officially  charac- 
terized as  enactments  made  in  the  interest  of  public  tran- 
quillity and  order,  and  every  burgess,  who  did  not  desire 
anarchy,  was  described  as  substantially  concurring  in  them. 
But  Pompeius  pushed  this  transparent  fiction  so  far,  that 
instead  of  putting  safe  instruments  into  the  special  com- 
mission for  the  investigation  of  the  last  tumult,  he  chose  the 
most  respectable  men  of  all  parties,  including  even  Cato, 
and   applied    his   influence   over   the   court    essentially   to 
maintain  order,  and  to  render  it  impossible  for  his  adherents 
as  well  as  for  his  opponents  to  indulge  in  the  scenes  of 
disturbance  customary  in  the  courts  of  this  period.     This 
neutrality  of  the  regent  was  discernible  in  the  judgments  of 
the  special  court.     The  jurymen  did  not  venture  to  acquit 
Milo  himself;  but  most  of  the  subordinate  persons  accused 
belonging  to  the  party  of  the  republican  opposition   were 


chap,  viil  POMPEIUS  AND  CAESAR  149 

acquitted,  while  condemnation  inexorably  befell  those  who 
in  the  last  riot  had  taken  part  for  Clodius,  or  in  other  words 
for  the  regents,  including  not  a  few  of  Caesar's  and  of 
Pompeius'  own  most  intimate  friends — even  Hypsaeus  his 
candidate  for  the  consulship,  and  the  tribunes  of  the  people 
Plancus  and  Rufus,  who  had  directed  the  tmeute  in  his 
interest.  That  Pompeius  did  not  prevent  their  condemna- 
tion for  the  sake  of  appearing  impartial,  was  one  specimen 
of  his  folly ;  and  a  second  was,  that  he  withal  in  matters 
quite  indifferent  violated  his  own  laws  to  favour  his  friends 
— appearing  for  example  as  a  witness  to  character  in  the 
trial  of  Plancus,  and  in  fact  protecting  from  condemnation 
several  accused  persons  specially  connected  with  him,  such 
as  Metellus  Scipio.  As  usual,  he  wished  here  also  to 
accomplish  opposite  things;  in  attempting  to  satisfy  the 
duties  at  once  of  the  impartial  regent  and  of  the  party-chief, 
he  fulfilled  neither  the  one  nor  the  other,  and  was  regarded 
by  public  opinion  with  justice  as  a  despotic  regent,  and  by 
his  adherents  with  equal  justice  as  a  leader  who  either 
could  not  or  would  not  protect  his  followers. 

But,  although  the  republicans  were  still  stirring  and  were 
even  refreshed  by  an  isolated  success  here  and  there,  chiefly 
through  the  blunders  of  Pompeius,  the  object  which  the 
regents  had  proposed  to  themselves  in  that  dictatorship  was 
on  the  whole  attained,  the  reins  were  drawn  tighter,  the 
republican  party  was  humbled,  and  the  new  monarchy  was 
strengthened.  The  public  began  to  reconcile  themselves 
to  the  latter.  When  Pompeius  not  long  after  recovered 
from  a  serious  illness,  his  restoration  was  celebrated  through- 
out Italy  with  the  accompanying  demonstrations  of  joy 
which  are  usual  on  such  occasions  in  monarchies.  The 
regents  showed  themselves  satisfied  ;  as  early  as  the  1st  of 
August  702  Pompeius  resigned  his  dictatorship,  and  shared  62 
the  consulship  with  his  client  Metellus  Scipio. 


150  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  y 


CHAPTER  IX 

DEATH   OF   CRASSUS — RUPTURE    BETWEEN   THE  JOINT 

RULERS 

Crassus  Marcus  Crassus  had  for  years  been  reckoned  among  the 
goes  to  heads  of  the  "  three-headed  monster,"  without  any  proper 
title  to  be  so  included.  He  served  as  a  makeweight  to 
trim  the  balance  between  the  real  regents  Pompeius  and 
Caesar,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  his  weight  fell  into 
the  scale  of  Caesar  against  Pompeius.  This  part  is  not  a 
too  reputable  one  ;  but  Crassus  was  never  hindered  by  any 
keen  sense  of  honour  from  pursuing  his  own  advantage. 
He  was  a  merchant  and  was  open  to  be  dealt  with.  What 
was  offered  to  him  was  not  much  ;  but,  when  more  was  not 
to  be  got.  he  accepted  it,  and  sought  to  forget  the  ambition 
that  fretted  him,  and  his  chagrin  at  occupying  a  position  so 
near  to  power  and  yet  so  powerless,  amidst  his  always 
accumulating  piles  of  gold.  But  the  conference  at  Luca 
changed  the  state  of  matters  also  for  him ;  with  the  view 
of  still  retaining  the  preponderance  as  compared  with 
Pompeius  after  concessions  so  extensive,  Caesar  gave  to  his 
old  confederate  Crassus  an  opportunity  of  attaining  in  Syria 
through  the  Parthian  war  the  same  position  to  which  Caesar 
had  attained  by  the  Celtic  war  in  Gaul.  It  was  difficult  to 
say  whether  these  new  prospects  proved  more  attractive  to 
the  ardent  thirst  for  gold  which  had  now  become  at  the  age 
of  sixty  a  second  nature  and  grew  only  the  more  intense 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       151 

with  every  newly-won  million,  or  to  the  ambition  which  had 

been  long  repressed  with  difficulty  in  the  old  man's  breast 

and  now  glowed  in  it  with  restless  fire.     He  arrived  in 

Syria  as  early  as  the  beginning  of  700 ;  he  had  not  even  64. 

waited  for  the  expiry  of  his  consulship  to  depart.     Full  of 

impatient   ardour   he    seemed    desirous    to   redeem   every 

minute  with  the  view  of  making  up  for  what  he  had  lost,  of 

gathering  in  the  treasures  of  the  east  in  addition  to  those 

of  the  west,  of  achieving  the  power  and  glory  of  a  general 

as  rapidly  as  Caesar,  and  with  as  little  trouble  as  Pompeius. 

He  found  the  Parthian  war  already  commenced.     The  Expedition 

faithless  conduct  of  Pompeius  towards  the  Parthians  has  ^P1"?1  the 

c  Parthians 

been  already  mentioned  (iv.  434);  he  had  not  respected  resolved 
the  stipulated  frontier  of  the  Euphrates  and  had  wrested  on" 
several  provinces  from  the  Parthian  empire  for  the  benefit 
of  Armenia,  which  was  now  a  client  state  of  Rome.  King 
Phraates  had  submitted  to  this  treatment ;  but  after  he 
had  been  murdered  by  his  two  sons  Mithradates  and 
Orodes,  the  new  king  Mithradates  immediately  declared 
war  on  the  king  of  Armenia,  Artavasdes,  son  of  the  recently 
deceased  Tigranes  (about  698).1  This  was  at  the  same  66. 
time  a  declaration  of  war  against  Rome ;  as  soon  therefore 
as  the  revolt  of  the  Jews  was  suppressed,  Gabinius,  the 
able  and  spirited  governor  of  Syria,  led  the  legions  over 
the  Euphrates.  Meanwhile,  however,  a  revolution  had 
occurred  in  the  Parthian  empire ;  the  grandees  of  the 
kingdom,  with  the  young,  bold,  and  talented  grand  vizier 
at  their  head,  had  overthrown  king  Mithradates  and  placed 
his  brother  Orodes  on  the  throne.  Mithradates  therefore 
made  common  cause  with  the  Romans  and  resorted  to  the 
camp  of  Gabinius.  Everything  promised  the  best  results 
to  the  enterprise  of  the  Roman  governor,  when   he  un- 

1  Tigranes  was  still  living  in  February  698  (Cic.  pro  Sest.  27,  59) ;  on  56. 
the  other  hand  Artavasdes  was  already  reigning  before  700  (Justin,  xlii.  54. 
2,  4 ;  Plut  Crass.  49). 


152  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

expectedly  received  orders  to  conduct  the  king  of  Egypt 
back  by  force  of  arms  to  Alexandria  (iv.  451).  He  was 
obliged  to  obey ;  but,  in  the  expectation  of  soon  coming 
back,  he  induced  the  dethroned  Parthian  prince  who 
solicited  aid  from  him  to  commence  the  war  in  the  mean- 
while at  his  own  hand.  Mithradates  did  so ;  and  Seleucia 
and  Babylon  declared  for  him  ;  but  the  vizier  captured 
Seleucia  by  assault,  having  been  in  person  the  first  to 
mount  the  battlements,  and  in  Babylon  Mithradates  him- 
self was  forced  by  famine  to  surrender,  whereupon  he  was 
by  his  brother's  orders  put  to  death.  His  death  was  a 
palpable  loss  to  the  Romans ;  but  it  by  no  means  put  an 
end  to  the  ferment  in  the  Parthian  empire,  and  the 
Armenian  war  continued.  Gabinius,  after  ending  the 
Egyptian  campaign,  was  just  on  the  eve  of  turning  to 
account  the  still  favourable  opportunity  and  resuming 
the  interrupted  Parthian  war,  when  Crassus  arrived  in 
Syria  and  along  with  the  command  took  up  also  the  plans 
of  his  predecessor.  Full  of  high-flown  hopes  he  estimated 
the  difficulties  of  the  march  as  slight,  and  the  power  of 
resistance  in  the  armies  of  the  enemy  as  yet  slighter ;  he 
not  only  spoke  confidently  of  the  subjugation  of  the 
Parthians,  but  was  already  in  imagination  the  conqueror 
of  the  kingdoms  of  Bactria  and  India. 
Plan  of  the  The  new  Alexander,  however,  was  in  no  haste.  Before 
campaign.  ^g  carried  into  effect  these  great  plans,  he  found  leisure 
for  very  tedious  and  very  lucrative  collateral  transactions. 
The  temples  of  Derceto  at  Hierapolis  Bambyce  and  of 
Jehovah  at  Jerusalem  and  other  rich  shrines  of  the  Syrian 
province,  were  by  order  of  Crassus  despoiled  of  their 
treasures ;  and  contingents  or,  still  better,  sums  of  money 
instead  were  levied  from  all  the  subjects.  The  military 
operations  of  the  first  summer  were  limited  to  an  extensive 
reconnaissance  in  Mesopotamia ;  the  Euphrates  was 
crossed,  the  Parthian  satrap  was  defeated  at  Ichnae  (on 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       153 

the  Belik  to  the  north  of  Rakkah),  and  the  neighbouring 
towns,  including  the  considerable  one  of  Nicephorium 
(Rakkah),  were  occupied,  after  which  the  Romans  having 
left  garrisons  behind  in  them  returned  to  Syria.  They  had 
hitherto  been  in  doubt  whether  it  was  more  advisable  to 
march  to  Parthia  by  the  circuitous  route  of  Armenia  or  by 
the  direct  route  through  the  Mesopotamian  desert.  The 
first  route,  leading  through  mountainous  regions  under  the 
control  of  trustworthy  allies,  commended  itself  by  its 
greater  safety ;  king  Artavasdes  came  in  person  to  the 
Roman  headquarters  to  advocate  this  plan  of  the  cam- 
paign. But  that  reconnaissance  decided  in  favour  of  the 
march  through  Mesopotamia.  The  numerous  and  flourish- 
ing Greek  and  half-Greek  towns  in  the  regions  along  the 
Euphrates  and  Tigris,  above  all  the  great  city  of  Seleucia, 
were  altogether  averse  to  the  Parthian  rule ;  all  the  Greek 
townships  with  which  the  Romans  came  into  contact  had 
now,  like  the  citizens  of  Carrhae  at  an  earlier  time  (iv. 
429),  practically  shown  how  ready  they  were  to  shake  oft* 
the  intolerable  foreign  yoke  and  to  receive  the  Romans 
as  deliverers,  almost  as  countrymen.  The  Arab  prince 
Abgarus,  who  commanded  the  desert  of  Edessa  and 
Carrhae  and  thereby  the  usual  route  from  the  Euphrates 
to  the  Tigris,  had  arrived  in  the  camp  of  the  Romans  to 
assure  them  in  person  of  his  devotedness.  The  Parthians 
had  appeared  to  be  wholly  unprepared. 

Accordingly   (701)    the    Euphrates   was    crossed    (near  63. 
Biradjik).      To  reach  the  Tigris  from  this  point  they  had  Euphrates 
the  choice  of  two   routes  ;  either  the  army  might  move  crossed, 
downward  along  the  Euphrates  to  the  latitude  of  Seleucia 
where  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  are  only  a  few  miles  dis- 
tant  from   each  other ;    or   they  might   immediately  after 
crossing  take  the  shortest  line  to  the  Tigris  right  across 
the  great  Mesopotamian   desert.      The  former  route  led 
directly   to    the    Parthian    capital   Ctesiphon,    which   lay 


154  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

opposite  Seleucia  on  the  other  bank  of  the  Tigris ;  several 
weighty  voices  were  raised  in  favour  of  this  route  in  the 
Roman  council  of  war;  in  particular  the  quaestor  Gaius 
Cassius  pointed  to  the  difficulties  of  the  march  in  the 
desert,  and  to  the  suspicious  reports  arriving  from  the 
Roman  garrisons  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Euphrates  as  to 
the  Parthian  warlike  preparations.  But  in  opposition  to 
this  the  Arab  prince  Abgarus  announced  that  the  Parthians 
were  employed  in  evacuating  their  western  provinces. 
They  had  already  packed  up  their  treasures  and  put 
themselves  in  motion  to  flee  to  the  Hyrcanians  and 
Scythians;  only  through  a  forced  march  by  the  shortest 
route  was  it  at  all  possible  still  to  reach  them;  but  by 
such  a  march  the  Romans  would  probably  succeed  in 
overtaking  and  cutting  up  at  least  the  rear-guard  of  the 
great  army  under  Sillaces  and  the  vizier,  and  obtaining 
enormous  spoil.  These  reports  of  the  friendly  Bedouins 
decided  the  direction  of  the  march  ;  the  Roman  army, 
consisting  of  seven  legions,  4000  cavalry,  and  4000  slingers 
and  archers,  turned  off  from  the  Euphrates  and  away  into 
the  inhospitable  plains  of  northern  Mesopotamia. 
The  march  Far  and  wide  not  an  enemy  showed  himself;  only 
hunger  and  thirst,  and  the  endless  sandy  desert,  seemed 
to  keep  watch  at  the  gates  of  the  east.  At  length,  after 
many  days  of  toilsome  marching,  not  far  from  the  first 
river  which  the  Roman  army  had  to  cross,  the  Balissus 
(Belik),  the  first  horsemen  of  the  enemy  were  descried. 
Abgarus  with  his  Arabs  was  sent  out  to  reconnoitre ;  the 
Parthian  squadrons  retired  up  to  and  over  the  river  and 
vanished  in  the  distance,  pursued  by  Abgarus  and  his 
followers.  With  impatience  the  Romans  waited  for  his 
return  and  for  more  exact  information.  The  general 
hoped  here  at  length  to  come  upon  the  constantly  re- 
treating foe;  his  young  and  brave  son  Publius,  who  had 
fought  with  the  greatest  distinction  in  Gaul  under  Caesar 


in  the 
desert 


chap,  ix   RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       155 

(p.  39,  55),  and  had  been  sent  by  the  latter  at  the  head 
of  a  Celtic  squadron  of  horse  to  take  part  in  the  Parthian 
war,  was  inflamed  with  a  vehement  desire  for  the  fight 
When  no  tidings  came,  they  resolved  to  advance  at  a 
venture ;  the  signal  for  starting  was  given,  the  Balissus  was 
crossed,  the  army  after  a  brief  insufficient  rest  at  noon  was 
led  on  without  delay  at  a  rapid  pace.  Then  suddenly  the 
kettledrums  of  the  Parthians  sounded  all  around ;  on  every 
side  their  silken  gold  -  embroidered  banners  were  seen 
waving,  and  their  iron  helmets  and  coats  of  mail  glittering 
in  the  blaze  of  the  hot  noonday  sun ;  and  by  the  side  of 
the  vizier  stood  prince  Abgarus  with  his  Bedouins. 

The  Romans  saw  too  late  the  net  into  which  they  had  Roman 
allowed  themselves  to  be  ensnared.  With  sure  glance  the  p1"^- 
vizier  had  thoroughly  seen  both  the  danger  and  the  means  systems  of 
of  meeting  it  Nothing  could  be  accomplished  against  the  warfare* 
Roman  infantry  of  the  line  with  Oriental  infantry ;  so  he 
had  rid  himself  of  it,  and  by  sending  a  mass,  which  was 
useless  in  the  main  field  of  battle,  under  the  personal 
leadership  of  king  Orodes  to  Armenia,  he  had  prevented 
king  Artavasdes  from  allowing  the  promised  10,000  heavy 
cavalry  to  join  the  army  of  Crassus,  who  now  painfully  felt 
the  want  of  them.  On  the  other  hand  the  vizier  met  the 
Roman  tactics,  unsurpassed  of  their  kind,  with  a  system 
entirely  different.  His  army  consisted  exclusively  of 
cavalry ;  the  line  was  formed  of  the  heavy  horsemen 
armed  with  long  thrusting-lances,  and  protected,  man  and 
horse,  by  a  coat  of  mail  of  metallic  plates  or.  a' leathern 
doublet  and  by  similar  greaves  ;  the  mass  of  the  troops 
consisted  of  mounted  archers.  As  compared  with  these, 
the  Romans  were  thoroughly  inferior  in  the  corresponding 
arms  both  as  to  number  and  excellence.  Their  infantry  of 
the  line,  excellent  as  they  were  in  close  combat,  whether  at 
a  short  distance  with  the  heavy  javelin  or  in  hand-to-hand 
combat  with  the  sword,  could  not  compel  an  army  consist- 


156  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

ing  merely  of  cavalry  to  come  to  an  engagement  with  them ; 
and  they  found,  even  when  they  did  come  to  a  hand-to- 
hand  conflict,  an  equal  if  not  superior  adversary  in  the 
iron-clad  hosts  of  lancers.  As  compared  with  an  army  like 
this  Parthian  one,  the  Roman  army  was  at  a  disadvantage 
strategically,  because  the  cavalry  commanded  the  communi- 
cations ;  and  at  a  disadvantage  tactically,  because  every 
weapon  of  close  combat  must  succumb  to  that  which  is 
wielded  from  a  distance,  unless  the  struggle  becomes  an 
individual  one,  man  against  man.  The  concentrated  posi- 
tion, on  which  the  whole  Roman  method  of  war  was  based, 
increased  the  danger  in  presence  of  such  an  attack ;  the 
closer  the  ranks  of  the  Roman  column,  the  more  irresistible 
certainly  was  its  onset,  but  the  less  also  could  the  missiles 
fail  to  hit  their  mark.  Under  ordinary  circumstances, 
where  towns  have  to  be  defended  and  difficulties  of  the 
ground  have  to  be  considered,  such  tactics  operating  merely 
with  cavalry  against  infantry  could  never  be  completely 
carried  out;  but  in  the  Mesopotamian  desert,  where  the 
army,  almost  like  a  ship  on  the  high  seas,  neither  en- 
countered an  obstacle  nor  met  with  a  basis  for  strategic 
dispositions  during  many  days'  march,  this  mode  of  war- 
fare was  irresistible  for  the  very  reason  that  circumstances 
allowed  it  to  be  developed  there  in  all  its  purity  and  there- 
fore in  all  its  power.  There  everything  combined  to  put 
the  foreign  infantry  at  a  disadvantage  against  the  native 
cavalry.  Where  the  heavy  -  laden  Roman  foot  -  soldier 
dragged  himself  toilsomely  through  the  sand  or  the  steppe, 
and  perished  from  hunger  or  still  more  from  thirst  amid  the 
pathless  route  marked  only  by  water-springs  that  were  far 
apart  and  difficult  to  find,  the  Parthian  horseman,  accus- 
tomed from  childhood  to  sit  on  his  fleet  steed  or  camel, 
nay  almost  to  spend  his  life  in  the  saddle,  easily  traversed 
the  desert  whose  hardships  he  had  long  learned  how  to 
lighten  or  in  case  of  need  to  endure.     There  no  rain  fell 


CHAr.  ix    RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       157 

to  mitigate  the  intolerable  heat,  and  to  slacken  the  bow- 
strings and  leathern  thongs  of  the  enemy's  archers  and 
slingers ;  there  amidst  the  deep  sand  at  many  places 
ordinary  ditches  and  ramparts  could  hardly  be  formed  for 
the  camp.  Imagination  can  scarcely  conceive  a  situation 
in  which  all  the  military  advantages  were  more  on  the  one 
side,  and  all  the  disadvantages  more  thoroughly  on  the 
other. 

To  the  question,  under  what  circumstances  this  new 
style  of  tactics,  the  first  national  system  that  on  its  own 
proper  ground  showed  itself  superior  to  the  Roman,  arose 
among  the  Parthians,  we  unfortunately  can  only  reply  by 
conjectures.  The  lancers  and  mounted  archers  were  of 
great  antiquity  in  the  east,  and  already  formed  the  flower 
of  the  armies  of  Cyrus  and  Darius ;  but  hitherto  these 
arms  had  been  employed  only  as  secondary,  and  essentially 
to  cover  the  thoroughly  useless  Oriental  infantry.  The 
Parthian  armies  also  by  no  means  differed  in  this  respect 
from  the  other  Oriental  ones ;  armies  are  mentioned,  five- 
sixths  of  which  consisted  of  infantry.  In  the  campaign  of 
Crassus,  on  the  other  hand,  the  cavalry  for  the  first  time 
came  forward  independently,  and  this  arm  obtained  quite 
a  new  application  and  quite  a  different  value.  The 
irresistible  superiority  of  the  Roman  infantry  in  close 
combat  seems  to  have  led  the  adversaries  of  Rome  in  very 
different  parts  of  the  world  independently  of  each  other — 
at  the  same  time  and  with  similar  success — to  meet  it  with 
cavalry  and  distant  weapons.  What  was  completely 
successful  with  Cassivellaunus  in  Britain  (p.  64  /.)  and 
partially  successful  with  Vercingetorix  in  Gaul  (p.  T5f.) — 
what  was  to  a  certain  degree  attempted  even  by  Mithradates 
Eupator  (iv.  344) — the  vizier  of  Orodes  carried  out  only  on 
a  larger  scale  and  more  completely.  And  in  doing  so  he 
had  special  advantages  :  for  he  found  in  the  heavy  cavalry 
the  means  of  forming  a  line ;  the  bow  which  was  national 


158  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

in  the  east  and  was  handled  with  masterly  skill  in  the 
Persian  provinces  gave  him  an  effective  weapon  for  distant 
combat ;  and  lastly  the  peculiarities  of  the  country  and  the 
people  enabled  him  freely  to  realize  his  brilliant  idea. 
Here,  where  the  Roman  weapons  of  close  combat  and  the 
Roman  system  of  concentration  yielded  for  the  first  time 
before  the  weapons  of  more  distant  warfare  and  the  system 
of  deploying,  was  initiated  that  military  revolution  which 
only  reached  its  completion  with  the  introduction  of 
firearms. 
Battle  near  Under  such  circumstances  the  first  battle  between  the 
Romans  and  Parthians  was  fought  amidst  the  sandy  desert 
thirty  miles  to  the  south  of  Carrhae  (Harran)  where  there 
was  a  Roman  garrison,  and  at  a  somewhat  less  distance  to 
the  north  of  Ichnae.  The  Roman  archers  were  sent 
forward,  but  retired  immediately  before  the  enormous 
numerical  superiority  and  the  far  greater  elasticity  and 
range  of  the  Parthian  bows.  The  legions,  which,  in  spite 
of  the  advice  of  the  more  sagacious  officers  that  they 
should  be  deployed  as  much  as  possible  against  the  enemy, 
had  been  drawn  up  in  a  dense  square  of  twelve  cohorts  on 
each  side,  were  soon  outflanked  and  overwhelmed  with  the 
formidable  arrows,  which  under  such  circumstances  hit 
their  man  even  without  special  aim,  and  against  which  the 
soldiers  had  no  means  of  retaliation.  The  hope  that  the 
enemy  might  expend  his  missiles  vanished  with  a  glance  at 
the  endless  range  of  camels  laden  with  arrows.  The 
Parthians  were  still  extending  their  line.  That  the  out- 
flanking might  not  end  in  surrounding,  Publius  Crassus 
advanced  to  the  attack  with  a  select  corps  of  cavalry, 
archers,  and  infantry  of  the  line.  The  enemy  in  fact 
abandoned  the  attempt  to  close  the  circle,  and  retreated, 
hotly  pursued  by  the  impetuous  leader  of  the  Romans. 
But,  when  the  corps  of  Publius  had  totally  lost  sight  of  the 
main  army,  the  heavy  cavalry  made  a  stand  against  it,  and 


CHAP.  IX    RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       159 

the  Parthian  host  hastening  up  from  all  sides  closed  in  like 
a  net  round  it.  Publius,  who  saw  his  troops  falling  thickly 
and  vainly  around  him  under  the  arrows  of  the  mounted 
archers,  threw  himself  in  desperation  with  his  Celtic  cavalry 
unprotected  by  any  coats  of  mail  on  the  iron-clad  lancers 
of  the  enemy ;  but  the  death-despising  valour  of  his  Celts, 
who  seized  the  lances  with  their  hands  or  sprang  from 
their  horses  to  stab  the  enemy,  performed  its  marvels  in 
vain.  The  remains  of  the  corps,  including  their  leader 
wounded  in  the  sword-arm,  were  driven  to  a  slight 
eminence,  where  they  only  served  for  an  easier  mark  to 
the  enemy's  archers.  Mesopotamian  Greeks,  who  were 
accurately  acquainted  with  the  country,  adjured  Crassus  to 
ride  off  with  them  and  make  an  attempt  to  escape ;  but  he 
refused  to  separate  his  fate  from  that  of  the  brave  men 
whom  his  too -daring  courage  had  led  to  death,  and  he 
caused  himself  to  be  stabbed  by  the  hand  of  his  shield- 
bearer.  Following  his  example,  most  of  the  still  surviving 
officers  put  themselves  to  death.  Of  the  whole  division, 
about  6000  strong,  not  more  than  500  were  taken 
prisoners;  no  one  was  able  to  escape.  Meanwhile  the 
attack  on  the  main  army  had  slackened,  and  the  Romans 
were  but  too  glad  to  rest.  When  at  length  the  absence  of 
any  tidings  from  the  corps  sent  out  startled  them  out  of 
the  deceitful  calm,  and  they  drew  near  to  the  scene  of  the 
battle  for  the  purpose  of  learning  its  fate,  the  head  of  the 
son  was  displayed  on  a  pole  before  his  father's  eyes;  and 
the  terrible  onslaught  began  once  more  against  the  main 
army  with  the  same  fury  and  the  same  hopeless  uniformity. 
They  could  neither  break  the  ranks  of  the  lancers  nor 
reach  the  archers ;  night  alone  put  an  end  to  the  slaughter. 
Had  the  Parthians  bivouacked  on  the  battle-field,  hardly  a 
man  of  the  Roman  army  would  have  escaped.  But  not 
trained  to  fight  otherwise  than  on  horseback,  and  therefore 
afraid  of  a  surprise,  they  were  wont  never  to  encamp  close 


i6o 


DEATH  OF  CRASSUS 


BOOK  V 


Retreat  to 
Carrhae. 


Departure 

from 

Carrhae. 


Surprise  at 
Sinnaca. 


to  the  enemy ;  jeeringly  they  shouted  to  the  Romans  that 
they  would  give  the  general  a  night  to  bewail  his  son,  and 
galloped  off  to  return  next  morning  and  despatch  the  game 
that  lay  bleeding  on  the  ground. 

Of  course  the  Romans  did  not  wait  for  the  morning. 
The  lieutenant-generals  Cassius  and  Octavius — Crassus 
himself  had  completely  lost  his  judgment — ordered  the 
men  still  capable  of  marching  to  set  out  immediately  and 
with  the  utmost  silence  (while  the  whole — said  to  amount 
to  4000 — of  the  wounded  and  stragglers  were  left),  with 
the  view  of  seeking  protection  within  the  walls  of  Carrhae. 
The  fact  that  the  Parthians,  when  they  returned  on  the 
following  day,  applied  themselves  first  of  all  to  seek  out 
and  massacre  the  scattered  Romans  left  behind,  and  the 
further  fact  that  the  garrison  and  inhabitants  of  Carrhae, 
early  informed  of  the  disaster  by  fugitives,  had  marched 
forth  in  all  haste  to  meet  the  beaten  army,  saved  the 
remnants  of  it  from  what  seemed  inevitable  destruction. 

The  squadrons  of  Parthian  horsemen  could  not  think  of 
undertaking  a  siege  of  Carrhae.  But  the  Romans  soon 
voluntarily  departed,  whether  compelled  by  want  of 
provisions,  or  in  consequence  of  the  desponding  precipita- 
tion of  their  commander-in-chief,  whom  the  soldiers  had 
vainly  attempted  to  remove  from  the  command  and  to 
replace  by  Cassius.  They  moved  in  the  direction  of  the 
Armenian  mountains ;  marching  by  night  and  resting  by 
day  Octavius  with  a  band  of  5000  men  reached  the 
fortress  of  Sinnaca,  which  was  only  a  day's  march  distant 
from  the  heights  that  would  give  shelter,  and  liberated 
even  at  the  peril  of  his  own  life  the  commander-in  chief, 
whom  the  guide  had  led  astray  and  given  up  to  the  enemy. 
Then  the  vizier  rode  in  front  of  the  Roman  camp  to  offer, 
in  the  name  of  his  king,  peace  and  friendship  to  the 
Romans,  and  to  propose  a  personal  conference  between 
the  two  generals.     The   Roman  army,  demoralized  as  it 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       161 

was,  adjured  and  indeed  compelled  its  leader  to  accept  the 
offer.  The  vizier  received  the  consular  and  his  staff  with 
the  usual  honours,  and  offered  anew  to  conclude  a  compact 
of  friendship;  only,  with  just  bitterness  recalling  the  fate 
of  the  agreements  concluded  with  Lucullus  and  Pompeius 
respecting  the  Euphrates  boundary  (iv.  434),  he  demanded 
that  it  should  be  immediately  reduced  to  writing.  A 
richly  adorned  horse  was  produced ;  it  was  a  present  from 
the  king  to  the  Roman  commander-in-chief;  the  servants 
of  the  vizier  crowded  round  Crassus,  zealous  to  mount  him 
on  the  steed.  It  seemed  to  the  Roman  officers  as  if  there 
was  a  design  to  seize  the  person  of  the  commander-in-chief; 
Octavius,  unarmed  as  he  was,  pulled  the  sword  of  one  of 
the  Parthians  from  its  sheath  and  stabbed  the  groom.  In 
the  tumult  which  thereupon  arose,  the  Roman  officers  were 
all  put  to  death ;  the  gray-haired  commander-in-chief  also, 
like  his  grand-uncle  (iii.  279),  was  unwilling  to  serve  as  a 
living  trophy  to  the  enemy,  and  sought  and  found  death. 
The  multitude  left  behind  in  the  camp  without  a  leader 
were  partly  taken  prisoners,  partly  dispersed.  What  the 
day  of  Carrhae  had  begun,  the  day  of  Sinnaca  completed 
(June  9,  701);  the  two  took  their  place  side  by  side  with  58. 
the  days  of  the  Allia,  of  Cannae,  and  of  Arausio.  The 
army  of  the  Euphrates  was  no  more.  Only  the  squadron 
of  Gaius  Cassius,  which  had  been  broken  off  from  the 
main  army  on  the  retreat  from  Carrhae,  and  some  other 
scattered  bands  and  isolated  fugitives  succeeded  in  escaping 
from  the  Parthians  and  Bedouins  and  separately  finding 
their  way  back  to  Syria.  Of  above  40,000  Roman  legion- 
aries, who  had  crossed  the  Euphrates,  not  a  fourth  part 
returned;  the  half  had  perished;  nearly  10,000  Roman 
prisoners  were  settled  by  the  victors  in  the  extreme  east  of 
their  kingdom — in  the  oasis  of  Merv — as  bondsmen 
compelled  after  the  Parthian  fashion  to  render  military 
service.     For  the  first  time  since  the  eagles  had  headed 

VOL  V  144 


162  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

the  legions,  they  had  become  in  the  same  year  trophies  of 
victory  in  the  hands  of  foreign  nations,  almost  contempor- 
aneously of  a  German  tribe  in  the  west  (p.  69)  and  of 
the  Parthians  in  the  east.  As  to  the  impression  which  the 
defeat  of  the  Romans  produced  in  the  east,  unfortunately 
no  adequate  information  has  reached  us  ;  but  it  must  have 
been  deep  and  lasting.  King  Orodes  was  just  celebrating 
the  marriage  of  his  son  Pacorus  with  the  sister  of  his  new 
ally,  Artavasdes  the  king  of  Armenia,  when  the  announce- 
ment of  the  victory  of  his  vizier  arrived,  and  along  with  it, 
according  to  Oriental  usage,  the  cut-off  head  of  Crassus. 
The  tables  were  already  removed;  one  of  the  wandering 
companies  of  actors  from  Asia  Minor,  numbers  of  which  at 
that  time  existed  and  carried  Hellenic  poetry  and  the 
Hellenic  drama  far  into  the  east,  was  just  performing 
before  the  assembled  court  the  Bacchae  of  Euripides. 
The  actor  playing  the  part  of  Agave,  who  in  her  Dionysiac 
frenzy  has  torn  in  pieces  her  son  and  returns  from 
Cithaeron  carrying  his  head  on  the  thyrsus,  exchanged  this 
for  the  bloody  head  of  Crassus,  and  to  the  infinite  delight 
of  his  audience  of  half-Hellenized  barbarians  began  afresh 
the  well-known  song : 

tp4pop.ev  4£  6peos 

£Xt/ea  vebrofiov  iirl  fti\a9pa 

fw.Ka.plav  6i)pav, 

It  was,  since  the  times  of  the  Achaemenids,  the  first 
serious  victory  which  the  Orientals  had  achieved  over  the 
west ;  and  there  was  a  deep  significance  in  the  fact  that, 
by  way  of  celebrating  this  victory,  the  fail  est  product  of  the 
western  world — Greek  tragedy — parodied  itself  through  its 
degenerate  representatives  in  that  hideous  burlesque.  The 
civic  spirit  of  Rome  and  the  genius  of  Hellas  began  simul- 
taneously to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  chains  of  sul 
tanism. 

The  disaster,  terrible  in  itself,  seemed  also  as  though  i 


chap,  ix   RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       163 

was  to  be  dreadful  in  its  consequences,  and  to  shake  the  Conso- 
foundations  of  the  Roman  power  in  the  east.  It  was  q^^3 
among  the  least  of  its  results,  that  the  Parthians  now  had  defeat 
absolute  sway  beyond  the  Euphrates ;  that  Armenia,  after 
having  fallen  away  from  the  Roman  alliance  even  before 
the  disaster  of  Crassus,  was  reduced  by  it  into  entire 
dependence  on  Parthia ;  that  the  faithful  citizens  of  Carrhae 
were  bitterly  punished  for  their  adherence  to  the  Occidentals 
by  the  new  master  appointed  over  them  by  the  Parthians, 
one  of  the  treacherous  guides  of  the  Romans,  named 
Andromachus.  The  Parthians  now  prepared  in  all  earnest 
to  cross  the  Euphrates  in  their  turn,  and,  in  union  with  the 
Armenians  and  Arabs,  to  dislodge  the  Romans  from  Syria. 
The  Jews  and  various  other  Occidentals  awaited  emancipa- 
tion from  the  Roman  rule  there,  no  less  impatiently  than 
the  Hellenes  beyond  the  Euphrates  awaited  relief  from  the 
Parthian ;  in  Rome  civil  war  was  at  the  door ;  an  attack  at 
this  particular  place  and  time  was  a  grave  peril.  But 
fortunately  for  Rome  the  leaders  on  each  side  had 
changed.  Sultan  Orodes  was  too  much  indebted  to  the 
heroic  prince,  who  had  first  placed  the  crown  on  his  head 
and  then  cleared  the  land  from  the  enemy,  not  to  get  rid 
of  him  as  soon  as  possible  by  the  executioner.  His  place 
as  commander-in-chief  of  the  invading  army  destined  for 
Syria  was  filled  by  a  prince,  the  king's  son  Pacorus,  with 
whom  on  account  of  his  youth  and  inexperience  the  prince 
Osaces  had  to  be  associated  as  military  adviser.  On  the 
other  side  the  interim  command  in  Syria  in  room  of  Crassus 
was  taken  up  by  the  prudent  and  resolute  quaestor  Gaius 
Cassius. 

The  Parthians  were,  just  like  Crassus  formerly,  in  no  Repulse 
haste  to  attack,  but  during  the  years  701  and  702  sent  only  °f  th^. 
weak    flying  bands,  who  were  easily  repulsed,  across    the  53,  52. 
Euphrates ;  so  that  Cassius  obtained  time  to  reorganize  the 
army  in  some  measure,  and  with  the  help  of  the  faithful 


164  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

adherent  of  the  Romans,  Herodes  Antipater,  to  reduce  to 
obedience  the  Jews,  whom  resentment  at  the  spoliation  of 
the  temple  perpetrated  by  Crassus  had  already  driven  to 
arms.     The  Roman  government  would  thus  have  had  full 
time  to  send  fresh  troops  for  the  defence  of  the  threatened 
frontier ;  but  this  was  left  undone  amidst  the  convulsions  of 
51.  the  incipient  revolution,  and,  when  at  length  in   703  the 
great  Parthian  invading  army  appeared  on  the  Euphrates, 
Cassius  had  still  nothing  to  oppose  to  it  but  the  two  weak 
legions  formed  from  the  remains  of  the  army  of  Crassus. 
Of  course  with  these  he  could  neither  prevent  the  crossing 
nor    defend    the    province.      Syria    was    overrun    by    the 
Parthians,  and  all  Western  Asia  trembled.     But  the  Parthians 
did  not  understand  the  besieging  of  towns.     They  not  only 
retreated    from  Antioch,   into  which    Cassius  had    thrown 
himself  with  his  troops,  without  having  accomplished  their 
object,  but  they  were  on  their  retreat  along  the  Orontes 
allured  into  an  ambush  by  Cassius'  cavalry  and  there  severely 
handled  by  the  Roman  infantry  ;  prince  Osaces  was  himself 
among  the  slain.     Friend  and  foe  thus  perceived  that  the 
Parthian  army  under  an  ordinary  general  and  on  ordinary 
ground   was   not   capable  of  much   more   than  any  other 
Oriental  army.     However,  the  attack  was  not  abandoned. 
61-50.  Still  during  the  winter  of  703-704  Pacorus  lay  encamped  in 
Cyrrhestica  on  this  side  of  the  Euphrates ;   and  the  new 
governor  of  Syria,  Marcus  Bibulus,  as  wretched  a  general 
as  he  was  an  incapable  statesman,  knew  no  better  course  of 
action  than  to  shut  himself  up  in  his  fortresses.      It  was 
50.  generally  expected  that  the  war  would  break  out  in   704 
with  renewed  fury.     But  instead  of  turning  his  arms  against 
the  Romans,  Pacorus  turned  against  his  own  father,  and 
accordingly  even  entered  into  an  understanding  with  the 
Roman  governor.     Thus  the  stain  was  not  wiped  from  the 
shield  of  Roman  honour,  nor  was  the  reputation  of  Rome 
restored  in  the  east ;  but  the  Parthian  invasion  of  Western 


chap,  ix   RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       165 

Asia  was  over,  and  the  Euphrates  boundary  was,  for  the 
time  being  at  least,  retained. 

In  Rome  meanwhile  the  periodical  volcano  of  revolution  impression 
was  whirling  upward  its  clouds  of  stupefying  smoke.  The  pr°^uced 
Romans  began  to  have  no  longer  a  soldier  or  a  denarius  to  the  defeat 
be  employed  against  the  public  foe — no  longer  a  thought  ofCarrhae- 
for  the  destinies  of  the  nations.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
dreadful  signs  of  the  times,  that  the  huge  national  disaster 
of  Carrhae  and  Sinnaca  gave  the  politicians  of  that  time  far 
less  to  think  and  speak  of  than  that  wretched  tumult  on  the 
Appian  road,  in  which,  a  couple  of  months  after  Crassus, 
Clodius  the  partisan-leader  perished ;  but  it  is  easily  con- 
ceivable and  almost  excusable.  The  breach  between  the 
two  regents,  long  felt  as  inevitable  and  often  announced  as 
near,  was  now  assuming  such  a  shape  that  it  could  not  be 
arrested.  Like  the  boat  of  the  ancient  Greek  mariners' 
tale,  the  vessel  of  the  Roman  community  now  found  itself 
as  it  were  between  two  rocks  swimming  towards  each  other ; 
expecting  every  moment  the  crash  of  collision,  those  whom 
it  was  bearing,  tortured  by  nameless  anguish,  into  the 
eddying  surge  that  rose  higher  and  higher  were  benumbed ; 
and,  while  every  slightest  movement  there  attracted  a 
thousand  eyes,  no  one  ventured  to  give  a  glance  to  the  right 
or  the  left. 

After  Caesar  had,  at  the  conference  of  Luca  in  April  The  good 
698,    agreed    to    considerable    concessions    as    regarded  "^dine 
Pompeius,   and   the  regents   had  thus   placed  themselves  between 
substantially  on  a  level,  their  relation  was  not  without  the  relaxed?113 
outward  conditions  of  durability,  so  far  as  a  division  of  the 
monarchical  power — in  itself  indivisible — could  be  lasting 
at  all.      It  was  a  different  question  whether  the  regents,  at 
least  for  the  present,  were  determined   to  keep  together 
and  mutually  to  acknowledge  without  reserve  their  title  to 
rank  as  equals.     That  this  was  the  case  with  Caesar,  in  so 
far   as   he   had   acquired   the   interval    necessary   for  the 


1 66  DEATH  OF  CRASS  US  book  v 

conquest  of  Gaul  at  the  price  of  equalization  with  Pompeius, 
has  been  already   set   forth.     But  Pompeius  was   hardly 
ever,    even    provisionally,   in    earnest    with    the   collegiate 
scheme.     His  was  one  of  those  petty  and  mean  natures, 
towards  which  it  is  dangerous  to  practise  magnanimity ;  to 
his  paltry  spirit  it  appeared  certainly  a  dictate  of  prudence 
to  supplant  at  the  first  opportunity  his  reluctantly  acknow- 
ledged rival,  and  his  mean  soul  thirsted  after  a  possibility 
of  retaliating  on  Caesar  for  the  humiliation  which  he  had 
suffered    through    Caesar's    indulgence.     But    while   it   is 
probable  that  Pompeius  in  accordance  with  his  dull  and 
sluggish  nature  never  properly  consented  to  let  Caesar  hold 
a  position  of  equality  by  his  side,  yet  the  design  of  breaking 
up   the  alliance   doubtless   came   only  by   degrees  to   be 
distinctly  entertained   by   him.     At  any  rate  the  public, 
which  usually  saw  better  through  the  views  and  intentions 
of  Pompeius  than  he  did  himself,  could  not  be  mistaken 
in  thinking   that  at  least  with  the  death  of  the  beautiful 
Julia — who    died   in    the    bloom   of  womanhood   in   the 
54    autumn  of  700  and  was  soon  followed  by  her  only  child 
to  the  tomb — the   personal   relation  between   her  father 
and  her  husband  was  broken  up.     Caesar  attempted  to 
re-establish  the  ties  of  affinity  which  fate  had  severed ;  he 
asked    for   himself    the    hand   of    the   only    daughter   of 
Pompeius,  and  offered  Octavia,  his  sister's  grand-daughter, 
who  was  now  his  nearest  relative,  in  marriage  to  his  fellow- 
regent;   but  Pompeius  left  his  daughter  to  her  existing 
husband  Faustus  Sulla  the  son  of  the  regent,  and  he  him- 
self married    the    daughter   of  Quintus    Metellus    Scipio. 
The  personal  breach  had  unmistakeably  begun,  and  it  was 
Pompeius  who  drew  back  his  hand.     It  was  expected  that 
a  political  breach  would  at  once  follow ;  but  in  this  people 
were  mistaken  ;  in  public  affairs  a  collegiate  understanding 
continued  for  a  time  to  subsist.     The  reason  was,  that 
Caesar  did  not  wish  publicly  to  dissolve  the  relation  before 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       167 

the  subjugation  of  Gaul  was  accomplished,  and  Pompeius 
did  not  wish  to  dissolve  it  before  the  governing  authorities 
and  Italy  should  be  wholly  reduced  under  his  power  by 
his  investiture  with  the  dictatorship.  It  is  singular,  but 
yet  readily  admits  of  explanation,  that  the  regents  under 
these  circumstances  supported  each  other ;  Pompeius  after 
the  disaster  of  Aduatuca  in  the  winter  of  700  handed  over  64. 
one  of  his  Italian  legions  that  were  dismissed  on  furlough 
by  way  of  loan  to  Caesar;  on  the  other  hand  Caesar 
granted  his  consent  and  his  moral  support  to  Pompeius  in 
the  repressive  measures  which  the  latter  took  against  the 
stubborn  republican  opposition. 

It  was  only  after  Pompeius  had  in  this  way  procured  Dictator- 
for  himself  at  the  beginning  of  702  the  undivided  consul-  pJLjjJ1 
ship  and  an  influence  in  the  capital  thoroughly  outweighing 
that  of  Caesar,  and  after  all  the  men  capable  of  arms  in 
Italy  had  tendered  their  military  oath  to  himself  personally 
and  in  his  name,  that  he  formed  the  resolution  to  break 
as  soon  as  possible  formally  with  Caesar;  and  the  design 
became   distinctly    enough    apparent.     That    the    judicial  Covert 
prosecution  which    took    place  after   the   tumult    on    the  pompei„ 
Appian  Way  lighted  with  unsparing  severity  precisely  on  on  Caesar. 
the   old   democratic  partisans  of  Caesar  (p.  149),   might 
perhaps  pass  as  a  mere  awkwardness.     That  the  new  law 
against   electioneering    intrigues,   which   had  retrospective 
effect  as  far  as  684,  included  also  the  dubious  proceedings  70. 
at  Caesar's  candidature  for  the  consulship  (p.  146),  might 
likewise  be  nothing  more,  although  not  a  few  Caesarians 
thought  that  they  perceived  in  it  a  definite  design.     But 
people  could   no  longer  shut  their  eyes,  however  willing 
they  might  be  to  do  so,  when  Pompeius  did  not  select  for 
his   colleague   in    the  consulship   his   former  father-in-law 
Caesar,  as  was  fitting  in  the  circumstances  of  the  case  and 
was   in   many   quarters    demanded,    but    associated    with 
himself  a  puppet  wholly  dependent  on  him  in  his  new 


168  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

father-in-law  Scipio  (p.  149) ;  and  still  less,  when  Pompeius 
at  the  same  time  got  the  governorship  of  the  two  Spains 

45.  continued  to  him  for  five  years  more,  that  is  to  709,  and 
a.  considerable  fixed  sum  appropriated  from  the  state-chest 
for  the  payment  of  his  troops,  not  only  without  stipu- 
lating for  a  like  prolongation  of  command  and  a  like 
grant  of  money  to  Caesar,  but  even  while  labouring 
ulteriorly  to  effect  the  recall  of  Caesar  before  the  term 
formerly  agreed  on  through  the  new  regulations  which 
were  issued  at  the  same  time  regarding  the  holding  of  the 
governorships.  These  encroachments  were  unmistakeably 
calculated  to  undermine  Caesar's  position  and  eventually 
to  overthrow  him.  The  moment  could  not  be  more 
favourable.  Caesar  had  conceded  so  much  to  Pompeius 
at  Luca,  only  because  Crassus  and  his  Syrian  army  would 
necessarily,  in  the  event  of  any  rupture  with  Pompeius,  be 
thrown  into  Caesar's  scale ;  for  upon  Crassus — who  since 
the  times  of  Sulla  had  been  at  the  deepest  enmity  with 
Pompeius  and  almost  as  long  politically  and  personally 
allied  with  Caesar,  and  who  from  his  peculiar  character  at 
all  events,  if  he  could  not  himself  be  king  of  Rome,  would 
have  been  content  with  being  the  new  king's  banker — 
Caesar  could  always  reckon,  and  could  have  no  appre- 
hension at  all  of  seeing  Crassus  confronting  him  as  an  ally 

63.  of  his  enemies.  The  catastrophe  of  June  701,  by  which 
army  and  general  in  Syria  perished,  was  therefore  a  terribly 
severe  blow  also  for  Caesar.  A  few  months  later  the 
national  insurrection  blazed  up  more  violently  than  ever 
in  Gaul,  just  when  it  had  seemed  completely  subdued,  and 
for  the  first  time  Caesar  here  encountered  an  equal 
opponent  in  the  Arvernian  king  Vercingetorix.  Once 
more  fate  had  been  working  for  Pompeius ;  Crassus  was 
dead,  all  Gaul  was  in  revolt,  Pompeius  was  practically 
dictator  of  Rome  and  master  of  the  senate.  What  might 
have   happened,  if  he  had    now,  instead  of  remotely  in- 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       169 

triguing  against  Caesar,  summarily  compelled  the  burgesses 
or  the  senate  to  recall  Caesar  at  once  from  Gaul !  But 
Pompeius  never  understood  how  to  take  advantage  of 
fortune.  He  heralded  the  breach  clearly  enough ;  already 
in  702  his  acts  left  no  doubt  about  it,  and  in  the  spring  52. 
of  703  he  openly  expressed  his  purpose  of  breaking  with  51. 
Caesar;  but  he  did  not  break  with  him,  and  allowed  the 
months  to  slip  away  unemployed. 

But    however   Pompeius    might    delay,    the    crisis    was  The  old 
incessantly  urged  on  by  the  mere  force  of  circumstances.       nanves  and 

The  impending  war  was  not  a  struggle  possibly  between  the  pre- 
republic  and  monarchy — for  that  had  been  virtually  decided 
years  before — but  a  struggle  between  Pompeius  and  Caesar 
for  the  possession  of  the  crown  of  Rome.  But  neither  of 
the  pretenders  found  his  account  in  uttering  the  plain 
truth ;  he  would  have  thereby  driven  all  that  very  respect- 
able portion  of  the  burgesses,  which  desired  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  republic  and  believed  in  its  possibility, 
directly  into  the  camp  of  his  opponent.  The  old  battle- 
cries  raised  by  Gracchus  and  Drusus,  Cinna  and  Sulla, 
used  up  and  meaningless  as  they  were,  remained  still 
good  enough  for  watchwords  in  the  struggle  of  the  two 
generals  contending  for  the  sole  rule ;  and,  though  for  the 
moment  both  Pompeius  and  Caesar  ranked  themselves 
officially  with  the  so-called  popular  party,  it  could  not  be 
for  a  moment  doubtful  that  Caesar  would  inscribe  on  his 
banner  the  people  and  democratic  progress,  Pompeius  the 
aristocracy  and  the  legitimate  constitution. 

Caesar  had  no  choice.      He  was  from  the  outset  and  The 
very  earnestly  a  democrat ;  the  monarchy  as  he  understood  and 
it    differed    more    outwardly    than    in    reality    from    the  Caesar. 
Gracchan    government    of    the    people ;  and    he    was    too 
magnanimous  and  too  profound  a  statesman   to  conceal 
his  colours  and  to  fight  under  any  other  escutcheon  than 
his  own.     The  immediate  advantage  no  doubt,  which  this 


170  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  V 

battle-cry  brought  to  him,  was  trifling ;  it  was  confined 
mainly  to  the  circumstance  that  he  was  thereby  relieved 
from  the  inconvenience  of  directly  naming  the  kingly  office, 
and  so  alarming  the  mass  of  the  lukewarm  and  his  own 
adherents  by  that  detested  word.  The  democratic  banner 
hardly  yielded  farther  positive  gain,  since  the  ideals  of 
Gracchus  had  been  rendered  infamous  and  ridiculous  by 
Clodius ;  for  where  was  there  now — laying  aside  perhaps 
the  Transpadanes — any  class  of  any  sort  of  importance, 
which  would  have  been  induced  by  the  battle-cries  of  the 
democracy  to  take  part  in  the  struggle  ? 
The  This   state   of  things  would   have  decided  the  part  of 

and°CraCy  PomPerus  m  trie  impending  struggle,  even  if  apart  from  this 
Pompeius.  it  had  not  been  self-evident  that  he  could  only  enter  into  it 
as  the  general  of  the  legitimate  republic.  Nature  had 
destined  him,  if  ever  any  one,  to  be  a  member  of  an  aristo- 
cracy ;  and  nothing  but  very  accidental  and  very  selfish 
motives  had  carried  him  over  as  a  deserter  from  the  aristo- 
cratic to  the  democratic  camp.  That  he  should  now  revert 
to  his  Sullan  traditions,  was  not  merely  befitting  in  the 
case,  but  in  every  respect  of  essential  advantage.  Effete 
as  was  the  democratic  cry,  the  conservative  cry  could  not 
but  have  the  more  potent  effect,  if  it  proceeded  from  the 
right  man.  Perhaps  the  majority,  at  any  rate  the  flower  of 
the  burgesses,  belonged  to  the  constitutional  party ;  and  as 
respected  its  numerical  and  moral  strength  might  well  be 
called  to  interfere  powerfully,  perhaps  decisively,  in  the 
impending  struggle  of  the  pretenders.  It  wanted  nothing 
but  a  leader.  Marcus  Cato,  its  present  head,  did  the  duty, 
as  he  understood  it,  of  its  leader  amidst  daily  peril  to  his 
life  and  perhaps  without  hope  of  success ;  his  fidelity  to 
duty  deserves  respect,  but  to  be  the  last  at  a  forlorn  post  is 
commendable  in  the  soldier,  not  in  the  general.  He  had 
not  the  skill  either  to  organize  or  to  bring  into  action  at 
the  proper  time  the  powerful  reserve,  which  had  sprung  up 


CHAP.  IX  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       171 

as  it  were  spontaneously  in  Italy  for  the  party  of  the  over- 
thrown government ;  and  he  had  for  good  reasons  never 
made  any  pretension  to  the  military  leadership,  on  which 
everything  ultimately  depended.  If  instead  of  this  man, 
who  knew  not  how  to  act  either  as  party-chief  or  as  general, 
a  man  of  the  political  and  military  mark  of  Pompeius 
should  raise  the  banner  of  the  existing  constitution,  the 
municipals  of  Italy  would  necessarily  flock  towards  it  in 
crowds,  that  under  it  they  might  help  to  fight,  if  not  indeed 
for  the  kingship  of  Pompeius,  at  any  rate  against  the  king- 
ship of  Caesar. 

To  this  was  added  another  consideration  at  least  as 
important.  It  was  characteristic  of  Pompeius,  even  when 
he  had  formed  a  resolve,  not  to  be  able  to  find  his  way  to 
its  execution.  While  he  knew  perhaps  how  to  conduct 
war  but  certainly  not  how  to  declare  it,  the  Catonian  party, 
although  assuredly  unable  to  conduct  it,  was  very  able  and 
above  all  very  ready  to  supply  grounds  for  the  war  against 
the  monarchy  on  the  point  of  being  founded.  According  to 
the  intention  of  Pompeius,  while  he  kept  himself  aloof  and 
in  his  peculiar  way  now  talked  as  though  he  would  imme- 
diately depart  for  his  Spanish  provinces,  now  made  prepara- 
tions as  though  he  would  set  out  to  take  over  the  command 
on  the  Euphrates,  the  legitimate  governing  board,  namely 
the  senate,  were  to  break  with  Caesar,  to  declare  war  against 
him,  and  to  entrust  the  conduct  of  it  to  Pompeius,  who 
then,  yielding  to  the  general  desire,  was  to  come  forward  as 
the  protector  of  the  constitution  against  demagogico-mon- 
archical  plots,  as  an  upright  man  and  champion  of  the 
existing  order  of  things  against  the  profligates  and  anarchists, 
as  the  duly -installed  general  of  the  seriate  against  the 
Imperator  of  the  street,  and  so  once  mjre  to  save  his 
country.  Thus  Pompeius  gained  by  the  alliance  with  the 
conservatives  both  a  second  army  in  addition  to  his  personal 
adherents,  and  a  suitable  war-manifesto — advantages  which 


172  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

certainly  were  purchased  at  the  high  price  of  coalescing 
with  those  who  were  in  principle  opposed  to  him.  Of  the 
countless  evils  involved  in  this  coalition,  there  was  developed 
in  the  meantime  only  one — but  that  already  a  very  grave 
one — that  Pompeius  surrendered  the  power  of  commencing 
hostilities  against  Caesar  when  and  how  he  pleased,  and  in 
this  decisive  point  made  himself  dependent  on  all  the 
accidents  and  caprices  of  an  aristocratic  corporation. 
There-  Thus  the  republican  opposition,  after  having  been  for 

pu  ican  .  years  0Diige(j  t0  rest  content  with  the  part  of  a  mere  spec- 
tator and  having  hardly  ventured  to  whisper,  was  now 
brought  back  once  more  to  the  political  stage  by  the 
impending  rupture  between  the  regents.  It  consisted 
primarily  of  the  circle  which  rallied  round  Cato — those 
republicans  who  were  resolved  to  venture  on  the  struggle 
for  the  republic  and  against  the  monarchy  under  all  circum- 
stances, and  the  sooner  the  better.  The  pitiful  issue  of 
66.  the  attempt  made  in  698  (p.  128/?)  had  taught  them  that 
they  by  themselves  alone  were  not  in  a  position  either  to 
conduct  war  or  even  to  call  it  forth ;  it  was  known  to  every- 
one that  even  in  the  senate,  while  the  whole  corporation 
with  a  few  isolated  exceptions  was  averse  to  monarchy,  the 
majority  would  still  only  restore  the  oligarchic  government 
if  it  might  be  restored  without  danger — in  which  case, 
doubtless,  it  had  a  good  while  to  wait.  In  presence  of  the 
regents  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  of  this 
indolent  majority,  which  desired  peace  above  all  things 
and  at  any  price,  and  was  averse  to  any  decided  action  and 
most  of  all  to  a  decided  rupture  with  one  or  other  of  the 
regents,  the  only  possible  course  for  the  Catonian  party  to 
obtain  a  restoration  of  the  old  rule  lay  in  a  coalition  with 
the  less  dangerous  of  the  rulers.  If  Pompeius  acknowledged 
the  oligarchic  constitution  and  offered  to  fight  for  it  against 
Caesar,  the  republican  opposition  might  and  must  recognize 
him  as  its  general,  and  in  alliance  with  him  compel  the 


chap,  ix   RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS      173 

timid  majority  tc  a  declaration  of  war.  That  Pompeius 
was  not  quite  in  earnest  with  his  fidelity  to  the  constitution, 
could  indeed  escape  nobody ;  but,  undecided  as  he  was  in 
everything,  he  had  by  no  means  arrived  like  Caesar  at  a 
clear  and  firm  conviction  that  it  must  be  the  first  business 
of  the  new  monarch  to  sweep  off  thoroughly  and  conclu- 
sively the  oligarchic  lumber.  At  any  rate  the  war  would 
train  a  really  republican  army  and  really  republican  generals ; 
and,  after  the  victory  over  Caesar,  they  might  proceed  with 
more  favourable  prospects  to  set  aside  not  merely  one  of 
the  monarchs,  but  the  monarchy  itself,  which  was  in  the 
course  of  formation.  Desperate  as  was  the  cause  of  the 
oligarchy,  the  offer  of  Pompeius  to  become  its  ally  was  the 
most  favourable  arrangement  possible  for  it. 

The  conclusion  of  the  alliance  between  Pompeius  and  Their 
the  Catonian  party  was  effected  with  comparative  rapidity.  ^ague*Ml 
Already  during  the  dictatorship  of  Pompeius  a  remarkable 
approximation  had  taken  place  between  them.  The  whole 
behaviour  of  Pompeius  in  the  Milonian  crisis,  his  abrupt 
repulse  of  the  mob  that  offered  him  the  dictatorship,  his 
distinct  declaration  that  he  would  accept  this  office  only 
from  the  senate,  his  unrelenting  severity  against  disturbers 
of  the  peace  of  every  sort  and  especially  against  the  ultra- 
democrats,  the  surprising  complaisance  with  which  he  treated 
Cato  and  those  who  shared  his  views,  appeared  as  much 
calculated  to  gain  the  men  of  order  as  they  were  offensive 
to  the  democrat  Caesar.  On  the  other  hand  Cato  and  his 
followers,  instead  of  combating  with  their  wonted  sternness 
the  proposal  to  confer  the  dictatorship  on  Pompeius,  had 
made  it  with  immaterial  alterations  of  form  their  own ; 
Pompeius  had  received  the  undivided  consulship  primarily 
from  the  hands  of  Bibulus  and  Cato.  While  the  Catonian 
party  and  Pompeius  had  thus  at  least  a  tacit  understanding 
as  early  as  the  beginning  of  702,  the  alliance  might  be  held  52. 
as  formally  concluded,  when  at  the  consular  elections  for 


174 


DEATH  OF  CRASSUS 


BOOK  V 


Passive 
resistance 
of  Caesar. 


51.  703  there  was  elected  not  Cato  himself  indeed,  but — along 
with  an  insignificant  man  belonging  to  the  majority  of  the 
senate — one  of  the  most  decided  adherents  of  Cato,  Marcus 
Claudius  Marcellus.  Marcellus  was  no  furious  zealot  and 
still  less  a  genius,  but  a  steadfast  and  strict  aristocrat,  just 
the  right  man  to  declare  war  if  war  was  to  be  begun  with 
Caesar.  As  the  case  stood,  this  election,  so  surprising  after 
the  repressive  measures  adopted  immediately  before  against 
the  republican  opposition,  can  hardly  have  occurred  other- 
wise than  with  the  consent,  or  at  least  under  the  tacit  per- 
mission, of  the  regent  of  Rome  for  the  time  being.  Slowly 
and  clumsily,  as  was  his  wont,  but  steadily  Pompeius  moved 
onward  to  the  rupture. 

It  was  not  the  intention  of  Caesar  on  the  other  hand  to 
fall  out  at  this  moment  with  Pompeius.  He  could  not 
indeed  desire  seriously  and  permanently  to  share  the  ruling 
power  with  any  colleague,  least  of  all  with  one  of  so  second- 
ary a  sort  as  was  Pompeius;  and  beyond  doubt  he  had 
long  resolved  after  terminating  the  conquest  of  Gaul  to  take 
the  sole  power  for  himself,  and  in  case  of  need  to  extort  it 
by  force  of  arms.  But  a  man  like  Caesar,  in  whom  the 
officer  was  thoroughly  subordinate  to  the  statesman,  could 
not  fail  to  perceive  that  the  regulation  of  the  political 
organism  by  force  of  arms  does  in  its  consequences  deeply 
and  often  permanently  disorganize  it ;  and  therefore  he 
could  not  but  seek  to  solve  the  difficulty,  if  at  all  possible, 
by  peaceful  means  or  at  least  without  open  civil  war.  But 
even  if  civil  war  was  not  to  be  avoided,  he  could  not  desire 
to  be  driven  to  it  at  a  time,  when  in  Gaul  the  rising  of 
Vercingetorix  imperilled  afresh  all  that  had  been  obtained 
and  occupied  him  without  interruption  from  the  winter  of 
58-62.  701-702  to  the  winter  of  702— 703,  and  when  Pompeius  and 
52-51.  tne  constitutional  party  opposed  to  him  on  principle  were 
dominant  in  Italy.  Accordingly  he  sought  to  preserve  the 
relation  with  Pompeius  and  thereby  the  peace  unbroken, 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       175 

and  to  attain,  if  at  all  possible,  by  peaceful  means  to  the 
consulship  for  706  already  assured  to  him  at  Luca.      If  he  48. 
should  then  after  a  conclusive  settlement  of  Celtic  affairs 
be  placed  in  a  regular  manner  at  the  head  of  the  state,  he, 
who  was  still  more  decidedly  superior  to  Pompeius  as  a 
statesman   than  as  a  general,  might  well   reckon  on  out- 
manoeuvring   the  latter   in   the   senate-house    and   in   the 
Forum  without  special  difficulty.     Perhaps  it  was  possible 
to  find  out  for  his  awkward,  vacillating,  and  arrogant  rival 
some  sort  of  honourable  and  influential  position,  in  which 
the  latter  might   be  content  to  sink   into  a  nullity;  the 
repeated  attempts   of  Caesar  to  keep  himself  related   by 
marriage  to  Pompeius,  may  have  been  designed  to  pave 
the  way  for  such  a  solution  and  to  bring  about  a  final 
settlement  of  the  old  quarrel  through  the  succession  of  off- 
spring  inheriting    the  blood  of  both   competitors.      The 
republican  opposition  would  then  remain  without  a  leader 
and  therefore  probably  quiet,  and  peace  would  be  preserved. 
If  this  should  not  be  successful,  and  if  there  should  be,  as 
was  certainly  possible,  a  necessity  for  ultimately  resorting 
to  the  decision  of  arms,  Caesar  would  then  as  consul  in 
Rome  dispose  of  the  compliant  majority  of  the  senate; 
and  he  could  impede  or  perhaps  frustrate  the  coalition  of 
the  Pompeians  and  the  republicans,  and  conduct  the  war 
far  more  suitably  and  more  advantageously,  than  if  he  now 
as  proconsul  of  Gaul  gave  orders  to  march  against  the 
senate  and  its  general.     Certainly  the  success  of  this  plan 
depended  on  Pompeius  being  good-natured  enough  to  let 
Caesar  still  obtain  the  consulship  for  706  assured  to  him  at  48. 
Luca ;  but,  even  if  it  failed,  it  would  be  always  of  advantage 
for  Caesar  to  have  given  practical  and  repeated  evidence  of 
the  most   yielding    disposition.     On  the   one  hand  time 
would  thus  be  gained  for  attaining  his  object  meanwhile  in 
Gaul ;  on  the  other  hand  his  opponents  would  be  left  with 
the  odium  of  initiating  the  rupture  and  consequently  the 


176  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

civil  war — which  was  of  the  utmost  moment  for  Caesar  with 
reference  to  the  majority  of  the  senate  and  the  party  of 
material  interests,  and  more  especially  with  reference  to  his 
own  soldiers. 

On  these  views  he  acted.  He  armed  certainly;  the 
number  of  his  legions  was  raised  through  new  levies  in 
52-51.  the  winter  of  702—703  to  eleven,  including  that  borrowed 
from  Pompeius.  But  at  the  same  time  he  expressly  and 
openly  approved  of  Pompeius'  conduct  during  the  dictator- 
ship and  the  restoration  of  order  in  the  capital  which  he 
had  effected,  rejected  the  warnings  of  officious  friends  as 
calumnies,  reckoned  every  day  by  which  he  succeeded  in 
postponing  the  catastrophe  a  gain,  overlooked  whatever 
could  be  overlooked  and  bore  whatever  could  be  borne 
— immoveably  adhering  only  to  the  one  decisive  demand 
that,  when  his  governorship  of  Gaul  came  to  an  end 
49.  with  705,  the  second  consulship,  admissible  by  republican 
state-law  and  promised  to  him  according  to  agreement  by 

48.  his  colleague,  should  be  granted  to  him  for  the  year  706. 
Prepara-  This    very    demand    became   the    battle  -  field   of  the 
"tta  ks        diplomatic  war  which  now  began.    If  Caesar  were  compelled 
Caesar.        either  to  resign  his  office  of  governor  before  the  last  day 

49.  of  December  705,  or  to  postpone  the  assumption  of  the 
48.  magistracy  in  the  capital  beyond  the   1st  January  706,  so 

that  he  should  remain  for  a  time  between  the  governorship 

and  the  consulate  without  office,  and  consequently  liable 

to  criminal  impeachment — which  according  to  Roman  law 

was  only  allowable  against  one  who  was  not  in  office — 

the  public  had  good  reason  to  prophesy  for  him  in  this 

case  the  fate  of  Milo,  because  Cato  had  for  long  been 

ready  to  impeach  him  and   Pompeius  was  a  more  than 

doubtful  protector. 

Attempt  Now,  to  attain  that  object,  Caesar's  opponents  had  a 

JJ  keep        v       simple  means.     According  to  the  existing  ordinance 

of  the         as  to  elections,  every  candidate  for  the  consulship  was* 
consulship. 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       177 

obliged  to  announce  himself  personally  to  the  presiding 
magistrate,  and  to  cause  his  name  to  be  inscribed  on  the 
official  list  of  candidates  before  the  election,  that  is  half 
a  year  before  entering  on  office.  It  had  probably  been 
regarded  in  the  conferences  at  Luca  as  a  matter  of  course 
that  Caesar  would  be  released  from  this  obligation,  which 
was  purely  formal  and  was  very  often  dispensed  with ;  but 
the  decree  to  that  effect  had  not  yet  been  issued,  and,  as 
Pompeius  was  now  in  possession  of  the  decretive  machinery, 
Caesar  depended  in  this  respect  on  the  good  will  of  his 
rival.  Pompeius  incomprehensibly  abandoned  of  his 
own  accord  this  completely  secure  position ;  with  his 
consent  and  during  his  dictatorship  (702)  the  personal  52. 
appearance  of  Caesar  was  dispensed  with  by  a  tribunician 
law.  When  however  soon  afterwards  the  new  election- 
ordinance  (p.  146)  was  issued,  the  obligation  of  candidates 
personally  to  enrol  themselves  was  repeated  in  general 
terms,  and  no  sort  of  exception  was  added  in  favour  of 
those  released  from  it  by  earlier  resolutions  of  the  people ; 
according  to  strict  form  the  privilege  granted  in  favour  of 
Caesar  was  cancelled  by  the  later  general  law.  Caesar 
complained,  and  the  clause  was  subsequently  appended 
but  not  confirmed  by  special  decree  of  the  people,  so 
that  this  enactment  inserted  by  mere  interpolation  in  the 
already  promulgated  law  could  only  be  looked  on  de  jure 
as  a  nullity.  Where  Pompeius,  therefore,  might  have 
simply  kept  by  the  law,  he  had  preferred  first  to  make  a 
spontaneous  concession,  then  to  recall  it,  and  lastly  to 
cloak  this  recall  in  a  manner  most  disloyal. 

While  in  this  way  the  shortening  of  Caesar's  governor-  Attempt  to 
ship  was  only  aimed  at  indirectly,  the  regulations  issued  £Ss 
at  the  same  time  as  to  the  governorships  sought  the  same  governor- 
object  directly.     The  ten  years  for  which  the  governorship      **" 
had  been  secured  to  Caesar,  in  the  last  instance  through 
the  law  proposed  by  Pompeius   himself  in   concert  with 
VOL.  V  145 


i?8  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  V 

Crassus,   ran  according  to  the  usual   mode   of  reckoning 
69.    49.  from  i  March  695  to  the  last  day  of  February  705.     As, 
however,  according  to  the  earlier  practice,  the  proconsul 
or  propraetor  had  the  right  of  entering  on  his  provincial 
magistracy  immediately  after  the  termination  of  his  consul- 
ship or  praetorship,   the  successor  of  Caesar  was  to  be 
50.  nominated,   not   from  the  urban  magistrates  of  704,  but 
49.  from  those  of  705,  and  could  not  therefore  enter  before 

48.  1  st  Jan.    706.     So   far   Caesar  had   still   during  the  last 

49.  ten  months  of  the  year  705  a  right  to  the  command,  not 
on  the  ground  of  the  Pompeio-Licinian  law,  but  on  the 
ground  of  the  old  rule  that  a  command  with  a  set  term 
still  continued  after  the  expiry  of  the  term  up  to  the 
arrival  of  the  successor.     But  now,  since  the  new  regulation 

52.  of  702  called  to  the  governorships  not  the  consuls  and 
praetors  going  out,  but  those  who  had  gone  out  five 
years  ago  or  more,  and  thus  prescribed  an  interval  between 
the  civil  magistracy  and  the  command  instead  of  the 
previous  immediate  sequence,  there  was  no  longer  any 
difficulty  in  straightway  filling  up  from  another  quarter 
every  legally  vacant  governorship,  and  so,  in  the  case  in 
question,    bringing    about    for    the    Gallic    provinces    the 

49.  change  of  command  on  the  1st  March  705,  instead  of  the 

48.  istjan.  706.  The  pitiful  dissimulation  and  procrastinating 
artifice  of  Pompeius  are  after  a  remarkable  manner  mixed 
up,  in  these  arrangements,  with  the  wily  formalism  and 
the  constitutional  erudition  of  the  republican  party.  Years 
before  these  weapons  of  state-law  could  be  employed,  they 
had  them  duly  prepared,  and  put  themselves  in  a  condition 
on  the  one  hand  to  compel  Caesar  to  the  resignation  of 
his  command  from  the  day  when  the  term  secured  to 
him  by  Pompeius'  own  law  expired,  that  is  from  the   1st 

49.  March  705,  by  sending  successors  to  him,  and  on  the 
other  hand  to  be  able  to  treat  as  null  and  void  the  votes 

48.  tendered  for  him  at  the  elections  for  706.     Caesar,  not 


CHAP,  ix   RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       179 

m  a  position  to   hinder  these  moves  in  the  game,   kept 
silence  and  left  things  to  their  own  course. 

Gradually  therefore  the  slow  course  of  constitutional  Debates  as 
procedure  developed  itself.  According  to  custom  the  TecajL 
senate  had  to  deliberate  on  the  governorships  of  the  year 
705,  so  far  as  they  went  to  former  consuls,  at  the  beginning  49. 
of  703,  so  far  as  they  went  to  former  praetors,  at  the  51. 
beginning  of  704;  that  earlier  deliberation  gave  the  first  50. 
occasion  to  discuss  the  nomination  of  new  governors  for 
the  two  Gauls  in  the  senate,  and  thereby  the  first  occasion 
for  open  collision  between  the  constitutional  party  pushed 
forward  by  Pompeius  and  the  senatorial  supporters  of 
Caesar.  The  consul  Marcus  Marcellus  introduced  a 
proposal  to  give  the  two  provinces  hitherto  administered 
by  the  proconsul  Gaius  Caesar  from  the  1st  March  705  49. 
to  the  two  consulars  who  were  to  be  provided  with  governor- 
ships for  that  year.  The  long-repressed  indignation  burst 
forth  in  a  torrent  through  the  sluice  once  opened ;  every- 
thing that  the  Catonians  were  meditating  against  Caesar 
was  brought  forward  in  these  discussions.  For  them  it 
was  a  settled  point,  that  the  right  granted  by  exceptional 
law  to  the  proconsul  Caesar  of  announcing  his  candidature 
for  the  consulship  in  absence  had  been  again  cancelled 
by  a  subsequent  decree  of  the  people,  and  that  the 
reservation  inserted  in  the  latter  was  invalid.  The  senate 
should  in  their  opinion  cause  this  magistrate,  now  that 
the  subjugation  of  Gaul  was  ended,  to  discharge  immediately 
the  soldiers  who  had  served  out  their  time.  The  cases 
in  which  Caesar  had  bestowed  burgess-rights  and  established 
colonies  in  Upper  Italy  were  described  by  them  as  un- 
constitutional and  null ;  in  further  illustration  of  which 
Marcellus  ordained  that  a  respected  senator  of  the 
Caesarian  colony  of  Comum,  who,  even  if  that  place  had 
not  burgess  but  only  Latin  rights,  was  entitled  to  lay 
claim  to  Roman  citizenship   (p.  132),  should  receive  the 


i8o  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

punishment  of  scourging,  which  was   admissible  only  in 
the  case  of  non-burgesses. 

The  supporters  of  Caesar  at  this  time — among  whom 
Gaius  Vibius  Pansa,  who  was  the  son  of  a  man  proscribed 
by  Sulla  but  yet  had  entered  on  a  political  career,  formerly 
an  officer  in  Caesar's  army  and  in  this  year  tribune  of  the 
people,  was  the  most  notable — affirmed  in  the  senate  that 
both  the  state  of  things  in  Gaul  and  equity  demanded  not 
only  that  Caesar  should  not  be  recalled  before  the  time, 
but  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  retain  the  command  along 
with  the  consulship ;  and  they  pointed  beyond  doubt  to 
the  facts,  that  a  few  years  previously  Pompeius  had  just  in 
the  same  way  combined  the  Spanish  governorships  with 
the  consulate,  that  even  at  the  present  time,  besides  the 
important  office  of  superintending  the  supply  of  food  to 
the  capital,  he  held  the  supreme  command  in  Italy  in 
addition  to  the  Spanish,  and  that  in  fact  the  whole  men 
capable  of  arms  had  been  sworn  in  by  him  and  had  not 
yet  been  released  from  their  oath. 

The  process  began  to  take  shape,  but  its  course  was  not 
on  that  account  more  rapid.  The  majority  of  the  senate, 
seeing  the  breach  approaching,  allowed  no  sitting  capable 
of  issuing  a  decree  to  take  place  for  months  ;  and  other 
months  in  their  turn  were  lost  over  the  solemn  procrastina- 
tion of  Pompeius.  At  length  the  latter  broke  the  silence 
and  ranged  himself,  in  a  reserved  and  vacillating  fashion  as 
usual  but  yet  plainly  enough,  on  the  side  of  the  constitu- 
tional party  against  his  former  ally.  He  summarily  and 
abruptly  rejected  the  demand  of  the  Caesarians  that  their 
master  should  be  allowed  to  conjoin  the  consulship  and  the 
proconsulship ;  this  demand,  he  added  with  blunt  coarse- 
ness, seemed  to  him  no  better  than  if  a  son  should  offer  to 
flog  his  father.  He  approved  in  principle  the  proposal  or 
Marcellus,  in  so  far  as  he  too  declared  that  he  would  not 
allow  Caesar  directly  to  attach  the  consulship  to  the  pro- 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS      181 

consulship.     He  hinted,  however,  although  without  making 
any   binding   declaration    on    the   point,    that  they   would 
perhaps  grant  to  Caesar  admission  to  the  elections  for  706  48. 
without  requiring  his  personal  announcement,  as  well  as  the 
continuance  of  his  governorship  at  the  utmost  to  the  13th 
Nov.    705.      But  in  the  meantime   the  incorrigible    pro-  49. 
crastinator  consented  to  the  postponement  of  the  nomination 
of  successors  to  the  last  day  of  Feb.  704,  which  was  asked  50. 
by  the  representatives  of  Caesar,  probably  on  the  ground 
of    a    clause    of    the   Pompeio-Licinian    law    forbidding 
any  discussion    in    the  senate    as   to    the    nomination   of 
successors  before  the  beginning  of  Caesar's  last  year  of 
office. 

In  this  sense  accordingly  the  decrees  of  the  senate  were 
issued  (29  Sept.  703).  The  filling  up  of  the  Gallic  51. 
governorships  was  placed  in  the  order  of  the  day  for  the  1st 
March  704;  but  even  now  it  was  attempted  to  break  up  50. 
the  army  of  Caesar — just  as  had  formerly  been  done  by 
decree  of  the  people  with  the  army  of  Lucullus  (iv.  349,  387) 
— by  inducing  his  veterans  to  apply  to  the  senate  for  their 
discharge.  Caesar's  supporters  effected,  indeed,  as  far  as 
they  constitutionally  could,  the  cancelling  of  these  decrees 
by  their  tribunician  veto ;  but  Pompeius  very  distinctly 
declared  that  the  magistrates  were  bound  unconditionally 
to  obey  the  senate,  and  that  intercessions  and  similar 
antiquated  formalities  would  produce  no  change.  The 
oligarchical  party,  whose  organ  Pompeius  now  made 
himself,  betrayed  not  obscurely  the  design,  in  the  event  of 
a  victory,  of  revising  the  constitution  in  their  sense  and 
removing  everything  which  had  even  the  semblance  of 
popular  freedom ;  as  indeed,  doubtless  for  this  reason,  it 
omitted  to  avail  itself  of  the  comitia  at  all  in  its  attacks 
directed  against  Caesar.  The  coalition  between  Pompeius 
and  the  constitutional  party  was  thus  formally  declared; 
sentence  too  was  already  evidently  passed  on  Caesar,  and 


182  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  xJOOk  v 

the  term  of  its  promulgation  was  simply  postponed      The 
elections  for  the  following  year  proved  thoroughly  'adverse 
to  him. 
Counter-  During  these  party  manoeuvres  of  hh  antagonists  pre- 

mentsof      paratory  to  war,  Caesar  had  succeeded  in  getting  rid  of  the 
Caesar.        Gallic  insurrection  and  restoring  the  state  of  peace  in  the 
61.  whole  subject  territory.     As  early  ar.  the  summer  of  703, 
under  the  convenient  pretext  of  defending  the  frontier  (p.  103) 
but  evidently  in  token  of  the  fact  that  the  legions  in  Gaul 
were  now  beginning  to  be  no  longe*  needed  there,  he  moved 
one  of  them   to  North   Italy.     He  could  not  avoid  per 
ceiving  now  at  any  rate,  if  not  earlier,  that  he  would  :iot  b* 
spared    the   necessity   of   drawing    the    sword   against    his 
fellow-citizens ;    nevertheless,  as  it  was  highly  desirable  to 
leave  the  legions  still  f  jr  a  time  in  the  barely  pacified  Gaul, 
he  sought  even  yei  to  procrastinate,  and,  ^e1!  acquainted 
with  the  extreme  lova  of  peace  in  the  rr.ajor>/  of  the  senate, 
did  not  abandon  the  hope  of  still  restra'ning  them  from  the 
declaration  cf  war  in  spite  of  the  prepare  exercised  over 
them  by  Pompeius.     He  did  no'.  ev,n  hesitate  to  make 
great  sacrifices,  if  only  he  might  avoii  for  the  present  open 
variance  with  the  supreme  gjvf,r.ii.ng  board.     When  the 
60.  senate  (in  the  spring  of  704)  r.t  the  suggestion  of  Pompeius 
requested  both  him  and  Cuef-ir  to  furnish  each  a  legion 
for  the  impending  Parthkx  war  (p.  167)  and  when  agreeably 
to  this  resolution  Po:r.pe:i's  demanded  back  from  Caesar 
the  legion  lent  to  him  sjme  years  before,  so  as  to  send  it 
to  Syria,  Caesar  complied  with  the  double  demand,  because 
neither  the  oppoitu.icness  of  this  decree  of  the  senate  nor 
the  justice  of  the  demand  of  Pompeius  could  in  themselves 
be  disputed,  and  the  keeping  within  the  bounds  of  the  law 
and  of  formal  loyalty  was  of  more  consequence  to  Caesar 
than  a  few  thousand  soldiers.     The  two  legions  came  without 
delay  and  placed  themselves  at  the  disposal  of  the  govern- 
ment, but  instead  of  sending  them  to  the  Euphrates,  the 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       183 

latter  kept  them  at  Capua  in  readiness  for  Pompeius ;  and 
the  public  had  once  more  the  opportunity  of  comparing 
the  manifest  endeavours  of  Caesar  to  avoid  a  rupture  with 
the  perfidious  preparation  for  war  by  his  opponents. 

For  the  discussions  with  the  senate  Caesar  had  succeeded  Curia 
in  purchasing  not  only  one  of  the  two  consuls  of  the  year, 
Lucius  Aemilius  Paullus,  but  above  all  the  tribune  of  the 
people  Gaius  Curio,  probably  the  most  eminent  among  the 
many  profligate  men  of  parts  in  this  epoch  ; 1  unsurpassed  in 
refined  elegance,  in  fluent  and  clever  oratory,  in  dexterity 
of  intrigue,  and  in  that  energy  which  in  the  case  of  vigorous 
but  vicious  characters  bestirs  itself  only  the  more  powerfully 
amid  the  pauses  of  idleness ;  but  also  unsurpassed  in  his 
dissolute  life,  in  his  talent  for  borrowing — his  debts  were 
estimated  at  60,000,000  sesterces  (^600,000) — and  in  his 
moral  and  political  want  of  principle.  He  had  previously 
offered  himself  to  be  bought  by  Caesar  and  had  been 
rejected ;  the  talent,  which  he  thenceforward  displayed  in 
his  attacks  on  Caesar,  induced  the  latter  subsequently  to 
buy  him  up — the  price  was  high,  but  the  commodity  was 
worth  the  money. 

Curio  had  in  the  first  months  of  his  tribunate  of  the  Debates 
people  played  the  independent  republican,  and  had  as  such  *"*~   5 
thundered  both  against  Caesar  and  against  Pompeius.     He  Caesar  and 
availed  himself  with  rare  skill  of  the  apparently  impartia     omPeius- 
position   which   this  gave   him,  when   in    March   704   the  50. 
proposal  as  to  the  filling  up  of  the  Gallic  governorships  for 
the  next  year  came  up  afresh  for  discussion  in  the  senate ; 
he  completely  approved  the  decree,  but  asked  that  it  should 
be  at  the  same  time  extended  to  Pompeius  and  his  extra- 
ordinary commands.     His  arguments— that  a  constitutional 
state  of  things  could  only  be  brought  about  by  the  removal 
of  all  exceptional  positions,  that  Pompeius  as  merely  en- 
trusted by  the  senate  with  the  proconsulship  could  still  less 
1  Homo  ingatiosissime  nequam  (Vellei.  ii.  48). 


i84  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

than  Caesar  refuse  obedience  to  it,  that  the  one-sided 
removal  of  one  of  the  two  generals  would  only  increase  the 
danger  to  the  constitution — carried  complete  conviction  to 
superficial  politicians  and  to  the  public  at  large ;  and  the 
declaration  of  Curio,  that  he  intended  to  prevent  any  one- 
sided proceedings  against  Caesar  by  the  veto  constitutionally 
belonging  to  him,  met  with  much  approval  in  and  out  of 
the  senate.  Caesar  declared  his  consent  at  once  to  Curio's 
proposal  and  offered  to  resign  his  governorship  and  command 
at  any  moment  on  the  summons  of  the  senate,  provided 
Pompeius  would  do  the  same;  he  might  safely  do  so,  for 
Pompeius  without  his  Italo-Spanish  command  was  no 
longer  formidable.  Pompeius  again  for  that  very  reason 
could  not  avoid  refusing  ;  his  reply — that  Caesar  must  first 
resign,  and  that  he  meant  speedily  to  follow  the  example 
thus  set — was  the  less  satisfactory,  that  he  did  not  even 
specify  a  definite  term  for  his  retirement.  Again  the 
decision  was  delayed  for  months;  Pompeius  and  the 
Catonians,  perceiving  the  dubious  humour  of  the  majority  of 
the  senate,  did  not  venture  to  bring  Curio's  proposal  to  a 
vote.  Caesar  employed  the  summer  in  establishing  the 
state  of  peace  in  the  regions  which  he  had  conquered,  in 
holding  a  great  review  of  his  troops  on  the  Scheldt,  and 
in  making  a  triumphal  march  through  the  province  of 
North  Italy,  which  was  entirely  devoted  to  him  ;  autumn 
found  him  in  Ravenna,  the  southern  frontier-town  of  his 
province. 
Caesar  and  The  vote  which  could  no  longer  be  delayed  on  Curio's 
Pompeius  pr0p0sai  at  length  took  place,  and  exhibited  the  defeat  of 
recalled.  the  party  of  Pompeius  and  Cato  in  all  its  extent.  By  370 
votes  against  20  the  senate  resolved  that  the  proconsuls  of 
Spain  and  Gaul  should  both  be  called  upon  to  resign  their 
offices;  and  with  boundless  joy  the  good  burgesses  of 
Rome  heard  the  glad  news  of  the  saving  achievement  of 
Curio.     Pompeius  was  thus  recalled  by  the  senate  no  less 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       185 

than  Caesar,  and  while  Caesar  was  ready  to  comply  with 
the  command,  Pompeius  positively  refused  obedience. 
The  presiding  consul  Gaius  Marcellus,  cousin  of  Marcus 
Marcellus  and  like  the  latter  belonging  to  the  Catonian 
party,  addressed  a  severe  lecture  to  the  servile  majority; 
and  it  was,  no  doubt,  vexatious  to  be  thus  beaten  in  their 
own  camp  and  beaten  by  means  of  a  phalanx  of  poltroons. 
But  where  was  victory  to  come  from  under  a  leader,  who, 
instead  of  shortly  and  distinctly  dictating  his  orders  to  the 
senators,  resorted  in  his  old  days  a  second  time  to  the  in- 
structions of  a  professor  of  rhetoric,  that  with  eloquence 
polished  up  afresh  he  might  encounter  the  youthful  vigour 
and  brilliant  talents  of  Curio  ? 

The  coalition,  defeated  in  the  senate,  was  in  the  most  Declara- 
painful  position.  The  Catonian  section  had  undertaken  to  tionoflM* 
push  matters  to  a  rupture  and  to  carry  the  senate  along 
with  them,  and  now  saw  their  vessel  stranded  after  a  most 
vexatious  manner  on  the  sandbanks  of  the  indolent  majority. 
Their  leaders  had  to  listen  in  their  conferences  to  the 
bitterest  reproaches  from  Pompeius ;  he  pointed  out  em- 
phatically and  with  entire  justice  the  dangers  of  the  seem- 
ing peace ;  and,  though  it  depended  on  himself  alone  to 
cut  the  knot  by  rapid  action,  his  allies  knew  very  well  that 
they  could  never  expect  this  from  him,  and  that  it  was  for 
them,  as  they  had  promised,  to  bring  matters  to  a  crisis. 
After  the  champions  of  the  constitution  and  of  senatorial 
government  had  already  declared  the  constitutional  rights 
of  the  burgesses  and  of  the  tribunes  of  the  people  to  be 
meaningless  formalities  (p.  181),  they  now  found  them- 
selves driven  by  necessity  to  treat  the  constitutional 
decision;  of  the  senate  itself  in  a  similar  manner  and,  as 
the  legitimate  government  would  not  let  itself  be  saved 
with  its  own  consent,  to  save  it  against  its  will.  This  was 
neither  new  nor  accidental ;  Sulla  (iv.  97)  and  Lucullus 
(iv.  335)hadbeenobligedtocarry every energeticresolu- 


186  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

tion  conceived  by  them  in  the  true  interest  of  the  govern- 
ment with  a  high  hand  irrespective  of  it,  just  as  Cato  and 
his  friends  now  proposed  to  do ;  the  machinery  of  the 
constitution  was  in  fact  utterly  effete,  and  the  senate  was 
now — as  the  comitia  had  been  for  centuries — nothing  but 
a  worn-out  wheel  slipping  constantly  out  of  its  track. 
60.  It  was  rumoured  (Oct.  704)  that  Caesar  had  moved 
four  legions  from  Transalpine  into  Cisalpine  Gaul  and 
stationed  them  at  Placentia.  This  transference  of  troops 
was  of  itself  within  the  prerogative  of  the  governor ;  Curio 
moreover  palpably  showed  in  the  senate  the  utter  ground- 
lessness of  the  rumour;  and  they  by  a  majority  rejected 
the  proposal  of  the  consul  Gaius  Marcellus  to  give  Pompeius 
on  the  strength  of  it  orders  to  march  against  Caesar.  Yet 
the  said  consul,  in  concert  with  the  two  consuls  elected  for 

49.  705  who  likewise  belonged  to  the  Catonian  party,  proceeded 
to  Pompeius,  and  these  three  men  by  virtue  of  their  own 
plenitude  of  power  requested  the  general  to  put  himself  at 
the  head  of  the  two  legions  stationed  at  Capua,  and  to  call 
the  Italian  militia  to  arms  at  his  discretion.  A  more  in- 
formal authorization  for  the  commencement  of  a  civil  war 
can  hardly  be  conceived ;  but  people  had  no  longer  time 
to  attend  to  such  secondary  matters ;  Pompeius  accepted 
it.  The  military  preparations,  the  levies  began ;  in  order 
personally  to  forward  them,  Pompeius  left  the  capital  in 

50.  December  704. 

The  Caesar  had  completely  attained  the  object  of  devolving 

ultimatum    ^q  initiative  of  civil  war  on  his  opponents.     He  had,  while 

i  m    *    tlt'ScLT* 

himself  keeping  on  legal  ground,  compelled  Pompeius  to 
declare  war,  and  to  declare  it  not  as  representative  of  the 
legitimate  authority,  but  as  general  of  an  openly  revolution- 
ary minority  of  the  senate  which  overawed  the  majority. 
This  result  was  not  to  be  reckoned  of  slight  importance, 
although  the  instinct  of  the  masses  could  not  and  did  not 
deceive  itself  for  a  moment  as  to  the  fact  that  the  war  con- 


chap,  ix    RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       187 

cerned  other  things  than  questions  of  formal  law.  Now, 
when  war  was  declared,  it  was  Caesar's  interest  to  strike  a 
blow  as  soon  as  possible.  The  preparations  of  his  oppo- 
nents were  just  beginning,  and  even  the  capital  was  not 
occupied.  In  ten  or  twelve  days  an  army  three  times  as 
strong  as  the  troops  of  Caesar  that  were  in  Upper  Italy 
could  be  collected  at  Rome ;  but  still  it  was  not  impossible 
to  surprise  the  city  undefended,  or  even  perhaps  by  a  rapid 
winter  campaign  to  seize  all  Italy,  and  to  shut  off  the  best 
resources  of  his  opponents  before  they  could  make  them 
available.  The  sagacious  and  energetic  Curio,  who  after 
resigning  his  tribunate  (10  Dec.  704)  had  immediately  50. 
gone  to  Caesar  at  Ravenna,  vividly  represented  the  state 
of  things  to  his  master ;  and  it  hardly  needed  such  a  repre- 
sentation to  convince  Caesar  that  longer  delay  now  could 
only  be  injurious.  But,  as  he  with  the  view  of  not  giving 
his  antagonists  occasion  to  complain  had  hitherto  brought 
no  troops  to  Ravenna  itself,  he  could  for  the  present  do 
nothing  but  despatch  orders  to  his  whole  force  to  set  out 
with  all  haste ;  and  he  had  to  wait  till  at  least  the  one 
legion  stationed  in  Upper  Italy  reached  Ravenna.  Mean- 
while he  sent  an  ultimatum  to  Rome,  which,  if  useful  for 
nothing  else,  by  its  extreme  submissiveness  still  farther 
compromised  his  opponents  in  public  opinion,  and  perhaps 
even,  as  he  seemed  himself  to  hesitate,  induced  them  to 
prosecute  more  remissly  their  preparations  against  him. 
In  this  ultimatum  Caesar  dropped  all  the  counter-demands 
which  he  formerly  made  on  Pompeius,  and  offered  on  his 
own  part  both  to  resign  the  governorship  of  Transalpine 
Gaul,  and  to  dismiss  eight  of  the  ten  legions  belonging  to 
him,  at  the  term  fixed  by  the  senate ;  he  declared  himself 
content,  if  the  senate  would  leave  him  either  the  governor- 
ship of  Cisalpine  Gaul  and  Illyria  with  one,  or  that  of  Cis- 
alpine Gaul  alone  with  two,  legions,  not,  forsooth,  up  to  his 
investiture  with  the  consulship,  but  till  after  the  close  of 


188  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

48.  the  consular  elections  for  706.  He  thus  consented  to 
those  proposals  of  accommodation,  with  which  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  discussions  the  senatorial  party  and  even 
Pompeius  himself  had  declared  that  they  would  be  satis- 
fied, and  showed  himself  ready  to  remain  in  a  private 
position  from  his  election  to  the  consulate  down  to  his 
entering  on  office.  Whether  Caesar  was  in  earnest  with 
these  astonishing  concessions  and  had  confidence  that  he 
should  be  able  to  carry  through  his  game  against  Pompeius 
even  after  granting  so  much,  or  whether  he  reckoned  that 
those  on  the  other  side  had  already  gone  too  far  to  find  in 
these  proposals  of  compromise  more  than  a  proof  that 
Caesar  regarded  his  cause  itself  as  lost,  can  no  longer  be 
with  certainty  determined.  The  probability  is,  that  Caesar 
committed  the  fault  of  playing  a  too  bold  game,  far  rather 
than  the  worse  fault  of  promising  something  which  he  was 
not  minded  to  perform ;  and  that,  if  strangely  enough  his 
proposals  had  been  accepted,  he  would  have  made  good 
his  word. 

Last  Curio  undertook  once  more  to  represent  his  master  in 

fhesenate.   tne  lion's  den-     *n  tnree  days  he  made  the  journey  from 

Ravenna  to  Rome.     When  the  new  consuls  Lucius  Lentulus 

and  Gaius  Marcellus  the  younger1  assembled  the  senate 

49.  for  the  first  time  on  1  Jan.  705,  he  delivered  in  a  full 
meeting  the  letter  addressed  by  the  general  to  the  senate. 
The  tribunes  of  the  people,  Marcus  Antonius  well  known 
in  the  chronicle  of  scandal  of  the  city  as  the  intimate  friend 
of  Curio  and  his  accomplice  in  all  his  follies,  but  at  the 
same  time  known  from  the  Egyptian  and  Gallic  campaigns 
as  a  brilliant  cavalry  officer,  and  Quintus  Cassius,  Pompeius' 
former  quaestor, — the  two,  who  were  now  in  Curio's  stead 
managing  the  cause  of  Caesar  in  Rome — insisted  on  the 

60.  *  To  be  distinguished  from  the  consul  having  the  same  name  of  704 ; 
49.  the  latter  was  a  cousin,  the  consul  of  705  a  brother,  of  the  Marcus  Mar- 
51.  cellus  who  was  consul  in  703. 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       189 

immediate  reading  of  the  despatch.  The  grave  and  clear 
words  in  which  Caesar  set  forth  the  imminence  of  civil 
war,  the  general  wish  for  peace,  the  arrogance  of  Pompeius, 
and  his  own  yielding  disposition,  with  all  the  irresistible 
force  of  truth ;  the  proposals  for  a  compromise,  of  a  mod- 
eration which  doubtless  surprised  his  own  partisans;  the 
distinct  declaration  that  this  was  the  last  time  that  he 
should  offer  his  hand  for  peace — made  the  deepest  impres- 
sion. In  spite  of  the  dread  inspired  by  the  numerous 
soldiers  of  Pompeius  who  flocked  into  the  capital,  the 
sentiment  of  the  majority  was  not  doubtful ;  the  consuls 
could  not  venture  to  let  it  find  expression.  Respecting 
the  proposal  renewed  by  Caesar  that  both  generals  might 
be  enjoined  to  resign  their  commands  simultaneously, 
respecting  all  the  projects  of  accommodation  suggested  by 
his  letter,  and  respecting  the  proposal  made  by  Marcus 
Coelius  Rufus  and  Marcus  Calidius  that  Pompeius  should 
be  urged  immediately  to  depart  for  Spain,  the  consuls 
refused — as  they  in  the  capacity  of  presiding  officers  were 
entitled  to  do — to  let  a  vote  take  place.  Even  the  pro- 
posal of  one  of  their  most  decided  partisans  who  was 
simply  not  so  blind  to  the  military  position  of  affairs  as  his 
party,  Marcus  Marcellus — to  defer  the  determination  till 
the  Italian  levy  en  masse  could  be  under  arms  and  could 
protect  the  senate — was  not  allowed  to  be  brought  to  a 
vote.  Pompeius  caused  it  to  be  declared  through  his 
usual  organ,  Quintus  Scipio,  that  he  was  resolved  to  take 
up  the  cause  of  the  senate  now  or  never,  and  that  he  would 
let  it  drop  if  they  longer  delayed.  The  consul  Lentulus 
said  in  plain  terms  that  even  the  decree  of  the  senate  was 
no  longer  of  consequence,  and  that,  if  it  should  persevere 
in  its  servility,  he  would  act  of  himself  and  with  his  power- 
ful friends  take  the  farther  steps  necessary.  Thus  over- 
awed,  the  majority  decreed  what  was  commanded — that 
^•a^ar  should  at  a  definite  and  not  distant  day  give  up 


190  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  V 

Transalpine  Gaul  to  Lucius  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  and 
Cisalpine  Gaul  to  Marcus  Servilius  Nonianus,  and  should 
dismiss  his  army,  failing  which  he  should  be  esteemed  a 
traitor.  When  the  tribunes  of  Caesar's  party  made  use  of 
their  right  of  veto  against  this  resolution,  not  only  were 
they,  as  they  at  least  asserted,  threatened  in  the  senate- 
house  itself  by  the  swords  of  Pompeian  soldiers,  and  forced, 
in  order  to  save  their  lives,  to  flee  in  slaves'  clothing  from 
the  capital ;  but  the  now  sufficiently  overawed  senate 
treated  their  formally  quite  constitutional  interference  as 
an  attempt  at  revolution,  declared  the  country  in  danger, 
and  in  the  usual  forms  called  the  whole  burgesses  to  take 
up  arms,  and  all  magistrates  faithful  to  the  constitution  to 
49.  place  themselves  at  the  head  of  the  armed  (7  Jan.  705). 
Caesar  Now  it  was  enough.    When  Caesar  was  informed  by  the 

tntlTltal  tribunes  who  had  fled  to  his  camp  entreating  protection  as 
to  the  reception  which  his  proposals  had  met  with  in  the 
capital,  he  called  together  the  soldiers  of  the  thirteenth 
legion,  which  had  meanwhile  arrived  from  its  cantonments 
near  Tergeste  (Trieste)  at  Ravenna,  and  unfolded  before 
them  the  state  of  things.  It  was  not  merely  the  man  of 
genius  versed  in  the  knowledge  and  skilled  in  the  control 
of  men's  hearts,  whose  brilliant  eloquence  shone  forth  and 
glowed  in  this  agitating  crisis  of  his  own  and  the  world's 
destiny;  nor  merely  the  generous  commander-in-chief 
and  the  victorious  general,  addressing  soldiers,  who  had 
been  called  by  himself  to  arms  and  for  eight  years  had 
followed  his  banners  with  daily  -  increasing  enthusiasm. 
There  spoke,  above  all,  the  energetic  and  consistent  states- 
man, who  had  now  for  nine- and -twenty  years  defended 
the  cause  of  freedom  in  good  and  evil  times  ;  who  had 
braved  for  it  the  daggers  of  assassins  and  the  executioners 
of  the  aristocracy,  the  swords  of  the  Germans  and  the 
waves  of  the  unknown  ocean,  without  ever  yielding  or 
wavering  ;  who  had  torn  to  pieces  the  Sullan  constitution, 


chap,  ix  RUPTURE  BETWEEN  THE  JOINT  RULERS       191 

'iad  overthrown  the  rule  of  the  senate,  and  had  furnished 
the  defenceless  and  unarmed  democracy  with  protection 
and  with  arms  by  means  of  the  struggle  beyond  the  Alps 
And  he  spoke,  not  to  the  Clodian  public  whose  republican 
enthusiasm  had  been  long  burnt  down  to  ashes  and  dross, 
but  to  the  young  men  from  the  towns  and  villages  of 
Northern  Italy,  who  still  felt  freshly  and  purely  the  mighty 
influence  of  the  thought  of  civic  freedom  ;  who  were  still 
capable  of  fighting  and  of  dying  for  ideals  ;  who  had  them- 
selves received  for  their  country  in  a  revolutionary  way 
from  Caesar  the  burgess  -  rights  which  the  government 
refused  to  them  ;  whom  Caesar's  fall  would  leave  once 
more  at  the  mercy  of  the  fasces,  and  who  already  pos- 
sessed practical  proofs  (p.  179 /.)  of  the  inexorable  use  which 
the  oligarchy  proposed  to  make  of  these  against  the  Trans- 
padanes.  Such  were  the  listeners  before  whom  such  an 
orator  set  forth  the  facts — the  thanks  for  the  conquest  of 
Gaul  which  the  nobility  were  preparing  for  the  general  and 
his  army  ;  the  contemptuous  setting  aside  of  the  comitia  ; 
the  overawing  of  the  senate  ;  the  sacred  duty  of  protecting 
with  armed  hand  the  tribunate  of  the  people  wrested  five 
hundred  years  ago  by  their  fathers  arms  in  hand  from 
the  nobility,  and  of  keeping  the  ancient  oath  which  these 
had  taken  for  themselves  as  for  their  children's  children 
that  they  would  man  by  man  stand  firm  even  to  death 
for  the  tribunes  of  the  people  (i.  350).  And  then,  when 
he — the  leader  and  general  of  the  popular  party — sum- 
moned the  soldiers  of  the  people,  now  that  conciliatory 
means  had  been  exhausted  and  concession  had  reached 
its  utmost  limits,  to  follow  him  in  the  last,  the  inevitable, 
the  decisive  struggle  against  the  equally  hated  and  despised, 
equally  perfidious  and  incapable,  and  in  fact  ludicrously 
incorrigible  aristocracy — there  was  not  an  officer  or  a 
soldier  who  could  hold  back.  The  order  was  given  for 
departure  ;   at  the  head  of  his   vanguard  Caesar  crossed 


192  DEATH  OF  CRASSUS  book  v 

the  narrow  brook  which  separated  his  province  from  Italy, 
and  which  the  constitution  forbade  the  proconsul  of  Gaul 
to  pass.  When  after  nine  years'  absence  he  trod  once 
more  the  soil  of  his  native  land,  he  trod  at  the  same  time 
the  path  of  revolution.     "  The  die  was  cast" 


CH.  x    BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  PHARSALUS,  THAPSUS     193 


CHAPTER  X 

BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS 

Arms  were  thus  to  decide  which  of  the  two  men  who  had  The 

hitherto  jointly  ruled  Rome  was  now  to  be  its  first  sole  resoVI]ces 
J         J  on  either 

ruler.      Let  us  see  what  were  the  comparative  resources  side, 
at  the  disposal  of  Caesar  and  Pompeius  for  the  waging 
of  the  impending  war. 

Caesar's  power  rested  primarily  on  the  wholly  unlimited  Caesar's 
authority  which  he  enjoyed  within  his  party.     If  the  ideas  po^„e 
of  democracy  and  of  monarchy  met  together  in  it,  this  was  within  his 
not  the  result  of  a  coalition  which  had  been  accidentally  party* 
entered  into  and  might  be  accidentally  dissolved  ;  on  the 
contrary  it  was  involved  in  the  very  essence  of  a  democracy 
without  a  representative  constitution,  that  democracy  and 
monarchy  should  find  in  Caesar  at  once  their  highest  and 
ultimate  expression.      In  political  as  in  military  matters 
throughout  the  first  and  the  final  decision  lay  with  Caesar. 
However  high  the  honour  in  which  he  held  any  serviceable 
instrument,  it  remained  an  instrument  still ;  Caesar  stood 
in  his  own  party  without  confederates,  surrounded  only  by 
military-political  adjutants,  who  as  a  rule  had  risen  from 
the  army  and  as  soldiers  were  trained  never  to  ask  the 
reason  and  purpose  of  any  thing,  but  unconditionally  to 
obey.     On  this  account  especially,  at  the  decisive  moment 
when  the  civil  war  began,  of  all  the  officers  and  soldiers 
of  Caesar  one  alone  refused  him  obedience ;  and  the  cir- 
VOL.  V  X46 


i94  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

cumstance  that    that  one   was    precisely   the   foremost  of 
them  all,  serves  simply  to  confirm  this  view  of  the  relation 
of  Caesar  to  his  adherents. 
Labienus.  Titus  Labienus  had  shared  with  Caesar  all  the  troubles 

of  the  dark  times  of  Catilina  (iv.  457)  as  well  as  all  the  lustre 
of  the  Gallic  career  of  victory,  had  regularly  held  inde- 
pendent command,  and  frequently  led  half  the  army ;  as  he 
was  the  oldest,  ablest,  and  most  faithful  of  Caesar's  adju- 
tants, he  was  beyond  question  also  highest  in  position  and 

60.  highest  in  honour.  As  late  as  in  704  Caesar  had  entrusted 
to  him  the  supreme  command  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  in  order 
partly  to  put  this  confidential  post  into  safe  hands,  partly  to 
forward  the  views  of  Labienus  in  his  canvass  for  the  consul- 
ship. But  from  this  very  position  Labienus  entered  into 
communication   with   the  opposite   party,  resorted  at    the 

49.  beginning  of  hostilities  in  705  to  the  headquarters  of 
Pompeius  instead  of  those  of  Caesar,  and  fought  through 
the  whole  civil  strife  with  unparalleled  bitterness  against 
his  old  friend  and  master  in  war.  We  are  not  suffi- 
ciently informed  either  as  to  the  character  of  Labienus 
or  as  to  the  special  circumstances  of  his  changing  sides; 
but  in  the  main  his  case  certainly  presents  nothing  but 
a  further  proof  of  the  fact,  that  a  military  chief  can 
reckon  far  more  surely  on  his  captains  than  on  his 
marshals.  To  all  appearance  Labienus  was  one  of  those 
persons  who  combine  with  military  efficiency  utter  in- 
capacity as  statesmen,  and  who  in  consequence,  if  they 
unhappily  choose  or  are  compelled  to  take  part  in  politics, 
are  exposed  to  those  strange  paroxysms  of  giddiness,  of 
which  the  history  of  Napoleon's  marshals  supplies  so 
many  tragi-comic  examples.  He  may  probably  have  held 
himself  entitled  to  rank  alongside  of  Caesar  as  the  second 
chief  of  the  democracy  ;  and  the  rejection  of  this  claim 
of  his  may  have  sent  him  over  to  the  camp  of  his 
opponents.     His  case  rendered  for  the  first  time  apparent 


chap.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  \g& 

the  whole  gravity  of  the  evil,  that  Caesar's  treatment  of 
his  officers  as  adjutants  without  independence  admitted 
of  the  rise  of  no  men  fitted  to  undertake  a  separate  com- 
mand in  his  camp,  while  at  the  same  time  he  stood 
urgently  in  need  of  such  men  amidst  the  diffusion — 
which  might  easily  be  foreseen — of  the  impending  struggle 
through  all  the  provinces  of  the  wide  empire.  But  this 
disadvantage  was  far  outweighed  by  that  unity  in  the 
supreme  leadership,  which  was  the  primary  condition  of 
all  success,  and  a  condition  only  to  be  preserved  at  such 
a  cost. 

This  unity  of  leadership  acquired  its  full  power  through  Caesar'* 
the  efficiency  of  its  instruments.  Here  the  army  comes,  army" 
first  of  all,  into  view.  It  still  numbered  nine  legions  of 
infantry  or  at  the  most  50,000  men,  all  of  whom  however 
had  faced  the  enemy  and  two-thirds  had  served  in  all  the 
campaigns  against  the  Celts.  The  cavalry  consisted  of 
German  and  Noric  mercenaries,  whose  usefulness  and  trust- 
worthiness had  been  proved  in  the  war  against  Vercingetorix. 
The  eight  years'  warfare,  full  of  varied  vicissitudes,  against 
the  Celtic  nation — which  was  brave,  although  in  a  military 
point  of  view  decidedly  inferior  to  the  Italian — had  given 
Caesar  the  opportunity  of  organizing  his  army  as  he  alone 
knew  how  to  organize  it.  The  whole  efficiency  of  the 
soldier  presupposes  physical  vigour ;  in  Caesar's  levies  more 
regard  was  had  to  the  strength  and  activity  of  the  recruits 
than  to  their  means  or  their  morals.  But  the  serviceable- 
ness  of  an  army,  like  that  of  any  other  machine,  depends 
above  all  on  the  ease  and  quickness  of  its  movements ;  the 
soldiers  of  Caesar  attained  a  perfection  rarely  reached  ai."? 
probably  never  surpassed  in  their  readiness  for  immediate 
departure  at  any  time,  and  in  the  rapidity  of  their  marching. 
Courage,  oi  course,  was  valued  above  everything ;  Caesar 
practised  with  unrivalled  mastery  the  art  of  stimulating 
martial  emulation  and  the  esprit  de  corps,  so  that  the  pre- 


196  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

eminence  accorded  to  particular  soldiers  and  divisions 
appeared  even  to  those  who  were  postponed  as  the  necessary 
hierarchy  of  valour.  He  weaned  his  men  from  fear  by  not 
unfrequently — where  it  could  be  done  without  serious 
danger — keeping  his  soldiers  in  ignorance  of  an  approaching 
conflict,  and  allowing  them  to  encounter  the  enemy  unex- 
pectedly. But  obedience  was  on  a  parity  with  valour. 
The  soldier  was  required  to  do  what  he  was  bidden,  without 
asking  the  reason  or  the  object;  many  an  aimless  fatigue 
was  imposed  on  him  solely  as  a  training  in  the  difficult  art 
of  blind  obedience.  The  discipline  was  strict  but  not 
harassing;  it  was  exercised  with  unrelenting  vigour  when 
the  soldier  was  in  presence  of  the  enemy ;  at  other  times, 
especially  after  victory,  the  reins  were  relaxed,  and  if  an 
otherwise  efficient  soldier  was  then  pleased  to  indulge  in 
perfumery  or  to  deck  himself  with  elegant  arms  and  the 
like,  or  even  if  he  allowed  himself  to  be  guilty  of  outrages 
or  irregularities  of  a  very  questionable  kind,  provided  only 
his  military  duties  were  not  immediately  affected,  the  foolery 
and  the  crime  were  allowed  to  pass,  and  the  general  lent  a 
deaf  ear  to  the  complaints  of  the  provincials  on  such  points. 
Mutiny  on  the  other  hand  was  never  pardoned,  either  in 
the  instigators,  or  even  in  the  guilty  corps  itself. 

But  the  true  soldier  ought  to  be  not  merely  capable, 
brave,  and  obedient,  he  ought  to  be  all  this  willingly  and 
spontaneously;  and  it  is  the  privilege  of  gifted  natures 
alone  to  induce  the  animated  machine  which  they  govern 
to  a  joyful  service  by  means  of  example  and  of  hope,  and 
especially  by  the  consciousness  of  being  turned  to  befitting 
use.  As  the  officer,  who  would  demand  valour  from  his 
troops,  must  himself  have  looked  danger  in  the  face  with 
them,  Caesar  had  even  when  general  found  opportunity  of 
drawing  his  sword  and  had  then  used  it  like  the  best ;  in 
activity,  moreover,  and  fatigue  he  was  constantly  far  more 
exacting  from  himself  than  from  his  soldiers.     Caesar  took 


CHAP.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  197 

care  that  victory,  which  primarily  no  doubt  brings  gain  to 
the  general,  should  be  associated  also  with  personal  hopes 
in  the  minds  of  the  soldiers.  We  have  already  mentioned 
that  he  knew  how  to  render  his  soldiers  enthusiastic  for 
the  cause  of  the  democracy,  so  far  as  the  times  which  had 
become  prosaic  still  admitted  of  enthusiasm,  and  that  the 
political  equalization  of  the  Transpadane  country — the 
native  land  of  most  of  his  soldiers — with  Italy  proper  was 
set  forth  as  one  of  the  objects  of  the  struggle  (iv.  457).  Of 
course  material  recompenses  were  at  the  same  time  not 
wanting — as  well  special  rewards  for  distinguished  feats  of 
arms  as  general  rewards  for  every  efficient  soldier;  the 
officers  had  their  portions,  the  soldiers  received  presents, 
and  the  most  lavish  gifts  were  placed  in  prospect  for  the 
triumph. 

Above  all  things  Caesar  as  a  true  commander  under- 
stood how  to  awaken  in  every  single  component  element, 
large  or  small,  of  the  mighty  machine  the  consciousness  of 
its  befitting  application.  The  ordinary  man  is  destined 
for  service,  and  he  has  no  objection  to  be  an  instrument, 
if  he  feels  that  a  master  guides  him.  Everywhere  and  at 
all  times  the  eagle  eye  of  the  general  rested  on  the  whole 
army,  rewarding  and  punishing  with  impartial  justice,  and 
directing  the  action  of  each  towards  the  course  con- 
ducive to  the  good  of  all :  so  that  there  was  no  experi- 
menting or  trifling  with  the  sweat  and  blood  of  the 
humblest,  but  for  that  very  reason,  where  it  was  necessary, 
unconditional  devotion  even  to  death  was  required.  With- 
out allowing  each  individual  to  see  into  the  whole  springs 
of  action,  Caesar  yet  allowed  each  to  catch  such  glimpses 
of  the  political  and  military  connection  of  things  as  to 
secure  that  he  should  be  recognized — and  it  may  be 
idealized — by  the  soldiers  as  a  statesman  and  a  general. 
He  treated  his  soldiers  throughout,  not  as  his  equals,  but 
as  men  who  are  entitled  to  demand  and  were  able  to 


198  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

endure  the  truth,  and  who  had  to  put  faith  in  the  promises 
and  the  assurances  of  their  general,  without  thinking  of 
deception  or  listening  to  rumours ;  as  comrades  through 
long  years  in  warfare  and  victory,  among  whom  there  was 
hardly  any  one  that  was  not  known  to  him  by  name  and 
that  in  the  course  of  so  many  campaigns  had  not  formed 
more  or  less  of  a  personal  relation  to  the  general ;  as  good 
companions,  with  whom  he  talked  and  dealt  confidentially 
and  with  the  cheerful  elasticity  peculiar  to  him ;  as  clients, 
to  requite  whose  services,  and  to  avenge  whose  wrongs 
and  death,  constituted  in  his  view  a  sacred  duty.  Perhaps 
there  never  was  an  army  which  was  so  perfectly  what  an 
army  ought  to  be — a  machine  able  for  its  ends  and  willing 
for  its  ends,  in  the  hand  of  a  master,  who  transfers  to  it 
his  own  elasticity.  Caesar's  soldiers  were,  and  felt  them- 
selves, a  match  for  a  tenfold  superior  force ;  in  connection 
with  which  it  should  not  be  overlooked,  that  under  the 
Roman  tactics — calculated  altogether  for  hand-to-hand 
conflict  and  especially  for  combat  with  the  sword — the 
practised  Roman  soldier  was  superior  to  the  novice  in  a 
far  higher  degree  than  is  now  the  case  under  the  circum- 
stances of  modern  times.1  But  still  more  than  by  the 
superiority  of  valour  the  adversaries  of  Caesar  felt  them- 
selves humbled  by  the  unchangeable  and  touching  fidelity 
with  which  his  soldiers  clung  to  their  general  It  is 
perhaps  without  a  parallel  in  history,  that  when  the  general 
summoned  his  soldiers  to  follow  him  into  the  civil  war, 

1  A  centurion  of  Caesar's  tenth  legion,  taken  prisoner,  declared  to  the 
commander-in-chief  of  the  enemy  that  he  was  ready  with  ten  of  his  men 
to  make  head  against  the  best  cohort  of  the  enemy  (500  men  ;  Bell. 
Afric.  45).  "  In  the  ancient  mode  of  fighting,"  to  quote  the  opinion  of 
Napoleon  I.,  "a  battle  consisted  simply  of  duels  ;  what  was  only  correct 
in  the  mouth  ot  that  centurion,  would  be  mere  boasting  in  the  mouth  of 
the  modern  soldier."  Vivid  proofs  of  the  soldierly  spirit  that  pervaded 
Caesar's  army  are  furnished  by  the  Reports — appended  to  his  Memoirs — 
respecting  the  African  and  the  second  Spanish  wars,  of  which  the  former 
appears  to  have  had  as  its  author  an  officer  of  the  second  rank,  while  the 
latter  is  in  every  respect  a  subaltern  camp-journal. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  199 

with  the  single  exception  already  mentioned  of  Labienus, 
no  Roman  officer  and  no  Roman  soldier  deserted  him. 
The  hopes  of  his  opponents  as  to  an  extensive  desertion 
were  thwarted  as  ignominiously  as  the  former  attempts  to 
break  up  his  army  like  that  of  Lucullus  (p.  181).  Labienus 
himself  appeared  in  the  camp  of  Pompeius  with  a  band 
doubtless  of  Celtic  and  German  horsemen  but  without  a 
single  legionary.  Indeed  the  soldiers,  as  if  they  would 
show  that  the  war  was  quite  as  much  their  matter  as  that 
of  their  general,  settled  among  themselves  that  they  would 
give  credit  for  the  pay,  which  Caesar  had  promised  to 
double  for  them  at  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war,  to  their 
commander  up  to  its  termination,  and  would  meanwhile 
support  their  poorer  comrades  from  the  general  means ; 
besides,  every  subaltern  officer  equipped  and  paid  a  trooper 
out  of  his  own  purse. 

While  Caesar  thus  had  the  one  thing  which  was  need-  Field  of 
ful — unlimited  political  and  military  authority  and  a  trust-  Vq^% 
worthy  army   ready   for    the  fight — his    power    extended, 
comparatively   speaking,  over   only  a   very   limited   space. 
It  was  based  essentially  on  the  province  of  Upper  Italy. 
This  region  was  not  merely  the  most  populous  of  all  the  Uppei 
districts   of   Italy,   but  also  devoted   to  the  cause  of  the  Italy' 
democracy  as  its  own.     The  feeling  which  prevailed  there 
is  shown  by  the  conduct  of  a  division  of  recruits  from 
Opitergium  (Oderzo  in  the  delegation  of  Treviso),  which 
not  long  after   the   outbreak  of  the   war   in   the   Illyrian 
waters,  surrounded  on  a  wretched  raft  by  the  war- vessels  of 
the  enemy,  allowed  themselves  to  be  shot  at  during  the 
whole  day  down  to  sunset  without  surrendering,  and,  such 
of  them  as  had  escaped  the  missiles,   put  themselves  to 
death   with  their  own   hands   during   the  following  night. 
It  is  easy  to  conceive  what  might  be  expected  of  such  a 
population.     As  they  had  already  granted  to  Caesar  the 
means  of  more  than  doubling  his  original  army,  so  after 


200  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  BOOK  y 

the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war  recruits  presented  themselves 
in  great  numbers  for  the  ample  levies  that  were  immediately 
instituted. 

Italy.  In  Italy  proper,  on  the   other  hand,  the  influence  of 

Caesar  was  not  even  remotely  to  be  compared  to  that  of 
his  opponents.  Although  he  had  the  skill  by  dexterous 
manoeuvres  to  put  the  Catonian  party  in  the  wrong,  and 
had  sufficiently  commended  the  rectitude  of  his  cause  to 
all  who  wished  for  a  pretext  with  a  good  conscience  either 
to  remain  neutral,  like  the  majority  of  the  senate,  or  to 
embrace  his  side,  like  his  soldiers  and  the  Transpadanes, 
the  mass  of  the  burgesses  naturally  did  not  allow  themselves 
to  be  misled  by  these  things  and,  when  the  commandant 
of  Gaul  put  his  legions  in  motion  against  Rome,  they 
beheld — despite  all  formal  explanations  as  to  law — in 
Cato  and  Pompeius  the  defenders  of  the  legitimate  republic, 
in  Caesar  the  democratic  usurper.  People  in  general 
moreover  expected  from  the  nephew  of  Marius,  the  son-in- 
law  of  Cinna,  the  ally  of  Catilina,  a  repetition  of  the 
Marian  and  Cinnan  horrors,  a  realization  of  the  saturnalia 
of  anarchy  projected  by  Catilina;  and  though  Caesar 
certainly  gained  allies  through  this  expectation — so  that 
the  political  refugees  immediately  put  themselves  in  a  body 
at  his  disposal,  the  ruined  men  saw  in  him  their  deliverer, 
and  the  lowest  ranks  of  the  rabble  in  the  capital  and 
country  towns  were  thrown  into  a  ferment  on  the  news  of 
his  advance, — these  belonged  to  the  class  of  friends  who 
are  more  dangerous  than  foes. 

Provinces.  In  the  provinces  and  the  dependent  states  Caesar  had 

even  less  influence  than  in  Italy.  Transalpine  Gaul  indeed 
as  far  as  the  Rhine  and  the  Channel  obeyed  him,  and  the 
colonists  of  Narbo  as  well  as  the  Roman  burgesses  else- 
where settled  in  Gaul  were  devoted  to  him ;  but  in  the 
Narbonese  province  itself  the  constitutional  party  had 
numerous  adherents,  and  now  even  the  newly-conquered 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  201 

regions  were  far  more  a  burden  than  a  benefit  to  Caesar 
in  the  impending  civil  war;  in  fact,  for  good  reasons  he 
made  no  use  of  the  Celtic  infantry  at  all  in  that  war,  and 
but  sparing  use  of  the  cavalry.  In  the  other  provinces 
and  the  neighbouring  half  or  wholly  independent  states 
Caesar  had  indeed  attempted  to  procure  for  himself  sup- 
port, had  lavished  rich  presents  on  the  princes,  caused 
great  buildings  to  be  executed  h  various  towns,  and 
granted  to  them  in  case  of  need  financial  and  military 
assistance;  but  on  the  whole,  of  course,  not  much  had 
been  gained  by  this  means,  and  the  relations  with  the 
German  and  Celtic  princes  in  'he  regions  of  the  Rhine  and 
the  Danube, — particularly  the  connection  with  the  Noric 
king  Voccio,  so  important  for  the  recruiting  of  cavalry, — 
were  probably  the  only  re'atious  of  this  sort  which  were  of 
any  moment  for  him. 

While  Caesar  thus  entered  the  struggle  only  as  com-  The 
mandant  of  Gaul,  without  other  essential  resources  than 
efficient  adjutants,  a  faithful  army,  and  a  devoted  province, 
Pompeius  began  it  as  de  facto  supreme  head  of  the  Roman 
commonwealth,  and  in  full  possession  of  all  the  resources 
that  stood  at  the  disposal  of  the  legitimate  government  of 
the  great  Roman  empire.  But  while  his  position  was  in  a 
political  and  military  point  of  view  far  more  considerable, 
it  was  also  on  the  other  hand  far  less  definite  and  firm. 
The  unity  of  leadership,  which  resulted  of  itself  and  by 
necessity  from  the  position  of  Caesar,  was  inconsistent 
with  the  nature  of  a  coalition  ;  and  although  Pompeius, 
too  much  of  a  soldier  to  deceive  himself  as  to  its  being 
indispensable,  attempted  to  force  it  on  the  coalition  and 
got  himself  nominated  by  the  senate  as  sole  and  absolute 
generalissimo  by  land  and  sea,  yet  the  senate  itself  could 
not  be  set  aside  nor  hindered  from  a  preponderating 
influence  on  the  political,  and  an  occasional  and  therefore 
doubly  injurious  interference  with  the  military,  superin- 


coalitioo. 


202  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

tendence.      The    recollection    of   the    twenty   years'   war 

waged  on   both  sides  with  envenomed  weapons  between 

Pompeius  and  the  constitutional  party  ;  the  feeling  which 

vividly    prevailed    on    both    sides,    and    which    they  with 

difficulty   concealed,    that    the    first    consequence    of  the 

victory  when   achieved  would   be  a  rupture   between  the 

victors ;    the    contempt   which   they  entertained    for    each 

other  and  with  only  too  good  grounds  in  either  case ;  the 

inconvenient   number   of  respectable   and   influential  men 

in  the   ranks  of  the   aristocracy  and   the  intellectual  and 

moral  inferiority  of  almost  all  who  took  part  in  the  matter 

— altogether  produced  among  the  opponents  of  Caesar  a 

reluctant    and   refractory  co-operation,  which   formed    the 

saddest  contrast  to  the  harmonious  and  compact  action  on 

the  other  side. 

Field  of  While  all  the  disadvantages  incident  to  the  coalition  of 

power         powers    naturally    hostile    were    thus    felt    in    an    unusual 
of  the  r  ,  '  ,  .         ,  .  ...  .  , 

coalition,      measure  by  Caesar  s  antagonists,  this  coalition  was  certainly 

still  a  very  considerable  power.  It  had  exclusive  command 
of  the  sea ;  all  ports,  all  ships  of  war,  all  the  materials  for 
equipping  a  fleet  were  at  its  disposal.  The  two  Spains — 
as  it  were  the  home  of  the  power  of  Pompeius  just  as  the 
two  Gauls  were  the  home  of  that  of  Caesar — were  faithful 
adherents  to  their  master  and  in  the  hands  of  able  and 
trustworthy  administrators.  In  the  other  provinces  also, 
of  course  with  the  exception  of  the  two  Gauls,  the  posts  of 
the  governors  and  commanders  had  during  recent  years 
been  filled  up  with  safe  men  under  the  influence  of 
Pompeius  and  the  minority  of  the  senate.  The  client- 
states  throughout  and  with  great  decision  took  part  against 
Caesar  and  in  favour  of  Pompeius.  The  most  important 
princes  and  cities  had  been  brought  into  the  closest 
personal  relations  with  Pompeius  in  virtue  of  the  different 
sections  of  his  manifold  activity.  In  the  war  against  the 
Marians,  for  instance,  he  had  been  the  companion  in  arms 


chap.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  203 

of  the  kings  of  Numidia  and  Mauretania  and  had  re- 
established the  kingdom  of  the  former  (iv.  94) ;  in  the 
Mithradatic  war,  in  addition  to  a  number  of  other  minor 
principalities  spiritual  and  temporal,  he  had  re-established 
the  kingdoms  of  Bosporus,  Armenia,  and  Cappadocia,  and 
created  that  of  Deiotarus  in  Galatia  (iv.  431,  437);  '^ 
was  primarily  at  his  instigation  that  the  Egyptian  war  was 
undertaken,  and  it  was  by  his  adjutant  that  the  rule  of  the 
Lagids  had  been  confirmed  afresh  (iv.  451).  Even  the  city 
of  Massilia  in  Caesar's  own  province,  while  indebted  to 
the  latter  doubtless  for  various  favours,  was  indebted  to 
Pompeius  at  the  time  of  the  Sertorian  war  for  a  very  con- 
siderable extension  of  territory  (p.  8);  and,  besides,  the 
ruling  oligarchy  there  stood  in  natural  alliance — strengthened 
by  various  mutual  relations — with  the  oligarchy  in  Rome. 
But  these  personal  and  relative  considerations  as  well  as 
the  glory  of  the  victor  in  three  continents,  which  in  these 
more  remote  parts  of  the  empire  far  outshone  that  of  the 
conqueror  of  Gaul,  did  perhaps  less  harm  to  Caesar  in 
those  quarters  than  the  views  and  designs — which  had  not 
remained  there  unknown — of  the  heir  of  Gaius  Gracchus 
as  to  the  necessity  of  uniting  the  dependent  states  and 
the  usefulness  of  provincial  colonizations.  No  one  of 
the  dependent  dynasts  found  himself  more  imminently 
threatened  by  this  peril  than  Juba  king  of  Numidia.  Not  Juba  of 
only  had  he  years  before,  in  the  lifetime  of  his  father  umi 
Hiempsal,  fallen  into  a  vehement  personal  quarrel  with 
Caesar,  but  recently  the  same  Curio,  who  now  occupied 
almost  the  first  place  among  Caesar's  adjutants,  had  pro- 
posed to  the  Roman  burgesses  the  annexation  of  the 
Numidian  kingdom.  Lastly,  if  matters  should  go  so  far 
as  to  lead  the  independent  neighbouring  states  to  interfere 
in  the  Roman  civil  war,  the  only  state  really  powerful, 
that  of  the  Parthians,  was  practically  already  allied  with 
the    aristocratic    party   by   the    connection    entered   into 


204  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

between  Pacorus  and  Bibulus  (p.  164),  while  Caesar  was 
far  too  much  a  Roman  to  league  himself  for  party-interests 
with  the  conquerors  of  his  friend  Crassus. 
Italy  As  to  Italy  the  great  majority  of  the  burgesses  were,  as 

against  kas  ^Qen  airea(iy  mentioned,  averse  to  Caesar  —  more 
especially,  of  course,  the  whole  aristocracy  with  their  very 
considerable  following,  but  also  in  a  not  much  less  degree 
the  great  capitalists,  who  could  not  hope  in  the  event  of 
a  thorough  reform  of  the  commonwealth  to  preserve  their 
partisan  jury-courts  and  their  monopoly  of  extortion.  Of 
equally  anti-democratic  sentiments  were  the  small  capitalists, 
the  landholders  and  generally  all  classes  that  had  anything 
to  lose;  but  in  these  ranks  of  life  the  cares  of  the  next 
rent-term  and  of  sowing  and  reaping  outweighed,  as  a  rule, 
every  other  consideration. 
The  The  army  at  the  disposal  of  Pompeius  consisted  chiefly 

Pompeian  of  the  gpanjsn  troops,  seven  legions  inured  to  war  and  in 
every  respect  trustworthy ;  to  which  fell  to  be  added  the 
divisions  of  troops — weak  indeed,  and  very  much  scattered 
—  which  were  to  be  found  in  Syria,  Asia,  Macedonia, 
Africa,  Sicily,  and  elsewhere.  In  Italy  there  were  under 
arms  at  the  outset  only  the  two  legions  recently  given  off 
by  Caesar,  whose  effective  strength  did  not  amount  to 
more  than  7000  men,  and  whose  trustworthiness  was 
more  than  doubtful,  because — levied  in  Cisalpine  Gaul 
and  old  comrades  in  arms  of  Caesar — they  were  in  a  high 
degree  displeased  at  the  unbecoming  intrigue  by  which 
they  had  been  made  to  change  camps  (p.  182),  and  recalled 
with  longing  their  general  who  had  magnanimously  paid  to 
them  beforehand  at  their  departure  the  presents  which  were 
promised  to  every  soldier  for  the  triumph.  But,  apart  from 
the  circumstance  that  the  Spanish  troops  might  arrive  in 
Italy  with  the  spring  either  by  the  land  route  through  Gaul 
or  by  sea,  the  men  of  the  three  legions  still  remaining  from 
66.  the  levies  of  699  (p.  131),  as  well  as  the  Italian  levy  sworn 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  205 

to  allegiance  in  702  (p.  147),  could  be  recalled  from  their  62. 
furlough.  Including  these,  the  number  of  troops  standing 
at  the  disposal  of  Pompeius  on  the  whole,  without  reckon- 
ing the  seven  legions  in  Spain  and  those  scattered  in  other 
provinces,  amounted  in  Italy  alone  to  ten  legions  x  or  about 
60,000  men,  so  that  it  was  no  exaggeration  at  all,  when 
Pompeius  asserted  that  he  had  only  to  stamp  with  his  foot 
to  cover  the  ground  with  armed  men.  It  is  true  that  it 
required  some  interval — though  but  short — to  render  these 
soldiers  available ;  but  the  arrangements  for  this  purpose 
as  well  as  for  the  carrying  out  of  the  new  levies  ordered 
by  the  senate  in  consequence  of  the  outbreak  of  the  civil 
war  were  already  everywhere  in  progress.  Immediately 
after  the  decisive  decree  of  the  senate  (7  Jan.  705),  in  the  49. 
very  depth  of  winter  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  aristo- 
cracy set  out  to  the  different  districts,  to  hasten  the  calling 
up  of  recruits  and  the  preparation  of  arms.  The  want  of 
cavalry  was  much  felt,  as  for  this  arm  they  had  been  ac- 
customed to  rely  wholly  on  the  provinces  and  especially  on 
the  Celtic  contingents  ■  to  make  at  least  a  beginning,  three 
hundred  gladiators  belonging  to  Caesar  were  taken  from 
the  fencing-schools  of  Capua  and  mounted — a  step  which 
however  met  with  so  general  disapproval,  that  Pompeius 
again  broke  up  this  troop  and  levied  in  room  of  it  300 
horsemen  from  the  mounted  slave-herdmen  of  Apulia. 

The  state -treasury  was  at  a  low  ebb  as  usual ;  they 
busied  themselves  in  supplementing  the  inadequate  amour t 
of  cash  out  of  the  local  treasuries  and  even  from  the  temple- 
treasures  of  the  municipia. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  war  opened  at  the  begin-  Caesar 
ning   of   January    705.      Of  troops   capable   of  marching  ^  es    *■    ' 
Caesar  had  not  more  than  a  legion — 5000  infantry  and  offensive. 

1  This  number  was  specified  by  Pompeius  himself  (Caesar,  B.  C.  i.  6), 
and  it  agrees  with  the  statement  that  he  lost  in  Italy  about  60  cohort  ore 
30,000  men,  and  took  25,000  over  to  Greece  (Caesar,  B.C.  iii.  10). 


206  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

300  cavalry — at  Ravenna,  which  was  by  the  highway  some 
240  miles  distant  from  Rome ;  Pompeius  had  two  weak 
legions — 7000  infantry  and  a  small  squadron  of  cavalry — 
under  the  orders  of  Appius  Claudius  at  Luceria,  from  which, 
likewise  by  the  highway,  the  distance  was  just  about  as 
great  to  the  capital.  The  other  troops  of  Caesar,  leaving 
out  of  account  the  raw  divisions  of  recruits  still  in  course 
of  formation,  were  stationed,  one  half  on  the  Saone  and 
Loire,  the  other  half  in  Belgica,  while  Pompeius'  Italian 
reserves  were  already  arriving  from  all  sides  at  their 
rendezvous ;  long  before  even  the  first  of  the  Transalpine 
divisions  of  Caesar  could  arrive  in  Italy,  a  far  superior 
army  could  not  but  be  ready  to  receive  it  there.  It 
seemed  folly,  with  a  band  of  the  strength  of  that  of 
Catilina  and  for  the  moment  without  any  effective  reserve, 
to  assume  the  aggressive  against  a  superior  and  hourly- 
increasing  army  under  an  able  general ;  but  it  was  a  folly 
in  the  spirit  of  Hannibal.  If  the  beginning  of  the  struggle 
were  postponed  till  spring,  the  Spanish  troops  of  Pompeius 
would  assume  the  offensive  in  Transalpine,  and  his  Italian 
troops  in  Cisalpine,  Gaul,  and  Pompeius,  a  match  for 
Caesar  in  tactics  and  superior  to  him  in  experience,  was 
a  formidable  antagonist  in  such  a  campaign  running  its 
regular  course.  Now  perhaps,  accustomed  as  he  was  to 
operate  slowly  and  surely  with  superior  masses,  he  might 
be  disconcerted  by  a  wholly  improvised  attack ;  and  that 
which  could  not  greatly  discompose  Caesar's  thirteenth 
legion  after  the  severe  trial  of  the  Gallic  surprise  and  the 
January  campaign  in  the  land  of  the  Bellovaci  (p.  93), — 
the  suddenness  of  the  war  and  the  toil  of  a  winter  cam- 
paign—  could  not  but  disorganize  the  Pompeian  corps 
consisting  of  old  soldiers  of  Caesar  or  of  ill-trained  recruits, 
and  still  only  in  the  course  of  formation. 

Caesar's  Accordingly  Caesar  advanced  into  Italy.1     Two  highways 

advance. 

1  The  decree  of  the  senate  was  passed  on  the  7th  January ;  on  the  18th 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  207 

led  at  that  time  from  the  Romagna  to  the  south ;  the 
Aemilio-Cassian  which  led  from  Bononia  over  the  Apennines 
to  Arretium  and  Rome,  and  the  Popillio-Flaminian,  which 
led  from  Ravenna  along  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic  to  Fanum 
and  was  there  divided,  one  branch  running  westward  through 
the  Furlo  pass  to  Rome,  another  southward  to  Ancona  and 
thence  onward  to  Apulia.  On  the  former  Marcus  Antonius 
advanced  as  far  as  Arretium,  on  the  second  Caesar  himself 
pushed  forward.  Resistance  was  nowhere  encountered ;  the 
recruiting  officers  of  quality  had  no  military  skill,  their  bands 
of  recruits  were  no  soldiers,  the  inhabitants  of  the  country 
towns  were  only  anxious  not  to  be  involved  in  a  siege. 
When  Curio  with  1500  men  approached  Iguvium,  where  a 
couple  of  thousand  Umbrian  recruits  had  assembled  under 
the  praetor  Quintus  Minucius  Thermus,  general  and  soldiers 
took  to  flight  at  the  bare  tidings  of  his  approach;  and 
similar  results  on  a  small  scale  everywhere  ensued. 

Caesar  had  to  choose  whether  he  would  march  against  Rome 
Rome,  from  which  his  cavalry  at  Arretium  were  already  only  evacuated* 
about  130  miles  distant,  or  against  the  legions  encamped  at 
Luceria.  He  chose  the  latter  plan.  The  consternation  of 
the  opposite  party  was  boundless.  Pompeius  received  the 
news  of  Caesar's  advance  at  Rome ;  he  seemed  at  first  dis- 
posed to  defend  the  capital,  but,  when  the  tidings  arrived 
of  Caesar's  entrance  into  the  Picenian  territory  and  of  his 
first  successes  there,  he  abandoned  Rome  and  ordered  its 
evacuation.  A  panic,  augmented  by  the  false  report  that 
Caesar's  cavalry  had  appeared  before  the  gates,  came  over 
the  world  of  quality.  The  senators,  who  had  been  informed 
that  every  one  who  should  remain  behind  in  the  capital 
would  be  treated  as  an  accomplice  of  the  rebel  Caesar, 

it  had  been  already  for  several  days  known  in  Rome  that  Caesar  had  crossed 
the  boundary  (Cic.  ad  Att.  vii.  10  ;  ix.  10,  4) ;  the  messenger  needed  at  the 
very  least  three  days  from  Rome  to  Ravenna.  According  to  this  the 
setting  out  of  Caesar  falls  about  the  12th  January,  which  according  to  the 
current  reduction  corresponds  to  the  Julian  24  Nov.  704.  50. 


208  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

flocked  in  crowds  out  at  the  gates.     The  consuls  themselves 
had  so  totally  lost  their  senses,  that  they  did  not  even  secure 
the  treasure ;  when  Pompeius  called  upon  them  to  fetch  it, 
for  which  there  was  sufficient  time,  they  returned  the  reply 
that  they  would  deem   it  safer,  if  he  should  first  occupy 
Picenum.     All  was  perplexity ;  consequently  a  great  council 
of  war  was  held  in  Teanum  Sidicinum  (23  Jan.),  at  which 
Pompeius,  Labienus,  and  both  consuls  were  present.     First 
of  all  proposals  of  accommodation  from  Caesar  were  again 
submitted ;  even  now  he  declared  himself  ready  at  once  to 
dismiss  his  army,  to  hand  over  his  provinces  to  the  successors 
nominated,  and  to  become  a  candidate  in  the  regular  way 
for  the  consulship,  provided  that  Pompeius  were  to  depart 
for  Spain,  and  Italy  were  to  be  disarmed.     The  answer  was, 
that  if  Caesar  would  immediately  return  to  his  province, 
they  would  bind  themselves  to  procure  the  disarming  of 
Italy  and  the  departure  of  Pompeius  by  a  decree  of  the 
senate  to  be  passed  in  due  form  in  the  capital;  perhaps 
this  reply  was  intended  not  as  a  bare  artifice  to  deceive,  but 
as  an  acceptance  of  the  proposal  of  compromise ;  it  was, 
however,  in  reality  the  opposite.     The  personal  conference 
which   Caesar  desired  with  Pompeius  the  latter  declined, 
and  could   not    but  decline,    that    he  might  not  by  the 
semblance  of  a  new  coalition  with  Caesar  provoke  still  more 
the  distrust  already  felt  by  the  constitutional  party.     Con- 
cerning the  management  of  the  war  it  was  agreed  in  Teanum, 
that    Pompeius  should    take  the  command  of  the  troops 
stationed    at    Luceria,    on    which    notwithstanding    their 
untrustworthiness  all  hope  depended ;  that  he  should  ad- 
vance with  these  into  his  own  and  Labienus'  native  country, 
Picenum ;  that  he  should  personally  call  the  general  levy 
there  to  arms,  as  he  had  done  some  thirty-five  years  ago 
(iv.  78),  and   should  attempt  at  the  head  of  the  faithful 
Picentine  cohorts  and  the  veterans  formerly  under  Caesar  to 
set  a  limit  to  the  advance  of  the  enemy. 


chap.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  209 

Everything  depended  on  whether  Picenum  would  hold  Conflicts  la 
out  until  Pompeius  should  come  up  to  its  defence.  Already  PlcenunL 
Caesar  with  his  reunited  army  had  penetrated  into  it  along 
the  coast  road  by  way  of  Ancona.  Here  too  the  prepara- 
tions were  in  full  course ;  in  the  very  northernmost  Picenian 
town  Auximum  a  considerable  band  of  recruits  was  collected 
under  Publius  Attius  Varus ;  but  at  the  entreaty  of  the 
municipality  Varus  evacuated  the  town  even  before  Caesar 
appeared,  and  a  handful  of  Caesar's  soldiers  which  overtook 
the  troop  not  far  from  Auximum  totally  dispersed  it  after  a 
brief  conflict — the  first  in  this  war.  In  like  manner  soon 
afterwards  Gaius  Lucilius  Hirrus  with  3000  men  evacuated 
Camerinum,  and  Publius  Lentulus  Spinther  with  5000 
Asculum.  The  men,  thoroughly  devoted  to  Pompeius, 
willingly  for  the  most  part  abandoned  their  houses  and 
farms,  and  followed  their  leaders  over  the  frontier ;  but  the 
district  itself  was  already  lost,  when  the  officer  sent  by 
Pompeius  for  the  temporary  conduct  of  the  defence,  Lucius 
Vibullius  Rufus — no  genteel  senator,  but  a  soldier 
experienced  in  war — arrived  there ;  he  had  to  content  him- 
self with  taking  the  six  or  seven  thousand  recruits  who  were 
saved  away  from  the  incapable  recruiting  officers,  and 
conducting  them  for  the  time  to  the  nearest  rendezvous. 

This  was  Corfinium,  the  place  of  meeting  for  the  levies  Corfinium 
in  the  Albensian,  Marsian  and  Paelignian  territories ;  the  esiege 
body  of  recruits  here  assembled,  of  nearly  1 5,000  men,  was 
the  contingent  of  the  most  warlike  and  trustworthy  regions 
of  Italy,  and  the  flower  of  the  army  in  course  of  formation 
for  the  constitutional  party.  When  Vibullius  arrived  here, 
Caesar  was  still  several  days'  march  behind ;  there  was 
nothing  to  prevent  him  from  immediately  starting  agreeably 
to  Pompeius'  instructions  and  conducting  the  saved  Picenian 
recruits  along  with  those  assembled  at  Corfinium  to  join  the 
main  army  in  Apulia.  But  the  commandant  in  Corfinium 
was  the  designated  successor  to  Caesar  in  the  governorship 
vol.  v  147 


2io  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

of  Transalpine  Gaul,  Lucius  Domitius,  one  of  the  most 
narrow-minded  and  stubborn  of  the  Roman  aristocracy  ;  and 
he  not  only  refused  to  comply  with  the  orders  of  Pompeius, 
but  also  prevented  Vibullius  from  departing  at  least  with  the 
men  from  Picenum  for  Apulia.  So  firmly  was  he  persuaded 
that  Pompeius  only  delayed  from  obstinacy  and  must 
necessarily  come  up  to  his  relief,  that  he  scarcely  made  any 
serious  preparations  for  a  siege  and  did  not  even  gather  into 
Corfinium  the  bands  of  recruits  placed  in  the  surrounding 
towns.  Pompeius  however  did  not  appear,  and  for  good 
reasons ;  for,  while  he  might  perhaps  apply  his  two  untrust- 
worthy legions  as  a  reserved  support  for  the  Picenian  general 
levy,  he  could  not  with  them  alone  offer  battle  to  Caesar. 
Instead  of  him  after  a  few  days  Caesar  came  (14  Feb.). 
His  troops  had  been  joined  in  Picenum  by  the  twelfth,  and 
before  Corfinium  by  the  eighth,  legion  from  beyond  the 
Alps,  and,  besides  these,  three  new  legions  had  been  formed 
partly  from  the  Pompeian  men  that  were  taken  prisoners  or 
presented  themselves  voluntarily,  partly  from  the  recruits 
that  were  at  once  levied  everywhere ;  so  that  Caesar  before 
Corfinium  was  already  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  40,000 
men,  half  of  whom  had  seen  service.  So  long  as  Domitius 
hoped  for  the  arrival  of  Pompeius,  he  caused  the  town  to 
be  defended ;  when  the  letters  of  Pompeius  had  at  length 
undeceived  him,  he  resolved,  not  forsooth  to  persevere  at 
the  forlorn  post — by  which  he  would  have  rendered  the 
greatest  service  to  his  party — nor  even  to  capitulate,  but, 
while  the  common  soldiers  were  informed  that  relief  was 
close  at  hand,  to  make  his  own  escape  along  with  his 
officers  of  quality  during  the  next  night.  Yet  he  had  not 
the  judgment  to  carry  into  effect  even  this  pretty  scheme. 
The  confusion  of  his  behaviour  betrayed  him.  A  part  of 
the  men  began  to  mutiny ;  the  Marsian  recruits,  who  held 
such  an  infamy  on  the  part  of  their  general  to  be  impossible, 
wished  to  fight  against  the  mutineers;  but  they  too  were 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  2u 

obliged  reluctantly  to  believe  the  truth  of  the  accusation, 

whereupon    the    whole   garrison    arrested    their    staff  and  and 

handed  it,  themselves,  and  the  town  over  to  Caesar  (20  caPturcd- 

Feb.).     The  corps  in  Alba,  3000  strong,  and  1500  recruits 

assembled  in  Tarracina  thereupon  laid  down  their  arms,  as 

soon  as  Caesar's  patrols  of  horsemen  appeared;   a  third 

division    in    Sulmo    of    3500    men    had   been    previously 

compelled  to  surrender. 

Pompeius  had  given  up  Italy  as  lost,  so  soon  as  Caesar  Pompeius 

had    occupied    Picenum ;    only    he    wished   to    delay   his  goes  to 

.  Brundi- 

embarkation  as  long  as  possible,  with  the  view  of  saving  so  sium. 

much  of  his  force  as  could  still  be  saved.  Accordingly  he 
had  slowly  put  himself  in  motion  for  the  nearest  seaport 
Brundisium.  Thither  came  the  two  legions  of  Luceria  and 
such  recruits  as  Pompeius  had  been  able  hastily  to  collect 
in  the  deserted  Apulia,  as  well  as  the  troops  raised  by  the 
consuls  and  other  commissioners  in  Campania  and  con- 
ducted in  all  haste  to  Brundisium ;  thither  too  resorted  a 
number  of  political  fugitives,  including  the  most  respected 
of  the  senators  accompanied  by  their  families.  The  Embarka- 
embarkation  began ;  but  the  vessels  at  hand  did  not  suffice  p0n  for 
to  transport  all  at  once  the  whole  multitude,  which  still 
amounted  to  25,000  persons.  No  course  remained  but  to 
divide  the  army.  The  larger  half  went  first  (4  March); 
with  the  smaller  division  of  some  10,000  men  Pompeius 
awaited  at  Brundisium  the  return  of  the  fleet ;  for,  however 
desirable  the  possession  of  Brundisium  might  be  for  an 
eventual  attempt  to  reoccupy  Italy,  they  did  not  presume 
to  hold  the  place  permanently  against  Caesar.  Meanwhile 
Caesar  arrived  before  Brundisium;  the  siege  began. 
Caesar  attempted  first  of  all  to  close  the  mouth  of  the 
harbour  by  moles  and  floating  bridges,  with  a  view  to 
exclude  the  returning  fleet ;  but  Pompeius  caused  the 
trading  vessels  lying  in  the  harbour  to  be  armed,  and 
managed  to  prevent  the  complete  closing  of  the  harbour 


212 


BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA, 


BOOK  V 


Military 
and 

financial 
results  of 
the  seizure 
of  Italy. 

49. 


until  the  fleet  appeared  and  the  troops — whom  Pompeius 
with  great  dexterity,  in  spite  of  the  vigilance  of  the 
besiegers  and  the  hostile  feeling  of  the  inhabitants,  with- 
drew from  the  town  to  the  last  man  unharmed — were 
carried  off  beyond  Caesar's  reach  to  Greece  ( 1 7  March). 
The  further  pursuit,  like  the  siege  itself,  failed  for  want  of 
a  fleet. 

In  a  campaign  of  two  months,  without  a  single  serious 
engagement,  Caesar  had  so  broken  up  an  army  of  ten 
legions,  that  less  than  the  half  of  it  had  with  great  difficulty 
escaped  in  a  confused  flight  across  the  sea,  and  the  whole 
Italian  peninsula,  including  the  capital  with  the  state-chest 
and  all  the  stores  accumulated  there,  had  fallen  into  the 
power  of  the  victor.  Not  without  reason  did  the  beaten 
party  bewail  the  terrible  rapidity,  sagacity,  and  energy  of 
the  "monster." 

But  it  may  be  questioned  whether  Caesar  gained  or  lost 
more  by  the  conquest  of  Italy.  In  a  military  respect,  no 
doubt,  very  considerable  resources  were  now  not  merely 
withdrawn  from  his  opponents,  but  rendered  available  for 
himself;  even  in  the  spring  of  705  his  army  embraced,  in 
consequence  of  the  levies  en  masse  instituted  everywhere,  a 
considerable  number  of  legions  of  recruits  in  addition  to 
the  nine  old  ones.  But  on  the  other  hand  it  now  became 
necessary  not  merely  to  leave  behind  a  considerable 
garrison  in  Italy,  but  also  to  take  measures  against  the 
closing  of  the  transmarine  traffic  contemplated  by  his 
opponents  who  commanded  the  sea,  and  against  the 
famine  with  which  the  capital  was  consequently  threatened  ; 
whereby  Caesar's  already  sufficiently  complicated  military 
task  was  complicated  further  still.  Financially  it  was 
certainly  of  importance,  that  Caesar  had  the  good  fortune 
to  obtain  possession  of  the  stock  of  money  in  the  capital ; 
but  the  principal  sources  of  income  and  particularly  the 
revenues   from  the  east  were  withal  in  the  hands  of  the 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  213 

enemy,  and,  in  consequence  of  the  greatly  increased 
demands  for  the  army  and  the  new  obligation  to  provide 
for  the  starving  population  of  the  capital,  the  considerable 
sums  which  were  found  quickly  melted  away.  Caesar 
soon  found  himself  compelled  to  appeal  to  private  credit, 
and,  as  it  seemed  that  he  could  not  possibly  gain  any  long 
respite  by  this  means,  extensive  confiscations  were  generally 
anticipated  as  the  only  remaining  expedient. 

More    serious    difficulties    still    were    created    by    the  Its  political 

results 

political  relations  amidst  which  Caesar  found  himself 
placed  on  the  conquest  of  Italy.  The  apprehension  of  an  Fear  of 
anarchical  revolution  was  universal  among  the  propertied 
classes.  Friends  and  foes  saw  in  Caesar  a  second  Catilina ; 
Pompeius  believed  or  affected  to  believe  that  Caesar  had 
been  driven  to  civil  war  merely  by  the  impossibility  of 
paying  his  debts.  This  was  certainly  absurd ;  but  in  fact 
Caesar's  antecedents  were  anything  but  reassuring,  and  still 
less  reassuring  was  the  aspect  of  the  retinue  that  now 
surrounded  him.  Individuals  of  the  most  broken  reputa- 
tion, notorious  personages  like  Quintus  Hortensius,  Gaius 
Curio,  Marcus  Antonius, — the  latter  the  stepson  of  the 
Catilinarian  Lentulus  who  was  executed  by  the  orders  of 
Cicero — were  the  most  prominent  actors  in  it ;  the  highest 
posts  of  trust  were  bestowed  on  men  who  had  long  ceased 
even  to  reckon  up  their  debts ;  people  saw  men  who  held 
office  under  Caesar  not  merely  keeping  dancing-girls — 
which  was  done  by  others  also — but  appearing  publicly  in 
company  with  them.  Was  there  any  wonder,  that  even 
grave  and  politically  impartial  men  expected  amnesty  for 
all  exiled  criminals,  cancelling  of  creditors'  claims,  compre- 
hensive mandates  of  confiscation,  proscription,  and  murder, 
nay,  even  a  plundering  of  Rome  by  the  Gallic  soldiery  ? 

But  in  this  respect  the  "  monster  "  deceived  the  expecta-  dispelled 
tions  of  his  foes  as  well  as  of  his  friends.     As  soon  even  as  by  Caesar* 
Caesar   occupied   the    first    Italian    town,    Ariminum,    he 


214  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

prohibited    all    common    soldiers    from    appearing   armed 

within  the  walls;  the  country  towns  were  protected  from 

all  injury  throughout  and  without  distinction,  whether  they 

had  given  him  a  friendly  or  hostile  reception.     When  the 

mutinous    garrison    surrendered    Corfinium    late    in     the 

evening,   he  in  the  face  of  every  military   consideration 

postponed  the  occupation   of  the  town  till  the  following 

morning,  solely  that  he  might  not  abandon  the  burgesses 

to  the  nocturnal  invasion  of  his  exasperated  soldiers.     Of 

the  prisoners  the  common  soldiers,  as  presumably  indifferent 

to  politics,  were  incorporated  with  his  own  army,  while  the 

officers  were  not  merely  spared,  but  also   freely  released 

without  distinction  of  person  and  without  the  exaction  of 

any  promises   whatever;   and   all  which   they  claimed  as 

private  property  was   frankly  given   up  to  them,  without 

even  investigating  with  any  strictness  the  warrant  for  their 

claims.     Lucius   Domitius   himself  was  thus  treated,  and 

even  Labienus  had  the  money  and  baggage  which  he  had 

left  behind  sent  after  him  to  the  enemy's  camp.     In  the 

most  painful  financial  embarrassment  the  immense  estates 

of  his    opponents    whether    present    or   absent    were    not 

assailed ;  indeed  Caesar  preferred  to  borrow  from  friends, 

rather  than  that  he  should  stir  up  the  possessors  of  property 

against  him  even  by  exacting  the  formally  admissible,  but 

practically    antiquated,    land    tax   (iv.    156).       The   victor 

regarded  only  the  half,  and  that  not  the  more  difficult  half, 

of  his  task  as  solved  with  the  victory ;  he  saw  the  security 

for  its  duration,  according  to  his  own  expression,  only  in 

the    unconditional    pardon    of  the    vanquished,   and    had 

accordingly   during    the   whole   march    from    Ravenna    to 

Brundisium  incessantly  renewed  his  efforts  to  bring  about 

a   personal    conference    with    Pompeius    and   a   tolerable 

accommodation. 

Threats  But,  if  the  aristocracy  had  previously  refused  to  listen 

of  the  ....  .  ...  ,.,.., 

emigrants.    to  any  reconciliation,  the  unexpected  emigration  of  a  kind 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  215 

so  disgraceful  had  raised  their  wrath  to  madness,  and  the 
wild  vengeance  breathed  by  the  beaten  contrasted  strangely 
with  the  placability  of  the  victor.  The  communications 
regularly  coming  from  the  camp  of  the  emigrants  to  their 
friends  left  behind  in  Italy  were  full  of  projects  for 
confiscations  and  proscriptions,  of  plans  for  purifying  the 
senate  and  the  state,  compared  with  which  the  restoration 
of  Sulla  was  child's  play,  and  which  even  the  moderate 
men  of  their  own  party  heard  with  horror.  The  frantic  The  mass 
passion  of  impotence,  the  wise  moderation  of  power,  peoS^ 
produced  their  effect.  The  whole  mass,  in  whose  eyes  gained  for 
material  interests  were  superior  to  political,  threw  itself 
into  the  arms  of  Caesar.  The  country  towns  idolized  "  the 
uprightness,  the  moderation,  the  prudence  "  of  the  victor ; 
and  even  opponents  conceded  that  these  demonstrations  of 
respect  were  meant  in  earnest.  The  great  capitalists, 
farmers  of  the  taxes,  and  jurymen,  showed  no  special 
desire,  after  the  severe  shipwreck  which  had  befallen  the 
constitutional  party  in  Italy,  to  entrust  themselves  farther 
to  the  same  pilots ;  capital  came  once  more  to  the  light, 
and  "the  rich  lords  resorted  again  to  their  daily  task  of 
writing  their  rent-rolls."  Even  the  great  majority  of  the 
senate,  at  least  numerically  speaking — for  certainly  but  few 
of  the  nobler  and  more  influential  members  of  the  senate 
were  included  in  it — had  notwithstanding  the  orders  of 
Pompeius  and  of  the  consuls  remained  behind  in  Italy,  and 
a  portion  of  them  even  in  the  capital  itself;  and  they  acqui- 
esced in  Caesar's  rule.  The  moderation  of  Caesar,  well 
calculated  even  in  its  very  semblance  of  excess,  attained 
its  object :  the  trembling  anxiety  of  the  propertied  classes 
as  to  the  impending  anarchy  was  in  some  measure  allayed. 
This  was  doubtless  an  incalculable  gain  for  the  future ;  the 
prevention  of  anarchy,  and  of  the  scarcely  less  dangerous 
alarm  of  anarchy,  was  the  indispensable  preliminary  con- 
dition to  the  future  reorganization  of  the  commonwealth. 


2l6 


BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA, 


BOOK  V 


Indigna- 
tion of  the 
anarchist 
party 
against 
Caesar. 


The 

republican 
party  in 
Italy. 


But  at  the  moment  this  moderation  was  more  dangerous 
for  Caesar  than  the  renewal  of  the  Cinnan  and  Catilinarian 
fury  would  have  been ;  it  did  not  convert  enemies  into 
friends,  and  it  converted  friends  into  enemies.  Caesar's 
Catilinarian  adherents  were  indignant  that  murder  and 
pillage  remained  in  abeyance ;  these  audacious  and 
desperate  personages,  some  of  whom  were  men  of  talent, 
might  be  expected  to  prove  cross  and  untractable.  The 
republicans  of  all  shades,  on  the  other  hand,  were  neither 
converted  nor  propitiated  by  the  leniency  of  the  conqueror. 
According  to  the  creed  of  the  Catonian  party,  duty  towards 
what  they  called  their  fatherland  absolved  them  from 
every  other  consideration ;  even  one  who  owed  freedom 
and  life  to  Caesar  remained  entitled  and  in  duty  bound 
to  take  up  arms  or  at  least  to  engage  in  plots  against  him. 
The  less  decided  sections  of  the  constitutional  party  were 
no  doubt  found  willing  to  accept  peace  and  protection 
from  the  new  monarch;  nevertheless  they  ceased  not  to 
curse  the  monarchy  and  the  monarch  at  heart.  The  more 
clearly  the  change  of  the  constitution  became  manifest, 
the  more  distinctly  the  great  majority  of  the  burgesses — 
both  in  the  capital  with  its  keener  susceptibility  of  political 
excitement,  and  among  the  more  energetic  population  of 
the  country  and  country  towns — awoke  to  a  consciousness 
of  their  republican  sentiments ;  so  far  the  friends  of  the 
constitution  in  Rome  reported  with  truth  to  their  brethren 
of  kindred  views  in  exile,  that  at  home  all  classes  and  all 
persons  were  friendly  to  Pompeius.  The  discontented 
temper  of  all  these  circles  was  further  increased  by  the 
moral  pressure,  which  the  more  decided  and  more  notable 
men  who  shared  such  views  exercised  from  their  very  position 
as  emigrants  over  the  multitude  of  the  humbler  and  more 
lukewarm.  The  conscience  of  the  honourable  man  smote 
him  in  regard  to  his  remaining  in  Italy ;  the  half-aristocrat 
fancied  that   he  was   ranked   among   the  plebeians,  if  he 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  217 

did  not  go  into  exile  with  the  Domitii  and  the  Metelli, 
and  even  if  he  took  his  seat  in  the  Caesarian  senate  of 
nobodies.  The  victor's  special  clemency  gave  to  this 
silent  opposition  increased  political  importance ;  seeing 
that  Caesar  abstained  from  terrorism,  it  seemed  as  if  his 
secret  opponents  could  display  their  disinclination  to  his 
rule  without  much  danger. 

Very  soon  he  experienced  remarkable  treatment  in  this  Passive 
respect  at  the  hands  of  the  senate.  Caesar  had  begun  of^e"0* 
the  struggle  to  liberate  the  overawed  senate  from  its  senate  to 
oppressors.  This  was  done;  consequently  he  wished  to 
obtain  from  the  senate  approval  of  what  had  been  done, 
and  full  powers  for  the  continuance  of  the  war.  For  this 
purpose,  when  Caesar  appeared  before  the  capital  (end  of 
March)  the  tribunes  of  the  people  belonging  to  his  party 
convoked  for  him  the  senate  (1  April).  The  meeting  was 
tolerably  numerous,  but  the  more  notable  of  the  very 
senators  that  remained  in  Italy  were  absent,  including  even 
the  former  leader  of  the  servile  majority  Marcus  Cicero 
and  Caesar's  own  father-in-law  Lucius  Piso ;  and,  what 
was  worse,  those  who  did  appear  were  not  inclined  to 
enter  into  Caesar's  proposals.  When  Caesar  spoke  of 
full  power  to  continue  the  war,  one  of  the  only  two 
consulars  present,  Servius  Sulpicius  Rufus,  a  very  timid 
man  who  desired  nothing  but  a  quiet  death  in  his  bed, 
was  of  opinion  that  Caesar  would  deserve  well  of  his 
country  if  he  should  abandon  the  thought  of  carrying  the 
war  to  Greece  and  Spain.  When  Caesar  thereupon 
requested  the  senate  at  least  to  be  the  medium  of  trans- 
mitting his  peace  proposals  to  Pompeius,  they  were  not 
indeed  opposed  to  that  course  in  itself,  but  the  threats  of 
the  emigrants  against  the  neutrals  had  so  terrified  the 
latter,  that  no  one  was  found  to  undertake  the  message 
of  peace.  Through  the  disinclination  of  the  aristocracy 
to  help  the  erection  of  the  monarch's  throne,  and  through 


2i3  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

the  same  inertness  of  the  dignified  corporation,  by  means 
of  which  Caesar  had  shortly  before  frustrated  the  legal 
nomination  of  Pompeius  as  generalissimo  in  the  civil  war, 
he  too  was  now  thwarted  when  making  a  like  request. 
Other  impediments,  moreover,  occurred.  Caesar  desired, 
with  the  view  of  regulating  in  some  sort  of  way  his 
position,  to  be  named  as  dictator;  but  his  wish  was  not 
complied  with,  because  such  a  magistrate  could  only  be 
constitutionally  appointed  by  one  of  the  consuls,  and  the 
attempt  of  Caesar  to  buy  the  consul  Lentulus — of  which 
owing  to  the  disordered  condition  of  his  finances  there 
was  a  good  prospect — nevertheless  proved  a  failure.  The 
tribune  of  the  people  Lucius  Metellus,  moreover,  lodged 
a  protest  against  all  the  steps  of  the  proconsul,  and  made 
signs  as  though  he  would  protect  with  his  person  the 
public  chest,  when  Caesar's  men  came  to  empty  it.  Caesar 
could  not  avoid  in  this  case  ordering  that  the  inviolable 
person  should  be  pushed  aside  as  gently  as  possible ; 
otherwise,  he  kept  by  his  purpose  of  abstaining  from  all 
violent  steps.  He  declared  to  the  senate,  just  as  the 
constitutional  party  had  done  shortly  before,  that  he  had 
certainly  desired  to  regulate  things  in  a  legal  way  and 
with  the  help  of  the  supreme  authority ;  but,  since  this 
help  was  refused,  he  could  dispense  with  it. 
Provisional  Without  further  concerning  himself  about  the  senate 
memof the  ano-  tne  formalities  of  state  law,  he  handed  over  the 
affairs  of  temporary  administration  of  the  capital  to  the  praetor 
ecapi  Marcus  Aemilius  Lepidus  as  city  -  prefect,  and  made  the 
The  requisite    arrangements    for    the    administration    of    the 

provinces.  provjnces  that  obeyed  him  and  the  continuance  of  the 
war.  Even  amidst  the  din  of  the  gigantic  struggle,  and 
with  all  the  alluring  sound  of  Caesar's  lavish  promises,  it 
still  made  a  deep  impression  on  the  multitude  of  the 
capital,  when  they  saw  in  their  free  Rome  the  monarch 
for  the  first  time  wielding  a  monarch's  power  and  breakirg 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  219 

open  the  doors  of  the  treasury  by  his  soldiers.  But  the 
times  had  gone  by,  when  the  impressions  and  feelings  of 
the  multitude  determined  the  course  of  events ;  it  was 
with  the  legions  that  the  decision  lay,  and  a  few  painful 
feelings  more  or  less  were  of  no  farther  moment. 

Caesar  hastened  to  resume  the  war.  He  owed  his  The 
successes  hitherto  to  the  offensive,  and  he  intended  still  ^spA^9 
to  maintain  it.  The  position  of  his  antagonist  was  singular. 
After  the  original  plan  of  carrying  on  the  campaign 
simultaneously  in  the  two  Gauls  by  offensive  operations 
from  the  bases  of  Italy  and  Spain  had  been  frustrated  by 
Caesar's  aggressive,  Pompeius  had  intended  to  go  to 
Spain.  There  he  had  a  very  strong  position.  The  army 
amounted  to  seven  legions ;  a  large  number  of  Pompeius' 
veterans  served  in  it,  and  several  years  of  conflicts  in  the 
Lusitanian  mountains  had  hardened  soldiers  and  officers. 
Among  its  captains  Marcus  Varro  indeed  was  simply  a 
celebrated  scholar  and  a  faithful  partisan ;  but  Lucius 
Afranius  had  fought  with  distinction  in  the  east  and  in 
the  Alps,  and  Marcus  Petreius,  the  conqueror  of  Catilina, 
was  an  officer  as  dauntless  as  he  was  able.  While  in  the 
Further  province  Caesar  had  still  various  adherents  from 
the  time  of  his  governorship  there  (p.  6),  the  more 
important  province  of  the  Ebro  was  attached  by  all  the 
ties  of  veneration  and  gratitude  to  the  celebrated  general, 
who  twenty  years  before  had  held  the  command  in  it 
during  the  Sertorian  war,  and  after  the  termination  of 
that  war  had  organized  it  anew.  Pompeius  could  evidently 
after  the  Italian  disaster  do  nothing  better  than  proceed 
to  Spain  with  the  saved  remnant  of  his  army,  and  then  at 
the  head  of  his  whole  force  advance  to  meet  Caesar.  But 
unfortunately  he  had,  in  the  hope  of  being  able  still  to 
save  the  troops  that  were  in  Corfinium,  tarried  in  Apulia 
so  long  that  he  was  compelled  to  choose  the  nearer 
Brundisium  as  his  place   of  embarkation   instead  of  the 


220  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

Campanian  ports.  Why,  master  as  he  was  of  the  sea 
and  Sicily,  he  did  not  subsequently  revert  to  his  original 
plan,  cannot  be  determined ;  whether  it  was  that  perhaps 
the  aristocracy  after  their  short  -  sighted  and  distrustful 
fashion  showed  no  desire  to  entrust  themselves  to  the 
Spanish  troops  and  the  Spanish  population,  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  Pompeius  remained  in  the  east,  and  Caesar 
had  the  option  of  directing  his  first  attack  either  against 
the  army  which  was  being  organized  in  Greece  under 
Pompeius'  own  command,  or  against  that  which  was 
ready  for  battle  under  his  lieutenants  in  Spain.  He  had 
decided  in  favour  of  the  latter  course,  and,  as  soon  as 
the  Italian  campaign  ended,  had  taken  measures  to  collect 
on  the  lower  Rhone  nine  of  his  best  legions,  as  also  6000 
cavalry — partly  men  individually  picked  out  by  Caesar 
in  the  Celtic  cantons,  partly  German  mercenaries — and  a 
number  of  Iberian  and  Ligurian  archers. 

Massilia  But  at  this  point  his  opponents  also  had  been  active. 

q^£  Lucius  Domitius,  who  was  nominated  by  the  senate  in 
Caesar's  stead  as  governor  of  Transalpine  Gaul,  had 
proceeded  from  Corfinium  —  as  soon  as  Caesar  had 
released  him — along  with  his  attendants  and  with  Pom- 
peius' confidant  Lucius  Vibullius  Rufus  to  Massilia,  and 
actually  induced  that  city  to  declare  for  Pompeius  and 
even  to  refuse  a  passage  to  Caesar's  troops.  Of  the 
Spanish  troops  the  two  least  trustworthy  legions  were  left 
behind  under  the  command  of  Varro  in  the  Further 
province;  while  the  five  best,  reinforced  by  40,000  Spanish 
infantry  —  partly  Celtiberian  infantry  of  the  line,  partly 
Lusitanian  and  other  light  troops — and  by  5000  Spanish 
cavalry,  under  Afranius  and  Petreius,  had,  in  accordance 
with  the  orders  of  Pompeius  transmitted  by  Vibullius,  set 
out  to  close  the  Pyrenees  against  the  enemy. 

Meanwhile  Caesar  himself  arrived  in  Gaul  and,  as  the 
commencement  of  the  siege  of  Massilia  still  detained  him 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  221 

in  person,  he  immediately  despatched  the  greater  part  of  Caesar 
his  troops  assembled  on  the  Rhone — six  legions  and  the  ^e^"* 
cavalry — along  the  great  road  leading  by  way  of  Narbo  Pyrenees. 
(Narbonne)  to  Rhode  (Rosas)  with  the  view  of  anticipating 
the  enemy  at  the  Pyrenees.  The  movement  was  successful ; 
when  Afranius  and  Petreius  arrived  at  the  passes,  they 
found  them  already  occupied  by  the  Caesarians  and  the 
line  of  the  Pyrenees  lost  They  then  took  up  a  position  at  Position  at 
Ilerda  (Lerida)  between  the  Pyrenees  and  the  Ebro.  This  Ilerda* 
town  lies  twenty  miles  to  the  north  of  the  Ebro  on  the  right 
bank  of  one  of  its  tributaries,  the  Sicoris  (Segre),  which  was 
crossed  by  only  a  single  solid  bridge  immediately  at  Ilerda. 
To  the  south  of  Ilerda  the  mountains  which  adjoin  the  left 
bank  of  the  Ebro  approach  pretty  close  to  the  town ;  to  the 
northward  there  stretches  on  both  sides  of  the  Sicoris  a 
level  country  which  is  commanded  by  the  hill  on  which  the 
town  is  built.  For  an  army,  which  had  to  submit  to  a 
siege,  it  was  an  excellent  position ;  but  the  defence  of  Spain, 
after  the  occupation  of  the  line  of  the  Pyrenees  had  been 
neglected,  could  only  be  undertaken  in  earnest  behind  the 
Ebro,  and,  as  no  secure  communication  was  established 
between  Ilerda  and  the  Ebro,  and  no  bridge  existed  over 
the  latter  stream,  the  retreat  from  the  temporary  to  the  true 
defensive  position  was  not  sufficiently  secured.  The 
Caesarians  established  themselves  above  Ilerda,  in  the  delta 
which  the  river  Sicoris  forms  with  the  Cinga  (Cinca),  which 
unites  with  it  below  Ilerda ;  but  the  attack  only  began  in 
earnest  after  Caesar  had  arrived  in  the  camp  (23  June). 
Ui-der  the  walls  of  the  town  the  struggle  was  maintained 
with  equal  exasperation  and  equal  valour  on  both  sides,  and 
with  frequent  alternations  of  success ;  but  the  Caesarians 
did  not  attain  their  object — which  was,  to  establish  them- 
selves between  the  Pompeian  camp  and  the  town  and  there- 
by to  possess  themselves  of  the  stone  bridge — and  they 
consequently  remained  dependent  for  their  communication 


cut  off. 


222  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

with   Gaul  solely  on  two  bridges  which  they  had  hastily 
tonstructed  over  the  Sicoris,  and  that  indeed,  as  the  river 
at  Ilerda  itself  was  too  considerable  to  be  bridged  over, 
about  eighteen  or  twenty  miles  farther  up. 
Caesar  When  the  floods  came  on  with  the  melting  of  the  snow, 

these  temporary  bridges  were  swept  away  ;  and,  as  they  had 
no  vessels  for  the  passage  of  the  highly  swollen  rivers  and 
under  such  circumstances  the  restoration  of  the  bridges 
could  not  for  the  present  be  thought  of,  the  Caesarian  army 
was  confined  to  the  narrow  space  between  the  Cinca  and 
the  Sicoris,  while  the  left  bank  of  the  Sicoris  and  with  it 
the  road,  by  which  the  army  communicated  with  Gaul  and 
Italy,  were  exposed  almost  undefended  to  the  Pompeians, 
who  passed  the  river  partly  by  the  town-bridge,  partly  by 
swimming  after  the  Lusitanian  fashion  on  skins.  It  was  the 
season  shortly  before  harvest ;  the  old  produce  was  almost 
used  up,  the  new  was  not  yet  gathered,  and  the  narrow 
stripe  of  land  between  the  two  streams  was  soon  exhausted. 
In  the  camp  actual  famine  prevailed — the  modius  of  wheat 
cost  50  denarii  (£1  :  16s.) — and  dangerous  diseases  broke 
out;  whereas  on  the  left  bank  there  were  accumulated 
provisions  and  varied  supplies,  as  well  as  troops  of  all  sorts 
— reinforcements  from  Gaul  of  cavalry  and  archers,  officers 
and  soldiers  from  furlough,  foraging  parties  returning — in 
all  a  mass  of  6000  men,  whom  the  Pompeians  attacked 
with  superior  force  and  drove  with  great  loss  to  the  moun- 
tains, while  the  Caesarians  on  the  right  bank  were  obliged 
to  remain  passive  spectators  of  the  unequal  conflict.  The 
communications  of  the  army  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
Pompeians ;  in  Italy  the  accounts  from  Spain  suddenly 
ceased,  and  the  suspicious  rumours,  which  began  to  circu- 
late there,  were  not  so  very  remote  from  the  truth.  Had 
the  Pompeians  followed  up  their  advantage  with  some 
energy,  they  could  not  have  failed  either  to  reduce  under 
their  power  or  at  least  to  drive  back  towards  Gaul  the  mass 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  223 

scarcely  capable  of  resistance  which  was  crowded  together 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Sicoris,  and  to  occupy  this  bank  so 
completely  that  not  a  man  could  cross  the  river  without 
their  knowledge.  But  both  points  were  neglected ;  those 
bands  were  doubtless  pushed  aside  with  loss  but  neither 
destroyed  nor  completely  beaten  back,  and  the  prevention 
of  the  crossing  of  the  river  was  left  substantially  to  the  river 
itself. 

Thereupon  Caesar  formed  his  plan.     He  ordered  port-  Caesai  re- 
able  boats  of  a  light  wooden  frame  and  osier  work  lined  establishes 

0  m  the  com- 

with  leather,  after  the  model  of  those  used  in  the  Channel  munica- 

among  the  Britons  and  subsequently  by  the  Saxons,  to  be  tlons" 

prepared  in  the  camp  and  transported  in  waggons  to  the 

point  where  the  bridges  had  stood.     On  these  frail  barks 

the  other  bank  was  reached  and,  as  it  was  found  unoccupied, 

the  bridge  was  re-established  without  much  difficulty ;  the 

road  in  connection  with  it  was  thereupon  quickly  cleared, 

and  the  eagerly- expected   supplies  were  conveyed   to  the 

camp.      Caesar's  happy  idea  thus  rescued  the  army  from 

the  immense  peril  in  which  it  was  placed.     Then  the  cavalry 

of  Caesar  which  in  efficiency  far  surpassed  that  of  the  enemy 

began  at  once  to  scour  the  country  on  the  left  bank  of  the 

Sicoris ;  the  most  considerable  Spanish  communities  between 

the  Pyrenees  and  the  Ebro — Osca,  Tarraco,  Dertosa,  and 

others — nay,  even  several  to  the  south  of  the  Ebro,  passed 

over  to  Caesar's  side. 

The  supplies  of  the  Pompeians  were  now  rendered  scarce  Retreat 

through  the  foraging  parties  of  Caesar  and  the  defection  of  of  the 

°  °    °  r  Pompeians 

the  neighbouring  communities ;  they  resolved  at  length  to  from 

retire  behind  the  line  of  the  Ebro,  and  set  themselves  in  all  Ilerda- 

haste  to  form  a  bridge  of  boats  over  the  Ebro  below  the 

mouth  of  the  Sicoris.     Caesar  sought  to  cut  off  the  retreat 

of  his  opponents  over  the  Ebro  and  to  detain  them  in 

Ilerda ;  but  so  long  as  the  enemy  remained  in  possession 

of  the  bridge  at  Ilerda  and  he  had  control  of  neither  ford 


follows. 


224  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

nor  bridge  there,  he  could  not  distribute  his  army  over  both 
banks  of  the  river  and  could  not  invest  Ilerda.  His  soldiers 
therefore  worked  day  and  night  to  lower  the  depth  of  the 
river  by  means  of  canals  drawing  off  the  water,  so  that  the 
infantry  could  wade  through  it.  But  the  preparations  of 
the  Pompeians  to  pass  the  Ebro  were  sooner  finished  than 
the  arrangements  of  the  Caesarians  for  investing  Ilerda; 
when  the  former  after  finishing  the  bridge  of  boats  began 
their  march  towards  the  Ebro  along  the  left  bank  of  the 
Sicoris,  the  canals  of  the  Caesarians  seemed  to  the  general 
not  yet  far  enough  advanced  to  make  the  ford  available  for 
the  infantry  \  he  ordered  only  his  cavalry  to  pass  the  stream 
and,  by  clinging  to  the  rear  of  the  enemy,  at  least  to  detain 
and  harass  them. 
Caesar  But  when  Caesar's  legions  saw  in  the  gray  morning  the 

enemy's  columns  which  had  been  retiring  since  midnight, 
they  discerned  with  the  sure  instinct  of  experienced  veterans 
the  strategic  importance  of  this  retreat,  which  would 
compel  them  to  follow  their  antagonists  into  distant  and 
impracticable  regions  filled  by  hostile  troops ;  at  their  own 
request  the  general  ventured  to  lead  the  infantry  also  into 
the  river,  and  although  the  water  reached  up  to  the 
shoulders  of  the  men,  it  was  crossed  without  accident.  It 
was  high  time.  If  the  narrow  plain,  which  separated  the 
town  of  Ilerda  from  the  mountains  enclosing  the  Ebro 
were  once  traversed  and  the  army  of  the  Pompeians 
entered  the  mountains,  their  retreat  to  the  Ebro  could  no 
longer  be  prevented.  Already  they  had,  notwithstanding 
the  constant  attacks  of  the  enemy's  cavalry  which  greatly 
delayed  their  march,  approached  within  five  miles  of  the 
mountains,  when  they,  having  been  on  the  march  since 
midnight  and  unspeakably  exhausted,  abandoned  their 
original  plan  of  traversing  the  whole  plain  on  the  same 
day,  and  pitched  their  camp.  Here  the  infantry  of  Caesar 
overtook  them  and  encamped  opposite  to  them  in  the 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  225 

evening  and  during  the  night,  as  the  nocturnal  march 
which  the  Pompeians  had  at  first  contemplated  was 
abandoned  from  fear  of  the  night-attacks  of  the  cavalry. 
On  the  following  day  also  both  armies  remained  immove- 
able, occupied  only  in  reconnoitring  the  country. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  the  third  day  Caesar's  infantry  The  route 
set  out,  that  by  a  movement  through  the  pathless  mountains  g^6 
alongside  of  the  road  they  might  turn  the  position  of  the  closed, 
enemy  and  bar  their  route  to  the  Ebro.  The  object  of  the 
strange  march,  which  seemed  at  first  to  turn  back  towards 
the  camp  before  Ilerda,  was  not  at  once  perceived  by  the 
Pompeian  officers.  When  they  discerned  it,  they  sacrificed 
camp  and  baggage  and  advanced  by  a  forced  march  along 
the  highway,  to  gain  the  crest  of  the  ridge  before  the 
Caesarians.  But  it  was  already  too  late ;  when  they  came 
up,  the  compact  masses  of  the  enemy  were  already  posted 
on  the  highway  itself.  A  desperate  attempt  of  the 
Pompeians  to  discover  other  routes  to  the  Ebro  over  the 
steep  mountains  was  frustrated  by  Caesar's  cavalry,  which 
surrounded  and  cut  to  pieces  the  Lusitanian  troops  sent 
forth  for  that  purpose.  Had  a  battle  taken  place  between 
the  Pompeian  army — which  had  the  enemy's  cavalry  in  its 
rear  and  their  infantry  in  front,  and  was  utterly  demoralized 
— and  the  Caesarians,  the  issue  was  scarcely  doubtful,  and 
the  opportunity  for  fighting  several  times  presented  itself; 
but  Caesar  made  no  use  of  it,  and,  not  without  difficulty, 
restrained  the  impatient  eagerness  for  the  combat  in  his 
soldiers  sure  of  victory.  The  Pompeian  army  was  at  any 
rate  strategically  lost ;  Caesar  avoided  weakening  his  army 
and  still  further  envenoming  the  bitter  feud  by  useless 
bloodshed.  On  the  very  day  after  he  had  succeeded  in 
cutting  off  the  Pompeians  from  the  Ebro,  the  soldiers  of 
the  two  armies  had  begun  to  fraternize  and  to  negotiate 
respecting  surrender;  indeed  the  terms  asked  by  the 
Pompeians,  especially  as  to  the  sparing  of  their  officers, 

VOL.  V  I48 


226  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

had  been  already  conceded  by  Caesar,  when  Petreius  with 
his  escort  consisting  of  slaves  and  Spaniards  came  upon 
the  negotiators  and  caused  the  Caesarians,  on  whom  he 
could  lay  hands,  to  be  put  to  death.  Caesar  nevertheless 
sent  the  Pompeians  who  had  come  to  his  camp  back  un- 
harmed, and  persevered  in  seeking  a  peaceful  solution. 
Ilerda,  where  the  Pompeians  had  still  a  garrison  and  con- 
siderable magazines,  became  now  the  point  which  they 
sought  to  reach ;  but  with  the  hostile  army  in  front  and 
the  Sicoris  between  them  and  the  fortress,  they  marched 
without  coming  nearer  to  their  object.  Their  cavalry 
became  gradually  so  afraid  that  the  infantry  had  to  take 
them  into  the  centre  and  legions  had  to  be  set  as  the  rear- 
guard; the  procuring  of  water  and  forage  became  more 
and  more  difficult ;  they  had  already  to  kill  the  beasts  of 
burden,  because  they  could  no  longer  feed  them.  At 
length  the  wandering  army  found  itself  formally  inclosed, 
with  the  Sicoris  in  its  rear  and  the  enemy's  force  in  front, 
which  drew  rampart  and  trench  around  it  It  attempted 
to  cross  the  river,  but  Caesar's  German  horsemen  and  light 
infantry  anticipated  it  in  the  occupation  of  the  opposite 
bank. 
Capitula-  No  bravery  and  no  fidelity  could  longer  avert  the  in- 

Pom-  [49.  evitable  capitulation  (2  Aug.  705).  Caesar  granted  to 
peians.  officers  and  soldiers  their  life  and  liberty,  and  the  posses- 
sion of  the  property  which  they  still  retained  as  well  as  the 
restoration  of  what  had  been  already  taken  from  them,  the 
full  value  of  which  he  undertook  personally  to  make  good 
to  his  soldiers ;  and  not  only  so,  but  while  he  had  compul- 
sorily  enrolled  in  his  army  the  recruits  captured  in  Italy, 
he  honoured  these  old  legionaries  of  Pompeius  by  the 
promise  that  no  one  should  be  compelled  against  his  will 
to  enter  Caesar's  army.  He  required  only  that  each  should 
give  up  his  arms  and  repair  to  his  home.  Accordingly  the 
soldiers  who  were  natives  of  Spain,  about  a  third  of  the 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  227 

army,  were  disbanded  at  once,  while  the  Italian  soldiers 
were  discharged  on  the  borders  of  Transalpine  and  Cis- 
alpine Gaul. 

Hither  Spain  on  the  breaking  up  of  this  army  fell  of  Further 
itself  into  the  power  of  the  victor.  In  Further  Spain,  where  gu^ts. 
Marcus  Varro  held  the  chief  command  for  Pompeius,  it 
seemed  to  him,  when  he  learned  the  disaster  of  Ilerda, 
most  advisable  that  he  should  throw  himself  into  the  insular 
town  of  Gades  and  should  carry  thither  for  safety  the  con- 
siderable sums  which  he  had  collected  by  confiscating  the 
treasures  of  the  temples  and  the  property  of  prominent 
Caesarians,  the  not  inconsiderable  fleet  which  he  had 
raised,  and  the  two  legions  entrusted  to  him.  But  on  the 
mere  rumour  of  Caesar's  arrival  the  most  notable  towns  of 
the  province  which  had  been  for  long  attached  to  Caesar 
declared  for  the  latter  and  drove  away  the  Pompeian 
garrisons  or  induced  them  to  a  similar  revolt ;  such  was 
the  case  with  Corduba,  Carmo,  and  Gades  itself.  One  of 
the  legions  also  set  out  of  its  own  accord  for  Hispalis,  and 
passed  over  along  with  this  town  to  Caesar's  side.  When 
at  length  even  Italica  closed  its  gates  against  Varro,  the 
latter  resolved  to  capitulate. 

About  the  same  time  Massilia  also  submitted.  With  Siege  of 
rare  energy  the  Massiliots  had  not  merely  sustained  a  siege, 
but  had  also  kept  the  sea  against  Caesar;  it  was  their 
native  element,  and  they  might  hope  to  obtain  vigorous 
support  on  it  from  Pompeius,  who  in  fact  had  the  exclusive 
command  of  it.  But  Caesar's  lieutenant,  the  able  Decimus 
Brutus,  the  same  who  had  achieved  the  first  naval  victory 
in  the  Atlantic  over  the  Veneti  (p.  55/),  managed  rapidly 
to  equip  a  fleet ;  and  in  spite  of  the  brave  resistance  of  the 
enemy's  crews — consisting  partly  of  Albioecian  mercenaries 
of  the  Massiliots,  partly  of  slave-herdsmen  of  Domitius — 
he  vanquished  by  means  of  his  brave  marines  selected  from 
the  legions  the  stronger  Massiliot  fleet,  and  sank  or  captured 


Massilia. 


228  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  V 

the  greater  part  of  their  ships.  When  therefore  a  small 
Pompeian  squadron  under  Lucius  Nasidius  arrived  from 
the  east  by  way  of  Sicily  and  Sardinia  in  the  port  of 
Massilia,  the  Massiliots  once  more  renewed  their  naval 
armament  and  sailed  forth  along  with  the  ships  of  Nasidius 
against  Brutus.  The  engagement  which  took  place  off 
Tauroeis  (La  Ciotat  to  the  east  of  Marseilles)  might  prob- 
ably have  had  a  different  result,  if  the  vessels  of  Nasidius 
had  fought  with  the  same  desperate  courage  which  the 
Massiliots  displayed  on  that  day;  but  the  flight  of  the 
Nasidians  decided  the  victory  in  favour  of  Brutus,  and  the 
remains  of  the  Pompeian  fleet  fled  to  Spain.  The  besieged 
were  completely  driven  from  the  sea.  On  the  landward 
side,  where  Gaius  Trebonius  conducted  the  siege,  the  most 
resolute  resistance  was  still  continued ;  but  in  spite  of  the 
frequent  sallies  of  the  Albioecian  mercenaries  and  the  skilful 
expenditure  of  the  immense  stores  of  projectiles  accumu- 
lated in  the  city,  the  works  of  the  besiegers  were  at  length 
advanced  up  to  the  walls  and  one  of  the  towers  fell.  The 
Massiliots  declared  that  they  would  give  up  the  defence, 
but  desired  to  conclude  the  capitulation  with  Caesar  him- 
self, and  entreated  the  Roman  commander  to  suspend  the 
siege  operations  till  Caesar's  arrival.  Trebonius  had  ex- 
press orders  from  Caesar  to  spare  the  town  as  far  as 
possible ;  he  granted  the  armistice  desired.  But  when  the 
Massiliots  made  use  of  it  for  an  artful  sally,  in  which  they 
completely  burnt  the  one-half  of  the  almost  unguarded 
Roman  works,  the  struggle  of  the  siege  began  anew  and 
with  increased  exasperation.  The  vigorous  commander  of 
the  Romans  repaired  with  surprising  rapidity  the  destroyed 
towers  and  the  mound ;  soon  the  Massiliots  were  once 
more  completely  invested. 
Massilia  When  Caesar  on  his  return  from  the  conquest  of  Spain 

capitulates.  arrive(}  before  their  city,  he  found  it  reduced  to  extremities 
partly  by  the  enemy's  attacks,  partly  by  famine  and  pesti- 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  229 

lence,  and  ready  for  the  second  time — on  this  occasion  in 
right  earnest — to  surrender  on  any  terms.  Domitius  alone, 
remembering  the  indulgence  of  the  victor  which  he  had 
shamefully  misused,  embarked  in  a  boat  and  stole  through 
the  Roman  fleet,  to  seek  a  third  battle-field  for  his  implac- 
able resentment.  Caesar's  soldiers  had  sworn  to  put  to 
the  sword  the  whole  male  population  of  the  perfidious  city, 
and  vehemently  demanded  from  the  general  the  signal  for 
plunder.  But  Caesar,  mindful  here  also  of  his  great  task 
of  establishing  Helleno-Italic  civilization  in  the  west,  was 
not  to  be  coerced  into  furnishing  a  sequel  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  Corinth.  Massilia — the  most  remote  from  the 
mother-country  of  all  those  cities,  once  so  numerous,  free, 
and  powerful,  that  belonged  to  the  old  Ionic  mariner- 
nation,  and  almost  the  last  in  which  the  Hellenic  seafaring 
life  had  preserved  itself  fresh  and  pure,  as  in  fact  it  was 
the  last  Greek  city  that  fought  at  sea — Massilia  had  to 
surrender  its  magazines  of  arms  and  naval  stores  to  the 
victor,  and  lost  a  portion  of  its  territory  and  of  its  privi- 
leges ;  but  it  retained  its  freedom  and  its  nationality 
and  continued,  though  with  diminished  proportions  in  a 
material  point  of  view,  to  be  still  as  before  intellectually 
the  centre  of  Hellenic  culture  in  that  distant  Celtic  country 
which  at  this  very  time  was  attaining  a  new  historical 
significance. 

While   thus    in    the    western    provinces    the  war   after  Expedi- 
various   critical    vicissitudes    was    thoroughly    decided    at  caesarto 

length    in    favour   of   Caesar,    Spain    and    Massilia    were  the  corQ- 

,   provinces, 
subdued,  and  the  chief  army  of  the  enemy  was  captured 

to  the  last  man,  the  decision  of  arms  had  also  taken  place 

on  the   second   arena   of  warfare,   on   which   Caesar  had 

found  it  necessary  immediately  after  the  conquest  of  Italy 

to  assume  the  offensive. 

We    have    already    mentioned     that    the    Pompeianu 

intended   to  reduce  Italy  to  starvation.     They  had   the 


23° 


BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA, 


BOOK  V 


Sardinia 
occupied 


means  of  doing  so  in  their  hands.  They  had  thorough 
command  of  the  sea  and  laboured  with  great  zeal  every- 
where— in  Gades,  Utica,  Messana,  above  all  in  the  east — 
to  increase  their  fleet.  They  held  moreover  all  the 
provinces,  from  which  the  capital  drew  its  means  of 
subsistence :  Sardinia  and  Corsica  through  Marcus  Cotta, 
Sicily  through  Marcus  Cato,  Africa  through  the  self- 
nominated  commander-in-chief  Titus  Attius  Varus  and 
their  ally  Juba  king  of  Numidia.  It  was  indispensably 
needful  for  Caesar  to  thwart  these  plans  of  the  enemy  and 
to  wrest  from  them  the  corn-provinces.  Quintus  Valerius 
was  sent  with  a  legion  to  Sardinia  and  compelled  the 
Pompeian  governor  to  evacuate  the  island.  The  more 
important  enterprise  of  taking  Sicily  and  Africa  from  the 
enemy  was  entrusted  to  the  young  Gaius  Curio  with  the 
assistance  of  the  able  Gaius  Caninius  Rebilus,  who 
possessed  experience  in  war.  Sicily  was  occupied  by  him 
without  a  blow;  Cato,  without  a  proper  army  and  not  a 
man  of  the  sword,  evacuated  the  island,  after  having  in 
his  straightforward  manner  previously  warned  the  Siceliots 
not  to  compromise  themselves  uselessly  by  an  ineffectual 
resistance. 
Landing  of  Curio  left  behind  half  of  his  troops  to  protect  this  island 
Afric°  m  so  imPortant  f°r  tne  capital,  and  embarked  with  the  other 
half — two  legions  and  500  horsemen — for  Africa.  Here 
he  might  expect  to  encounter  more  serious  resistance; 
besides  the  considerable  and  in  its  own  fashion  efficient 
army  of  Juba,  the  governor  Varus  had  formed  two  legions 
from  the  Romans  settled  in  Africa  and  also  fitted  out  a 
small  squadron  of  ten  sail.  With  the  aid  of  his  superior 
fleet,  however,  Curio  effected  without  difficulty  a  landing 
between  Hadrumetum,  where  the  one  legion  of  the  enemy 
lay  along  with  their  ships  of  war,  and  Utica,  in  front  of 
which  town  lay  the  second  legion  under  Varus  himself. 
Curio  turned  against  the  latter,  and  pitched  his  camp  not 


Sicily 
occupied, 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  231 

far  from  Utica,  just  where  a  century  and  a  half  before  the 
elder  Scipio  had  taken  up  his  first  winter-camp  in  Africa 
(ii.  355).  Caesar,  compelled  to  keep  together  his  best 
troops  for  the  Spanish  war,  had  been  obliged  to  make  up 
the  Sicilo-African  army  for  the  most  part  out  of  the  legions 
taken  over  from  the  enemy,  more  especially  the  war- 
prisoners  of  Corfinium ;  the  officers  of  the  Pompeian  army 
in  Africa,  some  of  whom  had  served  in  the  very  legions 
that  were  conquered  at  Corfinium,  now  left  no  means 
untried  to  bring  back  their  old  soldiers  who  were  now 
fighting  against  them  to  their  first  allegiance.  But  Caesar 
had  not  erred  in  the  choice  of  his  lieutenant.  Curio  knew 
as  well  how  to  direct  the  movements  of  the  army  and  of 
the  fleet,  as  how  to  acquire  personal  influence  over  the 
soldiers ;  the  supplies  were  abundant,  the  conflicts  without 
exception  successful. 

When  Varus,  presuming  that  the  troops  of  Curio  wanted  Curio 
opportunity  to  pass  over  to  his  side,  resolved  to  give  battle  atLJtica! 
chiefly  for  the  sake  of  affording  them  this  opportunity,  the 
result  did  not  justify  his  expectations.  Animated  by  the 
fiery  appeal  of  their  youthful  leader,  the  cavalry  of  Curio 
put  to  flight  the  horsemen  of  the  enemy,  and  in  presence 
of  the  two  armies  cut  down  also  the  light  infantry  which 
had  accompanied  the  horsemen  ;  and  emboldened  by  this 
success  and  by  Curio's  personal  example,  his  legions 
advanced  through  the  difficult  ravine  separating  the  two 
lines  to  the  attack,  for  which  the  Pompeians  however  did 
not  wait,  but  disgracefully  fled  back  to  their  camp  and 
evacuated  even  this  in  the  ensuing  night.  The  victory 
was  so  complete  that  Curio  at  once  took  steps  to  besiege 
Utica.  When  news  arrived,  however,  that  king  Juba  was 
advancing  with  all  his  forces  to  its  relief,  Curio  resolved, 
just  as  Scipio  had  done  on  the  arrival  of  Syphax,  to  raise 
the  siege  and  to  return  to  Scipio's  former  camp  till  rein- 
forcements   should    arrive    from    Sicily.     Soon    afterwards 


232  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

came  a  second  report,  that  king  Juba  had  been  induced 
by  the  attacks  of  neighbouring  princes  to  turn  back  with 
his  main  force  and  was  sending  to  the  aid  of  the  besieged 
merely  a  moderate  corps  under  Saburra.  Curio,  who  from 
his  lively  temperament  had  only  with  great  reluctance 
made  up  his  mind  to  rest,  now  set  out  again  at  once  to 
fight  with  Saburra  before  he  could  enter  into  communi- 
cation with  the  garrison  of  Utica. 
Curio  His  cavalry,  which  had  gone  forward  in  the  evening, 

by  Juba  actually  succeeded  in  surprising  the  corps  of  Saburra  on 
on  the  the  Bagradas  during  the  night  and  inflicting  much  damage 
upon  it ;  and  on  the  news  of  this  victory  Curio  hastened 
the  march  of  the  infantry,  in  order  by  their  means  to 
complete  the  defeat  Soon  they  perceived  on  the  last 
slopes  of  the  heights  that  sank  towards  the  Bagradas 
the  corps  of  Saburra,  which  was  skirmishing  with  the 
Roman  horsemen ;  the  legions  coming  up  helped  to  drive 
it  completely  down  into  the  plain.  But  here  the  combat 
changed  its  aspect.  Saburra  was  not,  as  they  supposed, 
destitute  of  support ;  on  the  contrary  he  was  not  much 
more  than  five  miles  distant  from  the  Numidian  main 
force.  Already  the  flower  of  the  Numidian  infantry  and 
2000  Gallic  and  Spanish  horsemen  had  arrived  on  the 
field  of  battle  to  support  Saburra,  and  the  king  in  person 
with  the  bulk  of  the  army  and  sixteen  elephants  was 
approaching.  After  the  nocturnal  march  and  the  hot 
conflict  there  were  at  the  moment  not  more  than  200  of 
the  Roman  cavalry  together,  and  these  as  well  as  the 
infantry,  extremely  exhausted  by  fatigue  and  fighting,  were 
all  surrounded,  in  the  wide  plain  into  which  they  had 
allowed  themselves  to  be  allured,  by  the  continually 
increasing  hosts  of  the  enemy.  Vainly  Curio  endeavoured 
to  engage  in  close  combat ;  the  Libyan  horsemen  retreated, 
as  they  were  wont,  so  soon  as  a  Roman  division  advanced, 
only  to  pursue  it  when  it  turned.     In  vain  he  attempted 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  233 

to  regain  the  heights;  they  were  occupied  and  foreclosed 
by  the  enemy's  horse.  All  was  lost.  The  infantry  was 
cut  down  to  the  last  man.  Of  the  cavalry  a  few  succeeded  Death  of 
in  cutting  their  way  through;  Curio  too  might  have  Cuna 
probably  saved  himself,  but  he  could  not  bear  to  appear 
alone  before  his  master  without  the  army  entrusted  to  him, 
and  died  sword  in  hand.  Even  the  force  which  was 
collected  in  the  camp  before  Utica,  and  that  which 
guarded  the  fleet — which  might  so  easily  have  escaped  to 
Sicily — surrendered  under  the  impression  made  by  the 
fearfully  rapid  catastrophe  on  the  following  day  to  Varus 
(Aug.  or  Sept.  705).  49. 

So  ended  the  expedition  arranged  by  Caesar  to  Sicily 
and   Africa.     It   attained  its   object   so  far,    since  by  the 
occupation  of  Sicily  in  connection  with  that  of  Sardinia  at 
least  the  most  urgent  wants  of  the  capital  were  relieved ; 
the  miscarriage  of  the  conquest  of  Africa — from  which  the 
victorious  party  drew  no  farther  substantial  gain — and  the 
loss  of  two  untrustworthy  legions  might  be  got  over.      But 
the  early  death  of  Curio  was  an  irreparable  loss  for  Caesar, 
and  indeed  for  Rome.      Not  without  reason  had  Caesar 
entrusted  the  most  important  independent  command  to  this 
young  man,  although  he  had  no  military  experience  and 
was  notorious  for  his  dissolute  life ;  there  was  a  spark  of 
Caesar's   own   spirit   in   the   fiery  youth.      He    resembled 
Caesar,  inasmuch  as  he  too  had  drained  the  cup  of  pleasure 
to  the  dregs ;  inasmuch  as  he  did  not  become  a  statesman 
because  he  was  an  officer,  but  on  the  contrary  it  was  his 
political  action  that  placed  the  sword  in  his  hands ;  inas- 
much as  his  eloquence  was  not  that  of  rounded  periods,  but 
the  eloquence  of  deeply -felt  thought;    inasmuch   as  his 
mode   of  warfare  was   based   on   rapid  action  with  slight 
means ;    inasmuch  as  his  character  was  marked  by  levity 
and  often  by  frivolity,  by  pleasant  frankness  and  thorough 
life  in  the  moment.     If,  as  his  general  says  of  him,  youthful 


234 


BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA, 


BOOK  V 


Pompeius' 
plan  of  [49, 
campaign 
for  705. 


fire  and  high  courage  carried  him  into  incautious  acts,  and 
if  he  too  proudly  accepted  death  that  he  might  not  submit 
to  be  pardoned  for  a  pardonable  fault,  traits  of  similar 
imprudence  and  similar  pride  are  not  wanting  in  Caesar's 
history  also.  We  may  regret  that  this  exuberant  nature  was 
not  permitted  to  work  off  its  follies  and  to  preserve  itself 
for  the  following  generation  so  miserably  poor  in  talents,  and 
so  rapidly  falling  a  prey  to  the  dreadful  rule  of  mediocrities. 
How  far  these  events  of  the  war  in  705  interfered  with 
Pompeius'  general  plan  for  the  campaign,  and  particularly 
what  part  in  that  plan  was  assigned  after  the  loss  of  Italy 
to  the  important  military  corps  in  the  west,  can  only 
be  determined  by  conjecture.  That  Pompeius  had  the 
intention  of  coming  by  way  of  Africa  and  Mauretania  to 
the  aid  of  his  army  fighting  in  Spain,  was  simply  a  romantic, 
and  beyond  doubt  altogether  groundless,  rumour  circu- 
lating in  the  camp  of  Ilerda.  It  is  much  more  likely  that 
he  still  kept  by  his  earlier  plan  of  attacking  Caesar  from 
both  sides  in  Transalpine  and  Cisalpine  Gaul  (p.  206)  even 
after  the  loss  of  Italy,  and  meditated  a  combined  attack  at 
once  from  Spain  and  Macedonia.  It  may  be  presumed 
that  the  Spanish  army  was  meant  to  remain  on  the  defensive 
at  the  Pyrenees  till  the  Macedonian  army  in  the  course  of 
organization  was  likewise  ready  to  march ;  whereupon  both 
would  then  have  started  simultaneously  and  effected  a 
junction  according  to  circumstances  either  on  the  Rhone  or 
on  the  Po,  while  the  fleet,  it  may  be  conjectured,  would 
have  attempted  at  the  same  time  to  reconquer  Italy  proper. 
On  this  supposition  apparently  Caesar  had  first  prepared 
himself  to  meet  an  attack  on  Italy.  One  of  the  ablest  of 
his  officers,  the  tribune  of  the  people  Marcus  Antonius, 
commanded  there  with  propraetorian  powers.  The  south- 
eastern ports — Sipus,  Brundisium,  Tarentum — where  an 
attempt  at  landing  was  first  to  be  expected,  had  received  a 
garrison  of  three  legions.    Besides  this  Quintus  Hortensius, 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  235 

the  degenerate  son  of  the  well-known  orator,  collected  a 
fleet  in  the  Tyrrhene  Sea,  and  Publius  Dolabella  a  second 
fleet  in  the  Adriatic,  which  were  to  be  employed  partly  to 
support  the  defence,  partly  to  transport  the  intended 
expedition  to  Greece.  In  the  event  of  Pompeius 
attempting  to  penetrate  by  land  into  Italy,  Marcus  Licinius 
Crassus,  the  eldest  son  of  the  old  colleague  of  Caesar,  was 
to  conduct  the  defence  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  Gaius  the 
younger  brother  of  Marcus  Antonius  that  of  Illyricum. 

But  the  expected  attack  was  long  in  coming.  It  was  Caesars 
not  till  the  height  of  summer  that  the  conflict  began  in  fleeta?d 
Illyria.  There  Caesar's  lieutenant  Gaius  Antonius  with  illyricum 
his  two  legions  lay  in  the  island  of  Curicta  (Veglia  in  the  destro^e 
gulf  of  Quarnero),  and  Caesar's  admiral  Publius  Dolabella 
with  forty  ships  lay  in  the  narrow  arm  of  the  sea  between 
this  island  and  the  mainland.  The  admirals  of  Pompeius 
in  the  Adriatic,  Marcus  Octavius  with  the  Greek,  Lucius 
Scribonius  Libo  with  the  Illyrian  division  of  the  fleet, 
attacked  the  squadron  of  Dolabella,  destroyed  all  his  ships, 
and  cut  off  Antonius  on  his  island.  To  rescue  him,  a 
corps  under  Basilus  and  Sallustius  came  from  Italy  and  the 
squadron  of  Hortensius  from  the  Tyrrhene  Sea;  but 
neither  the  former  nor  the  latter  were  able  to  effect 
anything  in  presence  of  the  far  superior  fleet  of  the  enemy. 
The  legions  of  Antonius  had  to  be  abandoned  to  their  fate. 
Provisions  came  to  an  end,  the  troops  became  troublesome 
and  mutinous ;  with  the  exception  of  a  few  divisions, 
which  succeeded  in  reaching  the  mainland  on  rafts,  the 
corps,  still  fifteen  cohorts  strong,  laid  down  their  arms  and 
were  conveyed  in  the  vessels  of  Libo  to  Macedonia  to  be 
there  incorporated  with  the  Pompeian  army,  while  Octavius 
was  left  to  complete  the  subjugation  of  the  Illyrian  coast 
now  denuded  of  troops.  The  Dalmatae,  now  far  the  most 
powerful  tribe  in  these  regions  (p.  103),  the  important 
insular  town  of  Issa  (Lissa),  and  other  townships,  embraced 


236  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  BOOK  v 

the  party  of  Pompeius;  but  the  adherents  of  Caesar 
maintained  themselves  in  Salonae  (Spalato)  and  Lissus 
(Alessio),  and  in  the  former  town  not  merely  sustained  with 
courage  a  siege,  but  when  they  were  reduced  to  extremities, 
made  a  sally  with  such  effect  that  Octavius  raised  the  siege 
and  sailed  off  to  Dyrrhachium  to  pass  the  winter  there. 
Result  The  success  achieved  in   Illyricum  by  the  Pompeian 

.        fleet,   although   of  itself  not  inconsiderable,  had  yet  but 

campaign  *  °  J 

as  a  whole,  little  influence  on  the  issue  of  the  campaign  as  a  whole ; 
and  it  appears  miserably  small,  when  we  consider  that  the 
performances  of  the  land  and  naval  forces  under  the 
supreme  command  of  Pompeius  during  the  whole  eventful 
49.  year  705  were  confined  to  this  single  feat  of  arms,  and 
that  from  the  east,  where  the  general,  the  senate,  the 
second  great  army,  the  principal  fleet,  the  immense  military 
and  still  more  extensive  financial  resources  of  the  antagon- 
ists of  Caesar  were  united,  no  intervention  at  all  took  place 
where  it  was  needed  in  that  all-decisive  struggle  in  the 
west.  The  scattered  condition  of  the  forces  in  the  eastern 
half  of  the  empire,  the  method  of  the  general  never  to 
operate  except  with  superior  masses,  his  cumbrous  and 
tedious  movements,  and  the  discord  of  the  coalition  may 
perhaps  explain  in  some  measure,  though  not  excuse,  the 
inactivity  of  the  land-force;  but  that  the  fleet,  which 
commanded  the  Mediterranean  without  a  rival,  should  have 
thus  done  nothing  to  influence  the  course  of  affairs — 
nothing  for  Spain,  next  to  nothing  for  the  faithful  Massiliots, 
nothing  to  defend  Sardinia,  Sicily,  Africa,  or,  if  not  to 
reoccupy  Italy,  at  least  to  obstruct  its  supplies — this 
makes  demands  on  our  ideas  of  the  confusion  and  per- 
versity prevailing  in  the  Pompeian  camp,  which  we  can 
only  with  difficulty  meet. 

The  aggregate  result  of  this  campaign  was  corresponding. 
Caesar's  double  aggressive  movement,  against  Spain  and 
against  Sicily  and  Africa,  was  successful  in  the  former  case 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  237 

completely,  in  the  latter  at  least  partially ;  while  Pompeius' 
plan  of  starving  Italy  was  thwarted  in  the  main  by  the 
taking  away  of  Sicily,  and  his  general  plan  of  campaign 
was  frustrated  completely  by  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish 
army;  and  in  Italy  only  a  very  small  portion  of  Caesar's 
defensive  arrangements  had  come  to  be  applied.  Notwith- 
standing the  painfully- felt  losses  in  Africa  and  Illyria, 
Caesar  came  forth  from  this  first  year  of  the  war  in  the 
most  decided  and  most  decisive  manner  as  victor. 

If,  however,  nothing  material  was  done  from  the  east  to  Organia*. 
obstruct  Caesar  in  the  subjugation  of  the  west,  efforts  at  ^^ in 
least  were  made  towards  securing  political  and  military  donia. 
consolidation  there  during  the  respite  so  ignominiously 
obtained.  The  great  rendezvous  of  the  opponents  of 
Caesar  was  Macedonia.  Thither  Pompeius  himself  and  The 
the  mass  of  the  emigrants  from  Brundisium  resorted ;  em,gran 
thither  came  the  other  refugees  from  the  west :  Marcus 
Cato  from  Sicily,  Lucius  Domitius  from  Massilia,  but  more 
especially  a  number  of  the  best  officers  and  soldiers  of  the 
broken-up  army  of  Spain,  with  its  generals  Afranius  and 
Varro  at  their  head.  In  Italy  emigration  gradually  became 
among  the  aristocrats  a  question  not  of  honour  merely  but 
almost  of  fashion,  and  it  obtained  a  fresh  impulse  through 
the  unfavourable  accounts  which  arrived  regarding  Caesar's 
position  before  Ilerda ;  not  a  few  of  the  more  lukewarm 
partisans  and  the  political  trimmers  went  over  by  degrees, 
and  even  Marcus  Cicero  at  last  persuaded  himself  that  he 
did  not  adequately  discharge  his  duty  as  a  citizen  by  writing 
a  dissertation  on  concord.  The  senate  of  emigrants  at 
Thessalonica,  where  the  official  Rome  pitched  its  interim 
abode,  numbered  nearly  200  members,  including  many 
venerable  old  men  and  almost  all  the  consulars.  But 
emigrants  indeed  they  were.  This  Roman  Coblentz 
displayed  a  pitiful  spectacle  in  the  high  pretensions  and 
paltry  performances  of  the  genteel  world  of  Rome,  their 


hikewjiiiru 


238  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

unseasonable  reminiscences  and  still  more  unseasonable 
recriminations,  their  political  perversities  and  financial 
embarrassments.  It  was  a  matter  of  comparatively  slight 
moment  that,  while  the  old  structure  was  falling  to  pieces, 
they  were  with  the  most  painstaking  gravity  watching  over 
every  old  ornamental  scroll  and  every  speck  of  rust  in  the 
constitution ;  after  all  it  was  simply  ridiculous,  when  the 
genteel  lords  had  scruples  of  conscience  as  to  calling  their 
deliberative  assembly  beyond  the  sacred  soil  of  the  city  the 
senate,  and  cautiously  gave  it  the  title  of  the  "three 
hundred " ;x  or  when  they  instituted  tedious  investigations 
in  state  law  as  to  whether  and  how  a  curiate  law  could  be 
legitimately  enacted  elsewhere  than  within  the  ring-wall  of 
Rome. 

The  Far  worse  traits  were  the  indifference  of  the  lukewarm 

and  the  narrow-minded  stubbornness  of  the  ultras.  The 
former  could  not  be  brought  to  act  or  even  to  keep  silence. 
If  they  were  asked  to  exert  themselves  in  some  definite 
way  for  the  common  good,  with  the  inconsistency  charac- 
teristic of  weak  people  they  regarded  any  such  suggestion 
as  a  malicious  attempt  to  compromise  them  still  further, 
and  either  did  not  do  what  they  were  ordered  at  all  or  did 
it  with  half  heart.  At  the  same  time  of  course,  with  their 
affectation  of  knowing  better  when  it  was  too  late  and  their 
over-wise  impracticabilities,  they  proved  a  perpetual  clog 
to  those  who  were  acting ;  their  daily  work  consisted  in 
criticizing,  ridiculing,  and  bemoaning  every  occurrence  great 

1  As  according  to  formal  law  the  "legal  deliberative  assembly" 
undoubtedly,  just  like  the  "legal  court,"  could  only  take  place  in  the  city 
itself  or  within  the  precincts,  the  assembly  representing  the  senate  in  the 
African  army  called  itself  the  "three  hundred"  (Bell.  Afric.  88,  90; 
Appian,  ii.  95),  not  because  it  consisted  of  300  members,  but  because  this 
was  the  ancient  normal  number  of  senators  (i.  98).  It  is  very  likely  that 
this  assembly  recruited  its  ranks  by  equites  of  repute  ;  but,  when  Plutarch 
makes  the  three  hundred  to  be  Italian  wholesale  dealers  (Cato  Mitt.  59, 
61),  he  has  misunderstood  his  authority  (Bell.  Afr.  90).  Of  a  similar 
kind  must  have  been  the  arrangement  as  to  the  quasi-senate  already  in 
Thessalonica. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  239 

and  small,  and  in  unnerving  and  discouraging  the  multitude 
by  their  own  sluggishness  and  hopelessness. 

While  these  displayed  the  utter  prostration  of  weakness,  The  ultras, 
the  ultras  on  the  other  hand  exhibited  in  full  display  its 
exaggerated  action.  With  them  there  was  no  attempt  to 
conceal  that  the  preliminary  to  any  negotiation  for  peace 
was  the  bringing  over  of  Caesar's  head ;  every  one  of  the 
attempts  towards  peace,  which  Caesar  repeatedly  made 
even  now,  was  tossed  aside  without  being  examined,  or 
employed  only  to  cover  insidious  attempts  on  the  lives  of 
the  commissioners  of  their  opponent.  That  the  declared 
partisans  of  Caesar  had  jointly  and  severally  forfeited  life 
and  property,  was  a  matter  of  course;  but  it  fared  little 
better  with  those  more  or  less  neutral.  Lucius  Domitius, 
the  hero  of  Corfinium,  gravely  proposed  in  the  council  of 
war  that  those  senators  who  had  fought  in  the  army  of 
Pompeius  should  come  to  a  vote  on  all  who  had  either  re- 
mained neutral  or  had  emigrated  but  not  entered  the  army, 
and  should  according  to  their  own  pleasure  individually  acquit 
them  or  punish  them  by  fine  or  even  by  the  forfeiture  of 
life  and  property.  Another  of  these  ultras  formally  lodged 
with  Pompeius  a  charge  of  corruption  and  treason  against 
Lucius  Afranius  for  his  defective  defence  of  Spain.  Among 
these  deep-dyed  republicans  their  political  theory  assumed 
almost  the  character  of  a  confession  of  religious  faith  ;  they 
accordingly  hated  their  own  more  lukewarm  partisans  and 
Pompeius  with  his  personal  adherents,  if  possible,  still 
more  than  their  open  opponents,  and  that  with  all  the  dull 
obstinacy  of  hatred  which  is  wont  to  characterize  orthodox 
theologians;  and  they  were  mainly  to  blame  for  the 
numberless  and  bitter  separate  quarrels  which  distracted 
the  emigrant  army  and  emigrant  senate.  But  they  did 
not  confine  themselves  to  words.  Marcus  Bibulus,  Titus 
Labienus,  and  others  of  this  coterie  carried  out  their  theory 
in  practice,  and  caused  such  officers  or  soldiers  of  Caesar's 


«40  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

army  as  fell  into  their  hands  to  be  executed  en  masse; 
which,  as  may  well  be  conceived,  did  not  tend  to  make 
Caesar's  troops  fight  with  less  energy.  If  the  counter- 
revolution in  favour  of  the  friends  of  the  constitution,  for 
which  all  the  elements  were  in  existence  (p.  216),  did  not 
break  out  in  Italy  during  Caesar's  absence,  the  reason, 
according  to  the  assurance  of  discerning  opponents  of 
Caesar,  lay  chiefly  in  the  general  dread  of  the  unbridled 
fury  of  the  republican  ultras  after  the  restoration  should 
have  taken  place.  The  better  men  in  the  Pompeian  camp 
were  in  despair  over  this  frantic  behaviour.  Pompeius, 
himself  a  brave  soldier,  spared  the  prisoners  as  far  as  he 
might  and  could ;  but  he  was  too  pusillanimous  and  in  too 
awkward  a  position  to  prevent  or  even  to  punish  all 
atrocities  of  this  sort,  as  it  became  him  as  commander-in- 
chief  to  do.  Marcus  Cato,  the  only  man  who  at  least 
carried  moral  consistency  into  the  struggle,  attempted  with 
more  energy  to  check  such  proceedings ;  he  induced  the 
emigrant  senate  to  prohibit  by  a  special  decree  the  pillage 
of  subject  towns  and  the  putting  to  death  of  a  burgess 
otherwise  than  in  battle.  The  able  Marcus  Marcellus  had 
similar  views.  No  one,  indeed,  knew  better  than  Cato 
and  Marcellus  that  the  extreme  party  would  carry  out  their 
saving  deeds,  if  necessary,  in  defiance  of  all  decrees  of  the 
senate.  But  if  even  now,  when  they  had  still  to  regard 
considerations  of  prudence,  the  rage  of  the  ultras  could 
not  be  tamed,  people  might  prepare  themselves  after  the 
victory  for  a  reign  of  terror  from  which  Marius  and  Sulla 
themselves  would  have  turned  away  with  horror;  and  we 
can  understand  why  Cato,  according  to  his  own  confession, 
was  more  afraid  of  the  victory  than  of  the  defeat  of  his 
own  party. 
The  pre-  The   management  of  the   military  preparations   in   the 

^^M     Macedonian   camp   was    in    the    hands  of   Pompeius    the 
commander-in-chief.      His   position,   always   troublesome 


chap.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  241 

and  galling,  had  become  still  worse  through  the  unfortunate 
events  of  705.  In  the  eyes  of  his  partisans  he  was  mainly  *9« 
to  blame  for  this  result.  This  judgment  was  in  various 
respects  not  just.  A  considerable  part  of  the  misfortunes 
endured  was  to  be  laid  to  the  account  of  the  perversity 
and  insubordination  of  the  lieutenant-generals,  especially 
of  the  consul  Lentulus  and  Lucius  Domitius;  from  the 
moment  when  Pompeius  took  the  head  of  the  army,  he 
had  led  it  with  skill  and  courage,  and  had  saved  at  least 
very  considerable  forces  from  the  shipwreck;  that  he 
was  not  a  match  for  Caesar's  altogether  superior  genius, 
which  was  now  recognized  by  all,  could  not  be  fairly 
made  matter  of  reproach  to  him.  But  the  result  alone 
decided  men's  judgment.  Trusting  to  the  general  Pompeius, 
the  constitutional  party  had  broken  with  Caesar;  the 
pernicious  consequences  of  this  breach  recoiled  upon  the 
general  Pompeius;  and,  though  owing  to  the  notorious 
military  incapacity  of  all  the  other  chiefs  no  attempt  was 
made  to  change  the  supreme  command,  yet  confidence  at 
any  rate  in  the  commander-in-chief  was  paralyzed.  To 
these  painful  consequences  of  the  defeats  endured  were 
added  the  injurious  influences  of  the  emigration.  Among 
the  refugees  who  arrived  there  were  certainly  a  number 
of  efficient  soldiers  and  capable  officers,  especially  those 
belonging  to  the  former  Spanish  army;  but  the  number 
of  those  who  came  to  serve  and  fight  was  just  as  small  as 
that  of  the  generals  of  quality  who  called  themselves  pro- 
consuls and  imperators  with  as  good  title  as  Pompeius, 
and  of  the  genteel  lords  who  took  part  in  active  military 
service  more  or  less  reluctantly,  was  alarmingly  great. 
Through  these  the  mode  of  life  in  the  capital  was  introduced 
into  the  camp,  not  at  all  to  the  advantage  of  the  army ; 
the  tents  of  such  grandees  were  graceful  bowers,  the  ground 
elegantly  covered  with  fresh  turf,  the  walls  clothed  with 
ivy;   silver  plate  stood   on  the  table,  and  the  wine-cup 

VOL  V  149 


242  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

often  circulated  there  even  in  broad  daylight.  Those 
fashionable  warriors  formed  a  singular  contrast  with  Caesar's 
daredevils,  who  ate  coarse  bread  from  which  the  former 
recoiled,  and  who,  when  that  failed,  devoured  even  roots 
and  swore  that  they  would  rather  chew  the  bark  of  trees 
than  desist  from  the  enemy.  While,  moreover,  the  action 
of  Pompeius  was  hampered  by  the  necessity  of  having 
regard  to  the  authority  of  a  collegiate  board  personally 
disinclined  to  him,  this  embarrassment  was  singularly 
increased  when  the  senate  of  emigrants  took  up  its  abode 
almost  in  his  very  headquarters  and  all  the  venom  of 
the  emigrants  now  found  vent  in  these  senatorial  sittings. 
Lastly  there  was  nowhere  any  man  of  mark,  who  could 
have  thrown  his  own  weight  into  the  scale  against  all 
these  preposterous  doings.  Pompeius  himself  was  in- 
tellectually far  too  secondary  for  that  purpose,  and  far 
too  hesitating,  awkward,  and  reserved.  Marcus  Cato  would 
have  had  at  least  the  requisite  moral  authority,  and  would 
not  have  lacked  the  good  will  to  support  Pompeius  with 
it ;  but  Pompeius,  instead  of  calling  him  to  his  assistance, 
out  of  distrustful  jealousy  kept  him  in  the  background, 
and  preferred  for  instance  to  commit  the  highly  important 
chief  command  of  the  fleet  to  the  in  every  respect  incapable 
Marcus  Bibulus  raiher  than  to  Cato. 
The  While   Pompeius   thus   treated    the  political   aspect   of 

PomDeius.  ^is  position  with  his  characteristic  perversity,  and  did  his 
best  to  make  what  was  already  bad  in  itself  still  worse, 
he  devoted  himself  on  the  other  hand  with  commendable 
zeal  to  his  duty  of  giving  military  organization  to  the 
considerable  but  scattered  forces  of  his  party.  The  flower 
of  his  force  was  composed  of  the  troops  brought  with 
him  from  Italy,  out  of  which  with  the  supplementary  aid 
of  the  Ulyrian  prisoners  of  war  and  the  Romans  domiciled 
in  Greece  five  legions  in  all  were  formed.  Three  others 
came  from  the  east — the  two  Syrian  legions  formed  from 


Pompeius. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  243 

the  remains  of  the  army  of  Crassus,  and  one  made  up  out 
of  the  two  weak  legions  hitherto  stationed  in  Cilicia. 
Nothing  stood  in  the  way  of  the  withdrawal  of  these  corps 
of  occupation  :  because  on  the  one  hand  the  Pompeians 
had  an  understanding  with  the  Parthians,  and  might  even 
have  had  an  alliance  with  them  if  Pompeius  had  not 
indignantly  refused  to  pay  them  the  price  which  they 
demanded  for  it — the  cession  of  the  Syrian  province  added 
by  himself  to  the  empke ;  and  on  the  other  hand  Caesar's 
plan  of  despatching  two  legions  to  Syria,  and  inducing  the 
Jews  once  more  to  take  up  arms  by  means  of  the  prince 
Aristobulus  kept  a  prisoner  in  Rome,  was  frustrated  partly 
by  other  causes,  partly  by  the  death  of  Aristobulus.  New 
legions  were  moreover  raised — one  from  the  veteran  soldiers 
settled  in  Crete  and  Macedonia,  two  from  the  Romans 
of  Asia  Minor.  To  all  these  fell  to  be  added  2000 
volunteers,  who  were  derived  from  the  remains  of  the 
Spanish  select  corps  and  other  similar  sources  ;  and,  lastly, 
the  contingents  of  the  subjects.  Pompeius  like  Caesar  had 
disdained  to  make  requisitions  of  infantry  from  them  ;  only 
the  Epirot,  Aetolian,  and  Thracian  militia  were  called  out 
to  guard  the  coast,  and  moreover  3000  archers  from  Greece 
and  Asia  Minor  and  1200  slingers  were  taken  up  as  light 
troops. 

The  cavalry  on  the  other  hand— with  the  exception  of  His 
a  noble  guard,  more  respectable  than  militarily  important,  cava"*' 
formed  from  the  young  aristocracy  of  Rome,  and  of  the 
Apulian  slave  -  herdsmen  whom  Pompeius  had  mounted 
(p.  205) — consisted  exclusively  of  the  contingents  of  the 
subjects  and  clients  of  Rome.  The  flower  of  it  consisted 
of  the  Celts,  partly  from  the  garrison  of  Alexandria  (iv.  452), 
partly  the  contingents  of  king  Deiotarus  who  in  spite  of 
his  great  age  had  appeared  in  person  at  the  head  of  his 
troops,  and  of  the  other  Galatian  dynasts.  With  them 
were   associated    the    excellent    Thracian    horsemen,    who 


244  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

were  partly  brought  up  by  their  princes  Sadala  and 
Rhascuporis,  partly  enlisted  by  Pompeius  in  the  Mace- 
donian province ;  the  Cappadocian  cavalry ;  the  mounted 
archers  sent  by  Antiochus  king  of  Commagene ;  the  con- 
tingents of  the  Armenians  from  the  west  side  of  the 
Euphrates  under  Taxiles,  and  from  the  other  side  under 
Megabates,  and  the  Numidian  bands  sent  by  king  Juba 
— the  whole  body  amounted  to  7000  horsemen. 
Fleet  Lastly  the  fleet  of  Pompeius  was  very  considerable.     It 

was  formed  partly  of  the  Roman  transports  brought  from 
Brundisium  or  subsequently  built,  partly  of  the  war 
vessels  of  the  king  of  Egypt,  of  the  Colchian  princes,  of 
the  Cilician  dynast  Tarcondimotus,  of  the  cities  of  Tyre, 
Rhodes,  Athens,  Corcyra,  and  generally  of  all  the  Asiatic 
and  Greek  maritime  states;  and  it  numbered  nearly  500 
sail,  of  which  the  Roman  vessels  formed  a  fifth.  Immense 
magazines  of  corn  and  military  stores  were  accumulated 
in  Dyrrhachium.  The  war-chest  was  well  filled,  for  the 
Pompeians  found  themselves  in  possession  of  the  principal 
sources  of  the  public  revenue  and  turned  to  their  own 
account  the  moneyed  resources  of  the  client-princes,  of 
the  senators  of  distinction,  of  the  farmers  of  the  taxes, 
and  generally  of  the  whole  Roman  and  non-Roman  popu- 
lation within  their  reach.  Every  appliance  that  the 
reputation  of  the  legitimate  government  and  the  much- 
renowned  protectorship  of  Pompeius  over  kings  and  peoples 
could  move  in  Africa,  Egypt,  Macedonia,  Greece,  Western 
Asia  and  Syria,  had  been  put  in  motion  for  the  protection 
of  the  Roman  republic;  the  report  which  circulated  in 
Italy  that  Pompeius  was  arming  the  Getae,  Colchians,  and 
Armenians  against  Rome,  and  the  designation  of  "  king  of 
kings"  given  to  Pompeius  in  the  camp,  could  hardly  be 
called  exaggerations.  On  the  whole  he  had  command 
over  an  army  of  7000  cavalry  and  eleven  legions,  of  which} 
it  is  true,   but  five  at  the  most  could  be  described  as 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  245 

accustomed  to  war,  and  over  a  fleet  of  500  sail.  The 
temper  of  the  soldiers,  for  whose  provisioning  and  pay 
Pompeius  manifested  adequate  care,  and  to  whom  in  the 
event  of  victory  the  most  abundant  rewards  were  promised, 
was  throughout  good,  in  several — and  these  precisely  the 
most  efficient  —  divisions  even  excellent ;  but  a  great 
part  of  the  army  consisted  of  newly- raised  troops,  the 
formation  and  training  of  which,  however  zealously  it 
was  prosecuted,  necessarily  required  time.  The  force 
altogether  was  imposing,  but  at  the  same  time  of  a  some- 
what motley  character. 

According  to  the  design  of  the  commander-in-chief  the  Junction 
army  and  fleet  were  to  be  in  substance  completely  united  pompejans 
by  the  winter  of  705-706  along  the  coast  and  in  the  waters  [49-48. 
of  Epirus.     The  admiral  Bibulus  had  already  arrived  with  coast  of 
no  ships  at  his  new  headquarters,  Corcyra.     On  the  other  Epirus. 
hand  the  land-army,  the  headquarters  of  which  had  been 
during  the  summer  at  Berrhoea  on  the  Haliacmon,  had  not 
yet  come  up  ;  the  mass  of  it  was  moving  slowly  along  the 
great  highway  from  Thessalonica  towards  the  west  coast  to 
the   future   headquarters   Dyrrhachium  ;    the   two   legions, 
which  Metellus  Scipio  was  bringing  up  from  Syria,  remained 
at  Pergamus  in  Asia  for  winter  quarters  and  were  expected 
in  Europe  only  towards  spring.     They  were  taking  time  in 
fact  for  their  movements.     For  the  moment  the  ports  of 
Epirus  were  guarded,  over  and  above  the  fleet,  merely  by 
their  own  civic  defences  and  the  levies  of  the  adjoining 
districts. 

Tt  thus  remained  possible  for  Caesar,  notwithstanding  Caesar 
the  intervention  of  the  Spanish  war,  to  assume  the  offensive  pompeius. 
also  in  Macedonia  ;  and  he  at  least  was  not  slow  to  act 
He  had  long  ago  ordered  the  collection  of  vessels  of  war 
and  transports  in  Brundisium,  and  after  the  capitulation 
of  the  Spanish  army  and  the  fall  of  Massilia  had  directed 
the  greater  portion  of  the  select  troops   employed  there 


246  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

to  proceed  to  that  destination.  The  unparalleled  exer- 
tions no  doubt,  which  were  thus  required  by  Caesar  from 
his  soldiers,  thinned  the  ranks  more  than  their  conflicts 
had  done,  and  the  mutiny  of  one  of  the  four  oldest  legions, 
the  ninth,  on  its  march  through  Placentia  was  a  dangerous 
indication  of  the  temper  prevailing  in  the  army  ;  but 
Caesar's  presence  of  mind  and  personal  authority  gained 
the  mastery,  and  from  this  quarter  nothing  impeded  the 
embarkation.  But  the  want  of  ships,  through  which  the 
49.  pursuit  of  Pompeius  had  failed  in  March  705,  threatened 
also  to  frustrate  this  expedition.  The  war-vessels,  which 
Caesar  had  given  orders  to  build  in  the  Gallic,  Sicilian, 
and  Italian  ports,  were  not  yet  ready  or  at  any  rate  not 
on  the  spot ;  his  squadron  in  the  Adriatic  had  been  in 
the  previous  year  destroyed  at  Curicta  (p.  235) ;  he  found 
at  Brundisium  not  more  than  twelve  ships  of  war  and 
scarcely  transports  enough  to  convey  over  at  once  the 
third  part  of  his  army  —  of  twelve  legions  and  10,000 
cavalry  —  destined  for  Greece.  The  considerable  fleet 
of  the  enemy  exclusively  commanded  the  Adriatic  and 
especially  all  the  harbours  of  the  mainland  and  islands 
on  its  eastern  coast.  Under  such  circumstances  the 
question  presents  itself,  why  Caesar  did  not  instead  of 
the  maritime  route  choose  the  land  route  through  Illyria, 
which  relieved  him  from  all  the  perils  threatened  by  the 
fleet  and  besides  was  shorter  for  his  troops,  who  mostly 
came  from  Gaul,  than  the  route  by  Brundisium.  It  is  true 
that  the  regions  of  Illyria  were  rugged  and  poor  beyond 
description ;  but  they  were  traversed  by  other  armies  not 
long  afterwards,  and  this  obstacle  can  hardly  have  appeared 
insurmountable  to  the  conqueror  of  Gaul.  Perhaps  he 
apprehended  that  during  the  troublesome  march  through 
Illyria  Pompeius  might  convey  his  whole  force  over  the 
Adriatic,  whereby  their  parts  might  come  at  once  to  be 
changed — with  Caesar  in   Macedonia,  and   Pompeius   in 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  247 

Italy  ;  although  such  a  rapid  change  was  scarcely  to  be 
expected  from  his  slow-moving  antagonist.  Perhaps  Caesar 
had  decided  for  the  maritime  route  on  the  supposition 
that  his  fleet  would  meanwhile  be  brought  into  a  condi- 
tion to  command  respect,  and,  when  after  his  return 
from  Spain  he  became  aware  of  the  true  state  of  things 
in  the  Adriatic,  it  might  be  too  late  to  change  the  plan 
of  campaign.  Perhaps — and,  in  accordance  with  Caesar's 
quick  temperament  always  urging  him  to  decision,  we 
may  even  say  in  all  probability — he  found  himself  irre- 
sistibly tempted  by  the  circumstance  that  the  Epirot 
coast  was  still  at  the  moment  unoccupied  but  would 
certainly  be  covered  in  a  few  days  by  the  enemy,  to 
thwart  once  more  by  a  bold  stroke  the  whole  plan  of 
his  antagonist. 

However  this  may  be,  on  the  4th  Jan.  706  x  Caesar  set  48. 
sail  with  six  legions  greatly  thinned  by  toil  and  sickness  i^Thi 
and    600    horsemen    from    Brundisium    for    the    coast    of  Epirus. 
Epirus.      It  was  a  counterpart  to  the  foolhardy  Britannic 
expedition  ;    but   at    least    the   first   throw    was   fortunate. 
The   coast   was   reached    in   the   middle   of  the   Acrocer- 
aunian  (Chimara)  cliffs,  at  the  little- frequented  roadstead 
of  Paleassa   (Paljassa).       The   transports   were   seen   both 
from   the  harbour  of  Oricum  (creek  of  Avlona)  where  a 
Pompeian  squadron  of  eighteen  sail  was  lying,  and  from 
the  headquarters  of  the   hostile  fleet  at  Corcyra ;   but  in 
the  one  quarter  they  deemed  themselves  too  weak,  in  the 
other  they  were  not  ready  to  sail,  so  that  the  first  freight 
was    landed    without    hindrance.       While    the    vessels    at 
once  returned   to  bring  over  the  second,  Caesar  on  that 
same  evening  scaled  the  Acroceraunian  mountains.     His  First 
first  successes  were  as  great  as  the  surprise  of  his  enemies. 
The  Epirot  militia  nowhere  offered  resistance  ;  the  import- 
ant seaport  towns  of  Oricum  and  Apollonia  along  with  a 

1  According  to  the  rectified  calendar  on  the  5th  Nov.  705.  49. 


248  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  % 

number  of  smaller  townships  were  taken,  and  Dyrrhachium, 
selected  by  the  Pompeians  as  their  chief  arsenal  and  filled 
with  stores  of  all  sorts,  but  only  feebly  garrisoned,  was  in 
the  utmost  danger. 
Caesar  cut  But  the  further  course  of  the  campaign  did  not  cor- 
itaiy.°m  respond  to  this  brilliant  beginning.  Bibulus  subsequently 
made  up  in  some  measure  for  the  negligence,  of  which  he 
had  allowed  himself  to  be  guilty,  by  redoubling  his  exer- 
tions. He  not  only  captured  nearly  thirty  of  the  trans- 
ports returning  home,  and  caused  them  with  every  living 
thing  on  board  to  be  burnt,  but  he  also  established  along 
the  whole  district  of  coast  occupied  by  Caesar,  from  the 
island  Sason  (Saseno)  as  far  as  the  ports  of  Corcyra,  a 
most  careful  watch,  however  troublesome  it  was  rendered 
by  the  inclement  season  of  the  year  and  the  necessity  of 
bringing  everything  necessary  for  the  guard-ships,  even 
wood  and  water,  from  Corcyra ;  in  fact  his  successor  Libo 
— for  he  himself  soon  succumbed  to  the  unwonted  fatigues 
— even  blockaded  for  a  time  the  port  of  Brundisium,  till 
the  want  of  water  again  dislodged  him  from  the  little  island 
in  front  of  it  on  which  he  had  established  himself.  It  was 
not  possible  for  Caesar's  officers  to  convey  the  second 
portion  of  the  army  over  to  their  general.  As  little  did 
he  himself  succeed  in  the  capture  of  Dyrrhachium.  Pom- 
peius  learned  through  one  of  Caesar's  peace  envoys  as  to 
his  preparations  for  the  voyage  to  the  Epirot  coast,  and, 
thereupon  accelerating  his  march,  threw  himself  just  at  the 
right  time  into  that  important  arsenal.  The  situation  of 
Caesar  was  critical.  Although  he  extended  his  range  in 
Epirus  as  far  as  with  his  slight  strength  was  at  all  possible, 
the  subsistence  of  his  army  remained  difficult  and  precari- 
ous, while  the  enemy,  in  possession  of  the  magazines  of 
Dyrrhachium  and  masters  of  the  sea,  had  abundance  of 
everything.  With  his  army  presumably  little  above  20,000 
strong  he  could  not  offer  battle  to  that  of  Pompeius  at 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  249 

least  twice  as  numerous,  but  had  to  deem  himself  fortunate 
that  Pompeius  went  methodically  to  work  and,  instead  of 
immediately  forcing  a  battle,  took  up  his  winter  quarters 
between  Dyrrhachium  and  Apollonia  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  Apsus,  facing  Caesar  on  the  left,  in  order  that  after  the 
arrival  of  the  legions  from  Pergamus  in  the  spring  he 
might  annihilate  the  enemy  with  an  irresistibly  superior 
force.  Thus  months  passed.  If  the  arrival  of  the  better 
season,  which  brought  to  the  enemy  a  strong  additional 
force  and  the  free  use  of  his  fleet,  found  Caesar  still  in 
the  same  position,  he  was  to  all  appearance  lost,  with  his 
weak  band  wedged  in  among  the  rocks  of  Epirus  between 
the  immense  fleet  and  the  three  times  superior  land  army 
of  the  enemy;  and  already  the  winter  was  drawing  to  a 
close.  His  sole  hope  still  depended  on  the  transport  fleet ; 
that  it  should  steal  or  fight  its  way  through  the  blockade 
was  hardly  to  be  hoped  for;  but  after  the  first  voluntary 
foolhardiness  this  second  venture  was  enjoined  by  necessity. 
How  desperate  his  situation  appeared  to  Caesar  himself,  is 
shown  by  his  resolution — when  the  fleet  still  came  not — 
to  sail  alone  in  a  fisherman's  boat  across  the  Adriatic  to 
Brundisium  in  order  to  fetch  it;  which,  in  reality,  was 
only  abandoned  because  no  mariner  was  found  to  under- 
take the  daring  voyage. 

But  his  appearance  in  person  was  not  needed  to  induce  Antonlui 
the  faithful  officer  who  commanded  in  Italy,  Marcus  Epinis.* 
Antonius,  to  make  this  last  effort  for  the  saving  of  his 
master.  Once  more  the  transport  fleet,  with  four  legions 
and  800  horsemen  on  board,  sailed  from  the  harbour  of 
Brundisium,  and  fortunately  a  strong  south  wind  carried  it 
past  Libo's  galleys.  But  the  same  wind,  which  thus  saved 
the  fleet,  rendered  it  impossible  for  it  to  land  as  it  was 
directed  on  the  coast  of  Apollonia,  and  compelled  it  to 
sail  past  the  camps  of  Caesar  and  Pompeius  and  to  steer 
to  the  north  of  Dyrrhachium  towards  Lissus,  which  town 


250  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

fortunately  still  adhered  to  Caesar  (p.  236).  When  it 
sailed  past  the  harbour  of  Dyrrhachium,  the  Rhodian 
galleys  started  in  pursuit,  and  hardly  had  the  ships  of 
Antonius  entered  the  port  of  Lissus  when  the  enemy's 
squadron  appeared  before  it.  But  just  at  this  moment  the 
wind  suddenly  veered,  and  drove  the  pursuing  galleys  back 
into  the  open  sea  and  partly  on  the  rocky  coast.  Through 
the  most  marvellous  good  fortune  the  landing  of  the  second 
freight  had  also  been  successful. 
Junction  Antonius  and   Caesar   were  no   doubt  still  some  four 

a  .CSarS  days'  march  from  each  other,  separated  by  Dyrrhachium 
and  the  whole  army  of  the  enemy ;  but  Antonius  happily 
effected  the  perilous  march  round  about  Dyrrhachium 
through  the  passes  of  the  Graba  Balkan,  and  was  received 
by  Caesar,  who  had  gone  to  meet  him,  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  Apsus.  Pompeius,  after  having  vainly  attempted 
to  prevent  the  junction  of  the  two  armies  of  the  enemy 
and  to  force  the  corps  of  Antonius  to  fight  by  itself,  took 
up  a  new  position  at  Asparagium  on  the  river  Genusus 
(Skumbi),  which  flows  parallel  to  the  Apsus  between  the 
latter  and  the  town  of  Dyrrhachium,  and  here  remained 
once  more  immoveable.  Caesar  felt  himself  now  strong 
enough  to  give  battle ;  but  Pompeius  declined  it.  On  the 
other  hand  Caesar  succeeded  in  deceiving  his  adversary 
and  throwing  himself  unawares  with  his  better  marching 
troops,  just  as  at  Ilerda,  between  the  enemy's  camp  and 
the  fortress  of  Dyrrhachium  on  which  it  rested  as  a  basis. 
The  chain  of  the  Graba  Balkan,  which  stretching  in  a 
direction  from  east  to  west  ends  on  the  Adriatic  in  the 
narrow  tongue  of  land  at  Dyrrhachium,  sends  off — fourteen 
miles  to  the  east  of  Dyrrhachium — in  a  south-westerly  direc- 
tion a  lateral  branch  which  likewise  turns  in  the  form  of  a 
crescent  towards  the  sea,  and  the  main  chain  and  lateral 
branch  of  the  mountains  enclose  between  themselves  a 
small  plain  extending  round  a  cliff  on  the  seashore.     Here 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  251 

Pompeius  now  took  up  his  camp,  and,  although  Caesar's 
army  kept  the  land  route  to  Dyrrhachium  closed  against 
him,  he  yet  with  the  aid  of  his  fleet  remained  constantly 
in  communication  with  the  town  and  was  amply  and  easily 
provided  from  it  with  everything  needful ;  while  among 
the  Caesarians,  notwithstanding  strong  detachments  to  the 
country  lying  behind,  and  notwithstanding  all  the  exertions 
of  the  general  to  bring  about  an  organized  system  of  con- 
veyance and  thereby  a  regular  supply,  there  was  more  than 
scarcity,  and  flesh,  barley,  nay  even  roots  had  very  fre- 
quently to  take  the  place  of  the  wheat  to  which  they  were 
accustomed. 

As  his  phlegmatic  opponent  persevered  in  his  inaction,  Caesar 
Caesar  undertook  to  occupy  the  circle  of  heights  which  mvests  ™ 
enclosed  the  plain  on  the  shore  held  by  Pompeius,  with  Pompeius. 
the  view  of  being  able  at  least  to  arrest  the  movements  of 
the  superior  cavalry  of  the  enemy  and  to  operate  with  more 
freedom  against  Dyrrhachium,  and  if  possible  to  compel 
his  opponent  either  to  battle  or  to  embarkation.  Nearly 
the  half  of  Caesar's  troops  was  detached  to  the  interior ; 
it  seemed  almost  Quixotic  to  propose  with  the  rest  virtually 
to  besiege  an  army  perhaps  twice  as  strong,  concentrated 
in  position,  and  resting  on  the  sea  and  the  fleet.  Yet 
Caesar's  veterans  by  infinite  exertions  invested  the  Pom- 
peian  camp  with  a  chain  of  posts  sixteen  miles  long,  and 
afterwards  added,  just  as  before  Alesia,  to  this  inner  line  a 
second  outer  one,  to  protect  themselves  against  attacks 
from  Dyrrhachium  and  against  attempts  to  turn  their 
position  which  could  so  easily  be  executed  with  the  aid  of 
the  fleet.  Pompeius  attacked  more  than  once  portions  of 
these  entrenchments  with  a  view  to  break  if  possible  the 
enemy's  line,  but  he  did  not  attempt  to  prevent  the  invest- 
ment by  a  battle  ;  he  preferred  to  construct  in  his  turn  a 
number  of  entrenchments  around  his  camp,  and  to  connect 
them    with    one    another    by    lines.     Both    sides   exerted 


252  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

themselves  to  push  forward  their  trenches  as  far  as  possible, 
and  the  earthworks  advanced  but  slowly  amidst  constant 
conflicts.  At  the  same  time  skirmishing  went  on  on  the 
opposite  side  of  Caesar's  camp  with  the  garrison  of 
Dyrrhachium ;  Caesar  hoped  to  get  the  fortress  into  his 
power  by  means  of  an  understanding  with  some  of  its 
inmates,  but  was  prevented  by  the  enemy's  fleet.  There 
was  incessant  fighting  at  very  different  points — on  one  of 
the  hottest  days  at  six  places  simultaneously — and,  as  a 
rule,  the  tried  valour  of  the  Caesarians  had  the  advantage 
in  these  skirmishes;  once,  for  instance,  a  single  cohort 
maintained  itself  in  its  entrenchments  against  four  legions 
for  several  hours,  till  support  came  up.  No  prominent 
success  was  attained  on  either  side ;  yet  the  effects  of  the 
investment  came  by  degrees  to  be  oppressively  felt  by  the 
Pompeians.  The  stopping  of  the  rivulets  flowing  from  the 
heights  into  the  plain  compelled  them  to  be  content  with 
scanty  and  bad  well-water.  Still  more  severely  felt  was 
the  want  of  fodder  for  the  beasts  of  burden  and  the  horses, 
which  the  fleet  was  unable  adequately  to  remedy ;  numbers 
of  them  died,  and  it  was  of  but  little  avail  that  the  horses 
were  conveyed  by  the  fleet  to  Dyrrhachium,  because  there 
also  they  did  not  find  sufficient  fodder. 
Caesar'a  Pompeius  could  not  much  longer  delay  to  free  himself 

broken.  ^rom  ms  disagreeable  position  by  a  blow  struck  against  the 
enemy.  He  was  informed  by  Celtic  deserters  that  the 
enemy  had  neglected  to  secure  the  beach  between  his  two 
chains  of  entrenchments  600  feet  distant  from  each  other 
by  a  cross-wall,  and  on  this  he  formed  his  plan.  While  he 
caused  the  inner  line  of  Caesar's  entrenchments  to  be 
attacked  by  the  legions  from  the  camp,  and  the  outer  line 
by  the  light  troops  placed  in  vessels  and  landed  beyond  the 
enemy's  entrenchments,  a  third  division  landed  in  the  space 
left  between  the  two  lines  and  attacked  in  the  rear  their 
already  sufficiently  occupied  defenders.     The  entrenchment 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  253 

next  to  the  sea  was  taken,  and  the  garrison  fled  in  wild 
confusion  ;  with  difficulty  the  commander  of  the  next  trench 
Marcus  Antonius  succeeded  in  maintaining  it  and  in  setting 
a  limit  for  the  moment  to  the  advance  of  the  Pompeians ; 
but,  apart  from  the  considerable  loss,  the  outermost 
entrenchment  along  the  sea  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
Pompeians  and  the  line  was  broken  through.  Caesar  the  Caesar 
more  eagerly  seized  the  opportunity,  which  soon  after  defeated!* 
presented  itself,  of  attacking  a  Pompeian  legion,  which  had 
incautiously  become  isolated,  with  the  bulk  of  his  infantry. 
But  the  attacked  offered  valiant  resistance,  and,  as  the 
ground  on  which  the  fight  took  place  had  been  several  times 
employed  for  the  encampment  of  larger  and  lesser  divisions 
and  was  intersected  in  various  directions  by  mounds  and 
ditches,  Caesar's  right  wing  along  with  the  cavalry  entirely 
missed  its  way ;  instead  of  supporting  the  left  in  attacking 
the  Pompeian  legion,  it  got  into  a  narrow  trench  that  led 
from  one  of  the  old  camps  towards  the  river.  So  Pompeius, 
who  came  up  in  all  haste  with  five  legions  to  the  aid  of  his 
troops,  found  the  two  wings  of  the  enemy  separated  from 
each  other,  and  one  of  them  in  an  utterly  forlorn  position. 
When  the  Caesarians  saw  him  advance,  a  panic  seized  them  ; 
the  whole  plunged  into  disorderly  flight ;  and,  if  the  matter 
ended  with  the  loss  of  1000  of  the  best  soldiers  and  Caesar's 
army  did  not  sustain  a  complete  defeat,  this  was  due  simply  to 
the  circumstance  that  Pompeius  also  could  not  freely  develop 
his  force  on  the  broken  ground,  and  to  the  further  fact  that, 
fearing  a  stratagem,  he  at  first  held  back  his  troops. 

But,    even    as    it   was,   these   days   were   fraught    with  Conse- 
mischief.     Not  only  had  Caesar  endured  the  most  serious  Quencef  °* 

C&6S2T  S 

losses  and  forfeited  at  a  blow  his  entrenchments,  the  result  defeats, 
of  four  months  of  gigantic  labour ;  he  was  by  the  recent 
engagements  thrown  back  again  exactly  to  the  point  from 
which  he  had  set  out.     From  the  sea  he  was  more  com- 
pletely driven  than  ever,  since  Pompeius'  elder  son  Gnaeus 


2<4  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

had  by  a  bold  attack  partly  burnt,  partly  carried  off,  Caesar's 
few  ships  of  war  lying  in  the  port  of  Oricum,  and  had  soon 
afterwards  also  set  fire  to  the  transport  fleet  that  was  left 
behind  in  Lissus;  all  possibility  of  bringing  up  fresh 
reinforcements  to  Caesar  by  sea  from  Brundisium  was  thut 
lost.  The  numerous  Pompeian  cavalry,  now  released  from 
their  confinement,  poured  themselves  over  the  adjacent 
country  and  threatened  to  render  the  provisioning  of 
Caesar's  army,  which  had  always  been  difficult,  utterly 
impossible.  Caesar's  daring  enterprise  of  carrying  on 
offensive  operations  without  ships  against  an  enemy  in 
command  of  the  sea  and  resting  on  his  fleet  had  totally 
failed.  On  what  had  hitherto  been  the  theatre  of  war  he 
found  himself  in  presence  of  an  impregnable  defensive 
position,  and  unable  to  strike  a  serious  blow  either  against 
Dyrrhachium  or  against  the  hostile  army;  on  the  other 
hand  it  depended  now  solely  on  Pompeius  whether  he 
should  proceed  to  attack  under  the  most  favourable  cir- 
cumstances an  antagonist  already  in  grave  danger  as  to  his 
means  of  subsistence.  The  war  had  arrived  at  a  crisis. 
Hitherto  Pompeius  had,  to  all  appearance,  played  the  game 
of  war  without  special  plan,  and  only  adjusted  his  defence 
according  to  the  exigencies  of  each  attack;  and  this  was 
not  to  be  censured,  for  the  protraction  of  the  war  gave  him 
opportunity  of  making  his  recruits  capable  of  fighting,  of 
bringing  up  his  reserves,  and  of  bringing  more  fully  into 
play  the  superiority  of  his  fleet  in  the  Adriatic.  Caesar 
was  beaten  not  merely  in  tactics  but  also  in  strategy.  This 
defeat  had  not,  it  is  true,  that  effect  which  Pompeius  not 
without  reason  expected ;  the  eminent  soldierly  energy  of 
Caesar's  veterans  did  not  allow  matters  to  come  to  an 
immediate  and  total  breaking  up  of  the  army  by  hunger  and 
mutiny.  But  yet  it  seemed  as  if  it  depended  solely  on  his 
opponent  by  judiciously  following  up  his  victory  to  reap  its 
full  fruits. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  TIIAPSUS  255 

It  was  for  Pompeius  to  assume  the  aggressive ;  and  he  War 
was  resolved  to  do  so.  Three  different  ways  of  rendering  *£  sp  c 
his  victory  fruitful  presented  themselves  to  him.  The  first  Pompeius. 
and  simplest  was  not  to  desist  from  assailing  the  vanquished 
army,  and,  if  it  departed,  to  pursue  it.  Secondly,  Pompeius 
might  leave  Caesar  himself  and  his  best  troops  in  Greece, 
and  might  cross  in  person,  as  he  had  long  been  making 
preparations  for  doing,  with  the  main  army  to  Italy,  where 
the  feeling  was  decidedly  antimonarchical  and  the  forces  of 
Caesar,  after  the  despatch  of  the  best  troops  and  their  brave 
and  trustworthy  commandant  to  the  Greek  army,  would  not 
be  of  very  much  moment.  Lastly,  the  victor  might  turn  Scipio  and 
inland,  effect  a  junction  with  the  legions  of  Metellus  Scipio,  a  vinus' 
and  attempt  to  capture  the  troops  of  Caesar  stationed  in 
the  interior.  The  latter  forsooth  had,  immediately  after 
the  arrival  of  the  second  freight  from  Italy,  on  the  one  hand 
despatched  strong  detachments  to  Aetolia  and  Thessaly  to 
procure  means  of  subsistence  for  his  army,  and  on  the  other 
had  ordered  a  corps  of  two  legions  under  Gnaeus  Domitius 
Calvinus  to  advance  on  the  Egnatian  highway  towards 
Macedonia,  with  the  view  of  intercepting  and  if  possible 
defeating  in  detail  the  corps  of  Scipio  advancing  on  the  same 
road  from  Thessalonica.  Calvinus  and  Scipio  had  already 
approached  within  a  few  miles  of  each  other,  when  Scipio 
suddenly  turned  southward  and,  rapidly  crossing  the 
Haliacmon  (Tnje  Karasu)  and  leaving  his  baggage  there 
under  Marcus  Favonius,  penetrated  into  Thessaly,  in  order 
to  attack  with  superior  force  Caesar's  legion  of  recruits 
employed  in  the  reduction  of  the  country  under  Lucius 
Cassius  Longinus.  But  Longinus  retired  over  the 
mountains  towards  Ambracia  to  join  the  detachment  under 
Gnaeus  Calvisius  Sabinus  sent  by  Caesar  to  Aetolia,  and 
Scipio  could  only  cause  him  to  be  pursued  by  his  Thracian 
cavalry,  for  Calvinus  threatened  his  reserve  left  behind 
under  Favonius  on  the  Haliacmon  with  the  same  fat^  which 


l56 


BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA, 


BOOK  V 


Caesar's 

retreat 

from 

Dyrrha- 

chium  to 

Thessaly. 


he  had  himself  destined  for  Longinus.  So  Calvinus  and 
Scipio  met  again  on  the  Haliacmon,  and  encamped  there 
for  a  considerable  time  opposite  to  each  other. 

Pompeius  might  choose  among  these  plans ;  no  choice 
was  left  to  Caesar.  After  that  unfortunate  engagement  he 
entered  on  his  retreat  to  Apollonia.  Pompeius  followed. 
The  march  from  Dyrrhachium  to  Apollonia  along  a  difficult 
road  crossed  by  several  rivers  was  no  easy  task  for  a 
defeated  army  pursued  by  the  enemy ;  but  the  dexterous 
leadership  of  their  general  and  the  indestructible  marching 
energy  of  the  soldiers  compelled  Pompeius  after  four  days' 
pursuit  to  suspend  it  as  useless.  He  had  now  to  decide 
between  the  Italian  expedition  and  the  march  into  the 
interior.  However  advisable  and  attractive  the  former 
might  seem,  and  though  various  voices  were  raised  in  its 
favour,  he  preferred  not  to  abandon  the  corps  of  Scipio, 
the  more  especially  as  he  hoped  by  this  march  to  ^et  the 
corps  of  Calvinus  into  his  hands.  Calvinus  lay  at  the 
moment  on  the  Egnatian  road  at  Heraclea  Lyncestis, 
between  Pompeius  and  Scipio,  and,  after  Caesar  had  re- 
treated to  Apollonia,  farther  distant  from  the  latter  than  from 
the  great  army  of  Pompeius ;  without  knowledge,  moreover, 
of  the  events  at  Dyrrhachium  and  of  his  hazardous  position, 
since  after  the  successes  achieved  at  Dyrrhachium  the  whole 
country  inclined  to  Pompeius  and  the  messengers  of  Caesar 
were  everywhere  seized.  It  was  not  till  the  enemy's  main 
force  had  approached  within  a  few  hours  of  him  that 
Calvinus  learned  from  the  accounts  of  the  enemy's  advanced 
posts  themselves  the  state  of  things.  A  quick  departure  in 
a  southerly  direction  towards  Thessaly  withdrew  him  at 
the  last  moment  from  imminent  destruction ;  Pompeius  had 
to  content  himself  with  having  liberated  Scipio  from  his 
position  of  peril.  Caesar  had  meanwhile  arrived  unmolested 
at  Apollonia.  Immediately  after  the  disaster  of  Dyrrhachium 
he  had  resolved  if  possible  to  transfer  the  struggle  from  the 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  257 

coast  away  into  the  interior,  with  the  view  of  getting  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  enemy's  fleet — the  ultimate  cause  of  the 
failure  of  his  previous  exertions.  The  march  to  Apollonia 
had  only  been  intended  to  place  his  wounded  in  safety  and 
to  pay  his  soldiers  there,  where  his  depots  were  stationed ; 
as  soon  as  this  was  done,  he  set  out  for  Thessaly,  leaving 
behind  garrisons  in  Apollonia,  Oricum,  and  Lissus.  The 
corps  of  Calvinus  had  also  put  itself  in  motion  towards 
Thessaly;  and  Caesar  could  effect  a  junction  with  the 
reinforcements  coming  up  from  Italy,  this  time  by  the  land- 
route  through  Illyria — two  legions  under  Quintus  Cornificius 
— still  more  easily  in  Thessaly  than  in  Epirus.  Ascending 
by  difficult  paths  in  the  valley  of  the  Aous  and  crossing  the 
mountain-chain  which  separates  Epirus  from  Thessaly,  he 
arrived  at  the  Peneius;  Calvinus  was  likewise  directed 
thither,  and  the  junction  of  the  two  armies  was  thus 
accomplished  by  the  shortest  route  and  that  which  was 
least  exposed  to  the  enemy.  It  took  place  at  Aeginium 
not  far  from  the  source  of  the  Peneius.  The  first  Thessalian 
town  before  which  the  now  united  army  appeared,  Gomphi, 
closed  its  gates  against  it ;  it  was  quickly  stormed  and  given 
up  to  pillage,  and  the  other  towns  of  Thessaly  terrified  by 
this  example  submitted,  so  soon  as  Caesar's  legions  merely 
appeared  before  the  walls.  Amidst  these  marches  and 
conflicts,  and  with  the  help  of  the  supplies — albeit  not  too 
ample — which  the  region  on  the  Peneius  afforded,  the 
traces  and  recollections  of  the  calamitous  days  through 
which  they  had  passed  gradually  vanished. 

The  victories  of  Dyrrhachium  had  thus  borne  not  much 
immediate  fruit  for  the  victors.  Pompeius  with  his  unwieldy 
army  and  his  numerous  cavalry  had  not  been  able  to  follow 
his  versatile  enemy  into  the  mountains ;  Caesar  like  Calvinus 
had  escaped  from  pursuit,  and  the  two  stood  united  and  in 
full  security  in  Thessaly.  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  the 
best  course,  if  Pompeius  had  now  without  delay  embarked 

VOL.  V  IS® 


258  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

with  his  main  force  for  Italy,  where  success  was  scarcely 
doubtful.  But  in  the  meantime  only  a  division  of  the  fleet 
departed  for  Sicily  and  Italy.  In  the  camp  of  the  coalition 
the  contest  with  Caesar  was  looked  on  as  so  completely 
decided  by  the  battles  of  Dyrrhachium  that  it  only  remained 
to  reap  the  fruits  of  victory,  in  other  words,  to  seek  out  and 
capture  the  defeated  army.  Their  former  over-cautious 
reserve  was  succeeded  by  an  arrogance  still  less  justified  by 
the  circumstances  ;  they  gave  no  heed  to  the  facts,  that  they 
had,  strictly  speaking,  failed  in  the  pursuit,  that  they  had  to 
hold  themselves  in  readiness  to  encounter  a  completely  re- 
freshed and  reorganized  army  in  Thessaly,  and  that  there 
was  no  small  risk  in  moving  away  from  the  sea,  renouncing 
the  support  of  the  fleet,  and  following  their  antagonist  to 
the  battle-field  chosen  by  himself.  They  were  simply 
resolved  at  any  price  to  fight  with  Caesar,  and  therefore  to 
get  at  him  as  soon  as  possible  and  by  the  most  convenient 
way.  Cato  took  up  the  command  in  Dyrrhachium,  where 
a  garrison  was  left  behind  of  eighteen  cohorts,  and  in 
Corcyra,  where  300  ships  of  war  were  left ;  Pompeius  and 
Scipio  proceeded — the  former,  apparently,  following  the 
Egnatian  way  as  far  as  Pella  and  then  striking  into  the 
great  road  to  the  south,  the  latter  from  the  Haliacmon 
through  the  passes  of  Olympus — to  the  lower  Peneius  and 
met  at  Larisa. 

The  Caesar  lay  to  the  south  of  Larisa  in  the  plain — which 

extends  between  the  hill-country  of  Cynoscephalae  and  the 
chain  of  Othrys  and  is  intersected  by  a  tributary  of  the 
Peneius,  the  Enipeus — on  the  left  bank  of  the  latter  stream 
near  the  town  of  Pharsalus  ;  Pompeius  pitched  his  camp 
opposite  to  him  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Enipeus  along  the 
slope  of  the  heights  of  Cynoscephalae.1     The  entire  army 

1  The  exact  determination  of  the  field  of  battle  is  difficult.  Appian  (fa. 
75)  expressly  places  it  between  (New)  Pharsalus  (now  Fersala)  and  the 
Enipeus.     Of  the  two  streams,  which  alone  are  of  any  importance  in  the 


armies  at 
Pharsalus. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  259 

of  Pompeius  was  assembled ;  Caesar  on  the  other   hand 
still  expected    the  corps  of  nearly   two   legions    formerly 

question,  and  are  undoubtedly  the  Apidanus  and  Enipens  of  the  ancients — 
the   Sofadhitiko  and   the   Fersaliti — the    former    has   its  sources   in    the 
mountains  of  Thaumaci  (Dhomoko)  and  the  Dolopian  heights,  the  latter 
in  mount  Othrys,  and  the  Fersaliti  alone  flows  past  Pharsalus  ;  now  as  the 
Enipeus  according  to  Strabo  (ix.  p.   432)  springs  from  mount  Othrys  and 
flows  past  Pharsalus,  the  Fersaliti  has  been  most  justly  pronounced  by 
Leake  {Northern  Greece,  iv.  320)  to  be  the  Enipeus,  and  the  hypothesis 
followed  by  Goler  that  the  Fersaliti  is  the  Apidanus  is  untenable.     With 
this  all  the  other  statements  of  the  ancients  as  to  the  two  rivers  agree. 
Only  we  must  doubtless  assume  with  Leake,   that  the  river  of  Vlokho 
formed  by  the  union  of  the  Fersaliti  and  the  Sofadhitiko  and  going  to  the 
Peneius  was  called  by  the  ancients  Apidanus  as  well  as  the  Sofadhitiko ; 
which,  however,  is  the  more  natural,  as  while  the  Sofadhitiko  probably  has, 
the  Fersaliti  has  not,  constantly  water  (Leake,  iv.  321).     Old  Pharsalus, 
from  which  the  battle  takes  its  name,  must  therefore  have  been  situated 
between  Fersala  and  the  Fersaliti.     Accordingly  the  battle  was  fought  on 
the  left  bank  of  the  Fersaliti,  and  in  such  a  way  that  the  Pompeians, 
standing  with  their  faces  towards  Pharsalus,  leaned  their  right  wing  on  the 
river  (Caesar,  B.  C.  iii.  83  ;  Frontinus,  Strat.  ii.  3,  22).     The  camp  of  the 
Pompeians,  however,  cannot  have  stood  here,  but  only  on  the  slope  of  the 
heights  of  Cynoscephalae,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Enipeus,  partly  because 
they  barred  the  route  of  Caesar  to  Scotussa,  partly  because  their  line  of 
retreat  evidently  went  over  the  mountains  that  were  to  be  found  above  the 
camp  towards  Larisa  ;  if  they  had,  according  to  Leake's  hypothesis  (iv.  482), 
encamped  to  the  east  of  Pharsalus  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Enipeus,  they 
could  never  have  got  to  the  northward  through  this  stream,  which  at  this 
very  point  has  a  deeply  cut  bed   (Leake,   iv.  469),   and  Pompeius  must 
have  fled  to  Lamia  instead  of  Larisa.     Probably  therefore  the  Pompeians 
pitched  their  camp  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Fersaliti,  and  passed  the  river 
both    in  order   to  fight   and    in  order,  after   the  battle,  to   regain  their 
camp,  whence  they  then  moved  up  the  slopes  of  Crannon  and  Scotussa, 
which  culminate  above  the  latter  place  in  the  heights  of  Cynoscephalae. 
This  was  not  impossible.     The  Enipeus  is  a  narrow  slow-flowing  rivulet, 
which  Leake  found  two  feet  deep   in  November,  and  which  in  the  hot 
season  often  lies  quite  dry  (Leake,  i.  448,  and  iv.  472  ;   comp.  Lucan,  vi. 
373),  and  the  battle  was  fought  in  the  height  of  summer.      Further  the 
armies  before  the  battle  lay  three  miles  and  a  half  from  each  other  (Appian, 
B.  C.  ii.  65),  so  that  the  Pompeians  could  make  all  preparations  and  also 
properly  secure  the  communication  with  their  camp  by  bridges.      Had  the 
battle  terminated  in  a  complete  rout,  no  doubt  the  retreat  to  and  over  the 
river  could  not  have  been  executed,  and  doubtless  for  this  reason  Pompeius 
only  reluctantly  agreed  to  fight  here.     The  left  wing  of  the  Pompeians 
which  was  the  most  remote  from  the  base  of  retreat  felt  this  ;    but  the 
retreat  at  least  of  their  centre  and  their  right  wing  was  not  accomplished' 
in  such  haste  as  to  be  impracticable  under  the  given  conditions.     Cae?  n 
and  his  copyists  are  silent  as  to  the  crossing  of  the  river,   because  this 
would  place  in  too  clear  a  light  the  eagerness  for  battle  of  the  Pompeians 
apparent  otherwise  from  the  whole  narrative,  and  they  are  also  silent  as 
to  the  conditions  of  r«treat  favourabb  for  these. 


260  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

detached  to  Aetolia  and  Thessaly,  now  stationed  under 
Quintus  Fun  us  Calenus  in  Greece,  and  the  two  legions  of 
Cornificius  which  were  sent  after  him  by  the  land-route 
from  Italy  and  had  already  arrived  in  Illyria.  The  army 
of  Pompeius,  numbering  eleven  legions  or  47,000  men  and 
7000  horse,  was  more  than  double  that  of  Caesar  in  infantry, 
and  seven  times  as  numerous  in  cavalry;  fatigue  and 
conflicts  had  so  decimated  Caesar's  troops,  that  his  eight 
legions  did  not  number  more  than  22,000  men  under  arms, 
consequently  not  nearly  the  half  of  their  normal  amount. 
The  victorious  army  of  Pompeius  provided  with  a  countless 
cavalry  and  good  magazines  had  provisions  in  abundance, 
while  the  troops  of  Caesar  had  difficulty  in  keeping  them- 
selves alive  and  only  hoped  for  better  supplies  from  the 
corn-harvest  not  far  distant.  The  Pompeian  soldiers,  who 
had  learned  in  the  last  campaign  to  know  war  and  trust  their 
leader,  were  in  the  best  of  humour.  All  military  reasons  on 
the  side  of  Pompeius  favoured  the  view,  that  the  decisive 
battle  should  not  be  long  delayed,  seeing  that  they  now 
confronted  Caesar  in  Thessaly ;  and  the  emigrant  impatience 
of  the  many  genteel  officers  and  others  accompanying  the 
army  doubtless  had  more  weight  than  even  such  reasons  in 
the  council  of  war.  Since  the  events  of  Dyrrhachium  these 
lords  regarded  the  triumph  of  their  party  as  an  ascertained 
fact ;  already  there  was  eager  strife  as  to  the  filling  up  of 
Caesar's  supreme  pontificate,  and  instructions  were  sent  to 
Rome  to  hire  houses  at  the  Forum  for  the  next  elections. 
When  Pompeius  hesitated  on  his  part  to  cross  the  rivule' 
which  separated  the  two  armies,  and  which  Caesar  with  his 
much  weaker  army  did  not  venture  to  pass,  this  excited 
great  indignation;  Pompeius,  it  was  alleged,  only  delayed 
the  battle  in  order  to  rule  somewhat  longer  over  so  many 
consulars  and  praetorians  and  to  perpetuate  his  part  of 
Agamemnon.  Pompeius  yielded;  and  Caesar,  who  under 
the  impression  that  matters  would  not  come  to  a  battle,  had 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  261 

just  projected  a  mode  of  turning  the  enemy's  army  and  for 
that  purpose  was  on  the  point  of  setting  out  towards 
Scotussa,  likewise  arrayed  his  legions  for  battle,  when  he 
saw  the  Pompeians  preparing  to  offer  it  to  him  on  his 
bank. 

Thus  the  battle  of  Pharsalus  was  fought  on  the  9th  The  battle. 
August  706,  almost  on  the  same  field  where  a  hundred  and  48. 
fifty  years  before  the  Romans  had  laid  the  foundation  of 
their  dominion  in  the  east  (ii.  433).  Pompeius  rested  his 
right  wing  on  the  Enipeus ;  Caesar  opposite  to  him  rested 
his  left  on  the  broken  ground  stretching  in  front  of  the 
Enipeus;  the  two  other  wings  were  stationed  out  in  the 
plain,  covered  in  each  case  by  the  cavalry  and  the  light 
troops.  The  intention  of  Pompeius  was  to  keep  his  infantry 
on  the  defensive,  but  with  bis  cavalry  to  scatter  the  weak 
band  of  horsemen  which,  mixed  after  the  German  fashion 
with  light  infantry,  confronted  him,  and  then  to  take 
Caesar's  right  wing  in  rear.  His  infantry  courageously 
sustained  the  first  charge  of  that  of  the  enemy,  and  the 
engagement  there  came  to  a  stand.  Labienus  likewise 
dispersed  the  enemy's  cavalry  after  a  brave  but  short  resist- 
ance, and  deployed  his  force  to  the  left  with  the  view  of 
turning  the  infantry.  But  Caesar,  foreseeing  the  defeat  of 
his  cavalry,  had  stationed  behind  it  on  the  threatened  flank 
of  his  right  wing  some  2000  of  his  best  legionaries.  As  the 
enemy's  horsemen,  driving  those  of  Caesar  before  them, 
galloped  along  and  around  the  line,  they  suddenly  came 
upon  this  select  corps  advancing  intrepidly  against  them 
and,  rapidly  thrown  into  confusion  by  the  unexpected  and 
unusual  infantry  attack,1  they  galloped  at  full  speed  from 

1  With  this  is  connected  the  well-known  direction  of  Caesar  to  his  sol- 
diers to  strike  at  the  faces  of  the  enemy's  horsemen.  The  infantry — which 
here  in  an  altogether  irregular  way  acted  on  the  offensive  against  cavalry, 
who  were  not  to  be  reached  with  the  sabres — were  not  to  throw  their  pila, 
but  to  use  them  as  hand-spears  against  the  cavalry  and,  in  order  to  defend 
themselves  better  against  these,  to  thrust  at  their  faces  (Plutarch,  Pomp. 


26a  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

the  field  of  battle.  The  victorious  legionaries  cut  to  pieces 
the  enemy's  archers  now  unprotected,  then  rushed  at  the 
left  wing  of  the  enemy,  and  began  now  on  their  part  to  turn 
it.  At  the  same  time  Caesar's  third  division  hitherto  re- 
served advanced  along  the  whole  line  to  the  attack.  The 
unexpected  defeat  of  the  best  arm  of  the  Pompeian  army, 
as  it  raised  the  courage  of  their  opponents,  broke  that  of 
the  army  and  above  all  that  of  the  general.  When 
Pompeius,  who  from  the  outset  did  not  trust  his  infantry, 
saw  the  horsemen  gallop  off,  he  rode  back  at  once  from  the 
field  of  battle  to  the  camp,  without  even  awaiting  the  issue 
of  the  general  attack  ordered  by  Caesar.  His  legions  began 
to  waver  and  soon  to  retire  over  the  brook  into  the  camp, 
which  was  not  accomplished  without  severe  loss. 
Iu  Issue.  The  day  was  thus  lost  and  many  an  able  soldier  had 

fallen,  but  the  army  was  still  substantially  intact,  and  the 
situation  of  Pompeius  was  far  less  perilous  than  that  of 
Caesar  after  the  defeat  of  Dyrrhachium.  But  while  Caesar 
in  the  vicissitudes  of  his  destiny  had  learned  that  fortune 
loves  to  withdraw  herself  at  certain  moments  even  from  her 
favourites  in  order  to  be  once  more  won  back  through  their 
perseverance,  Pompeius  knew  fortune  hitherto  only  as  the 
constant  goddess,  and  despaired  of  himself  and  of  her  when 
she  withdrew  from  him ;  and,  while  in  Caesar's  grander 
nature  despair  only  developed  yet  mightier  energies,  the 
inferior  soul  of  Pompeius  under  similar  pressure  sank  into 
the  infinite  abyss  of  despondency.  As  once  in  the  war  with 
Sertorius  he  had  been  on  the  point  of  abandoning  the  office 

69,  71  ;  Cues.  45  ;  Appian,  ii.  76,  78  ;  Flor.  ii.  12  ;  Oros.  vi.  15  ;  erron- 
eously Frontinus,  iv.  7,  32).  The  anecdotical  turn  given  to  this  instruction, 
that  the  Pompeian  horsemen  were  to  be  brought  to  run  away  by  the  fear 
of  receiving  scars  in  their  faces,  and  that  they  actually  galloped  off  "  hold- 
ing their  hands  before  their  eyes"  (Plutarch),  collapses  of  itself;  for  it 
has  point  only  on  the  supposition  that  the  Pompeian  cavalry  had  consisted 
principally  of  the  young  nobility  of  Rome,  the  "  graceful  dancers"  ;  and 
this  was  not  the  case  (p.  224).  At  the  most  it  may  be,  that  the  wit  of  the 
camp  gave  to  that  simple  and  judicious  military  order  this  very  irrational 
but  certainly  comic  turn. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  263 

entrusted  to  him  in  presence  of  his  superior  opponent  and  Flight  of 
of  departing  (iv.  298),  so  now,  when  he  saw  the  legions  retire  )mPeius- 
over  the  stream,  he  threw  from  him  the  fatal  general's  scarf, 
and  rode  off  by  the  nearest  route  to  the  sea,  to  find  means 
of  embarking  there.  His  army  discouraged  and  leaderless 
— for  Scipio,  although  recognized  by  Pompeius  as  colleague 
in  supreme  command,  was  yet  general-in-chief  only  in  name 
— hoped  to  find  protection  behind  the  camp-walls ;  but 
Caesar  allowed  it  no  rest ;  the  obstinate  resistance  of  the 
Roman  and  Thracian  guard  of  the  camp  was  speedily  over- 
come, and  the  mass  was  compelled  to  withdraw  in  disorder 
to  the  heights  of  Crannon  and  Scotussa,  at  the  foot  of 
which  the  camp  was  pitched.  It  attempted  by  moving 
forward  along  these  hills  to  regain  Larisa;  but  the  troops 
of  Caesar,  heeding  neither  booty  nor  fatigue  and  advancing 
by  better  paths  in  the  plain,  intercepted  the  route  of  the 
fugitives ;  in  fact,  when  late  in  the  evening  the  Pompeians 
suspended  their  march,  their  pursuers  were  able  even  to 
draw  an  entrenched  line  which  precluded  the  fugitives  from 
access  to  the  only  rivulet  to  be  found  in  the  neighbourhood. 
So  ended  the  day  of  Pharsalus.  The  enemy's  army  was 
not  only  defeated,  but  annihilated;  15,000  of  the  enemy 
lay  dead  or  wounded  on  the  field  of  battle,  while  the 
Caesarians  missed  only  200  men  ;  the  body  which  remained 
together,  amounting  still  to  nearly  20,000  men,  laid  down 
their  arms  on  the  morning  after  the  battle ;  only  isolated 
troops,  including,  it  is  true,  the  officers  of  most  note,  sought 
a  refuge  in  the  mountains ;  of  the  eleven  eagles  of  the 
enemy  nine  were  handed  over  to  Caesar.  Caesar,  who  on 
the  very  day  of  the  battle  had  reminded  the  soldiers  that 
they  should  not  forget  the  fellow-citizen  in  the  foe,  did  not 
treat  the  captives  as  did  Bibulus  and  Labienus ;  neverthe- 
less he  too  found  it  necessary  now  to  exercise  some  severity. 
The  common  soldiers  were  incorporated  in  the  army,  fines 
or  confiscations  of  property  were  inflicted  on  the  men  of 


264 


BRUNDIblUM,  ILERDA, 


BOOK  V 


48. 

The 

political 
effects  of 
the  battle 
of  Phar- 

salus. 


The  east 
submits. 


The 

aristocracy 
after  the 
battle  of 
Pharsalus. 


better  rank ;  the  senators  and  equites  of  note  who  were 
taken,  with  few  exceptions,  suffered  death.  The  time  for 
clemency  was  past;  the  longer  the  civil  war  lasted,  the 
more  remorseless  and  implacable  it  became. 

Some  time  elapsed,  before  the  consequences  of  the  9th 
of  August  706  could  be  fully  discerned.  What  admitted 
of  least  doubt,  was  the  passing  over  to  the  side  of  Caesar 
of  all  those  who  had  attached  themselves  to  the  party 
vanquished  at  Pharsalus  merely  as  to  the  more  powerful ; 
the  defeat  was  so  thoroughly  decisive,  that  the  victor  was 
joined  by  all  who  were  not  willing  or  were  not  obliged  to 
fight  for  a  lost  cause.  All  the  kings,  peoples,  and  cities, 
which  had  hitherto  been  the  clients  of  Pompeius,  now 
recalled  their  naval  and  military  contingents  and  declined  to 
receive  the  refugees  of  the  beaten  party ;  such  as  Egypt, 
Cyrene,  the  communities  of  Syria,  Phoenicia,  Cilicia  and 
Asia  Minor,  Rhodes,  Athens,  and  generally  the  whole  east. 
In  fact  Pharnaces  king  of  the  Bosporus  pushed  his  officious- 
ness  so  far,  that  on  the  news  of  the  Pharsalian  battle  he 
took  possession  not  only  of  the  town  of  Phanagoria  which 
several  years  before  had  been  declared  free  by  Pompeius, 
and  of  the  dominions  of  the  Colchian  princes  confirmed  by 
him,  but  even  of  the  kingdom  of  Little  Armenia  which 
Pompeius  had  conferred  on  king  Deiotarus.  Almost  the 
sole  exceptions  to  this  general  submission  were  the  little 
town  of  Megara  which  allowed  itself  to  be  besieged  and 
stormed  by  the  Caesarians,  and  Juba  king  of  Numidia, 
who  had  for  long  expected,  and  after  the  victory  over 
Curio  expected  only  with  all  the  greater  certainty,  that 
his  kingdom  would  be  annexed  by  Caesar,  and  was  thus 
obliged  for  better  or  for  worse  to  abide  by  the  defeated 
party. 

In  the  same  way  as  the  client  communities  submitted  to 
the  victor  of  Pharsalus,  the  tail  of  the  constitutional  party 
— all  who  had  joined  it  with  half  a  heart  or  had  even,  like 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  265 

Marcus  Cicero  and  his  congeners,  merely  danced  around 
the  aristocracy  like  the  witches  around  the  Brocken — 
approached  to  make  their  peace  with  the  new  monarch,  a 
peace  accordingly  which  his  contemptuous  indulgence  readily 
and  courteously  granted  to  the  petitioners.  But  the  flower 
of  the  defeated  party  made  no  compromise.  All  was  over 
with  the  aristocracy ;  but  the  aristocrats  could  never 
become  converted  to  monarchy.  The  highest  revelations 
of  humanity  are  perishable;  the  religion  once  true  may 
become  a  lie,1  the  polity  once  fraught  with  blessing  may 
become  a  curse ;  but  even  the  gospel  that  is  past  still  finds 
confessors,  and  if  such  a  faith  cannot  remove  mountains 
like  faith  in  the  living  truth,  it  yet  remains  true  to  itself 
down  to  its  very  end,  and  does  not  depart  from  the  realm 
of  the  living  till  it  has  dragged  its  last  priests  and  its  last 
partisans  along  with  it,  and  a  new  generation,  freed  from 
those  shadows  of  the  past  and  the  perishing,  rules  over  a 
world  that  has  renewed  its  youth.  So  it  was  in  Rome. 
Into  whatever  abyss  of  degeneracy  the  aristocratic  rule  had 
now  sunk,  it  had  once  been  a  great  political  system ;  the 
sacred  fire,  by  which  Italy  had  been  conquered  and 
Hannibal  had  been  vanquished,  continued  to  glow — 
although  somewhat  dimmed  and  dull — in  the  Roman 
nobility  so  long  as  that  nobility  existed,  and  rendered  a 
cordial  understanding  between  the  men  of  the  old  regime 
and  the  new  monarch  impossible.  A  large  portion  of  the 
constitutional  party  submitted  at  least  outwardly,  and 
recognized  the  monarchy  so  far  as  to  accept  pardon  from 
Caesar  and  to  retire  as  much  as  possible  into  private  life ; 
which,    however,    ordinarily    was    not    done    without    the 

1  [I  may  here  state  once  for  all  that  in  this  and  other  passages,  where 
Dr.  Mommsen  appears  incidentally  to  express  views  of  religion  or 
philosophy  with  which  I  can  scarcely  be  supposed  to  agree,  1  have  not 
thought  it  right — as  is,  I  believe,  sometimes  done  in  similar  cases — to 
omit  or  modify  any  portion  of  what  he  has  written.  The  reader  must 
judge  for  himself  as  to  thu  truth  or  value  of  such  assertions  as  those  given 
in  the  text.  —  7V.] 


266  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

mental  reservation  of  thereby  preserving  themselves  for  a 
future  change  of  things.  This  course  was  chiefly  followed 
by  the  partisans  of  lesser  note ;  but  the  able  Marcus 
Marcellus,  the  same  who  had  brought  about  the  rupture 
with  Caesar  (p.  174),  was  to  be  found  among  these  judicious 
persons  and  voluntarily  banished  himself  to  Lesbos.  In  the 
majority,  however,  of  the  genuine  aristocracy  passion  was 
more  powerful  than  cool  reflection ;  along  with  which,  no 
doubt,  self-deceptions  as  to  success  being  still  possible 
and  apprehensions  of  the  inevitable  vengeance  of  the  victor 
variously  co-operated. 
Ca*o.  No  one  probably  formed  a  judgment  as  to  the  situation 

of  affairs  with  so  painful  a  clearness,  and  so  free  from  fear 
or  hope  on  his  own  account,  as  Marcus  Cato.  Completely 
convinced  that  after  the  days  of  Ilerda  r  nd  Pharsalus  the 
monarchy  was  inevitable,  and  morally  firm  enough  to 
confess  to  himself  this  bitter  truth  and  to  act  in  accordance 
with  it,  he  hesitated  for  a  moment  whether  the  constitu- 
tional party  ought  at  all  to  continue  a  war,  which  would 
necessarily  require  sacrifices  for  a  lost  cause  on  the  part  of 
many  who  did  not  know  why  they  offered  them.  And 
when  he  resolved  to  fight  against  the  monarchy  not  for 
victory,  but  for  a  speedier  and  more  honourable  fall,  he 
yet  sought  as  far  as  possible  to  draw  no  one  into  this  war, 
who  chose  to  survive  the  fall  of  the  republic  and  to  be 
reconciled  to  monarchy.  He  conceived  that,  so  long  as 
the  republic  had  been  merely  threatened,  it  was  a  right 
and  a  duty  to  compel  the  lukewarm  and  bad  citizen  to 
take  part  in  the  struggle  ;  but  that  now  it  was  senseless 
and  cruel  to  compel  the  individual  to  share  the  ruin  of  the 
lost  republic.  Not  only  did  he  himself  discharge  every  one 
who  desired  to  return  to  Italy ;  but  when  the  wildest  of  the 
wild  partisans,  Gnaeus  Pompeius  the  younger,  insisted  on 
the  execution  of  these  people  and  of  Cicero  in  particular? 
it  was  Cato  alone  who  by  his  moral  authority  prevented  it. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  267 

Pompeius  also  had  no  desire  for  peace.  Had  he  been  Pompeius. 
a  man  who  deserved  to  hold  the  position  which  he 
occupied,  we  might  suppose  him  to  have  perceived  that 
he  who  aspires  to  a  crown  cannot  return  to  the  beaten 
track  of  ordinary  existence,  and  that  there  is  accordingly 
no  place  left  on  earth  for  one  who  has  failed.  But 
Pompeius  was  hardly  too  noble-minded  to  ask  a  favour, 
which  the  victor  would  have  been  perhaps  magnanimous 
enough  not  to  refuse  to  him;  on  the  contrary,  he  was 
probably  too  mean  to  do  so.  Whether  it  was  that  he 
could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  trust  himself  to  Caesar,  or 
that  in  his  usual  vague  and  undecided  way,  after  the  first 
immediate  impression  of  the  disaster  of  Pharsalus  had 
vanished,  be  began  again  to  cherish  hope,  Pompeius  was 
resolved  to  continue  the  struggle  against  Caesar  and  to 
seek  for  himself  yet  another  battle-field  after  that  of 
Pharsalus. 

Thus,  however  much  Caesar  had  striven  by  prudence  Military 
and  moderation  to  appease  the  fury  of  his  opponents  and  ^battle, 
to  lessen  their  number,  the  struggle  nevertheless  went  on 
without  alteration.     But  the  leading  men  had  almost  all  The 
taken  part  in  the  fight  at  Pharsalus ;  and,  although  they  all  scattered> 
escaped  with  the  exception  of  Lucius  Domitius  Ahenobarbus, 
who  was  killed  in  the  flight,  they  were  yet  scattered  in  all 
directions,  so  that  they  were  unable  to  concert  a  common 
plan  for  the  continuance  of  the  campaign.     Most  of  them 
found  their  way,  partly  through  the  desolate  mountains  of 
Macedonia  and   Illyria,  partly  by  the  aid  of  the  fleet,  to 
Corcyra,  where  Marcus  Cato  commanded  the  reserve  left 
behind.     Here  a  sort  of  council  of  war  took  place  under 
the  presidency  of  Cato,  at  which  Metellus  Scipio,  Titus 
Labienus,  Lucius  Afranius,  Gnaeus  Pompeius  the  younger 
and  others  were  present;  but  the  absence  of  the  commander- 
in-chief  and  the  painful  uncertainty  as  to  his  fate,  as  well 
as   the  internal    dissensions   of  the  party,   prevented   the 


268  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

adoption  of  any  common  resolution,  and  ultimately  each 
took  the  course  which  seemed  to  him  the  most  suitable  for 
himself  or  for  the  common  cause.  It  was  in  fact  in  a  high 
degree  difficult  to  say  among  the  many  straws  to  which 
they  might  possibly  cling  which  was  the  one  that  would 
keep  longest  above  water. 

Macedonia        Macedonia   and    Greece    were    lost   by    the    battle    of 

Greece.  Pharsalus.  It  is  true  that  Cato,  who  had  immediately 
on  the  news  of  the  defeat  evacuated  Dyrrhachium,  still 
held  Corcyra,  and  Rutilius  Lupus  the  Peloponnesus,  during 
a  time  for  the  constitutional  party.  For  a  moment  it 
seemed  also  as  if  the  Pompeians  would  make  a  stand 
at  Patrae  in  the  Peloponnesus ;  but  the  accounts  of  the 
advance  of  Calenus  sufficed  to  frighten  them  from  that 
quarter.      As   little    was    there   any   attempt    to  maintain 

Italy.  Corcyra.     On  the  Italian  and  Sicilian  coasts  the  Pompeian 

squadrons  despatched  thither  after  the  victories  of  Dyrrha- 
chium (p.  258)  had  achieved  not  unimportant  successes 
against  the  ports  of  Brundisium,  Messana  and  Vibo,  and 
at  Messana  especially  had  burnt  the  whole  fleet  in  course 
of  being  fitted  out  for  Caesar  ;  but  the  ships  that  were 
thus  active,  mostly  from  Asia  Minor  and  Syria,  were 
recalled  by  their  communities  in  consequence  of  the 
Pharsalian  battle,  so  that  the  expedition  came  to  an  end 

The  east,     of  itself.      In   Asia   Minor  and   Syria  there  were  at  the 
moment  no  troops  of  either  party,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Bosporan  army  of  Pharnaces  which  had  taken  posses 
sion,  ostensibly  on  Caesar's  account,  of  different  regions 

Egypt-  belonging  to  his  opponents.  In  Egypt  there  was  still 
indeed  a  considerable  Roman  army,  formed  of  the  troops 
left  behind  there  by  Gabinius  (iv.  452)  and  thereafter 
recruited  from  Italian  vagrants  and  Syrian  or  Cilician 
banditti ;  but  it  was  self-evident  and  was  soon  officially 
confirmed  by  the  recall  of  the  Egyptian  vessels,  that  the 
court  of  Alexandria  by  no   means   had   the   intention  of 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  269 

holding  firmly  by  the  defeated  party  or  of  even  placing 
its  force  of  troops  at  their  disposal.  Somewhat  more 
favourable  prospects  presented  themselves  to  the  van- 
quished in  the  west.  In  Spain  Pompeian  sympathies  Spain, 
were  so  strong  among  the  population,  that  the  Caesarians 
had  on  that  account  to  give  up  the  attack  which  they  con- 
templated from  this  quarter  against  Africa,  and  an  insurrec- 
tion seemed  inevitable,  so  soon  as  a  leader  of  note  should 
appear  in  the  peninsula.  In  Africa  moreover  the  coalition,  Africa, 
or  rather  Juba  king  of  Numidia,  who  was  the  true  regent 
there,  had  been  arming  unmolested  since  the  autumn  of 
705.  While  the  whole  east  was  consequently  lost  to  the  49. 
coalition  by  the  battle  of  Pharsalus,  it  might  on  the  other 
hand  continue  the  war  after  an  honourable  manner  probably 
in  Spain,  and  certainly  in  Africa  ;  for  to  claim  the  aid  of 
the  king  of  Numidia,  who  had  for  a  long  time  been  subject 
to  the  Roman  community,  against  revolutionary  fellow- 
burgesses  was  for  Romans  a  painful  humiliation  doubtless, 
but  by  no  means  an  act  of  treason.  Those  again  who 
in  this  conflict  of  despair  had  no  further  regard  for  right 
or  honour,  might  declare  themselves  beyond  the  pale  of 
the  law,  and  commence  hostilities  as  robbers  ;  or  might 
enter  into  alliance  with  independent  neighbouring  states, 
and  introduce  the  public  foe  into  the  intestine  strife ;  or, 
lastly,  might  profess  monarchy  with  the  lips  and  prosecute 
the  restoration  of  the  legitimate  republic  with  the  dagger  of 
the  assassin. 

That  the  vanquished  should  withdraw  and  renounce  the  Hostilities 
new  monarchy,  was  at  least  the  natural  and  so  far  the  truest  and 
expression  of  their  desperate  position.     The  mountains  and  pirates, 
above  all  the  sea  had  been  in  those  times  ever  since  the 
memory  of  man  the  asylum  not  only  of  all  crime,  but  also 
of  intolerable  misery  and  of  oppressed  right ;  it  was  natural 
for   Pompeians  and    republicans    to  wage  a  defiant    war 
against  the  monarchy  of  Caesar,  which  had  ejected  them, 


270  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

in  the  mountains  and  on  the  seas,  and  especially  natural 
for  them  to  take  up  piracy  on  a  greater  scale,  with  more 
compact  organization,  and  with  more  definite  aims.  Even 
after  the  recall  of  the  squadrons  that  had  come  from  the 
east  they  still  possessed  a  very  considerable  fleet  of  their 
own,  while  Caesar  was  as  yet  virtually  without  vessels  of 
war  ;  and  their  connection  with  the  Dalmatae  who  had 
risen  in  their  own  interest  against  Caesar  (p.  235),  and  their 
control  over  the  most  important  seas  and  seaports,  pre- 
sented the  most  advantageous  prospects  for  a  naval  war, 
especially  on  a  small  scale.  As  formerly  Sulla's  hunting 
out  of  the  democrats  had  ended  in  the  Sertorian  insurrec- 
tion, which  was  a  conflict  first  waged  by  pirates  and  then 
by  robbers  and  ultimately  became  a  very  serious  war,  so 
possibly,  if  there  was  in  the  Catonian  aristocracy  or  among 
the  adherents  of  Pompeius  as  much  spirit  and  fire  as  in 
the  Marian  democracy,  and  if  there  was  found  among 
them  a  true  sea-king,  a  commonwealth  independent  of 
the  monarchy  of  Caesar  and  perhaps  a  match  for  it  might 
arise  on  the  still  unconquered  sea. 
Parthian  Far  more  serious  disapproval  in  every  respect  is  due  to 

the  idea  of  dragging  an  independent  neighbouring  state  into 
the  Roman  civil  war  and  of  bringing  about  by  its  means 
a  counter-revolution  ;  law  and  conscience  condemn  the 
deserter  more  severely  than  the  robber,  and  a  victorious 
band  of  robbers  finds  its  way  back  to  a  free  and  well- 
ordered  commonwealth  more  easily  than  the  emigrants 
who  are  conducted  back  by  the  public  foe.  Besides  it 
was  scarcely  probable  that  the  beaten  party  would  be 
able  to  effect  a  restoration  in  this  way.  The  only  state, 
from  which  they  could  attempt  to  seek  support,  was  that 
of  the  Parthians;  and  as  to  this  it  was  at  least  doubtful 
whether  it  would  make  their  cause  its  own,  and  very 
improbable  that  it  would  fight  out  that  cause  against 
Caesar. 


alliance. 


chap.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  271 

The   time    for   republican   conspiracies    had    not    yet 
come. 

While  the  remnant  of  the  defeated  party  thus  allowed  Caesar 
themselves  to  be  helplessly  driven  about  by  fate,  and  even  p^pdus 
those  who  had  determined  to  continue  the  struggle  knew  to  Egypt, 
not  how  or  where  to  do  so,  Caesar,  quickly  as  ever 
resolving  and  quickly  acting,  laid  everything  aside  to 
pursue  Pompeius — the  only  one  of  his  opponents  whom 
he  respected  as  an  officer,  and  the  one  whose  personal 
capture  would  have  probably  paralyzed  a  half,  and  that 
perhaps  the  more  dangerous  half,  of  his  opponents.  With 
a  few  men  he  crossed  the  Hellespont — his  single  bark 
encountered  in  it  a  fleet  of  the  enemy  destined  for  the 
Black  Sea,  and  took  the  whole  crews,  struck  as  with 
stupefaction  by  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Pharsalus, 
prisoners — and  as  soon  as  the  most  necessary  prepara- 
tions were  made,  hastened  in  pursuit  of  Pompeius  to  the 
east  The  latter  had  gone  from  the  Pharsalian  battle- 
field to  Lesbos,  whence  he  brought  away  his  wife  and 
his  second  son  Sextus,  and  had  sailed  onward  round 
Asia  Minor  to  Cilicia  and  thence  to  Cyprus.  He  might 
have  joined  his  partisans  at  Corcyra  or  Africa  ;  but 
repugnance  toward  his  aristocratic  allies  and  the  thought 
of  the  reception  which  awaited  him  there  after  the  day 
of  Pharsalus  and  above  all  after  his  disgraceful  flight, 
appear  to  have  induced  him  to  take  his  own  course  and 
rather  to  resort  to  the  protection  of  the  Parthian  king 
than  to  that  of  Cato.  While  he  was  employed  in 
collecting  money  and  slaves  from  the  Roman  revenue- 
farmers  and  merchants  in  Cyprus,  and  in  arming  a  band 
of  2000  slaves,  he  received  news  that  Antioch  had 
declared  for  Caesar  and  that  the  route  to  the  Parthians 
was  no  longer  open.  So  he  altered  his  plan  and  sailed 
to  Egypt,  where  a  number  of  his  old  soldiers  served  in 
the  army  and   the   situation  and   rich   resources  of  the 


272  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  y 

country  allowed   him  time  and  opportunity  to  reorganize 
the  war. 

In  Egypt,  after  the  death  of  Ptolemaeus  Auletes  (May 
01.  703)  his  children,  Cleopatra  about  sixteen  years  of  age  and 
Ptolemaeus  Dionysus  about  ten,  had  ascended  the  throne 
according  to  their  father's  will  jointly,  and  as  consorts ;  but 
soon  the  brother  or  rather  his  guardian  Pothinus  had  driven 
the  sister  from  the  kingdom  and  compelled  her  to  seek  a 
refuge  in  Syria,  whence  she  made  preparations  to  get  back 
to  her  paternal  kingdom.     Ptolemaeus  and  Pothinus  lay 
with   the  whole  Egyptian  army  at  Pelusium  for  the  sake 
of  protecting  the   eastern   frontier  against  her,  just  when 
Pompeius  cast  anchor  at  the  Casian  promontory  and  sent 
a  request  to  the  king  to  allow  him  to  land.     The  Egyptian 
court,  long  informed  of  the  disaster  at  Pharsalus,  was  on 
the  point  of  refusing  to  receive  Pompeius ;  but  the  king's 
tutor  Theodotus  pointed  out  that  in  that  case  Pompeius 
would  probably  employ  his  connections  in   the   Egyptian 
army  to   instigate  rebellion;  and  that  it  would  be  safer, 
and  also  preferable  with  regard  to  Caesar,  if  they  embraced 
the  opportunity  of  making  away  with  Pompeius.     Political 
reasonings  of  this  sort  did  not  readily  fail  of  their  effect 
among  the  statesmen  of  the  Hellenic  world. 
Death  of  Achillas  the  general  of  the  royal  troops  and  some  of  the 

ompeius.  former  soi(jiers  0f  Pompeius  went  off  in  a  boat  to  his  vessel; 
and  invited  him  to  come  to  the  king  and,  as  the  water  was 
shallow,  to  enter  their  barge.  As  he  was  stepping  ashore, 
the  military  tribune  Lucius  Septimius  stabbed  him  from 
behind,  under  the  eyes  of  his  wife  and  son,  who  were 
compelled  to  be  spectators  of  the  murder  from  the  deck 
of  their  vessel,  without  being  able  to  rescue  or  revenge 
48.  (28  Sept.  706).  On  the  same  day,  on  which  thirteen 
years  before  he  had  entered  the  capital  in  triumph  over 
Mithradates  (iv.  444),  the  man,  who  for  a  generation  had 
been   called   the   Great  and  for  years   had  ruled    Rome, 


chap.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  273 

died  on  the  desert  sands  of  the  inhospitable  Casian 
shore  by  the  hand  of  one  of  his  old  soldiers.  A  good 
officer,  but  otherwise  of  mediocre  gifts  of  intellect  and  of 
heart,  fate  had  with  superhuman  constancy  for  thirty  years 
allowed  him  to  solve  all  brilliant  and  toilless  tasks ;  had 
permitted  him  to  pluck  all  laurels  planted  and  fostered 
by  others  ;  had  brought  him  face  to  face  with  all  the 
conditions  requisite  for  obtaining  the  supreme  power — 
only  in  order  to  exhibit  in  his  person  an  example  of 
spurious  greatness,  to  which  history  knows  no  parallel. 
Of  all  pitiful  parts  there  is  none  more  pitiful  than  that 
of  passing  for  more  than  one  really  is ;  and  it  is  the  fate 
of  monarchy  that  this  misfortune  inevitably  clings  to  it, 
for  barely  once  in  a  thousand  years  does  there  arise 
among  the  people  a  man  who  is  a  king  not  merely  in 
name,  but  in  reality.  If  this  disproportion  between 
semblance  and  reality  has  never  perhaps  been  so  abruptly 
marked  as  in  Pompeius,  the  fact  may  well  excite  grave 
reflection  that  it  was  precisely  he  who  in  a  certain  sense 
opened  the  series  of  Roman  monarchs. 

When  Caesar  following  the  track  of  Pompeius  arrived  Arrival  of 
in  the  roadstead  of  Alexandria,  all  was  already  over.  With  Caesar- 
deep  agitation  he  turned  away  when  the  murderer  brought 
to  his  ship  the  head  of  the  man,  who  had  been  his  son-in- 
law  and  for  long  years  his  colleague  in  rule,  and  to  get 
whom  alive  into  his  power  he  had  come  to  Egypt.  The 
dagger  of  the  rash  assassin  precluded  an  answer  to  the 
question,  how  Caesar  would  have  dealt  with  the  captive 
Pompeius ;  but,  while  the  humane  sympathy,  which  still 
found  a  place  in  the  great  soul  of  Caesar  side  by  side 
with  ambition,  enjoined  that  he  should  spare  his  former 
friend,  his  interest  also  required  that  he  should  annihilate 
Pompeius  otherwise  than  by  the  executioner.  Pompeius 
had  been  for  twenty  years  the  acknowledged  ruler  of 
Rome ;    a  dominion  so    deeply  rooted    does    not   perish 

NOL.  V  ISI 


274  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

with  the  ruler's  death.  The  death  of  Pompeius  did  not 
break  up  the  Pompeians,  but  gave  to  them  instead  of  an 
aged,  incapable,  and  worn-out  chief  in  his  sons  Gnaeus 
and  Sextus  two  leaders,  both  of  whom  were  young  and 
active  and  the  second  was  a  man  of  decided  capacity. 
To  the  newly  -  founded  hereditary  monarchy  hereditary 
pretendership  attached  itself  at  once  like  a  parasite,  and 
it  was  very  doubtful  whether  by  this  change  of  persons 
Caesar  did  not  lose  more  than  he  gained. 
Caesar  Meanwhile  in  Egypt  Caesar  had  now  nothing  further  to 

E*  t  do,  and  the  Romans  and  the  Egyptians  expected  that  he 
would  immediately  set  sail  and  apply  himself  to  the  sub- 
jugation of  Africa,  and  to  the  huge  task  of  organization 
which  awaited  him  after  the  victory.  But  Caesar  faithful 
to  his  custom — wherever  he  found  himself  in  the  wide 
empire  —  of  finally  regulating  matters  at  once  and  in 
person,  and  firmly  convinced  that  no  resistance  was  to 
be  expected  either  from  the  Roman  garrison  or  from  the 
court,  being,  moreover,  in  urgent  pecuniary  embarrassment, 
landed  in  Alexandria  with  the  two  amalgamated  legions 
accompanying  him  to  the  number  of  3200  men  and  800 
Celtic  and  German  cavalry,  took  up  his  quarters  in  the 
royal  palace,  and  proceeded  to  collect  the  necessary  sums 
of  money  and  to  regulate  the  Egyptian  succession,  without 
allowing  himself  to  be  disturbed  by  the  saucy  remark  of 
Pothinus  that  Caesar  should  not  for  such  petty  matters 
neglect  his  own  so  important  affairs.  In  his  dealing  with 
the  Egyptians  he  was  just  and  even  indulgent.  Although 
the  aid  which  they  had  given  to  Pompeius  justified  *he 
imposing  of  a  war  contribution,  the  exhausted  land  was 
spared  from  this ;  and,  while  the  arrears  of  the  sum 
69.  stipulated  for  in  695  (iv.  451)  and  since  then  only  about 
half  paid  were  remitted,  there  was  required  merely  a  final 
payment  of  10,000,000  denarii  (^400,000).  The  belli- 
gerent brother  and  sister  were  enjoined   immediately  to 


CHAP,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  *75 

suspend  hostilities,  and  were  invited  to  have  their  dispute 
investigated  and  decided  before  the  arbiter.  They  sub- 
mitted ;  the  royal  boy  was  already  in  the  palace  and 
Cleopatra  also  presented  herself  there.  Caesar  adjudged 
the  kingdom  of  Egypt,  agreeably  to  the  testament  of 
Auletes,  to  the  intermarried  brother  and  sister  Cleopatra 
and  Ptolemaeus  Dionysus,  and  further  gave  unasked  the 
kingdom  of  Cyprus — cancelling  the  earlier  act  of  annexa- 
tion (iv.  450) — as  the  appanage  of  the  second-born  of 
Egypt  to  the  younger  children  of  Auletes,  Arsinoe  and 
Ptolemaeus  the  younger. 

But  a  storm  was  secretly  preparing.  Alexandria  was  insurrec- 
a  cosmopolitan  city  as  well  as  Rome,  hardly  inferior  to  Alexandria, 
the  Italian  capital  in  the  number  of  its  inhabitants,  far 
superior  to  it  in  stirring  commercial  spirit,  in  skill  of 
handicraft,  in  taste  for  science  and  art :  in  the  citizens 
there  was  a  lively  sense  of  their  own  national  importance, 
and,  if  there  was  no  political  sentiment,  there  was  at  any 
rate  a  turbulent  spirit,  which  induced  them  to  indulge  in 
their  street  riots  as  regularly  and  as  heartily  as  the  Parisians 
of  the  present  day  :  one  may  conceive  their  feelings,  when 
they  saw  the  Roman  general  ruling  in  the  palace  of  the 
Lagids  and  their  kings  accepting  the  award  of  his  tribunal. 
Pothinus  and  the  boy-king,  both  as  may  be  conceived  very 
dissatisfied  at  once  with  the  peremptory  requisition  of  old 
debts  and  with  the  intervention  in  the  throne-dispute  which 
could  only  issue,  as  it  did,  in  favour  of  Cleopatra,  sent — in 
order  to  pacify  the  Roman  demands — the  treasures  of  the 
temples  and  the  gold  plate  of  the  king  with  intentional 
ostentation  to  be  melted  at  the  mint;  with  increasing 
indignation  the  Egyptians  —  who  were  pious  even  to 
superstition,  and  who  rejoiced  in  the  world  -  renowned 
magnificence  of  their  court  as  if  it  were  a  possession  of 
their  own — beheld  the  bare  walls  of  their  temples  and 
the  wooden  cups  on  the  table  of  their  king.     The  Roman 


276  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

army  of  occupation  also,  which  had  been  essentially 
denationalized  by  its  long  abode  in  Egypt  and  the  many 
intermarriages  between  the  soldiers  and  Egyptian  women, 
and  which  moreover  numbered  a  multitude  of  the  old 
soldiers  of  Pompeius  and  runaway  Italian  criminals  and 
slaves  in  its  ranks,  was  indignant  at  Caesar,  by  whose 
orders  it  had  been  obliged  to  suspend  its  action  on  the 
Syrian  frontier,  and  at  his  handful  of  haughty  legionaries. 
The  tumult  even  at  the  landing,  when  the  multitude  saw 
the  Roman  axes  carried  into  the  old  palace,  and  the 
numerous  cases  in  which  his  soldiers  were  assassinated 
in  the  city,  had  taught  Caesar  the  immense  danger  in 
which  he  was  placed  with  his  small  force  in  presence  of 
that  exasperated  multitude.  But  it  was  difficult  to  return 
on  account  of  the  north-west  winds  prevailing  at  this  season 
of  the  year,  and  the  attempt  at  embarkation  might  easily 
become  a  signal  for  the  outbreak  of  the  insurrection ; 
besides,  it  was  not  the  nature  of  Caesar  to  take  his 
departure  without  having  accomplished  his  work.  He 
accordingly  ordered  up  at  once  reinforcements  from  Asia, 
and  meanwhile,  till  these  arrived,  made  a  show  of  the 
utmost  self-possession.  Never  was  there  greater  gaiety 
in  his  camp  than  during  this  rest  at  Alexandria ;  and 
while  the  beautiful  and  clever  Cleopatra  was  not  sparing 
of  her  charms  in  general  and  least  of  all  towards  her  judge, 
Caesar  also  appeared  among  all  his  victories  to  value  most 
those  won  over  beautiful  women.  It  was  a  merry  prelude 
to  graver  scenes.  Under  the  leadership  of  Achillas  and, 
as  was  afterwards  proved,  by  the  secret  orders  of  the  king 
and  his  guardian,  the  Roman  army  of  occupation  stationed 
in  Egypt  appeared  unexpectedly  in  Alexandria;  and  as 
soon  as  the  citizens  saw  that  it  had  come  to  attack  Caesar, 
they  made  common  cause  with  the  soldiers. 
Caesar  in  With   a  presence    of  mind,    which    in    some    measure 

justifies  his  earlier  foolhardiness,  Caesar  hastily  collected 


Alexandria. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  277 

his  scattered  men ;  seized  the  persons  of  the  king  and  his 
ministers ;  entrenched  himself  in  the  royal  residence  and 
the  adjoining  theatre ;  and  gave  orders,  as  there  was  no 
time  to  place  in  safety  the  war  -  fleet  stationed  in  the 
principal  harbour  immediately  in  front  of  the  theatre,  that 
it  should  be  set  on  fire  and  that  Pharos,  the  island  with 
the  light-tower  commanding  the  harbour,  should  be  oc- 
cupied by  means  of  boats.  Thus  at  least  a  restricted 
position  for  defence  was  secured,  and  the  way  was  kept 
open  to  procure  supplies  and  reinforcements.  At  the  same 
time  orders  were  issued  to  the  commandant  of  Asia  Minor 
as  well  as  to  the  nearest  subject  countries,  the  Syrians  and 
Nabataeans,  the  Cretans  and  the  Rhodians,  to  send  troops 
and  ships  in  all  haste  to  Egypt.  The  insurrection  at  the 
head  of  which  the  princess  Arsinoe  and  her  confidant  the 
eunuch  Ganymedes  had  placed  themselves,  meanwhile  had 
free  course  in  all  Egypt  and  in  the  greater  part  of  the 
capital.  In  the  streets  of  the  latter  there  was  daily  fighting, 
but  without  success  either  on  the  part  of  Caesar  in  gaining 
freer  scope  and  breaking  through  to  the  fresh  water  lake  of 
Marea  which  lay  behind  the  town,  where  he  could  have 
provided  himself  with  water  and  forage,  or  on  the  part 
of  the  Alexandrians  in  acquiring  superiority  over  the 
besieged  and  depriving  them  of  all  drinking  water ;  for, 
when  the  Nile  canals  in  Caesar's  part  of  the  town  had  been 
spoiled  by  the  introduction  of  salt  water,  drinkable  water 
was  unexpectedly  found  in  wells  dug  on  the  beach. 

As  Caesar  was  not  to  be  overcome  from  the  landward 
side,  the  exertions  of  the  besiegers  were  directed  to  destroy 
his  fleet  and  cut  him  off  from  the  sea  by  which  supplies 
reached  him.  The  island  with  the  lighthouse  and  the 
mole  by  which  this  was  connected  with  the  mainland 
divided  the  harbour  into  a  western  and  an  eastern  half,  which 
were  in  communication  with  each  other  through  two  arched 
openings  in  the  mole.     Caesar  commanded  the  island  and 


278  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

the  east  harbour,  while  the  mole  and  the  west  harbour  were 
in   possession   of  the  citizens;   and,   as  the  Alexandrian 
fleet  was    burnt,   his  vessels    sailed    in    and   out   without 
hindrance.       The    Alexandrians,    after    having   vainly    at- 
tempted to  introduce  fire-ships  from  the  western  into  the 
eastern  harbour,  equipped  with  the  remnant  of  their  arsenal 
a  small  squadron  and  with   this   blocked   up  the  way  of 
Caesar's  vessels,   when    these   were  towing   in  a  fleet    of 
transports  with  a  legion  that  had  arrived  from  Asia  Minor ; 
but  the  excellent  Rhodian  mariners  of  Caesar  mastered  the 
enemy.       Not     long     afterwards,    however,    the    citizens 
captured  the  lighthouse-island,1  and  from  that  point  totally 
closed  the  narrow  and  rocky  mouth  of  the  east  harbour  for 
larger  ships ;  so  that  Caesar's  fleet  was  compelled  to  take 
its  station  in  the  open  roads  before  the  east  harbour,  and 
his   communication  with    the  sea   hung  only  on  a  weak 
thread.     Caesar's  fleet,  attacked  in  that  roadstead  repeatedly 
by  the  superior  naval  force  of  the  enemy,  could  neither 
shun  the  unequal  strife,  since  the  loss  of  the  lighthouse- 
island  closed  the  inner  harbour  against  it,  nor  yet  withdraw, 
for  the  loss  of  the  roadstead  would  have  debarred  Caesar 
wholly    from    the    sea.       Though    the    brave    legionaries, 
supported  by  the   dexterity  of  the  Rhodian   sailors,   had 
always  hitherto   decided  these  conflicts  in   favour  of  the 
Romans,  the  Alexandrians  renewed  and  augmented  their 
naval  armaments  with  unwearied  perseverance ;  the  besieged 
had  to  fight  as  often  as  it  pleased  the  besiegers,  and  if  the 
former  should  be  on  a  single  occasion  vanquished,  Caesar 
would  be  totally  hemmed  in  and  probably  lost 

It  was   absolutely  necessary   to   make   an  attempt   to 
recover  the  lighthouse-island.     The  double  attack,  which 

1  The  loss  of  the  lighthouse-island  must  have  fallen  out,  where  there  is 
now  a  chasm  (B.  A.  12),  for  the  island  was  in  fact  at  first  in  Caesar's  power 
(B.  C.  iii.  12  ;  B.  A.  8).  The  mole  must  have  been  constantly  in  the 
power  of  the  enemy,  for  Caesar  held  intercourse  with  the  island  only  by 
ships- 


chap.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  279 

was  made  by  boats  from  the  side  of  the  harbour  and  by 

the  war-vessels  from  the  seaboard,  in  reality  brought  not 

only  the  island  but  also  the  lower  part  of  the  mole  into 

Caesar's  power ;  it  was  only  at  the  second  arch-opening  of 

the  mole  that  Caesar  ordered  the  attack  to  be  stopped,  and 

the  mole  to  be  there  closed  towards  the  city  by  a  transverse 

wall.     But  while  a  violent  conflict  arose  here  around  the 

entrenchers,  the  Roman  troops  left  the  lower  part  of  the 

mole  adjoining  the  island  bare  of  defenders ;  a  division  of 

Egyptians  landed  there  unexpectedly,  attacked  in  the  rear 

the  Roman  soldiers  and  sailors  crowded  together  on  the 

mole  at  the  transverse  wall,  and  drove  the  whole  mass  in 

wild  confusion  into  the  sea.     A  part  were  taken  on  board 

by  the  Roman  ships ;  the  most  were  drowned.     Some  400 

soldiers  and  a  still  greater  number  of  men  belonging  to  the 

fleet  were  sacrificed  on  this  day  ;  the  general  himself,  who 

had  shared  the  fate  of  his  men,  had  been  obliged  to  seek 

refuge  in  his  ship,  and  when  this  sank  from  having  been 

overloaded  with  men,  he  had  to  save  himself  by  swimming 

to  another.     But,  severe  as  was  the  loss  suffered,  it  was 

amply  compensated  by  the  recovery  of  the  lighthouse-island, 

which  along  with  the  mole  as  far  as  the  first  arch-opening 

remained  in  the  hands  of  Caesar. 

At  length  the  longed-for  relief  arrived.     Mithradates  of  Relieving 

Pergamus,  an  able  warrior  of  the  school  of  Mithradates  army  from 
o  '  Asia 

Eupator,  whose  natural  son  he  claimed  to  be,  brought  up  Minor, 
by  land  from  Syria  a  motley  army — the  Ityraeans  of  the 
prince  of  the  Libanus  (iv.  423),  the  Bedouins  of  Jamblichus, 
son  of  Sampsiceramus  (iv.  423),  the  Jews  under  the  minister 
Vntipater,  and  the  contingents  generally  of  the  petty  chiefs 
and  communities  of  Cilicia  and  Syria.  From  Pelusium, 
which  Mithradates  had  the  fortune  to  occupy  on  the  day 
of  his  arrival,  he  took  the  great  road  towards  Memphis 
with  the  view  of  avoiding  the  intersected  ground  of  the 
Delta  and  crossing  the   Nile   before   its  division ;  during 


2$o  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  * 

which  movement  his  troops  received  manifold  support  from 
the  Jewish  peasants  who  were  settled  in  peculiar  numbers 
in  this  part  of  Egypt.  The  Egyptians,  with  the  yorng  king 
Ptolemaeus  now  at  their  head,  whom  Caesar  had  released 
to  his  people  in  the  vain  hope  of  allaying  the  insurrection 
by  his  means,  despatched  an  army  to  the  Nile,  to  detain 
Mithradates  on  its  farther  bank.  This  army  fell  in  with  the 
enemy  even  beyond  Memphis  at  the  so-called  Jews'-camp, 
between  Onion  and  Heliopolis ;  nevertheless  Mithradates, 
trained  in  the  Roman  fashion  of  manoeuvring  and  en- 
camping, amidst  successful  conflicts  gained  the  opposite 
bank  at  Memphis.  Caesar,  on  the  other  hand,  as  soon  as 
he  obtained  news  of  the  arrival  of  the  relieving  army, 
conveyed  a  part  of  his  troops  in  ships  to  the  end  of  the 
lake  of  Marea  to  the  west  of  Alexandria,  and  marched 
round  this  lake  and  down  the  Nile  to  meet  Mithradates 
advancing  up  the  river. 
Battle  at  The  junction  took  place  without  the  enemy  attempting 

the  Nile.  t0  hjn(jer  }t.  Caesar  then  marched  into  the  Delta,  whither 
the  king  had  retreated,  overthrew,  notwithstanding  the 
deeply  cut  canal  in  their  front,  the  Egyptian  vanguard  at 
the  first  onset,  and  immediately  stormed  the  Egyptian 
camp  itself.  It  lay  at  the  foot  of  a  rising  ground  between 
the  Nile — from  which  only  a  narrow  path  separated  it — 
and  marshes  difficult  of  access.  Caesar  caused  the  camp 
to  be  assailed  simultaneously  from  the  front  and  from  the 
flank  on  the  path  along  the  Nile ;  and  during  this  assault 
ordered  a  third  detachment  to  ascend  unseen  the  heights 
behind  the  camp.  The  victory  was  complete ;  the  camp 
was  taken,  and  those  of  the  Egyptians  who  did  not  fall 
beneath  the  sword  of  the  enemy  were  drowned  in  the 
attempt  to  escape  to  the  fleet  on  the  Nile.  With  one  of 
the  boats,  which  sank  overladen  with  men,  the  young 
king  also  disappeared  in  the  waters  of  his  native  stream. 
Immediately  after   the   battle  Caesar  advanced  at  the 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  281 

head  of  his  cavalry  from  the  land- side  straight  into  the  Pacifica- 
portion  of  the  capital  occupied  by  the  Egyptians.  In  Aiwandria. 
mourning  attire,  with  the  images  of  their  gods  in  their 
hands,  the  enemy  received  him  and  sued  for  peace ;  and 
his  troops,  when  they  saw  him  return  as  victor  from  the 
side  opposite  to  that  by  which  he  had  set  forth,  welcomed 
him  with  boundless  joy.  The  fate  of  the  town,  which  had 
ventured  to  thwart  the  plans  of  the  master  of  the  world 
and  had  brought  him  within  a  hair's-breadth  of  destruction, 
lay  in  Caesar's  hands ;  but  he  was  too  much  of  a  ruler  to 
be  sensitive,  and  dealt  with  the  Alexandrians  as  with  the 
Massiliots.  Caesar  —  pointing  to  their  city  severely 
devastated  and  deprived  of  its  granaries,  of  its  world- 
renowned  library,  and  of  other  important  public  buildings 
on  occasion  of  the  burning  of  the  fleet — exhorted  the 
inhabitants  in  future  earnestly  to  cultivate  the  arts  of  peace 
alone,  and  to  heal  the  wounds  which  they  had  inflicted  on 
themselves  ;  for  the  rest,  he  contented  himself  with  granting 
to  the  Jews  settled  in  Alexandria  the  same  rights  which  the 
Greek  population  of  the  city  enjoyed,  and  with  placing  in 
Alexandria,  instead  of  the  previous  Roman  army  of  occupa- 
tion which  nominally  at  least  obeyed  the  kings  of  Egypt,  a 
formal  Roman  garrison — two  of  the  legions  besieged  there, 
and  a  third  which  afterwards  arrived  from  Syria — under  a 
commander  nominated  by  himself.  For  this  position  of 
trust  a  man  was  purposely  selected,  whose  birth  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  abuse  it — Rufio,  an  able  soldier,  but 
the  son  of  a  freedman.  Cleopatra  and  her  younger  brother 
Ptolemaeus  obtained  the  sovereignty  of  Egypt  under  the 
supremacy  of  Rome  ;  the  princess  Arsinoe  was  carried  off  to 
Italy,  that  she  might  not  serve  once  more  as  a  pretext  for 
insurrections  to  the  Egyptians,  who  were  after  the  Oriental 
fashion  quite  as  much  devoted  to  their  dynasty  as  they 
were  indifferent  towards  the  individual  dynasts ;  Cyprus 
became  again  a  part  of  the  Roman  province  of  Cilicia. 


282  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  BOOK  v 

Course  of  This  Alexandrian  insurrection,  insignificant  as  it  was  in 

during         itself  and  slight  as  was  its  intrinsic  connection  with  the 
Caesar's       events   of  importance  in   the   world's  history   which   took 
Alexandria.  P^ace  at  tne  same  time  in  the  Roman  state,  had  neverthe- 
less so  far  a  momentous  influence  on  them  that  it  compelled 
the  man,  who  was  all  in  all  and  without  whom  nothing 
could  be  despatched  and  nothing  could  be  solved,  to  leav: 
48.  his   proper   tasks  in  abeyance   from  October  706   up  to 
47.  March  707  in  order  to  fight  along  with  Jews  and  Bedouins 
against  a  city  rabble.     The  consequences  of  personal  rule 
began  to  make  themselves  felt.     They  had  the  monarchy ; 
but  the  wildest  confusion  prevailed  everywhere,  and  the 
monarch    was    absent.       The    Caesarians    were    for    the 
moment,  just  like  the  Pompeians,  without  superintendence; 
the  ability  of  the  individual  officers  and,  above  all,  accident 
decided  matters  everywhere. 
Insubor-  In  Asia  Minor  there  was,  at  the  time  of  Caesar's  de- 

Phamaces.  parture  for  Egypt,  no  enemy.  But  Caesar's  lieutenant 
there,  the  able  Gnaeus  Domitius  Calvinus,  had  received 
orders  to  take  away  again  from  king  Pharnaces  what  he 
had  without  instructions  wrested  from  the  allies  of 
Pompeius ;  and,  as  Pharnaces,  an  obstinate  and  arrogant 
despot  like  his  father,  perseveringly  refused  to  evacuate 
Lesser  Armenia,  no  course  remained  but  to  march  against 
him.  Calvinus  had  been  obliged  to  despatch  to  Egypt  two 
out  of  the  three  legions  left  behind  with  him  and  formed 
out  of  the  Pharsalian  prisoners  of  war;  he  filled  up  the 
gap  by  one  legion  hastily  gathered  from  the  Romans 
domiciled  in  Pontus  and  two  legions  of  Deiotarus  exercised 
after  the  Roman  manner,  and  advanced  into  Lesser 
Armenia.  But  the  Bosporan  army,  tried  in  numerous 
conflicts  with  the  dwellers  on  the  Black  Sea,  showed  itself 
more  efficient  than  his  own. 
Calvinus  In  an  engagement  at  Nicopolis  the  Pontic  levy  of  Cal- 

defeated  at  vjRUS  was  p^j.  t0  pieces  and  the  Galatian  legions  ran  off;  only 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  283 

the  one  old  legion  of  the  Romans  fought  its  way  through 
with  moderate  loss.  Instead  of  conquering  Lesser  Armenia, 
Calvinus  could  not  even  prevent  Pharnaces  from  repossess- 
ing himself  of  his  Pontic  "hereditary  states,"  and  pouring 
forth  the  whole  vials  of  his  horrible  sultanic  caprices  on 
their  inhabitants,  especially  the  unhappy  Amisenes  (winter 
of  706-707).  When  Caesar  in  person  arrived  in  Asia  48-47. 
Minor  and  intimated  to  him  that  the  service  which 
Pharnaces  had  rendered  to  him  personally  by  having 
granted  no  help  to  Pompeius  could  not  be  taken  into 
account  against  the  injury  inflicted  on  the  empire,  and 
that  before  any  negotiation  he  must  evacuate  the  province 
of  Pontus  and  send  back  the  property  which  he  had 
pillaged,  he  declared  himself  doubtless  ready  to  submit ; 
nevertheless,  well  knowing  how  good  reason  Caesar  had  for 
hastening  to  the  west,  he  made  no  serious  preparations  for 
the  evacuation.  He  did  not  know  that  Caesar  finished 
whatever  he  took  in  hand.  Without  negotiating  further, 
Caesar  took  with  him  the  one  legion  which  he  brought 
from  Alexandria  and  the  troops  of  Calvinus  and  Deiotarus, 
and  advanced  against  the  camp  of  Pharnaces  at  Ziela. 
When    the    Bosporans    saw    him    approach,    they    boldly  victory  of 

crossed    the    deep    mountain -ravine    which    covered   their  Caesar  at 

Ziela. 
front,   and    charged    the    Romans    up  the    hill.     Caesar's 

soldiers  were  still  occupied  in  pitching  their  camp,  and  the 

ranks  wavered  for  a  moment ;  but  the  veterans  accustomed 

to  war  rapidly  rallied  and  set  the  example  for  a  general 

attack  and  for  a  complete  victory  (2  Aug.  707)      In  five  47, 

days  the   campaign   was   ended — an  invaluable    piece  of 

good  fortune  at  this  time,  when  every  hour  was  precious. 

Caesar  entrusted  the  pursuit  of  the  king,  who  had  gone  Regulation 

home  by  way  of  Sinope,  to  Pharnaces'  illegitimate  brother,  ^i^* 

the  brave  Mithradates  of  Pergamus,  who  as  a  reward  for  the 

services  rendered  by  him  in  Egypt  received  the  crown  of 

the  Bosporan  kingdom  in  room  of  Pharnaces.     In  other 


284  BRUNDISIUM,  ILEKDA,  book  v 

respects  the  affairs  of  Syria  and  Asia  Minor  were  peacefully 
settled ;  Caesar's  own  allies  were  richly  rewarded,  those  of 
Pompeius  were  in  general  dismissed  with  fines  or  repri- 
mands. Deiotarus  alone,  the  most  powerful  of  the  clients 
of  Pompeius,  was  again  confined  to  his  narrow  hereditaiy 
domain,  the  canton  of  the  Tolistobogii.  In  his  stead 
Ariobarzanes  king  of  Cappadocia  was  invested  with  Lesser 
Armenia,  and  the  tetrarchy  of  the  Trocmi  usurped  by 
Deiotarus  was  conferred  on  the  new  king  of  the  Bosporus, 
who  was  descended  by  the  maternal  side  from  one  of  the 
Galatian  princely  houses  as  by  the  paternal  from  that  of 
Pontus. 

War  by  In  Illyria  also,  while  Caesar  was  in  Egypt,  incidents  of 

land  and  ,      ,  ,        _,       _   . 

sea  in  a  vei7  Erave  nature  had  occurred.     The  Dalmatian  coast 

Illyria.         had  been  for  centuries  a  sore  blemish  on  the  Roman  rule, 

and  its  inhabitants  had  been  at  open  feud  with  Caesar  since 

the  conflicts  around  Dyrrhachium ;  while  the  interior  also 

since    the    time    of    the    Thessalian    war,    swarmed   with 

dispersed  Pompeians.      Quintus  Cornificius  had  however, 

with  the  legions  that  followed  him  from  Italy,  kept  both 

the  natives  and  the  refugees  in  check  and  had  at  the  same 

time  sufficiently  met  the  difficult  task  of  provisioning  the 

troops   in   these  rugged    districts.     Even    when    the    able 

Marcus  Octavius,  the  victor  of  Curicta  (p.  235),  appeared 

with  a  part  of  the  Pompeian  fleet  in  these  waters  to  wage 

war  there  against  Caesar  by  sea  and  land,  Cornificius  not 

only  knew  how  to  maintain  himself,  resting  for  support  on 

the  ships  and  the  harbour  of  the  Iadestini  (Zara),  but  in 

his  turn  also  sustained  several  successful  engagements  at 

sea  with  the  fleet  of  his  antagonist.     But  when  the  new 

governor  of  Illyria,  the  Aulus  Gabinius  recalled  by  Caesar 

from  exile  (p.  139),  arrived  by  the  landward  route  in  Illyria 

48-47.  in  the  winter  of  706-707  with  fifteen  cohorts  and  3000 

horse,  the  system  of  warfare  changed.      Instead  of  confining 

himself  like  his  predecessor  to  war  on  a  small  scale,  the 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  285 

bold  active  man  undertook  at   once,   in  spite  of  the  in- 
clement season,  an  expedition  with  his  whole  force  to  the 
mountains.     But  the  unfavourable  weather,  the  difficulty 
of  providing   supplies,   and   the    brave    resistance   of  the  Defeat  of 
Dalmatians,    swept    away    the    army;    Gabinius    had    to  Gabimus- 
commence  his  retreat,  was  attacked  in  the  course  of  it  and 
disgracefully   defeated   by  the    Dalmatians,   and  with    the 
feeble  remains  of  his  fine  army  had  difficulty  in  reaching 
Salonae,    where    he  soon  afterwards   died.     Most  of  the 
Illyrian  coast  towns  thereupon  surrendered  to  the  fleet  of 
Octavius;  those  that  adhered  to  Caesar,  such  as  Salonae 
and  Epidaurus  (Ragusa  vecchia),  were  so  hard  pressed  by 
the  fleet  at  sea  and  by  the  barbarians  on  land,  that  the 
surrender    and    capitulation  of  the  remains  of  the  army 
enclosed   in  Salonae  seemed  not  far  distant.     Then   the 
commandant  of  the  depot  at   Brundisium,   the  energetic 
Publius  Vatinius,  in  the  absence  of  ships  of  war  caused 
common  boats  to  be  provided  with  beaks  and  manned  with 
the  soldiers  dismissed  from  the  hospitals,  and  with  this  ex- 
temporized war-fleet  gave  battle  to  the  far  superior  fleet  of 
Octavius  at  the  island  of  Tauris  (Torcola  between  Lesina  Naval 
and  Curzola) — a  battle  in  which,  as  in  so  many  cases,  the  ^ctory  at 
bravery  of  the  leader  and  of  the  marines  compensated  for 
the  deficiencies  of  the  vessels,  and  the  Caesarians  achieved 
a  brilliant  victory.      Marcus  Octavius  left  these  waters  and 
proceeded  to  Africa  (spring  of  707);   the  Dalmatians  no  47. 
doubt    continued    their    resistance    for    years    with   great 
obstinacy,  but  it  was  nothing  beyond  a  local  mountain-war- 
fare.    When    Caesar   returned    from    Egypt,    his   resolute 
adjutant    had    already   got    rid    of   the    danger    that    was 
imminent  in  Illyria. 

All   the  more  serious  was  the    position   of  things  in  Reorgan- 
Africa,    where    the    constitutional    party    had    from    the  kation 
outset  of  the  civil  war  ruled  absolutely  and  had  continually  coalition  .in 
augmented  their  power.     Down  to  the  battle  of  Pharsalus  Afric*" 


286  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  BOOK  v 

king  Juba  had,  properly  speaking,  borne  rule  there;  he 
had  vanquished  Curio,  and  his  flying  horsemen  and  his 
numberless  archers  were  the  main  strength  of  the  army ; 
the  Pompeian  governor  Varus  played  by  his  side  so  sub- 
ordinate a  part  that  he  even  had  to  deliver  those  soldiers 
of  Curio,  who  had  surrendered  to  him,  over  to  the  king, 
and  had  to  look  on  while  they  were  executed  or  carried 
away  into  the  interior  of  Numidia.  After  the  battle  of 
Pharsalus  a  change  took  place.  With  the  exception  of 
Pompeius  himself,  no  man  of  note  among  the  defeated 
party  thought  of  flight  to  the  Parthians.  As  little  did 
they  attempt  to  hold  the  sea  with  their  united  resources ; 
the  warfare  waged  by  Marcus  Octavius  in  the  Illyrian 
waters  was  isolated,  and  was  without  permanent  success. 
The  great  majority  of  the  republicans  as  of  the  Pompeians 
betook  themselves  to  Africa,  where  alone  an  honourable 
and  constitutional  warfare  might  still  be  waged  against  the 
usurper.  There  the  fragments  of  the  army  scattered  at 
Pharsalus,  the  troops  that  had  garrisoned  Dyrrhachium, 
Corcyra,  and  the  Peloponnesus,  the  remains  of  the  Illyrian 
fleet,  gradually  congregated ;  there  the  second  commander- 
in-chief  Metellus  Scipio,  the  two  sons  of  Pompeius,  Gnaeus 
and  Sextus,  the  political  leader  of  the  republicans  Marcus 
Cato,  the  able  officers  Labienus,  Afranius,  Petreius, 
Octavius  and  others  met.  If  the  resources  of  the 
emigrants  had  diminished,  their  fanaticism  had,  if  possible, 
even  increased.  Not  only  did  they  continue  to  murder 
their  prisoners  and  even  the  officers  of  Caesar  under  flag 
of  truce,  but  king  Juba,  in  whom  the  exasperation  of  the 
partisan  mingled  with  the  fury  of  the  half-barbarous 
African,  laid  down  the  maxim  that  in  every  community 
suspected  of  sympathizing  with  the  enemy  the  burgesses 
ought  to  be  extirpated  and  the  town  burnt  down,  and  even 
practically  carried  out  this  theory  against  some  townships, 
such  as  the  unfortunate  Vaga  near  Hadrumetum.     In  fact 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAfSUS  287 

it  was  solely  owing  to  the  energetic  intervention  of  Cato 
that  the  capital  of  the  province  itself,  the  flourishing  Utica 
— which,  just  like  Carthage  formerly,  had  been  long 
regarded  with  a  jealous  eye  by  the  Numidian  kings — did 
not  experience  the  same  treatment  from  Juba,  and  that 
measures  of  precaution  merely  were  taken  against  its 
citizens,  who  certainly  were  not  unjustly  accused  of  leaning 
towards  Caesar. 

As  neither  Caesar  himself  nor  any  of  his  lieutenants 
undertook  the  smallest  movement  against  Africa,  the 
coalition  had  full  time  to  acquire  political  and  military 
reorganization  there.  First  of  all,  it  was  necessary  to  fill 
up  anew  the  place  of  commander-in-chief  vacant  by  the 
death  of  Pompeius.  King  Juba  was  not  disinclined  still 
to  maintain  the  position  which  he  had  held  in  Africa  up 
to  the  battle  of  Pharsalus ;  indeed  he  bore  himself  no 
longer  as  a  client  of  the  Romans  but  as  an  equal  ally  or 
even  as  a  protector,  and  took  it  upon  him,  for  example, 
to  coin  Roman  silver  money  with  his  name  and  device ; 
nay,  he  even  raised  a  claim  to  be  the  sole  wearer  of  purple 
in  the  camp,  and  suggested  to  the  Roman  commanders 
that  they  should  lay  aside  their  purple  mantle  of  office. 
Further,  Metellus  Scipio  demanded  the  supreme  command 
for  himself,  because  Pompeius  had  recognized  him  in  the 
Thessalian  campaign  as  on  a  footing  of  equality,  more 
from  the  consideration  that  he  was  his  son-in-law  than  on 
military  grounds.  The  like  demand  was  raised  by  Varus 
as  the  governor — self-nominated,  it  is  true — of  Africa, 
seeing  that  the  war  was  to  be  waged  in  his  province. 
Lastly  the  army  desired  for  its  leader  the  propraetor 
Marcus  Cato.  Obviously  it  was  right.  Cato  was  the  only 
man  who  possessed  the  requisite  devotedness,  energy,  and 
authority  for  the  difficult  office;  if  he  was  no  military 
man,  it  was  infinitely  better  to  appoint  as  commander-in- 
chief  a  non-military  man  who  understood  how  to  listen  to 


288  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

reason  and  make  his  subordinates  act,  than  an  officer  of 
untried  capacity  like  Varus,  or  even  one  of  tried  incapa- 
city like  Metellus  Scipio.  But  the  decision  fell  at  length 
on  this  same  Scipio,  and  it  was  Cato  himself  who  mainly 
determined  that  decision.  He  did  so,  not  because  he  felt 
himself  unequal  to  such  a  task,  or  because  his  vanity  found 
its  account  rather  in  declining  than  in  accepting ;  still  less 
because  he  loved  or  respected  Scipio,  with  whom  he  on 
the  contrary  was  personally  at  variance,  and  who  with  his 
notorious  inefficiency  had  attained  a  certain  importance 
merely  in  virtue  of  his  position  as  father-in-law  to 
Pompeius;  but  simply  and  solely  because  his  obstinate 
legal  formalism  chose  rather  to  let  the  republic  go  to  ruin 
in  due  course  of  law  than  to  save  it  in  an  irregular  way. 
When  after  the  battle  of  Pharsalus  he  met  with  Marcus 
Cicero  at  Corcyra,  he  had  offered  to  hand  over  the  com- 
mand in  Corcyra  to  the  latter — who  was  still  from  the 
time  of  his  Cilician  administration  invested  with  the  rank 
of  general — as  the  officer  of  higher  standing  according  to 
the  letter  of  the  law,  and  by  this  readiness  had  driven  the 
unfortunate  advocate,  who  now  cursed  a  thousand  times 
his  laurels  from  the  Amanus,  almost  to  despair ;  but  he 
had  at  the  same  time  astonished  all  men  of  any  tolerable 
discernment.  The  same  principles  were  applied  now, 
when  something  more  was  at  stake ;  Cato  weighed  the 
question  to  whom  the  place  of  commander-in-chief 
belonged,  as  if  the  matter  had  reference  to  a  field  at 
Tusculum,  and  adjudged  it  to  Scipio.  By  this  sentence 
his  own  candidature  and  that  of  Varus  were  set  aside. 
But  he  it  was  also,  and  he  alone,  who  confronted  with 
energy  the  claims  of  king  Juba,  and  made  him  feel  that 
the  Roman  nobility  came  to  him  not  suppliant,  as  to  the 
great-prince  of  the  Parthians,  with  a  view  to  ask  aid  at 
the  hands  of  a  protector,  but  as  entitled  to  command  and 
require  aid  from  a  subject.     In  the  present  state  of  the 


CHAP.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  289 

Roman  forces  in  Africa,  Juba  could  not  avoid  lowering 
his  claims  to  some  extent;  although  he  still  carried  the 
point  with  the  weak  Scipio,  that  the  pay  of  his  troops 
should  be  charged  on  the  Roman  treasury  and  the  cession 
of  the  province  of  Africa  should  be  assured  to  him  in  the 
event  of  victory. 

By  the  side  of  the  new  general -in -chief  the  senate  of 
the  "three  hundred"  again  emerged.  It  established  its 
seat  in  Utica,  and  replenished  its  thinned  ranks  by  the 
admission  of  the  most  esteemed  and  the  wealthiest  men 
of  the  equestrian  order. 

The  warlike  preparations  were  pushed  forward,  chiefly 
through  the  zeal  of  Cato,  with  the  greatest  energy,  and 
every  man  capable  of  arms,  even  the  freedman  and  Libyan, 
was  enrolled  in  the  legions;  by  which  course  so  many 
hands  were  withdrawn  from  agriculture  that  a  great  part 
of  the  fields  remained  uncultivated,  but  an  imposing  result 
was  certainly  attained.  The  heavy  infantry  numbered 
fourteen  legions,  of  which  two  were  already  raised  by 
Varus,  eight  others  were  formed  partly  from  the  refugees, 
partly  from  the  conscripts  in  the  province,  and  four  were 
legions  of  king  Juba  armed  in  the  Roman  manner.  The 
heavy  cavalry,  consisting  of  the  Celts  and  Germans  who 
arrived  with  Labienus  and  sundry  others  incorporated  in 
their  ranks,  was,  apart  from  Juba's  squadron  of  cavalry 
equipped  in  the  Roman  style,  1600  strong.  The  light 
troops  consisted  of  innumerable  masses  of  Numidians 
riding  without  bridle  or  rein  and  armed  merely  with 
javelins,  of  a  number  of  mounted  bowmen,  and  a  large 
host  of  archers  on  foot.  To  these  fell  to  be  added  Juba's 
120  elephants,  and  the  fleet  of  55  sail  commanded  by 
Publius  Varus  and  Marcus  Octavius.  The  urgent  want 
of  money  was  in  some  measure  remedied  by  a  self-taxation 
on  the  part  of  the  senate,  which  was  the  more  productive 
as  the  richest  African  capitalists  had  been  induced  to  enter 

VOL.  V  I52 


290  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

it.  Corn  and  other  supplies  were  accumulated  in  immense 
quantities  in  the  fortresses  capable  of  defence ;  at  the 
same  time  the  stores  were  as  far  as  possible  removed  from 
the  open  townships.  The  absence  of  Caesar,  the  trouble- 
some temper  of  his  legions,  the  ferment  in  Spain  and  Italy 
gradually  raised  men's  spirits,  and  the  recollection  of  the 
Pharsalian  defeat  began  to  give  way  to  fresh  hopes  of 
victory. 

The  time  lost  by  Caesar  in  Egypt  nowhere  revenged 
itself  more  severely  than  here.  Had  he  proceeded  to 
Africa  immediately  after  the  death  of  Pompeius,  he  would 
have  found  there  a  weak,  disorganized,  and  frightened 
army  and  utter  anarchy  among  the  leaders ;  whereas  there 
was  now  in  Africa,  owing  more  especially  to  Cato's  energy,  an 
army  equal  in  number  to  that  defeated  at  Pharsalus,  under 
leaders  of  note,  and  under  a  regulated  superintendence. 
Move-  A  peculiar  evil  star  seemed  altogether  to  preside  over 

Spate!,  Q  ^s  African  expedition  of  Caesar.  He  had,  even  before 
his  embarkation  for  Egypt,  arranged  in  Spain  and  Italy 
various  measures  preliminary  and  preparatory  to  the 
African  war ;  but  out  of  all  there  had  sprung  nothing  but 
mischief.  From  Spain,  according  to  Caesar's  arrangement, 
the  governor  of  the  southern  province  Quintus  Cassius 
Longinus  was  to  cross  with  four  legions  to  Africa,  to  be 
joined  there  by  Bogud  king  of  West  Mauretania,1  and  to 

1  Much  obscurity  rests  on  the  shape  assumed  by  the  states  in  north- 
western Africa  during  this  period.  After  the  Jugurthine  war  Bocchus 
king  of  Mauretania  ruled  probably  from  the  western  sea  to  the  port  of 
Saldae,  in  what  is  now  Morocco  and  Algiers  (iii.  410) ;  the  princes  of 
Tingis  (Tangiers) — probably  from  the  outset  different  from  the  Maure- 
tanian  sovereigns — who  occur  even  earlier  (Plut.  Serf.  9),  and  to  whom  it 
may  be  conjectured  that  Sallust's  Leptasta  {Hist.  ii.  31  Kritz)  and 
Cicero's  Mastanesosus  {In  Vat.  5,  12)  belong,  may  have  been  independent 
within  certain  limits  or  may  have  held  from  him  as  feudatories  ;  just  as 
Syphax  already  ruled  over  many  chieftains  of  tribes  (Appian,  Pun.  10), 
and  about  this  time  in  the  neighbouring  Numidia  Cirta  was  possessed, 
probably  however  under  Juba's  supremacy,  by  the  prince  Massinissa 
82.  (Appian,  B.  C.  iv.  54).  About  672  we  find  in  Bocchus'  stead  a  king 
called  Bocut  or  Bogud  (iv.  92  ;  Orosius,  v.  21,  14),  the  son  of  Bocchus. 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  291 

advance  with  him  towards  Numidia  and  Africa.  But  that 
army  destined  for  Africa  included  in  it  a  number  of  native 
Spaniards  and  two  whole  legions  formerly  Pompeian; 
Pompeian  sympathies  prevailed  in  the  army  as  in  the 
province,  and  the  unskilful  and  tyrannical  behaviour  of  the 
Caesarian  governor  was  not  fitted  to  allay  them.  A  formal 
revolt  took  place ;  troops  and  towns  took  part  for  or  against 
the  governor;  already  those  who  had  risen  against  the 
lieutenant  of  Caesar  were  on  the  point  of  openly  displaying 
the  banner  of  Pompeius ;  already  had  Pompeius'  elder  son 
Gnaeus  embarked  from  Africa  for  Spain  to  take  advantage 
of  this  favourable  turn,  when  the  disavowal  of  the  governor 
by  the  most  respectable  Caesarians  themselves  and  the 
interference  of  the  commander  of  the  northern  province 
suppressed  just  in  right  time  the  insurrection.  Gnaeus 
Pompeius,  who  had  lost  time  on  the  way  with  a  vain 
attempt  to  establish  himself  in  Mauretania,  came  too  late ; 
Gaius  Trebonius,  whom  Caesar  after  his  return  from  the 
east  sent  to  Spain  to  relieve  Cassius  (autumn  of  707),  met  47. 
everywhere  with  absolute  obedience.  But  of  course  amidst 
these  blunders  nothing  was  done  from  Spain  to  disturb  the 
organization  of  the  republicans  in  Africa ;  indeed  in  con- 
sequence of  the  complications  with  Longinus,  Bogud  king 
of  West  Mauretania,  who  was  on  Caesar's  side  and  might  at 
least  have  put  some  obstacles  in  the  way  of  king  Juba, 
had  been  called  away  with  his  troops  to  Spain. 

Still  more  critical  were  the  occurrences  among  the  troops  Military 
whom  Caesar  had  caused  to  be  collected  in  southern  Italy,  campaniai 
in  order  to  his  embarkation  with  them  for  Africa.     They 
were  for  the  most  part  the  old  legions,  which  had  founded 
Caesar's  throne  in  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Thessaly.     The  spirit 

From  705  the  kingdom  appears  divided  between  king  Bogud  who  possesses  49. 
the  western,  and  king  Bocchus  who  possesses  the  eastern  half,  and  to  this 
the  later  partition  of  Mauretania  into  Bogud's  kingdom  or  the  state  of 
Tingis  and  Bocchos'  kingdom  or  the  state  of  Iol  (Caesarea)  refers  (Plin. 
H.  N.  v.  a,  19  ;  comp.  Bell.  Afric.  23). 


292  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  BOOK  V 

of  these  troops  had  not  been  improved  by  victories,  and 
had  been   utterly   disorganized  by  long  repose  in   Lower 
Italy.     The  almost  superhuman  demands  which  the  general 
made   on   them,  and   the  effects   of  which   were  only  too 
clearly  apparent  in  their  fearfully  thinned  ranks,  left  behind 
even  in  these  men  of  iron  a  leaven  of  secret  rancour  which 
required   only  time    and    quiet    to    set    their   minds   in  a 
ferment.     The   only  man  who  had   influence  over  them, 
had  been  absent  and  almost  unheard-of  for  a  year ;  while 
the  officers  placed  over  them  were  far  more  afraid  of  the 
soldiers  than  the  soldiers  of  them,  and  overlooked  in  the 
conquerors  of  the  world  every  outrage  against  those  that 
gave  them  quarters,  and  every  breach  of  discipline.     When 
the  orders  to  embark  for  Sicily  arrived,  and  the  soldier  was 
to  exchange   the  luxurious  ease  of  Campania  for  a  third 
campaign   certainly   not   inferior   to    those    of   Spain    and 
Thessaly  in  point  of  hardship,  the  reins,  which  had  been 
too  long  relaxed  and  were  too  suddenly  tightened,  snapt 
asunder.     The   legions  refused  to  obey  till  the  promised 
presents  were  paid  to  them,  scornfully  repulsed  the  officers 
sent    by    Caesar,  and    even    threw    stones    at    them.     An 
attempt  to  extinguish  the  incipient  revolt  by  increasing  the 
sums  promised  not  only  had  no  success,  but  the  soldiers 
set  out  in  masses  to  extort  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises 
from    the    general    in  the  capital.     Several    officers,    who 
attempted  to  restrain  the  mutinous  bands  on  the  way,  were 
slain.      It  was  a  formidable  danger.     Caesar  ordered  the 
few  soldiers  who  were  in  the  city  to  occupy  the  gates,  with 
the  view  of  warding  off  the  justly  apprehended  pillage  at 
least  at  the  first  onset,  and  suddenly  appeared  among  the 
furious    bands    demanding    to    know    what    they   wanted. 
They  exclaimed  :  "  discharge."     In  a  moment  the  request 
was    granted.      Respecting    the    presents,    Caesar    added, 
which  he  had  promised  to  his  soldiers  at  his  triumph,  as 
well  as  respecting  the  lands  which  he  had  not  promised 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  293 

to  them  but  had  destined  for  them,  they  might  apply  to  him 
on  the  day  when  he  and  the  other  soldiers  should  triumph ; 
in  the  triumph  itself  they  could  not  of  course  participate, 
as  having  been  previously  discharged.  The  masses  were 
not  prepared  for  things  taking  this  turn  ;  convinced  that 
Caesar  could  not  do  without  them  for  the  African  campaign, 
they  had  demanded  their  discharge  only  in  order  that,  if  it 
were  refused,  they  might  annex  their  own  conditions  to 
their  service.  Half  unsettled  in  their  belief  as  to  their 
own  indispensableness ;  too  awkward  to  return  to  their 
object,  and  to  bring  the  negotiation  which  had  missed  its 
course  back  to  the  right  channel ;  ashamed,  as  men,  by  the 
fidelity  with  which  the  Imperator  kept  his  word  even  to 
soldiers  who  had  forgotten  their  allegiance,  and  by  his 
generosity  which  even  now  granted  far  more  than  he  had 
ever  promised;  deeply  affected,  as  soldiers,  when  the 
general  presented  to  them  the  prospect  of  their  being 
necessarily  mere  civilian  spectators  of  the  triumph  of  their 
comrades,  and  when  he  called  them  no  longer  "  comrades  " 
but  "burgesses," — by  this  very  form  of  address,  which  from 
his  mouth  sounded  so  strangely,  destroying  as  it  were  with 
one  blow  the  whole  pride  of  their  past  soldierly  career; 
and,  besides  all  this,  under  the  spell  of  the  man  whose 
presence  had  an  irresistible  power — the  soldiers  stood  /or 
a  while  mute  and  lingering,  till  from  all  sides  a  cry  arose 
that  the  general  would  once  more  receive  them  into  favour 
and  again  permit  them  to  be  called  Caesar's  soldiers. 
Caesar,  after  having  allowed  himself  to  be  sufficiently 
entreated,  granted  the  permission ;  but  the  ringleaders  in 
this  mutiny  had  a  third  cut  off  from  their  triumphal 
presents.  History  knows  no  greater  psychological  master- 
piece, and  none  that  was  more  completely  successful. 

This  mutiny  operated  injuriously  on  the  African  cam-  Caesar 
paign,  at    least  in   so   far    as   it   considerably  delayed   the  ^-^  * 
commencement  of  it.     When  Caesar  arrived  at  the  port 


294  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

of  Lilybaeum  destined  for  the  embarkation,  the  ten  legions 
intended  for  Africa  were  far  from  being  fully  assembled 
there,  and  it  was  the  experienced  troops  that  were  farthest 
behind.  Hardly  however  had  six  legions,  of  which  five  were 
newly  formed,  arrived  there  and  the  necessary  war-vessels 
and  transports  come  forward,  when  Caesar  put  to  sea  with 
47.  them  (25  Dec.  707  of  the  uncorrected,  about  8  Oct.  of  the 
Julian,  calendar).  The  enemy's  fleet,  which  on  account 
of  the  prevailing  equinoctial  gales  was  drawn  up  on  the 
beach  at  the  island  Aegimurus  in  front  of  the  bay  of 
Carthage,  did  not  oppose  the  passage ;  but  the  same 
storms  scattered  the  fleet  of  Caesar  in  all  directions,  and, 
when  he  availed  himself  of  the  opportunity  of  landing  not 
far  from  Hadrumetum  (Susa),  he  could  not  disembark  more 
than  some  3000  men,  mostly  recruits,  and  150  horsemen. 
His  attempt  to  capture  Hadrumetum  strongly  occupied  by 
the  enemy  miscarried  ;  but  Caesar  possessed  himself  of  the 
two  seaports  not  far  distant  from  each  other,  Ruspina 
(Monastir  near  Susa)  and  Little  Leptis.  Here  he  en- 
trenched himself ;  but  his  position  was  so  insecure,  that  he 
kept  his  cavalry  in  the  ships  and  the  ships  ready  for  sea 
and  provided  with  a  supply  of  water,  in  order  to  re-embark 
at  any  moment  if  he  should  be  attacked  by  a  superior 
force.  This  however  was  not  necessary,  for  just  at  the 
right  time  the  ships  that  had  been  driven  out  of  their  course 
46.  arrived  (3  Jan.  708).  On  the  very  following  day  Caesar, 
whose  army  in  consequence  of  the  arrangements  made  by 
the  Pompeians  suffered  from  want  of  corn,  undertook  with 
three  legions  an  expedition  into  the  interior  of  the  country, 
but  was  attacked  on  the  march  not  far  from  Ruspina  by 
the  corps  which  Labienus  had  brought  up  to  dislodge 
Conflict  at  Caesar  from  the  coast.  As  Labienus  had  exclusively 
Ruspina.  cavalry  and  archers,  and  Caesar  almost  nothing  but  infantry 
of  the  line,  the  legions  were  quickly  surrounded  and 
exposed  to  the  missiles  of  the  enemy,  without  being  able  to 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  295 

retaliate  or  to  attack  with  success.  No  doubt  the  deploying 
of  the  entire  line  relieved  once  more  the  flanks,  and  spirited 
charges  saved  the  honour  of  their  arms ;  but  a  retreat  was 
unavoidable,  and  had  Ruspina  not  been  so  near,  the 
Moorish  javelin  would  perhaps  have  accomplished  the  same 
result  here  as  the  Parthian  bow  at  Carrhae. 

Caesar,  whom  this  day  had  fully  convinced  of  the  Caesar's 
difficulty  of  the  impending  war,  would  not  again  expose  j^p1^** 
his  soldiers  untried  and  discouraged  by  the  new  mode  of 
fighting  to  any  such  attack,  but  awaited  the  arrival  of  his 
veteran  legions.  The  interval  was  employed  in  providing 
some  sort  of  compensation  against  the  crushing  superiority 
of  the  enemy  in  the  weapons  of  distant  warfare.  The 
incorporation  of  the  suitable  men  from  the  fleet  as  light 
horsemen  or  archers  in  the  land -army  could  not  be  of 
much  avail.  The  diversions  which  Caesar  suggested  were 
somewhat  more  effectual.  He  succeeded  in  bringing  into 
arms  against  Juba  the  Gaetulian  pastoral  tribes  wandering 
on  the  southern  slope  of  the  great  Atlas  towards  the 
Sahara;  for  the  blows  of  the  Marian  and  Sullan  period 
had  reached  even  to  them,  and  their  indignation  against 
Pompeius,  who  had  at  that  time  made  them  subordinate  to 
the  Numidian  kings  (iv.  94),  rendered  them  from  the 
outset  favourably  inclined  to  the  hair  of  the  mighty  Marius 
of  whose  Jugurthine  campaign  they  had  still  a  lively 
recollection.  The  Mauretanian  kings,  Bogud  in  Tingis  and 
Bocchus  in  Iol,  were  Juba's  natural  rivals  and  to  a  certain 
extent  long  since  in  alliance  with  Caesar.  Further,  there 
still  roamed  in  the  border-region  between  the  kingdoms  of 
Juba  and  Pocchus  the  last  of  the  Catilinarians,  that  Publius 
Sittius  of  Nuceria  (iv.  469),  who  eighteen  years  before 
had  become  converted  from  a  bankrupt  Italian  merchant 
into  a  Mauretanian  leader  of  free  bands,  and  since  that  time 
had  procured  for  himself  a  name  and  a  body  of  retainers 
amidst  the  Libyan  quarrels.     Socchus  and  Sittius  united 


296  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

fell  on  the  Numidian  land,  and  occupied  the  important 
town  of  Cirta ;  and  their  attack,  as  well  as  that  of  the 
Gaetulians,  compelled  king  Juba  to  send  a  portion  of  his 
troops  to  his  southern  and  western  frontiers. 

Caesar's  situation,  however,  continued  sufficiently  un- 
pleasant. His  army  was  crowded  together  within  a  space 
of  six  square  miles ;  though  the  fleet  conveyed  corn,  the 
want  of  forage  was  as  much  felt  by  Caesar's  cavalry  as  by 
those  of  Pompeius  before  Dyrrhachium.  The  light  troops 
of  the  enemy  remained  notwithstanding  all  the  exertions 
of  Caesar  so  immeasurably  superior  to  his,  that  it  seemed 
almost  impossible  to  carry  offensive  operations  into  the 
interior  even  with  veterans.  If  Scipio  retired  and  aban- 
doned the  coast  towns,  he  might  perhaps  achieve  a  victory 
like  those  which  the  vizier  of  Orodes  had  won  over  Crassus 
and  Juba  over  Curio,  and  he  could  at  least  endlessly 
protract  the  war.  The  simplest  consideration  suggested 
this  plan  of  campaign ;  even  Cato,  although  far  from  a 
strategist,  counselled  its  adoption,  and  offered  at  the  same 
time  to  cross  with  a  corps  to  Italy  and  to  call  the  republicans 
there  to  arms — which,  amidst  the  utter  confusion  in  that 
quarter,  might  very  well  meet  with  success.  But  Cato 
could  only  advise,  not  command  ;  Scipio  the  commander- 
in-chief  decided  that  the  war  should  be  carried  on  in  the 
region  of  the  coast.  This  was  a  blunder,  not  merely 
inasmuch  as  they  thereby  dropped  a  plan  of  war  promising 
a  sure  result,  but  also  inasmuch  as  the  region  to  which 
they  transferred  the  war  was  in  dangerous  agitation,  and  a 
good  part  of  the  army  which  they  opposed  to  Caesar  was 
likewise  in  a  troublesome  temper.  The  fearfully  strict 
levy,  the  carrying  off  of  the  supplies,  the  devastating  of  the 
smaller  townships,  the  feeling  in  general  that  they  were 
being  sacrificed  for  a  cause  which  from  the  outset  was 
foreign  to  them  and  was  already  lost,  had  exasperated  the 
native  population  against  the  Roman  republicans  fighting 


chap,  x  PIIARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  297 

out  their  last  struggle  of  despair  on  African  soil ;  and  the 
terrorist  proceedings  of  the  latter  against  all  communities 
that  were  but  suspected  of  indifference  (p.  286),  had  raised 
thii  exasperation  to  the  most  fearful  hatred.  The  African 
towns  declared,  wherever  they  could  venture  to  do  so,  for 
Caesar ;  among  the  Gaetulians  and  the  Libyans,  who 
served  in  numbers  among  the  light  troops  and  even  in  the 
legions,  desertion  was  spreading.  But  Scipio  with  all  the 
obstinacy  characteristic  of  folly  persevered  in  his  plan, 
marched  with  all  his  force  from  Utica  to  appear  before  the 
towns  of  Ruspina  and  Little  Leptis  occupied  by  Caesar, 
furnished  Hadrumetum  to  the  north  and  Thapsus  to  the 
south  (on  the  promontory  Ras  Dimas)  with  strong  garrisons, 
and  in  concert  with  Juba,  who  likewise  appeared  before 
Ruspina  with  all  his  troops  not  required  by  the  defence  of 
the  frontier,  offered  battle  repeatedly  to  the  enemy.  But 
Caesar  was  resolved  to  wait  for  his  veteran  legions.  As 
these  one  after  another  arrived  and  appeared  on  the  scene 
of  strife,  Scipio  and  Juba  lost  the  desire  to  risk  a  pitched 
battle,  and  Caesar  had  no  means  of  compelling  them  to 
fight  owing  to  their  extraordinary  superiority  in  light 
cavalry.  Nearly  two  months  passed  away  in  marches  and 
skirmishes  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ruspina  and  Thapsus, 
which  chiefly  had  relation  to  the  finding  out  of  the  concealed 
store-pits  (silos)  common  in  the  country,  and  to  the  exten- 
sion of  posts.  Caesar,  compelled  by  the  enemy's  horsemen 
to  keep  as  much  as  possible  to  the  heights  or  even  to 
cover  his  flanks  by  entrenched  lines,  yet  accustomed  his 
soldiers  gradually  during  this  laborious  and  apparently 
endless  warfare  to  the  foreign  mode  of  fighting.  Friend 
and  foe  hardly  recognized  the  rapid  general  in  the  cautious 
master  of  fence  who  trained  his  men  carefully  and  not 
unfrequently  in  person ;  and  they  became  almost  puzzled 
by  the  masterly  skill  which  displayed  itself  as  conspicuously 
in  delay  as  in  promptitude  of  action, 


ag8  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

Battle  at  At  last  Caesar,  after  being  joined  by  his  last  reinforce- 

apsus.  mentS)  ma(je  a  lateral  movement  towards  Thapsus.  Scipio 
had,  as  we  have  said,  strongly  garrisoned  this  town,  and 
thereby  committed  the  blunder  of  presenting  to  his 
opponent  an  object  of  attack  easy  to  be  seized ;  to  this 
first  error  he  soon  added  the  second  still  less  excusable 
blunder  of  now  for  the  rescue  of  Thapsus  giving  the  battle, 
which  Caesar  had  wished  and  Scipio  had  hitherto  rightly 
refused,  on  ground  which  placed  the  decision  in  the  hands 
of  the  infantry  of  the  line.  Immediately  along  the  shore, 
opposite  to  Caesar's  camp,  the  legions  of  Scipio  and 
Juba  appeared,  the  fore  ranks  ready  for  fighting,  the 
hinder  ranks  occupied  in  forming  an  entrenched  camp ;  at 
the  same  time  the  garrison  of  Thapsus  prepared  for  a  sally. 
Caesar's  camp-guard  sufficed  to  repulse  the  latter.  His 
legions,  accustomed  to  war,  already  forming  a  correct 
estimate  of  the  enemy  from  the  want  of  precision  in  their 
mode  of  array  and  their  ill-closed  ranks,  compelled — while 
yet  the  entrenching  was  going  forward  on  that  side,  and 
before  even  the  general  gave  the  signal — a  trumpeter  to 
sound  for  the  attack,  and  advanced  along  the  whole  line 
headed  by  Caesar  himself,  who,  when  he  saw  his  men 
advance  without  waiting  for  his  orders,  galloped  forward  to 
lead  them  against  the  enemy.  The  right  wing,  in  advance 
of  the  other  divisions,  frightened  the  line  of  elephants 
opposed  to  it — this  was  the  last  great  battle  in  which  these 
animals  were  employed — by  throwing  bullets  and  arrows, 
so  that  they  wheeled  round  on  their  own  ranks.  The 
covering  force  was  cut  down,  the  left  wing  of  the  enemy 
was  broken,  and  the  whole  line  was  overthrown.  The 
defeat  was  the  more  destructive,  as  the  new  camp  of  the 
beaten  army  was  not  yet  ready,  and  the  old  one  was  at  a 
considerable  distance ;  both  were  successively  captured 
almost  without  resistance.  The  mass  of  the  defeated  army 
threw  away  their  arms  and  sued  for  quarter;  but  Caesar's 


chap.  X  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  299 

soldiers  were  no  longer  the  same  who  had  readily  refrained 
from  battle  before  Ilerda  and  honourably  spared  the 
defenceless  at  Pharsalus.  The  habit  of  civil  war  and  the 
rancour  left  behind  by  the  mutiny  asserted  their  power  in 
a  terrible  manner  on  the  battle-field  of  Thapsus.  If  the 
hydra  with  which  they  fought  always  put  forth  new  energies, 
if  the  army  was  hurried  from  Italy  to  Spain,  from  Spain  to 
Macedonia,  from  Macedonia  to  Africa,  and  if  the  repose 
ever  more  eagerly  longed  for  never  came,  the  soldier 
sought,  and  not  wholly  without  cause,  the  reason  of  this 
state  of  things  in  the  unseasonable  clemency  of  Caesar. 
He  had  sworn  to  retrieve  the  general's  neglect,  and 
remained  deaf  to  the  entreaties  of  his  disarmed  fellow- 
citizens  as  well  as  to  the  commands  of  Caesar  and  the 
superior  officers.  The  fifty  thousand  corpses  that  covered 
the  battle-field  of  Thapsus,  among  whom  were  several 
Caesarian  officers  known  as  secret  opponents  of  the  new 
monarchy,  and  therefore  cut  down  on  this  occasion  by  their 
own  men,  showed  how  the  soldier  procures  for  himself 
repose.  The  victorious  army  on  the  other  hand  numbered 
no  more  than  fifty  dead  (6  April  708).  46. 

There  was  as  little  a  continuance  of  the  struggle  in  Cato  in 
Africa  after  the  battle  of  Thapsus,  as  there  had  been  a  tlca' 
year  and  a  half  before  in  the  east  after  the  defeat  of 
Pharsalus.  Cato  as  commandant  of  Utica  convoked  the 
senate,  set  forth  how  the  means  of  defence  stood,  and 
submitted  it  to  the  decision  of  those  assembled  whether 
they  would  yield  or  defend  themselves  to  the  last  man — 
only  adjuring  them  to  resolve  and  to  act  not  each  one  for 
himself,  but  all  in  unison.  The  more  courageous  view 
found  several  supporters  ;  it  was  proposed  to  manumit  on 
behalf  of  the  state  the  slaves  capable  of  arms,  which 
however  Cato  rejected  as  an  illegal  encroachment  on 
private  property,  and  suggested  in  its  stead  a  patriotic 
appeal  to  the  slave-owners.     But  soon  this  fit  of  resolution 


3°° 


BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA, 


BOOK  \ 


His  death. 


The 

leaders  of 
the  re- 
publicans 
put  to 
death. 


in  an  assembly  consisting  in  great  part  of  African  merchants 
passed  off,  and  they  agreed  to  capitulate.  Thereupon 
when  Faustus  Sulla,  son  of  the  regent,  and  Lucius  Afranius 
arrived  in  Utica  with  a  strong  division  of  cavalry  from  the 
field  of  battle,  Cato  still  made  an  attempt  to  hold  the  town 
through  them ;  but  he  indignantly  rejected  their  demand 
to  let  them  first  of  all  put  to  death  the  untrustworthy 
citizens  of  Utica  en  masse,  and  chose  to  let  the  last  strong- 
hold of  the  republicans  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  monarch 
without  resistance  rather  than  to  profane  the  last  moments 
of  the  republic  by  such  a  massacre.  After  he  had — partly 
by  his  authority,  partly  by  liberal  largesses — checked  so  far 
as  he  could  the  fury  of  the  soldiery  against  the  unfortunate 
Uticans ;  after  he  had  with  touching  solicitude  furnished 
to  those  who  preferred  not  to  trust  themselves  to  Caesar's 
mercy  the  means  for  flight,  and  to  those  who  wished  to 
remain  the  opportunity  of  capitulating  under  the  most 
tolerable  conditions,  so  far  as  his  ability  reached ;  and 
after  having  thoroughly  satisfied  himself  that  he  could 
render  to  no  one  any  farther  aid,  he  held  himself  released 
from  his  command,  retired  to  his  bedchamber,  and  plunged 
his  sword  into  his  breast. 

Of  the  other  fugitive  leaders  only  a  few  escaped.  The 
cavalry  that  fled  from  Thapsus  encountered  the  bands  of 
Sittius,  and  were  cut  down  or  captured  by  them;  their 
leaders  Afranius  and  Faustus  were  delivered  up  to  Caesar, 
and,  when  the  latter  did  not  order  their  immediate  execu- 
tion, they  were  slain  in  a  tumult  by  his  veterans.  The 
commander-in-chief  Metellus  Scipio  with  the  fleet  of  the 
defeated  party  fell  into  the  power  of  the  cruisers  of  Sittius 
and,  when  they  were  about  to  lay  hands  on  him,  stabbed 
himself.  King  Juba,  not  unprepared  for  such  an  issue, 
had  in  that  case  resolved  to  die  in  a  way  which  seemed  to 
him  befitting  a  king,  and  had  caused  an  enormous  funeral 
pile  to  be  prepared  in  the  market-place  of  his  city  Zama, 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  301 

which  was  intended  to  consume  along  with  his  body  all 
his  treasures  and  the  dead  bodies  of  the  whole  citizens  of 
Zama.  But  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  showed  no  desire 
to  let  themselves  be  employed  by  way  of  decoration  for 
the  funeral  rites  of  the  African  Sardanapalus ;  and  they 
closed  the  gates  against  the  king  when  fleeing  from  the 
battle-field  he  appeared,  accompanied  by  Marcus  Petreius, 
before  their  city.  The  king — one  of  those  natures  that 
become  savage  amidst  a  life  of  dazzling  and  insolent  en- 
joyment, and  prepare  for  themselves  even  out  of  death  an 
intoxicating  feast — resorted  with  his  companion  to  one  of 
his  country  houses,  caused  a  copious  banquet  to  be  served 
up,  and  at  the  close  of  the  feast  challenged  Petreius  to 
fight  him  to  death  in  single  combat.  It  was  the  con- 
queror of  Catilina  that  received  his  death  at  the  hand  of 
the  king ;  the  latter  thereupon  caused  himself  to  be  stabbed 
by  one  of  his  slaves.  The  few  men  of  eminence  that 
escaped,  such  as  Labienus  and  Sextus  Pompeius,  followed 
the  elder  brother  of  the  latter  to  Spain  and  sought,  like 
Sertorius  formerly,  a  last  refuge  of  robbers  and  pirates  in 
the  waters  and  the  mountains  of  that  still  half-independent 
land. 

Without  resistance  Caesar  regulated  the  affairs  of  Africa.  Regulation 
As  Curio  had  already  proposed,  the  kingdom  of  Massinissa  °  nca* 
was  broken  up.  The  most  eastern  portion  or  region  of 
Sitifis  was  united  with  the  kingdom  of  Bocchus  king  of 
East  Mauretania  (iii.  410),  and  the  faithful  king  Bogud 
of  Tingis  was  rewarded  with  considerable  gifts.  Cirta 
(Constantine)  and  the  surrounding  district,  hitherto  pos- 
sessed under  the  supremacy  of  Juba  by  the  prince 
Massinissa  and  his  son  Arabion,  were  conferred  on  the 
condottiere  Publius  Sittius  that  he  might  settle  his  half- 
Roman  bands  there ; *  but  at  the  same  time  this  district, 

1  The  inscriptions  of  the  region  referred  to  preserve  numerous  traces  of 
this  colonization.     The  name  of  the  Sittii  is  there  unusually  frequent ;  the 


302  BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  book  v 

as  well  as  by  far  the  largest  and  most  fertile  portion  of  the 
late  Numidian  kingdom,  were  united  as  "New  Africa" 
with  the  older  province  of  Africa,  and  the  defence  of  the 
country  along  the  coast  against  the  roving  tribes  of  the 
desert,  which  the  republic  had  entrusted  to  a  client-king, 
was  imposed  by  the  new  ruler  on  the  empire  itself. 
The  The  struggle,  which  Pompeius  and  the  republicans  had 

monarchy,  undertaken  against  the  monarchy  of  Caesar,  thus  terminated, 
after  having  lasted  for  four  years,  in  the  complete  victory 
of  the  new  monarch.  No  doubt  the  monarchy  was  not 
established  for  the  first  time  on  the  battle-fields  of  Pharsalus 
and  Thapsus ;  it  might  already  be  dated  from  the  moment 
when  Pompeius  and  Caesar  in  league  had  established  their 
joint  rule  and  overthrown  the  previous  aristocratic  constitu- 
tion. Yet  it  was  only  those  baptisms  of  blood  of  the  ninth 
48.  46.  August  706  and  the  sixth  April  708  that  set  aside  the 
conjoint  rule  so  opposed  to  the  nature  of  absolute  dominion, 
and  conferred  fixed  status  and  formal  recognition  on  the 
new  monarchy.  Risings  of  pretenders  and  republican 
conspiracies  might  ensue  and  provoke  new  commotions, 
perhaps  even  new  revolutions  and  restorations ;  but  the 
continuity  of  the  free  republic  that  had  been  uninterrupted 
for  five  hundred  years  was  broken  through,  and  monarchy 
was  established  throughout  the  range  of  the  wide  Roman 
empire  by  the  legitimacy  of  accomplished  fact. 
The  end  The  constitutional  struggle  was  at  an  end ;  and  that  it 

0  *  ^  was  so,  was  proclaimed  by  Marcus  Cato  when  he  fell  on 
his  sword  at  Utica.  For  many  years  he  had  been  the 
foremost  man  in  the  struggle  of  the  legitimate  republic 
against  its  oppressors ;  he  had  continued  it,  long  after  he 
had  ceased  to  cherish  any  hope  of  victory.  But  now  the 
struggle  itself  had  become  impossible ;  the  republic  which 

African  township  Milev  bears  as  Roman  the  name  colonia  Sarnensis 
(C.  /.  L.  viii.  p.  1094)  evidently  from  the  Nucerian  river-god  Sarnus 
(Sueton.  Rhet.  4). 


chap,  x  PHARSALUS,  AND  THAPSUS  303 

Marcus  Brutus  had    founded  was  dead   and  never  to  be 
revived ;    what  were   the   republicans   now  to   do   on   the 
earth?     The  treasure  was  carried  off,  the  sentinels  were 
thereby  relieved ;  who  could  blame  them  if  they  departed  ? 
There  was  more  nobility,  and  above  all  more  judgment,  in 
the  death  of  Cato  than  there  had  been  in  his  life.     Cato 
was  anything  but  a  great  man ;    but  with  all  that  short- 
sightedness, that  perversity,  that  dry  prolixity,  and  those 
spurious  phrases  which  have  stamped  him,  for  his  own  and 
for  all  time,  as  the  ideal  of  unreflecting  republicanism  and 
the  favourite  of  all  who  make  it  their  hobby,  he  was  yet 
the  only  man  who  honourably  and  courageously  championed 
in  the  last  struggle  the  great  system  doomed  to  destruction. 
Just  because  the  shrewdest  lie  feels  itself  inwardly  anni- 
hilated before  the  simple  truth,  and  because  all  the  dignity 
and    glory    of  human    nature    ultimately  depend    not    on 
shrewdness  but  on  honesty,  Cato  has  played  a  greater  part 
in  history  than  many  men  far  superior  to  him  in  intellect. 
It  only  heightens  the  deep  and  tragic  significance  of  his 
death  that  he  was  himself  a  fool ;  in  truth  it  is  just  because 
Don  Quixote  is  a  fool  that  he  is  a  tragic  figure.     It  is  an 
affecting  fact,  that  on  that  world-stage,  on  which  so  many 
great  and  wise  men  had  moved  and  acted,  the  fool  was 
destined  to  give  the  epilogue.     He  too  died  not  in  vain. 
It  was  a  fearfully  striking  protest  of  the  republic  against 
the  monarchy,  that   the  last  republican  went  as  the  first 
monarch  came — a  protest  which  tore  asunder  like  gossamer 
all  that  so-called  constitutional  character  with  which  Caesar 
invested  his  monarchy,  and  exposed  in  all  its  hypocritical 
falsehood  the  shibboleth  of  the  reconciliation  of  all  parties, 
under  the  aegis  of  which  despotism  grew  up.     The  unre- 
lenting warfare  which  the  ghost  of  the  legitimate  republic 
waged    for    centuries,    from   Cassius  and    Brutus  down  to 
Thrasea    and   Tacitus,    nay,    even    far   later,    against    the 
Caesarian  monarchy — a  warfare  of  plots  and  of  literature 


304   BRUNDISIUM,  ILERDA,  PHARSALUS,  THAPSUS    bk.  v 

— was  the  legacy  which  the  dying  Cato  bequeathed  to  his 
enemies.  This  republican  opposition  derived  from  Cato 
its  whole  attitude — stately,  transcendental  in  its  rhetoric, 
pretentiously  rigid,  hopeless,  and  faithful  to  death ;  and 
accordingly  it  began  even  immediately  after  his  death  to 
revere  as  a  saint  the  man  who  in  his  lifetime  was  not  un- 
frequently  its  laughing-stock  and  its  scandal.  But  the 
greatest  of  these  marks  of  respect  was  the  involuntary 
homage  which  Caesar  rendered  to  him,  when  he  made  an 
exception  to  the  contemptuous  clemency  with  which  he  was 
wont  to  treat  his  opponents,  Pompeians  as  well  as  re- 
publicans, in  the  case  of  Cato  alone,  and  pursued  him 
even  beyond  the  grave  with  that  energetic  hatred  which 
practical  statesmen  are  wont  to  feel  towards  antagonists 
opposing  them  from  a  region  of  ideas  which  they  regard 
as  equally  dangerous  and  impracticable. 


ch.  xi      THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  NEW  MONARCHY      305 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   OLD    REPUBLIC   AND   THE   NEW   MONARCHY 

The  new  monarch  of  Rome,  the  first  ruler  over  the  whole  Character 
domain  of  Romano -Hellenic  civilization,  Gaius  Julius  °  aesar# 
Caesar,  was  in  his  fifty -sixth  year  (born  12  July  652?)  102. 
when  the  battle  at  Thapsus,  the  last  link  in  a  long  chain 
of  momentous  victories,  placed  the  decision  as  to  the  future 
of  the  world  in  his  hands.  Few  men  have  had  their 
elasticity  so  thoroughly  put  to  the  proof  as  Caesar — the 
sole  creative  genius  produced  by  Rome,  and  the  last 
produced  by  the  ancient  world,  which  accordingly  moved 
on  in  the  path  that  he  marked  out  for  it  until  its  sun  went 
down.  Sprung  from  one  of  the  oldest  noble  families  of 
Latium — which  traced  back  its  lineage  to  the  heroes  of 
the  Iliad  and  the  kings  of  Rome,  and  in  fact  to  the  Venus- 
Aphrodite  common  to  both  nations — he  spent  the  years 
of  his  boyhood  and  early  manhood  as  the  genteel  youth  of 
that  epoch  were  wont  to  spend  them.  He  had  tasted  the 
sweetness  as  well  as  the  bitterness  of  the  cup  of  fashionable 
life,  had  recited  and  declaimed,  had  practised  literature 
and  made  verses  in  his  idle  hours,  had  prosecuted  love- 
intrigues  of  every  sort,  and  got  himself  initiated  into  all  the 
mysteries  of  shaving,  curls,  and  ruffles  pertaining  to  the 
toilette-wisdom  of  the  day,  as  well  as  into  the  still  more 
mysterious  art  of  always  borrowing  and  never  paying.  But 
the  flexible  steel  of  that  nature  was  proof  against  even 
VOL.  V  *£3 


30o  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

these  dissipated  and  flighty  courses ;  Caesar  retained  both 
his  bodily  vigour  and  his  elasticity  of  mind  and  of  heart 
unimpaired.  In  fencing  and  in  riding  he  was  a  match  for 
any  of  his  soldiers,  and  his  swimming  saved  his  life  at 
Alexandria ;  the  incredible  rapidity  of  his  journeys,  which 
usually  for  the  sake  of  gaining  time  were  performed  by 
night — a  thorough  contrast  to  the  procession-like  slowness 
with  which  Pompeius  moved  from  one  place  to  another — 
was  the  astonishment  of  his  contemporaries  and  not  the 
least  among  the  causes  of  his  success.  The  mind  was  like 
the  body.  His  remarkable  power  of  intuition  revealed 
itself  in  the  precision  and  practicability  of  all  his  arrange- 
ments, even  where  he  gave  orders  without  having  seen 
with  his  own  eyes.  His  memory  was  matchless,  and  it 
was  easy  for  him  to  carry  on  several  occupations  simulta- 
neously with  equal  self-possession.  Although  a  gentleman, 
a  man  of  genius,  and  a  monarch,  he  had  still  a  heart.  So 
long  as  he  lived,  he  cherished  the  purest  veneration  for  his 
worthy  mother  Aurelia  (his  father  having  died  early);  to 
his  wives  and  above  all  to  his  daughter  Julia  he  devoted 
an  honourable  affection,  which  was  not  without  reflex 
influence  even  on  political  affairs.  With  the  ablest  and 
most  excellent  men  of  his  time,  of  high  and  of  humbler 
rank,  he  maintained  noble  relations  of  mutual  fidelity,  with 
each  after  his  kind.  As  he  himself  never  abandoned  any 
of  his  partisans  after  the  pusillanimous  and  unfeeling 
manner  of  Pompeius,  but  adhered  to  his  friends — and 
that  not  merely  from  calculation — through  good  and  bad 
times  without  wavering,  several  of  these,  such  as  Aulus 
Hirtius  and  Gaius  Matius,  gave,  even  after  his  death,  noble 
testimonies  of  their  attachment  to  him. 

If  in  a  nature  so  harmoniously  organized  any  one  aspect 
of  it  may  be  singled  out  as  characteristic,  it  is  this — that 
he  stood  aloof  from  all  ideology  and  everything  fanciful. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  Caesar  was  a  man  of  passion,  for 


chap.  Xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  307 

without  passion  there  is  no  genius ;  but  his  passion  was 
never  stronger  than  he  could  control.  He  had  had  his 
season  of  youth,  and  song,  love,  and  wine  had  taken  lively 
possession  of  his  spirit ;  but  with  him  they  did  not  penetrate 
to  the  inmost  core  of  his  nature.  Literature  occupied  him 
long  and  earnestly ;  but,  while  Alexander  could  not  sleep 
for  thinking  of  the  Homeric  Achilles,  Caesar  in  his  sleepless 
hours  mused  on  the  inflections  of  the  Latin  nouns  and 
verbs.  He  made  verses,  as  everybody  then  did,  but  they 
were  weak  ;  on  the  other  hand  he  was  interested  in  subjects 
of  astronomy  and  natural  science.  While  wine  was  and 
continued  to  be  with  Alexander  the  destroyer  of  care,  the 
temperate  Roman,  after  the  revels  of  his  youth  were  over, 
avoided  it  entirely.  Around  him,  as  around  all  those 
whom  the  full  lustre  of  woman's  love  has  dazzled  in  youth, 
fainter  gleams  of  it  continued  imperishably  to  linger ;  even 
in  later  years  he  had  love-adventures  and  successes  with 
women,  and  he  retained  a  certain  foppishness  in  his  out- 
ward appearance,  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  the  pleasing 
consciousness  of  his  own  manly  beauty.  He  carefully 
covered  the  baldness,  which  he  keenly  felt,  with  the  laurel 
chaplet  that  he  wore  in  public  in  his  later  years,  and  he 
would  doubtless  have  surrendered  some  of  his  victories,  if 
he  could  thereby  have  brought  back  his  youthful  locks. 
But,  however  much  even  when  monarch  he  enjoyed  the 
society  of  women,  he  only  amused  himself  with  them,  and 
allowed  them  no  manner  of  influence  over  him  ;  even  his 
much-censured  relation  to  queen  Cleopatra  was  only  con- 
trived to  mask  a  weak  point  in  his  political  position  (p.  276). 
Caesar  was  thoroughly  a  realist  and  a  man  of  sense ; 
and  whatever  he  undertook  and  achieved  was  pervaded 
and  guided  by  the  cool  sobriety  which  constitutes  the  most 
marked  peculiarity  of  his  genius.  To  this  he  owed  the 
power  of  living  energetically  in  the  present,  undisturbed 
either  by  recollection  or  by  expectation ;   to  this  he  owed 


308  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

the  capacity  of  acting  at  any  moment  with  collected  vigour, 
and  of  applying  his  whole  genius  even  to  the  smallest  and 
most  incidental  enterprise ;  to  this  he  owed  the  many-sided 
power  with  which  he  grasped  and  mastered  whatever  under- 
standing can  comprehend  and  will  can  compel ;  to  this  he 
owed  the  self-possessed  ease  with  which  he  arranged  his 
periods  as  well  as  projected  his  campaigns ;  to  this  he 
owed  the  "marvellous  serenity"  which  remained  steadily 
with  him  through  good  and  evil  days ;  to  this  he  owed  the 
complete  independence,  which  admitted  of  no  control  by 
favourite  or  by  mistress,  or  even  by  friend.  It  resulted, 
moreover,  from  this  clearness  of  judgment  that  Caesar 
never  formed  to  himself  illusions  regarding  the  power  of 
fate  and  the  ability  of  man ;  in  his  case  the  friendly  veil 
was  lifted  up,  which  conceals  from  man  the  inadequacy  of 
his  working.  Prudently  as  he  laid  his  plans  and  considered 
all  possibilities,  the  feeling  was  never  absent  from  his  breast 
that  in  all  things  fortune,  that  is  to  say  accident,  must 
bestow  success ;  and  with  this  may  be  connected  the 
circumstance  that  he  so  often  played  a  desperate  game 
with  destiny,  and  in  particular  again  and  again  hazarded 
his  person  with  daring  indifference.  As  indeed  occasion- 
ally men  of  predominant  sagacity  betake  themselves  to  a 
pure  game  of  hazard,  so  there  was  in  Caesar's  rationalism  a 
point  at  which  it  came  in  some  measure  into  contact  with 
mysticism. 

Caesar  as  Gifts  such  as  these  could  not  fail  to  produce  a  states- 

man. From  early  youth,  accordingly,  Caesar  was  a  states- 
man in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  term,  and  his  aim  was  the 
highest  which  man  is  allowed  to  propose  to  himself — the 
political,  military,  intellectual,  and  moral  regeneration  of 
his  own  deeply  decayed  nation,  and  of  the  still  more  deeply 
decayed  Hellenic  nation  intimately  akin  to  his  own.  The 
hard  school  of  thirty  years'  experience  changed  his  views 
as  to  the  means  by  which  this  aim  was  to  be  reached ;  his 


a  states 

man, 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  309 

aim  itself  remained  the  same  in  the  times  of  his  hopeless 
humiliation  and  of  his  unlimited  plenitude  of  power,  in  the 
times  when  as  demagogue  and  conspirator  he  stole  towards 
it  by  paths  of  darkness,  and  in  those  when,  as  joint  pos- 
sessor of  the   supreme  power  and   then  as  monarch,  he 
worked  at  his  task  in  the  full  light  of  day  before  the  eyes 
of  the  world.     All  the  measures  of  a  permanent  kind  that 
proceeded  from  him  at  the  most  various  times  assume  their 
appropriate  places  in  the  great  building-plan.     We  cannot 
therefore    properly    speak    of    isolated    achievements    of 
Caesar ;  he  did  nothing  isolated.     With  justice  men  com- 
mend Caesar  the  orator  for  his  masculine  eloquence,  which, 
scorning  all  the  arts  of  the  advocate,  like  a  clear  flame  at 
once  enlightened  and  warmed.     With  justice  men  admire 
in  Caesar  the  author  the  inimitable  simplicity  of  the  com- 
position, the   unique   purity  and   beauty  of  the  language. 
With  justice  the  greatest  masters  of  war  of  all  times  have 
praised  Caesar  the  general,  who,  in  a  singular  degree  dis- 
regarding routine  and  tradition,  knew  always  how  to  find 
out  the  mode  of  warfare  by  which  in  the  given  case  the 
enemy  was  conquered,  and  which  was  thus  in  the  given 
case  the  right  one ;  who  with  the  certainty  of  divination 
found  the  proper  means  for  every  end  ;  who  after  defeat 
stood  ready  for  battle  like  William  of  Orange,  and  ended 
the  campaign  invariably  with  victory;  who  managed  that 
element  of  warfare,  the  treatment  of  which  serves  to  dis- 
tinguish military  genius  from  the  mere  ordinary  ability  of 
an  officer — the  rapid  movement  of  masses — with  unsur- 
passed perfection,  and  found  the  guarantee  of  victory  not 
in  the  massiveness  of  his  forces  but  in  the  celerity  of  their 
movements,  not  in  long  preparation  but  in  rapid  and  daring 
action  even  with  inadequate  means.     But  all  these  were 
with  Caesar  mere  secondary  matters ;  he  was  no  doubt  a 
great  orator,  author,  and  general,  but  he  became  each  of 
these   merely  because   he   was  a  consummate   statesman. 


310  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  BOOK  V 

The  soldier  more  especially  played  in  him  altogether  an 
accessory  part,  and  it  is  one  of  the  principal  peculiarities 
by  which  he  is  distinguished  from  Alexander,  Hannibal, 
and  Napoleon,  that  he  began  his  political  activity  not  as 
an  officer,  but  as  a  demagogue.  According  to  his  original 
plan  he  had  purposed  to  reach  his  object,  like  Pericles  and 
Gaius  Gracchus,  without  force  of  arms,  and  throughout 
eighteen  years  he  had  as  leader  of  the  popular  party  moved 
exclusively  amid  political  plans  and  intrigues  —  until,  re- 
luctantly convinced  of  the  necessity  for  a  military  support, 
he,  when  already  forty  years  of  age,  put  himself  at  the 
head  of  an  army.  It  was  natural  that  he  should  even 
afterwards  remain  still  more  statesman  than  general — just 
like  Cromwell,  who  also  transformed  himself  from  a  leader 
of  opposition  into  a  military  chief  and  democratic  king, 
and  who  in  general,  little  as  the  prince  of  Puritans  seems 
to  resemble  the  dissolute  Roman,  is  yet  in  his  development 
as  well  as  in  the  objects  which  he  aimed  at  and  the  results 
which  he  achieved  of  all  statesmen  perhaps  the  most  akin 
to  Caesar.  Even  in  his  mode  of  warfare  this  improvised 
generalship  may  still  be  recognized ;  the  enterprises  of 
Napoleon  against  Egypt  and  against  England  do  not  more 
clearly  exhibit  the  artillery-lieutenant  who  had  risen  by 
service  to  command  than  the  similar  enterprises  of  Caesar 
exhibit  the  demagogue  metamorphosed  into  a  general. 
A  regularly  trained  officer  would  hardly  have  been  prepared, 
through  political  considerations  of  a  not  altogether  stringent 
nature,  to  set  aside  the  best-founded  military  scruples  in 
the  way  in  which  Caesar  did  on  several  occasions,  most 
strikingly  in  the  case  of  his  landing  in  Epirus.  Several  of 
his  acts  are  therefore  censurable  from  a  military  point  of 
view ;  but  what  the  general  loses,  the  statesman  gains. 
The  task  of  the  statesman  is  universal  in  its  nature  like 
Caesar's  genius ;  if  he  undertook  things  the  most  varied 
and  most  remote  one  from  another,  they  had  all  without 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  311 

exception  a  bearing  on  the  one  great  object  to  which  with 
infinite  fidelity  and  consistency  he  devoted  himself;  and  of 
the  manifold  aspects  and  directions  of  his  great  activity  he 
never  preferred  one  to  another.  Although  a  master  of  the 
art  of  war,  he  yet  from  statesmanly  considerations  did  his 
utmost  to  avert  civil  strife  and,  when  it  nevertheless  began, 
to  earn  laurels  stained  as  little  as  possible  by  blood. 
Although  the  founder  of  a  military  monarchy,  he  yet,  with 
an  energy  unexampled  in  history,  allowed  no  hierarchy  of 
marshals  or  government  of  praetorians  to  come  into  exist- 
ence. If  he  had  a  preference  for  any  one  form  of  services 
rendered  to  the  state,  it  was  for  the  sciences  and  arts  of 
peace  rather  than  for  those  of  war. 

The  most  remarkable  peculiarity  of  his  action  as  a 
statesman  was  its  perfect  harmony.  In  reality  all  the  con- 
ditions for  this  most  difficult  of  all  human  functions  were 
united  in  Caesar.  A  thorough  realist,  he  never  allowed 
the  images  of  the  past  or  venerable  tradition  to  disturb 
him  ;  for  him  nothing  was  of  value  in  politics  but  the  living 
present  and  the  law  of  reason,  just  as  in  his  character  of 
grammarian  he  set  aside  historical  and  antiquarian  research 
and  recognized  nothing  but  on  the  one  hand  the  living 
usus  loquendi  and  on  the  other  hand  the  rule  of  symmetry. 
A  born  ruler,  he  governed  the  minds  of  men  as  the  wind 
drives  the  clouds,  and  compelled  the  most  heterogeneous 
natures  to  place  themselves  at  his  service — the  plain  citizen 
and  the  rough  subaltern,  the  genteel  matrons  of  Rome  and 
the  fair  princesses  of  Egypt  and  Mauretania,  the  brilliant 
cavalry-officer  and  the  calculating  banker.  His  talent  for 
organization  was  marvellous  ;  no  statesman  has  ever  com- 
pelled alliances,  no  general  has  ever  collected  an  army  out 
of  unyielding  and  refractory  elements  with  such  decision, 
and  kept  them  together  with  such  firmness,  as  Caesar  dis- 
played in  constraining  and  upholding  his  coalitions  and  his 
legions ;  never  did  regent  judge  his  instruments  and  assign 


3i2  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

each  to  the  place  appropriate  for  him  with  so  acute  an 

eye. 

He  was  monarch ;  but  he  never  played  the  king.     Even 
when  absolute  lord  of  Rome,  he  retained  the  deportment 
of  the  party-leader ;  perfectly  pliant  and  smooth,  easy  and 
charming  in  conversation,  complaisant  towards  every  one, 
it  seemed  as  if  he  wished  to  be  nothing  but  the  first  among 
his  peers.     Caesar  entirely  avoided  the  blunder  into  which 
so   many   men  otherwise   on  an   equality  with  him  have 
fallen,    of    carrying    into    politics    the    military    tone    of 
command ;  however  much  occasion  his  disagreeable  rela- 
tions with  the  senate  gave  for  it,  he  never  resorted  to  out- 
rages such  as  was  that  of  the  eighteenth  Brumaire.     Caesar 
was  monarch  3  but  he  was  never  seized  with  the  giddiness 
of  the  tyrant.     He  is  perhaps  the  only  one  among  the 
mighty  ones  of  the  earth,  who  in  great  matters  and  little 
never  acted  according  to  inclination  or  caprice,  but  always 
without  exception  according  to  his  duty  as  ruler,  and  who, 
when  he  looked  back  on  his  life,  found  doubtless  erroneous 
calculations  to  deplore,  but  no  false  step  of  passion   to 
regret.     There  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  Caesar's  life, 
which  even  on  a  small  scale *  can  be  compared  with  those 
poetico-sensual  ebullitions — such  as  the  murder  of  Kleitos 
or  the   burning  of  Persepolis — which  the  history  of  his 
great  predecessor  in    the    east   records.     He  is,  in  fine, 
perhaps  the  only  one  of  those  mighty  ones,  who  has  pre- 
served to  the  end  of  his  career  the   statesman's  tact  of 
discriminating  between   the  possible  and  the   impossible, 
and  has  not  broken  down  in   the   task  which  for  greatly 
gifted  natures  is    the  most   difficult  of  all  —  the   task  of 
recognizing,  when  on  the  pinnacle  of  success,  its  natural 

1  The  affair  with  Laberius,  told  in  the  well-known  prologue,  has  been 
quoted  as  an  instance  of  Caesar's  tyrannical  caprices,  but  those  who  have 
done  so  have  thoroughly  misunderstood  the  irony  of  the  situation  as  well 
as  of  the  poet ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  naivett  of  lamenting  as  a  martyr  the 
poet  who  readily  pockets  his  honorarium. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  313 

limits.  What  was  possible  he  performed,  and  never  left 
the  possible  good  undone  for  the  sake  of  the  impossible 
better,  never  disdained  at  least  to  mitigate  by  palliatives 
evils  that  were  incurable.  But  where  he  recognized  that 
fate  had  spoken,  he  always  obeyed.  Alexander  on  the 
Hypanis,  Napoleon  at  Moscow,  turned  back  because  they 
were  compelled  to  do  so,  and  were  indignant  at  destiny  for 
bestowing  even  on  its  favourites  merely  limited  successes ; 
Caesar  turned  back  voluntarily  on  the  Thames  and  on  the 
Rhine;  and  thought  of  carrying  into  effect  even  at  the 
Danube  and  the  Euphrates  not  unbounded  plans  of  world- 
conquest,  but  merely  well-considered  frontier-regulations. 

Such  was  this  unique  man,  whom  it  seems  so  easy  and 
yet  is  so  infinitely  difficult  to  describe.  His  whole  nature 
is  transparent  clearness ;  and  tradition  preserves  more 
copious  and  more  vivid  information  about  him  than  about 
any  of  his  peers  in  the  ancient  world.  Of  such  a  personage 
our  conceptions  may  well  vary  in  point  of  shallowness  or 
depth,  but  they  cannot  be,  strictly  speaking,  different;  to 
every  not  utterly  perverted  inquirer  the  grand  figure  has 
exhibited  the  same  essential  features,  and  yet  no  one  has 
succeeded  in  reproducing  it  to  the  life.  The  secret  lies  in 
its  perfection.  In  his  character  as  a  man  as  well  as  in  his 
place  in  history,  Caesar  occupies  a  position  where  the  great 
contrasts  of  existence  meet  and  balance  each  other.  Of 
mighty  creative  power  and  yet  at  the  same  time  of  the 
most  penetrating  judgment;  no  longer  a  youth  and  not 
yet  an  old  man ;  of  the  highest  energy  of  will  and  the 
highest  capacity  of  execution ;  filled  with  republican  ideals 
and  at  the  same  time  born  to  be  a  king ;  a  Roman  in  the 
deepest  essence  of  his  nature,  and  yet  called  to  reconcile 
and  combine  in  himself  as  well  as  in  the  outer  world  the 
Roman  and  the  Hellenic  types  of  culture — Caesar  was  the 
entire  and  perfect  man.  Accordingly  we  miss  in  him  more 
than   in  any   other   historical    personage   what  are  called 


3H  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

characteristic  features,  which  are  in  reality  nothing  else 
than  deviations  from  the  natural  course  of  human  develop- 
ment. What  in  Caesar  passes  for  such  at  the  first  super- 
ficial glance  is,  when  more  closely  observed,  seen  to  be 
the  peculiarity  not  of  the  individual,  but  of  the  epoch  of 
culture  or  of  the  nation ;  his  youthful  adventures,  for 
instance,  were  common  to  him  with  all  his  more  gifted 
contemporaries  of  like  position,  his  unpoetical  but  strongly 
logical  temperament  was  the  temperament  of  Romans  in 
general.  It  formed  part  also  of  Caesar's  full  humanity  that 
he  was  in  the  highest  degree  influenced  by  the  conditions 
of  time  and  place ;  for  there  is  no  abstract  humanity — the 
living  man  cannot  but  occupy  a  place  in  a  given  nationality 
and  in  a  definite  line  of  cultuie.  Caesar  was  a  perfect  man 
just  because  he  more  than  any  other  placed  himself  amidst 
the  currents  of  his  time,  and  because  he  more  than  any 
other  possessed  the  essential  peculiarity  of  the  Roman  nation 
— practical  aptitude  as  a  citizen — in  perfection  :  for  his 
Hellenism  in  fact  was  only  the  Hellenism  which  had  been 
long  intimately  blended  with  the  Italian  nationality.  But 
in  this  very  circumstance  lies  the  difficulty,  we  may  perhaps 
say  the  impossibility,  of  depicting  Caesar  to  the  life.  As 
the  artist  can  paint  everything  save  only  consummate 
beauty,  so  the  historian,  when  once  in  a  thousand  years 
he  encounters  the  perfect,  can  only  be  silent  regarding  it. 
For  normality  admits  doubtless  of  being  expressed,  but  it 
gives  us  only  the  negative  notion  of  the  absence  of  defect ; 
the  secret  of  nature,  whereby  in  her  most  finished  manifesta- 
tions normality  and  individuality  are  combined,  is  beyond 
expression.  Nothing  is  left  for  us  but  to  deem  those 
fortunate  who  beheld  this  perfection,  and  to  gain  some 
faint  conception  of  it  from  the  reflected  lustre  which  rests 
imperishably  on  the  works  that  were  the  creation  of  this 
great  nature.  These  also,  it  is  true,  bear  the  stamp  of  the 
time.     The  Roman  hero  himself  stood  by  the  side  of  his 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY 


315 


youthful  Greek  predecessor  not  merely  as  an  equal,  but  as 
a  superior ;  but  the  world  had  meanwhile  become  old  and 
its  youthful  lustre  had  faded.  The  action  of  Caesar  was 
no  longer,  like  that  of  Alexander,  a  joyous  marching  onward 
towards  a  goal  indefinitely  remote ;  he  built  on,  and  out  of, 
ruins,  and  was  content  to  establish  himself  as  tolerably  and 
as  securely  as  possible  within  the  ample  but  yet  definite 
bounds  once  assigned  to  him.  With  reason  therefore  the 
delicate  poetic  tact  of  the  nations  has  not  troubled  itself 
about  the  unpoetical  Roman,  and  on  the  other  hand  has 
invested  the  son  of  Philip  with  all  the  golden  lustre  of 
poetry,  with  all  the  rainbow  hues  of  legend.  But  with 
equal  reason  the  political  life  of  the  nations  has  during 
thousands  of  years  again  and  again  reverted  to  the  lines 
which  Caesar  drew;  and  the  fact,  that  the  peoples  to 
whom  the  world  belongs  still  at  the  present  day  designate 
the  highest  of  their  monarchs  by  his  name,  conveys  a 
warning  deeply  significant  and,  unhappily,  fraught  with 
shame. 

If  the  old,  in  every  respect  vicious,  state  of  things  was  Setting 
to  be  successfully  got  rid  of  and  the  commonwealth  was  to  aside  of 

.  the  old 

be  renovated,  it  was  necessary  first  of  all  that  the  country  parties, 
should  be  practically  tranquillized  and  that  the  ground 
should  be  cleared  from  the  rubbish  with  which  since  the 
recent  catastrophe  it  was  everywhere  strewed.  In  this 
work  Caesar  set  out  from  the  principle  of  the  recon- 
ciliation of  the  hitherto  subsisting  parties  or,  to  put  it 
more  correctly — for,  where  the  antagonistic  principles  are 
irreconcilable,  we  cannot  speak  of  real  reconciliation — from 
the  principle  that  the  arena,  on  which  the  nobility  and 
the  populace  had  hitherto  contended  with  each  other,  was 
to  be  abandoned  by  both  parties,  and  that  both  were  to 
meet  together  on  the  ground  of  the  new  monarchical 
constitution.  First  of  all  therefore  all  the  older  quarrels 
of  the   republican  past  were   regarded  as   done  away  for 


3i6  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

ever  and  irrevocably.  While  Caesar  gave  orders  that  the 
statues  of  Sulla  which  had  been  thrown  down  by  the  mob 
of  the  capital  on  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Pharsalus  should 
be  re-erected,  and  thus  recognized  the  fact  that  it  became 
history  alone  to  sit  in  judgment  on  that  great  man,  he  at 
the  same  time  cancelled  the  last  remaining  effects  of  Sulla's 
exceptional  laws,  recalled  from  exile  those  who  had  been 
banished  in  the  times  of  the  Cinnan  and  Sertorian  troubles, 
and  restored  to  the  children  of  those  outlawed  by  Sulla 
their  forfeited  privilege  of  eligibility  to  office.  In  like 
manner  all  those  were  restored,  who  in  the  preliminary 
stage  of  the  recent  catastrophe  had  lost  their  seat  in  the 
senate  or  their  civil  existence  through  sentence  of  the 
censors  or  political  process,  especially  through  the  im- 
peachments raised  on  the  basis  of  the  exceptional  laws 
62.  of  702.  Those  alone  who  had  put  to  death  the  proscribed 
for  money  remained,  as  was  reasonable,  still  under  attainder; 
and  Milo,  the  most  daring  condottiere  of  the  senatorial  party, 
was  excluded  from  the  general  pardon. 
Discontent  Far  more  difficult  than  the  settlement  of  these  questions 
democrats  wn'cn  already  belonged  substantially  to  the  past  was  the 
treatment  of  the  parties  confronting  each  other  at  the 
moment  —  on  the  one  hand  Caesar's  own  democratic 
adherents,  on  the  other  hand  the  overthrown  aristocracy. 
That  the  former  should  be,  if  possible,  still  less  satisfied 
than  the  latter  with  Caesar's  conduct  after  the  victory  and 
with  his  summons  to  abandon  the  old  standing-ground  of 
party,  was  to  be  expected.  Caesar  himself  desired  doubtless 
on  the  whole  the  same  issue  which  Gaius  Gracchus  had 
contemplated ;  but  the  designs  of  the  Caesarians  were  no 
longer  those  of  the  Gracchans.  The  Roman  popular  party 
had  been  driven  onward  in  gradual  progression  from  reform 
to  revolution,  from  revolution  to  anarchy,  from  anarchy  to 
a  war  against  property  ;  they  celebrated  among  themselves 
the  memory  of  the  reign  of  terror  and  now  adorned  the 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  317 

tomb  of  Catilina,  as  formerly  that  of  the  Gracchi,  with 
flowers  and  garlands ;  they  had  placed  themselves  under 
Caesar's  banner,  because  they  expected  him  to  do  for 
them  what  Catilina  had  not  been  able  to  accomplish. 
But  as  it  speedily  became  plain  that  Caesar  was  very 
far  from  intending  to  be  the  testamentary  executor  of 
Catilina,  and  that  the  utmost  which  debtors  might  expect 
from  him  was  some  alleviations  of  payment  and  modifica- 
tions of  procedure,  indignation  found  loud  vent  in  the 
inquiry,  For  whom  then  had  the  popular  party  conquered, 
if  not  for  the  people  ?  and  the  rabble  of  this  description, 
high  and  low,  out  of  pure  chagrin  at  the  miscarriage  of 
their  politico-economic  Saturnalia  began  first  to  coquet  with 
the  Pompeians,  and  then  even  during  Caesar's  absence  of 
nearly  two  years  from  Italy  (Jan.  706 — autumn  707)  to  48-47. 
instigate  there  a  second  civil  war  within  the  first. 

The  praetor  Marcus  Caelius  Rufus,  a  good  aristocrat  Caelius 
and  bad  payer  of  debts,  of  some  talent  and  much  culture,  aDd  Mda 
as  a  vehement  and  fluent  orator  hitherto  in  the  senate  and 
in  the  Forum  one  of  the  most  zealous  champions  for  Caesar, 
proposed  to  the  people — without  being  instructed  from 
any  higher  quarter  to  do  so — a  law  which  granted  to 
debtors  a  respite  of  six  years  free  of  interest,  and  then, 
when  he  was  opposed  in  this  step,  proposed  a  second  law 
which  even  cancelled  all  claims  arising  out  of  loans  and 
current  house  rents;  whereupon  the  Caesarian  senate 
deposed  him  from  his  office.  It  was  just  on  the  eve  of 
the  battle  of  Pharsalus,  and  the  balance  in  the  great 
contest  seemed  to  incline  to  the  side  of  the  Pompeians; 
Rufus  entered  into  communication  with  the  old  senatorian 
band-leader  Milo,  and  the  two  contrived  a  counter-revolu- 
tion, which  inscribed  on  its  banner  partly  the  republican 
constitution,  partly  the  cancelling  of  creditors'  claims  and 
the  manumission  of  slaves.  Milo  left  his  place  of  exile 
Massilia,  and  called  the  Pompeians  and  the  slave-herdsmen 


3i8 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


47. 

Dolabella. 


Measures 
against 
Pompeians 
and  re- 
publicans. 


to  arras  in  the  region  of  Thurii ;  Rufus  made  arrangements 
to  seize  the  town  of  Capua  by  armed  slaves.  But  the  latter 
plan  was  detected  before  its  execution  and  frustrated  by 
the  Capuan  militia;  Quintus  Pedius,  who  advanced  with 
a  legion  into  the  territory  of  Thurii,  scattered  the  band 
making  havoc  there ;  and  the  fall  of  the  two  leaders  put 
48.  an  end  to  the  scandal  (706). 

Nevertheless  there  was  found  in  the  following  year  (707) 
a  second  fool,  the  tribune  of  the  people,  Publius  Dolabella, 
who,  equally  insolvent  but  far  from  being  equally  gifted 
with  his  predecessor,  introduced  afresh  his  law  as  to 
creditors'  claims  and  house  rents,  and  with  his  colleague 
Lucius  Trebellius  began  on  that  point  once  more — it 
was  the  last  time  —  the  demagogic  war  ;  there  were 
serious  frays  between  the  armed  bands  on  both  sides 
and  various  street  -  riots,  till  the  commandant  of  Italy 
Marcus  Antonius  ordered  the  military  to  interfere,  and 
soon  afterwards  Caesar's  return  from  the  east  completely 
put  an  end  to  the  preposterous  proceedings.  Caesar 
attributed  to  these  brainless  attempts  to  revive  the  projects 
of  Catilina  so  little  importance,  that  he  tolerated  Dolabella 
in  Italy  and  indeed  after  some  time  even  received  him 
again  into  favour.  Against  a  rabble  of  this  sort,  which 
had  nothing  to  do  with  any  political  question  at  all,  but 
solely  with  a  war  against  property — as  against  gangs  of 
banditti — the  mere  existence  of  a  strong  government  is 
sufficient ;  and  Caesar  was  too  great  and  too  considerate 
to  busy  himself  with  the  apprehensions  which  the  Italian 
alarmists  felt  regarding  these  communists  of  that  day, 
and  thereby  unduly  to  procure  a  false  popularity  for 
his  monarchy. 

While  Caesar  thus  might  leave,  and  actually  left,  the  late 
democratic  party  to  the  process  of  decomposition  which  had 
already  in  its  case  advanced  almost  to  the  utmost  limit,  he 
had  on  the  other  hand,  with  reference  to  the  former  aristo 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  319 

cratic  party  possessing  a  far  greater  vitality,  not  to  bring 
about  its  dissolution — which  time  alone  could  accomplish 
— but  to  pave  the  way  for  and  initiate  it  by  a  proper 
combination  of  repression  and  conciliation.  Among  minor 
measures,  .Caesar,  even  from  a  natural  sense  of  propriety, 
avoided  exasperating  the  fallen  party  by  empty  sarcasm  ; 
he  did  not  triumph  over  his  conquered  fellow-burgesses ; l 
he  mentioned  Pompeius  often  and  always  with  respect, 
and  caused  his  statue  overthrown  by  the  people  to  be 
re-erected  at  the  senate-house,  when  the  latter  was  restored, 
in  its  earlier  distinguished  place.  To  political  prosecutions 
after  the  victory  Caesar  assigned  the  narrowest  possible 
limits.  No  investigation  was  instituted  into  the  various 
communications  which  the  constitutional  party  had  held 
even  with  nominal  Caesarians  ;  Caesar  threw  the  piles 
of  papers  found  in  the  enemy's  headquarters  at  Pharsalus 
and  Thapsus  into  the  fire  unread,  and  spared  himself 
and  the  country  from  political  processes  against  individuals 
suspected  of  high  treason.  Further,  all  the  common 
soldiers  who  had  followed  their  Roman  or  provincial 
officers  into  the  contest  against  Caesar  came  off  with 
impunity.  The  sole  exception  made  was  in  the  case  of 
those  Roman  burgesses,  who  had  taken  service  in  the 
army  of  the  Numidian  king  Juba ;  their  property  was 
confiscated  by  way  of  penalty  for  their  treason.  Even 
to  the  officers  of  the  conquered  party  Caesar  had  granted 
unlimited  pardon  up  to  the  close  of  the  Spanish  campaign 
of  "05  ;  but  he  became  convinced  that  in  this  he  had  49. 
gone  too  far,  and  that  the  removal  at  least  of  the  leaders 
among  them  was  inevitable.  The  rule  by  which  he  was 
thenceforth  guided  was,  that  every  one  who  after  the 
capitulation  of   Ilerda   had    served   as  an   officer    in   the 

1  The  triumph  after  the  battle  of  Munda  subsequently  to  be  mentioned 
probably  had  reference  only  to  the  Lusitanians  who  served  in  great 
numbers  in  the  conquered  army. 


320  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

enemy's  army  or  had  sat  in  the  opposition -senate,  if  he 
survived  the  close  of  the  struggle,  forfeited  his  property 
and  his  political  rights,  and  was  banished  from  Italy  for 
life ;  if  he  did  not  survive  the  close  of  the  struggle,  his 
property  at  least  fell  to  the  state;  but  any  one  of  these, 
who  had  formerly  accepted  pardon  from  Caesar  and  was 
once  more  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  enemy,  thereby 
forfeited  his  life.  These  rules  were  however  materially 
modified  in  the  execution.  The  sentence  of  death  was 
actually  executed  only  against  a  very  few  of  the  numerous 
backsliders.  In  the  confiscation  of  the  property  of  the 
fallen  not  only  were  the  debts  attaching  to  the  several 
portions  of  the  estate  as  well  as  the  claims  of  the  widows 
for  their  dowries  paid  off,  as  was  reasonable,  but  a  portion 
of  the  paternal  estate  was  left  also  to  the  children  of  the 
deceased.  Lastly  not  a  few  of  those,  who  in  consequence 
of  those  rules  were  liable  to  banishment  and  confiscation 
of  property,  were  at  once  pardoned  entirely  or  got  off  with 
fines,  like  the  African  capitalists  who  were  impressed  as 
members  of  the  senate  of  Utica.  And  even  the  others 
almost  without  exception  got  their  freedom  and  property 
restored  to  them,  if  they  could  only  prevail  on  themselves 
to  petition  Caesar  to  that  effect ;  on  several  who  declined 
to  do  so,  such  as  the  consular  Marcus  Marcellus,  pardon 
44,  was  even  conferred  unasked,  and  ultimately  in  710  a 
general  amnesty  was  issued  for  all  who  were  still  unre- 
called. 
Amnesty.  The  republican  opposition  submitted  to  be  pardoned  ; 

but  it  was  not  reconciled.  Discontent  with  the  new  order 
of  things  and  exasperation  against  the  unwonted  ruler  were 
general.  For  open  political  resistance  there  was  indeed 
no  farther  opportunity — it  was  hardly  worth  taking  into 
account,  that  some  oppositional  tribunes  on  occasion  of  the 
question  of  title  acquired  for  themselves  the  republican 
crown  of  martyrdom  by  a  demonstrative  intervention  against 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  321 

those  who  had  called  Caesar  king  —  but  republicanism 
found  expression  all  the  more  decidedly  as  an  opposition 
of  sentiment,  and  in  secret  agitation  and  plotting.  Not 
a  hand  stirred  when  the  Imperator  appeared  in  public. 
There  was  abundance  of  wall-placards  and  sarcastic  verses 
full  of  bitter  and  telling  popular  satire  against  the  new 
monarchy.  When  a  comedian  ventured  on  a  republican 
allusion,  he  was  saluted  with  the  loudest  applause.  The 
praise  of  Cato  formed  the  fashionable  theme  of  oppositional 
pamphleteers,  and  their  writings  found  a  public  all  the 
more  grateful  because  even  literature  was  no  longer  free. 
Caesar  indeed  combated  the  republicans  even  now  on 
their  own  field  ;  he  himself  and  his  abler  confidants 
replied  to  the  Cato -literature  with  Anticatones,  and  the 
republican  and  Caesarian  scribes  fought  round  the  dead 
hero  of  Utica  like  the  Trojans  and  Hellenes  round  the 
dead  body  of  Patroclus ;  but  as  a  matter  of  course  in 
this  conflict — where  the  public  thoroughly  republican  in 
its  feelings  was  judge — the  Caesarians  had  the  worst  of 
it.  No  course  remained  but  to  overawe  the  authors;  on 
which  account  men  well  known  and  dangerous  in  a 
literary  point  of  view,  such  as  Publius  Nigidius  Figulus 
and  Aulus  Caecina,  had  more  difficulty  in  obtaining 
permission  to  return  to  Italy  than  other  exiles,  while  the 
oppositional  writers  tolerated  in  Italy  were  subjected  to 
a  practical  censorship,  the  restraints  of  which  were  all 
the  more  annoying  that  the  measure  of  punishment  to 
be  dreaded  was  utterly  arbitrary.1  The  underground 
machinations  of  the  overthrown  parties  against  the  new 
monarchy  will  be  more  fitly  set  forth  in  another  connec- 
tion. Here  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  risings  of  pre- 
tenders as  well  as  of  republicans  were  incessantly  brewing 

1  Any  one  who  desires  to  compare  the  old  and  new  hardships  of 
authors  will  find  opportunity  of  doing  so  in  the  letter  of  Caecina  (Cicero, 
A&.  Fam.  vi.  7). 

vol.  v  154 


322  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

throughout  the  Roman  empire ;  that  the  flames  of  civil  war 
kindled  now  by  the  Pompeians,  now  by  the  republicans, 
again  burst  forth  brightly  at  various  places  ;  and  that  in 
the  capital  there  was  perpetual  conspiracy  against  the  life 
of  the  monarch.  But  Caesar  could  not  be  induced  by 
these  plots  even  to  surround  himself  permanently  with  a 
body-guard,  and  usually  contented  himself  with  making 
known  the  detected  conspiracies  by  public  placards. 
Bearing  of  However  much  Caesar  was  wont  to  treat  all  things 
towards  the  relating  to  his  personal  safety  with  daring  indifference,  he 
parties.  could  not  possibly  conceal  from  himself  the  very  serious 
danger  with  which  this  mass  of  malcontents  threatened  not 
merely  himself  but  also  his  creations.  If  nevertheless, 
disregarding  all  the  warning  and  urgency  of  his  friends,  he 
without  deluding  himself  as  to  the  implacability  of  the  very 
opponents  to  whom  he  showed  mercy,  persevered  with 
marvellous  composure  and  energy  in  the  course  of  pardon- 
ing by  far  the  greater  number  of  them,  he  did  so  neither 
from  the  chivalrous  magnanimity  of  a  proud,  nor  from  the 
sentimental  clemency  of  an  effeminate,  nature,  but  from  the 
correct  statesmanly  consideration  that  vanquished  parties 
are  disposed  of  more  rapidly  and  with  less  public  injury  by 
their  absorption  within  the  state  than  by  any  attempt  to 
extirpate  them  by  proscription  or  to  eject  them  from  the 
commonwealth  by  banishment.  Caesar  could  not  for  his 
high  objects  dispense  with  the  constitutional  party  itself, 
which  in  fact  embraced  not  the  aristocracy  merely  but  all 
the  elements  of  a  free  and  national  spirit  among  the  Italian 
burgesses;  for  his  schemes,  which  contemplated  the  re- 
novation of  the  antiquated  state,  he  needed  the  whole  mass 
of  talent,  culture,  hereditary  and  self-acquired  distinction, 
which  this  party  embraced ;  and  in  this  sense  he  may 
well  have  named  the  pardoning  of  his  opponents  the  finest 
reward  of  victory.  Accordingly  the  most  prominent  chiefs  of 
the  defeated  parties  were  indeed  removed,  but  full  pardon 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  323 

was  not  withheld  from  the  men  of  the  second  and  third 
rank  and  especially  of  the  younger  generation ;  they  were 
not,  however,  allowed   to  sulk   in  passive  opposition,  but 
were  by  more  or  less  gentle  pressure  induced  to  take  an 
active  part  in  the  new  administration,  and  to  accept  honours 
and  offices  from  it.     As  with  Henry  the  Fourth  and  William 
of  Orange,  so  with   Caesar  his  greatest   difficulties  began 
only    after    the    victory.     Every    revolutionary    conqueror 
learns  by  experience  that,  if  after  vanquishing  his  opponents 
he  would  not  remain  like   Cinna  and  Sulla  a  mere  party- 
chief,  but  would  like  Caesar,  Henry  the  Fourth,  and  William 
of  Orange  substitute  the  welfare  of  the  commonwealth  for 
the  necessarily  one-sided  programme  of  his  own  party,  for 
the  moment  all  parties,  his  own  as  well  as  the  vanquished, 
unite  against  the  new  chief;  and  the  more  so,  the  more 
great  and  pure  his  idea  of  his  new  vocation.     The  friends 
of   the    constitution    and    the    Pompeians,    though    doing 
homage  with  the  lips  to  Caesar,  bore  yet  in  heart  a  grudge 
either  at  monarchy  or  at  least  at  the  dynasty ;  the  degen- 
erate democracy  was  in  open  rebellion  against  Caesar  from 
the  moment  of  its  perceiving  that  Caesar's  objects  were  by 
no  means  its  own ;  even  the  personal  adherents  of  Caesar 
murmured,  when  they  found  that  their  chief  was  establishing 
instead  of  a  state  of  condottieri  a  monarchy  equal  and  just 
towards  all,  and  that  the  portions  of  gain  accruing  to  them 
were  to  be  diminished  by  the  accession  of  the  vanquished. 
This  settlement  of  the  commonwealth  was  acceptable  to  no 
party,  and  had  to  be  imposed  on  his  associates  no  less  than 
on  his  opponents.      Caesar's  own  position  was  now   in  a 
certain  sense  more  imperilled  than  before  the  victory ;  but 
what  he  lost,  the  state  gained.     By  annihilating  the  parties 
and  not  simply  sparing  the  partisans  but  allowing  every  man 
of  talent  or  even  merely  of  good  descent  to  attain  to  office 
irrespective  of  his  political  past,  he  gained   for  his  great 
building  all  the  working  power  extant  in  the  state ;  and  not 


324  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

only  so,  but  the  voluntary  or  compulsory  participation  of 
men  of  all  parties  in  the  same  work  led  the  nation  also 
over  imperceptibly  to  the  newly  prepared  ground.  The 
fact  that  this  reconciliation  of  the  parties  was  for  the 
moment  only  external  and  that  they  were  for  the  present 
much  less  agreed  in  adherence  to  the  new  state  of  things 
than  in  hatred  against  Caesar,  did  not  mislead  him ;  he 
knew  well  that  antagonisms  lose  their  keenness  when 
brought  into  such  outward  union,  and  that  only  in  this  way 
can  the  statesman  anticipate  the  work  of  time,  which  alone 
is  able  finally  to  heal  such  a  strife  by  laying  the  old  genera- 
tion in  the  grave.  Still  less  did  he  inquire  who  hated  him 
or  meditated  his  assassination.  Like  every  genuine  states- 
man he  served  not  the  people  for  reward — not  even  for  the 
reward  of  their  love — but  sacrificed  the  favour  of  his  con- 
temporaries for  the  blessing  of  posterity,  and  above  all  for 
the  permission  to  save  and  renew  his  nation. 
Caesar's  In  attempting  to  give  a  detailed  account  of  the  mode 

in  which  the  transition  was  effected  from  the  old  to  the  new 
state  of  things,  we  must  first  of  all  recollect  that  Caesar 
came  not  to  begin,  but  to  complete.  The  plan  of  a  new 
polity  suited  to  the  times,  long  ago  projected  by  Gaius 
Gracchus,  had  been  maintained  by  his  adherents  and  suc- 
cessors with  more  or  less  of  spirit  and  success,  but  without 
wavering.  Caesar,  from  the  outset  and  as  it  were  by 
hereditary  right  the  head  of  the  popular  party,  had  for 
thirty  years  borne  aloft  its  banner  without  ever  changing 
or  even  so  much  as  concealing  his  colours ;  he  remained 
democrat  even  when  monarch.  As  he  accepted  without 
limitation,  apart  of  course  from  the  preposterous  projects  of 
Catilina  and  Clodius,  the  heritage  of  his  party ;  as  he  dis- 
played the  bitterest,  even  personal,  hatred  to  the  aristocracy 
and  the  genuine  aristocrats ;  and  as  he  retained  unchanged 
the  essential  ideas  of  Roman  democracy,  viz.  alleviation  of 
the  burdens  of  debtors,  transmarine  colonization,  gradual 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  325 

equalization  of  the  differences  of  rights  among  the  classes 
belonging  to  the  state,  emancipation  of  the  executive  power 
from  the  senate :  his  monarchy  was  so  little  at  variance 
with  democracy,  that  democracy  on  the  contrary  only 
attained  its  completion  and  fulfilment  by  means  of 
that  monarchy.  For  this  monarchy  was  not  the  Oriental 
despotism  of  divine  right,  but  a  monarchy  such  as  Gaius 
Gracchus  wished  to  found,  such  as  Pericles  and  Cromwell 
founded — the  representation  of  the  nation  by  the  man  in 
whom  it  puts  supreme  and  unlimited  confidence.  The 
ideas,  which  lay  at  the  foundation  of  Caesar's  work,  were 
so  far  not  strictly  new ;  but  to  him  belongs  their  realization, 
which  after  all  is  everywhere  the  main  matter ;  and  to  him 
pertains  the  grandeur  of  execution,  which  would  probably 
have  surprised  the  brilliant  projector  himself  if  he  could 
have  seen  it,  and  which  has  impressed,  and  will  always 
impress,  every  one  to  whom  it  has  been  presented  in  the 
living  reality  or  in  the  mirror  of  history — to  whatever  his- 
torical epoch  or  whatever  shade  of  politics  he  may  belong 
■ — according  to  the  measure  of  his  ability  to  comprehend 
human  and  historical  greatness,  with  deep  and  ever-deepen- 
ing emotion  and  admiration. 

At  this  point  however  it  is  proper  expressly  once  for  all 
to  claim  what  the  historian  everywhere  tacitly  presumes, 
and  to  protest  against  the  custom — common  to  simplicity 
and  perfidy — of  using  historical  praise  and  historical  censure, 
dissociated  from  the  given  circumstances,  as  phrases  of 
general  application,  and  in  the  present  case  of  construing 
the  judgment  as  to  Caesar  into  a  judgment  as  to  what  is 
called  Caesarism.  It  is  true  that  the  history  of  past  cen- 
turies ought  to  be  the  instructress  of  the  present ;  but  not 
in  the  vulgar  sense,  as  if  one  could  simply  by  turning  over 
the  leaves  discover  the  conjunctures  of  the  present  in  the 
records  of  the  past,  and  collect  from  these  the  symptoms 
for  a  political  diagnosis  and  the  specifics  for  a  prescription ; 


326  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

it  is  instructive  only  so  far  as  the  observation  of  older  forms 
of  culture  reveals    the  organic   conditions    of  civilization 
generally — the   fundamental   forces   everywhere  alike,  and 
the  manner  of  their  combination  everywhere  different — and 
leads  and  encourages  men,  not  to  unreflecting  imitation, 
but  to  independent  reproduction.      In  this  sense  the  hiitory 
of  Caesar  and  of  Roman  Imperialism,  with  all  the  unsur- 
passed greatness  of  the  master-worker,  with  all  the  historical 
necessity  of  the  work,   is   in   truth   a   sharper  censure  of 
modern  autocracy  than  could  be  written  by  the  hand  of 
man.     According  to  the  same  law  of  nature  in  virtue  of 
which  the  smallest  organism  infinitely  surpasses  the  most 
artistic  machine,  every  constitution  however  defective  which 
gives  play  to  the  free  self-determination  of  a  majority  of 
citizens  infinitely  surpasses  the  most  brilliant  and  humane 
absolutism ;  for  the  former  is  capable  of  development  and 
therefore  living,  the  latter  is  what  it  is  and  therefore  dead. 
This  law  of  nature  has  verified  itself  in  the  Roman  absolute 
military  monarchy  and  verified   itself  all  the   more   com- 
pletely, that,  under  the  impulse  of  its  creator's  genius  and 
in  the  absence  of  all  material  complications  from  without, 
that  monarchy  developed  itself  more  purely  and  freely  than 
any  similar  state.     From  Caesar's  time,  as  the  sequel  will 
show  and  Gibbon  has  shown  long  ago,  the  Roman  system 
had    only    an    external    coherence    and    received    only    a 
mechanical  extension,  while  internally  it  became  even  with 
him  utterly  withered  and  dead.     If  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
autocracy  and  above  all  in  Caesar's  own  soul  (iv.  504)  the 
hopeful  dream  of  a  combination  of  free  popular  development 
and  absolute  rule  was  still  cherished,  the  government  of  the 
highly-gifted  emperors  of  the  Julian  house  soon  taught  men 
in  a  terrible  form  how  far  it  was  possible  to  hold  fire  and 
water  in  the  same  vessel.     Caesar's  work  was  necessary  and 
salutary,  not  because  it  was  or  could  be  fraught  with  bless- 
ing in  itself,  but  because — with  the  national  organization  of 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  327 

antiquity,  which  was  based  on  slavery  and  was  utterly  a 
stranger  to  republican-constitutional  representation,  and  in 
presence  of  the  legitimate  urban  constitution  which  in  the 
course  of  five  hundred  years  had  ripened  into  oligarchic 
absolutism — absolute  military  monarchy  was  the  copestone 
logically  necessary  and  the  least  of  evils.  When  once  the 
slave-holding  aristocracy  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  shall 
have  carried  matters  as  far  as  their  congeners  in  the  Sullan 
Rome,  Caesarism  will  there  too  be  legitimized  at  the  bar 
of  the  spirit  of  history  ; l  where  it  appears  under  other  con- 
ditions of  development,  it  is  at  once  a  caricature  and  a 
usurpation.  But  history  will  not  submit  to  curtail  the  true 
Caesar  of  his  due  honour,  because  her  verdict  may  in  the 
presence  of  bad  Caesars  lead  simplicity  astray  and  may  give 
to  roguery  occasion  for  lying  and  fraud.  She  too  is  a  Bible, 
and  if  she  cannot  any  more  than  the  Bible  hinder  the  fool 
from  misunderstanding  and  the  devil  from  quoting  her,  she 
too  will  be  able  to  bear  with,  and  to  requite,  them  both. 

The  position   of  the  new   supreme  head  of  the   state  Dictator- 
appears  formally,  at  least  in  the  first  instance,  as  a  dictator-  ship' 
ship.     Caesar  took  it  up  at  first  after  his  return  from  Spain 
in  705,  but  laid  it  down  again  after  a  few  days,  and  waged  49. 
the  decisive  campaign  of  706  simply  as  consul — this  was  48. 
the  office  his  tenure  of  which  was  the  primary  occasion 
for  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war  (p.   176)       But  in  the 
autumn  of  this  year  after  the  battle  of  Pharsalus  he  reverted 
to  the  dictatorship  and  had  it  repeatedly  entrusted  to  him, 
at  first  for  an  undefined  period,  but  from  the  1st  January 
709  as  an  annual  office,  and  then  in  January  or  February  45. 
7102  for  the  duration  of  his  life,  so  that  he  in  the  end  44. 

1  When  this  was  written — in  the  year  1857 — no  one  could  foresee  how 
soon  the  mightiest  struggle  and  most  glorious  victory  as  yet  recorded  in 
human  annals  would  save  the  United  States  from  this  fearful  trial,  and 
secure  the  future  existence  of  an  absolute  self-governing  freedom  not  to  be 
permanently  kept  in  check  by  any  local  Caesarism. 

2  On  the  26th  January  710  Caesar  is  still  called  dictator  III  J,  (triumphal  44. 


328  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

expressly  dropped  the  earlier  reservation  as  to  his  laying 
down  the  office  and  gave  formal  expression  to  its  tenure  for 
life  in  the  new  title  of  dictator  perpetuus.  This  dictatorship, 
both  in  its  first  ephemeral  and  in  its  second  enduring  tenure, 
was  not  that  of  the  old  constitution,  but — what  was  coincident 
with  this  merely  in  the  name — the  supreme  exceptional 
office  as  arranged  by  Sulla  (iv.  ioo) ;  an  office,  the  functions 
of  which  were  fixed,  not  by  the  constitutional  ordinances 
regarding  the  supreme  single  magistracy,  but  by  special 
decree  of  the  people,  to  such  an  effect  that  the  holder  re- 
ceived, in  the  commission  to  project  laws  and  to  regulate 
the  commonwealth,  an  official  prerogative  de  jure  un- 
limited which  superseded  the  republican  partition  of  powers. 
Those  were  merely  applications  of  this  general  prerogative 
to  the  particular  case,  when  the  holder  of  power  was  further 
entrusted  by  separate  acts  with  the  right  of  deciding  on 
war  and  peace  without  consulting  the  senate  and  the  people, 
with  the  independent  disposal  of  armies  and  finances,  and 
with  the  nomination  of  the  provincial  governors.  Caesar 
could  accordingly  de  jure  assign  to  himself  even  such 
prerogatives  as  lay  outside  of  the  proper  functions  of  the 
magistracy  and  even  outside  of  the  province  of  state-powers 
at  all ; x  and  it  appears  almost  as  a  concession  on  his  part, 
that  he  abstained  from  nominating  the  magistrates  instead 
of  the  Comitia  and  limited  himself  to  claiming  a  binding 
right  of  proposal  for  a  proportion  of  the  praetors  and  of 
the  lower  magistrates ;  and  that  he  moreover  had  himself 
empowered  by  special  decree  of  the  people  for  the  creation 
of  patricians,  which  was  not  at  all  allowable  according  to 
use  and  wont. 

table) ;  on  the  18th  February  of  this  year  he  was  already  dictator  perpetuus 
(Cicero,  Philip,  ii.  34,  87).     Comp.  Staatsrecht,  ii.8  716. 

1  The  formulation  of  that  dictatorship  appears  to  have  expressly 
brought  into  prominenceamong  other  things  the  ' '  improvement  of  morals  "  ; 
but  Caesar  did  not  hold  on  his  own  part  an  office  of  this  sort  (Staatsrecht, 
ii.8705). 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  3*9 

For  other  magistracies  in  the  proper  sense  there  remained  Other 

alongside  of  this  dictatorship  no  room ;    Caesar  did    not  ^^^^ 

take  up  the  censorship  as  such,1  but  he  doubtless  exercised  and  atui 

:,.,  .,».i.  -i^/-  •    butions. 

censorial  rights — particularly  the  important  right  of  norm 

nating  senators — after  a  comprehensive  fashion. 

He  held  the  consulship  frequently  alongside  of  the 
dictatorship,  once  even  without  colleague ;  but  he  by  no 
means  attached  it  permanently  to  his  person,  and  he  gave 
no  effect  to  the  calls  addressed  to  him  to  undertake  it  for 
five  or  even  for  ten  years  in  succession. 

Caesar  had  no  need  to  have  the  superintendence  of 
worship  now  committed  to  him,  since  he  was  already 
pontifex  tnaximus  (iv.  460).  As  a  matter  of  course  the 
membership  of  the  college  of  augurs  was  conferred  on  him, 
and  generally  an  abundance  of  old  and  new  honorary  rights, 
such  as  the  title  of  a  "  father  of  the  fatherland,"  the 
designation  of  the  month  of  his  birth  by  the  name  which  it 
still  bears  of  Julius,  and  other  manifestations  of  the  incipient 
courtly  tone  which  ultimately  ran  into  utter  deification. 
Two  only  of  the  arrangements  deserve  to  be  singled  out : 
namely  that  Caesar  was  placed  on  the  same  footing  with 
the  tribunes  of  the  people  as  regards  their  special  personal 
inviolability,  and  that  the  appellation  of  Imperator  was 
permanently  attached  to  his  person  and  borne  by  him  as  a 
title  alongside  of  his  other  official  designations. 

Men  of  judgment  will  not  require  any  proof,  either  that 
Caesar  intended  to  engraft  on  the  commonwealth  his 
supreme  power,  and  this  not  merely  for  a  few  years  or  even 
as  a  personal  office  for  an  indefinite  period  somewhat  like 
Sulla's  regency,  but  as  an  essential  and  permanent  organ ; 
or  that  he  selected  for  the  new  institution  an  appropriate  and 
simple  designation ;  for,  if  it  is  a  political  blunder  to  create 

1  Caesar  bears  the  designation  of  imperator  always  without  any  number 
indicative  of  iteration,  and  always  in  the  first  place  after  his  name 
[Staatsrecht ,  iLs  767,  note  1). 


33°  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

names  without  substantial  meaning,  it  is  scarcely  a  less 
error  to  set  up  the  substance  of  plenary  power  without  a 
name.  Only  it  is  not  easy  to  determine  what  definitive 
formal  shape  Caesar  had  in  view;  partly  because  in  this 
period  of  transition  the  ephemeral  and  the  permanent 
buildings  are  not  clearly  discriminated  from  each  other, 
partly  because  the  devotion  of  his  clients  which  already 
anticipated  the  nod  of  their  master  loaded  him  with  a 
multitude — offensive  doubtless  to  himself — of  decrees  of 
confidence  and  laws  conferring  honours.  Least  of  all 
could  the  new  monarchy  attach  itself  to  the  consulship,  just 
on  account  of  the  collegiate  character  that  could  not  well  be 
separated  from  this  office ;  Caesar  also  evidently  laboured 
to  degrade  this  hitherto  supreme  magistracy  into  an  empty 
title,  and  subsequently,  when  he  undertook  it,  he  did  not 
hold  it  through  the  whole  year,  but  before  the  year  expired 
gave  it  away  to  personages  of  secondary  rank.  The 
dictatorship  came  practically  into  prominence  most  frequently 
and  most  definitely,  but  probably  only  because  Caesar 
wished  to  use  it  in  the  significance  which  it  had  of  old  in 
the  constitutional  machinery — as  an  extraordinary  presidency 
for  surmounting  extraordinary  crises.  On  the  other  hand 
it  was  far  from  recommending  itself  as  an  expression  for  the 
new  monarchy,  for  the  magistracy  was  inherently  clothed 
with  an  exceptional  and  unpopular  character,  and  it 
could  hardly  be  expected  of  the  representative  of  the 
democracy  that  he  should  choose  for  its  permanent  organiza- 
tion that  form,  which  the  most  gifted  champion  of  the 
opposing  party  had  created  for  his  own  ends. 
Caesar  The  new  name  of  Imperator,  on  the  other  hand,  appears 

Imperator.  jn  every  respect  by  far  more  appropriate  for  the  formal 
expression  of  the  monarchy ;  just  because  it  is  in  this 
application *  new,  and  no  definite  outward  occasion  for  its 

1  During  the  republican  period  the  name  Imperator,  which  denotes  the 
victorious  general,  was  laid  aside  with  the  end  of  the  campaign  ;  as  a 
permanent  title  it  first  appears  in  the  case  of  Caesar. 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  331 

introduction  is  apparent.  The  new  wine  might  not  be  put 
into  old  bottles ;  here  is  a  new  name  for  the  new  thing, 
and  that  name  most  pregnantly  sums  up  what  the  demo- 
cratic party  had  already  expressed  in  the  Gabinian  law, 
only  with  less  precision,  as  the  function  of  its  chief — the 
concentration  and  perpetuation  of  official  power  (imperium) 
in  the  hands  of  a  popular  chief  independent  of  the  senate. 
We  find  on  Caesar's  coins,  especially  those  of  the  last 
period,  alongside  of  the  dictatorship  the  title  of  Imperator 
prevailing,  and  in  Caesar's  law  as  to  political  crimes  the 
monarch  seems  to  have  been  designated  by  this  name. 
Accordingly  the  following  times,  though  not  immediately, 
connected  the  monarchy  with  the  name  of  Imperator.  To 
lend  to  this  new  office  at  once  a  democratic  and  religious 
sanction,  Caesar  probably  intended  to  associate  with  it 
once  for  all  on  the  one  hand  the  tribunician  power,  on  the 
other  the  supreme  pontificate. 

That  the  new  organization  was  not  meant  to  be  restricted 
merely  to  the  lifetime  of  its  founder,  is  beyond  doubt ;  but 
he  did  not  succeed  in  settling  the  especially  difficult 
question  of  the  succession,  and  it  must  remain  an  undecided 
point  whether  he  had  it  in  view  to  institute  some  sort  of 
form  for  the  election  of  a  successor,  such  as  had  subsisted  in 
the  case  of  the  original  kingly  office,  or  whether  he  wished 
to  introduce  for  the  supreme  office  not  merely  the  tenure 
for  life  but  also  the  hereditary  character,  as  his  adopted 
son  subsequently  maintained.1  It  is  not  improbable  that 
he  had  the  intention  of  combining  in  seme  measure  the 
two  systems,  and  of  arranging  the  succession,  similarly  to  the 

1  That  in  Caesar's  lifetime  the  imperium  as  well  as  the  supreme 
pontificate  was  rendered  by  a  formal  legislative  act  hereditary  for  his 
agnate  descendants — of  his  own  body  or  through  the  medium  of  adoption 
— was  asserted  by  Caesar  the  Younger  as  his  legal  title  to  rale.  As  our 
traditional  accounts  stand,  the  existence  of  such  a  law  or  resolution  of  the 
6enate  must  be  decidedly  called  in  question  ;  but  doubtless  it  remains 
possible  that  Caesar  intended  the  issue  of  such.a  decree.  (Comp.  Staatsreckt, 
ii.'  787,  1 106.) 


332  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

course  followed  by  Cromwell  and  by  Napoleon,  in  such  a 
way  that  the  ruler  should  be  succeeded  in  rule  by  his  son, 
but,  if  he  had  no  son,  or  the  son  should  not  seem  fitted  for 
the  succession,  the  ruler  should  of  his  free  choice  nominate 
his  successor  in  the  form  of  adoption. 

In  point  of  state  law  the  new  office  of  Imperator  was 
based  on  the  position  which  the  consuls  or  proconsuls 
occupied  outside  of  the  pomerium,  so  that  primarily  the 
military  command,  but,  along  with  this,  the  supreme  judi- 
cial and  consequently  also  the  administrative  power,  were 
included  in  it1  But  the  authority  of  the  Imperator  was 
qualitatively  superior  to  the  consular-proconsular,  in  so  far  as 
the  former  was  not  limited  as  respected  time  or  space,  but 
was  held  for  life  and  operative  also  in  the  capital ; 2  as  the 


1  The  widely-spread  opinion,  which  sees  in  the  imperial  office  of 
Imperator  nothing  but  the  dignity  of  general  of  the  empire  tenable  for  life, 
is  not  warranted  either  by  the  signification  of  the  word  or  by  the  view 
taken  by  the  old  authorities.  Imperium  is  the  power  of  command, 
imperator  is  the  possessor  of  that  power  ;  in  these  words  as  in  the  corre- 
sponding Greek  terms  Kp&ros,  avroKp&Twp  so  little  is  there  implied  a  specific 
military  reference,  that  it  is  on  the  contrary  the  very  characteristic  of  the 
Roman  official  power,  where  it  appears  purely  and  completely,  to  embrace 
in  it  war  and  process — that  is,  the  military  and  the  civil  power  of  command 
— as  one  inseparable  whole.  Dio  says  quite  correctly  (liii.  17  ;  comp.  xliii. 
44  ;  lii.  41)  that  the  name  Imperator  was  assumed  by  the  emperors  "to 
indicate  their  full  power  instead  of  the  title  of  king  and  dictator  (irpbs 
5r}\<j)<nv  rrjs  avToreXovs  a<pQv  i£ovo~las,  avrl  ttjs  tov  /Sa<n\<:ws  tov  re  ducra- 
rupos  iiriKXrfirew)  ;  for  these  other  older  titles  disappeared  in  name,  but 
in  reality  the  title  of  Imperator  gives  the  same  prerogatives  (t6  Bt  6r}  Zpyov 
avTwv  t%  tov  avTOKp&ropos  irpocr-qyoplq.  (3efiaiovvTcu),  for  instance  the  right 
of  levying  soldiers,  imposing  taxes,  declaring  war  and  concluding  peace, 
exercising  the  supreme  authority  over  burgess  and  non-burgess  in  and  out 
of  the  city  and  punishing  any  one  at  any  place  capitally  or  otherwise,  and 
in  general  of  assuming  the  prerogatives  connected  in  the  earliest  times 
with  the  supreme  imperium."  It  could  not  well  be  said  in  plainer  terms, 
that  imperator  is  nothing  at  all  but  a  synonym  for  rex,  just  as  imperare 
coincides  with  regere, 

%  When  Augustus  in  constituting  the  principate  resumed  the  Caesarian 
imperium,  this  was  done  with  the  restriction  that  it  should  be  limited  as  to 
space  and  in  a  certain  sense  also  as  to  time ;  the  proconsular  power  of  the 
emperors,  which  was  nothing  but  just  this  imperium,  was  not  to  come  into 
application  as  regards  Rome  and  Italy  (Staatsrecht,  ii.s  854).  On  this 
element  rests  the  essential  distinction  between  the  Caesarian  imp*rium 
and  the  Augustan  principate,  just  as  on  the  other  hand  the  real  equality 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  333 

Imperator  could  not,  while  the  consul  could,  be  checked 
by  colleagues  of  equal  power ;  and  as  all  the  restrictions 
placed  in  course  of  time  on  the  original  supreme  official 
power — especially  the  obligation  to  give  place  to  the 
provocatio  and  to  respect  the  advice  of  the  senate — did  not 
apply  to  the  Imperator. 

In  a  word,  this  new  office  of  Imperator  was  nothing  else  Re-estab- 
than  the  primitive  regal  office  re-established  ;  for  it  was  the  regal 
those  very  restrictions — as  respected  the  temporal  and  local  office, 
limitation  of  power,  the  collegiate  arrangement,  and  the  co- 
operation of  the  senate  or  the  community  that  was  necessary 
for  certain  cases — which  distinguished  the  consul  from  the 
king  (i.  318  /).  There  is  hardly  a  trait  of  the  new 
monarchy  which  was  not  found  in  the  old :  the  union  of 
the  supreme  military,  judicial,  and  administrative  authority 
in  the  hands  of  the  prince  ;  a  religious  presidency  over 
the  commonwealth  ;  the  right  of  issuing  ordinances  with 
binding  power ;  the  reduction  of  the  senate  to  a  council 
of  state ;  the  revival  of  the  patriciate  and  of  the  praefecture 
of  the  city.  But  still  more  striking  than  these  analogies  is 
the  internal  similarity  of  the  monarchy  of  Servius  Tullius 
and  the  monarchy  of  Caesar ;  if  those  old  kings  of  Rome 
with  all  their  plenitude  of  power  had  yet  been  rulers  of  a 
free  community  and  themselves  the  protectors  of  the 
commons  against  the  nobility,  Caesar  too  had  not  come 
to  destroy  liberty  but  to  fulfil  it,  and  primarily  to  break 
the  intolerable  yoke  of  the  aristocracy.  Nor  need  it 
surprise  us  that  Caesar,  anything  but  a  political  antiquary, 
went  back  five  hundred  years  to  find  the  model  for  his 
new  state  ;  for,  seeing  that  the  highest  office  of  the 
Roman  commonwealth  had  remained  at  all  times  a  king- 
ship restricted  by  a  number  of  special  laws,  the  idea  of 
the  regal  office  itself  had  by  no  means  become  obsolete. 

of  the  two  institutions  rests  on  the  imperfection  with  which  even  in  prin- 
ciple and  still  more  in  practice  that  limit  was  realized. 


334  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

At  very  various  periods  and  from  very  different  sides — 
in  the  decemviral  power,  in  the  Sullan  regency,  and  in 
Caesar's  own  dictatorship  —  there  had  been  during  the 
republic  a  practical  recurrence  to  it ;  indeed  by  a  certain 
logical  necessity,  whenever  an  exceptional  power  seemed 
requisite  there  emerged,  in  contradistinction  to  the  usual 
limited  imperium,  the  unlimited  imperium  which  was 
simply  nothing  else  than  the  regal  power. 

Lastly,  outward  considerations  also  recommended  this 
recurrence  to  the  former  kingly  position.  Mankind  have 
infinite  difficulty  in  reaching  new  creations,  and  therefore 
cherish  the  once  developed  forms  as  sacred  heirlooms. 
Accordingly  Caesar  very  judiciously  connected  himself 
with  Servius  Tullius,  in  the  same  way  as  subsequently 
Charlemagne  connected  himself  with  Caesar,  and  Napoleon 
attempted  at  least  to  connect  himself  with  Charlemagne. 
He  did  so,  not  in  a  circuitous  way  and  secretly,  but,  as 
well  as  his  successors,  in  the  most  open  manner  possible ; 
it  was  indeed  the  very  object  of  this  connection  to  find 
a  clear,  national  and  popular  form  of  expression  for  the 
new  state.  From  ancient  times  there  stood  on  the  Capitol 
the  statues  of  those  seven  kings,  whom  the  conventional 
history  of  Rome  was  wont  to  bring  on  the  stage  ;  Caesar 
ordered  his  own  to  be  erected  beside  them  as  the  eighth. 
He  appeared  publicly  in  the  costume  of  the  old  kings  of 
Alba.  In  his  new  law  as  to  political  crimes  the  principal 
variation  from  that  of  Sulla  was,  that  there  was  placed 
alongside  of  the  collective  community,  and  on  a  level  with 
it,  the  Imperator  as  the  living  and  personal  expression  of  the 
people.  In  the  formula  used  for  political  oaths  there  was 
added  to  the  Jovis  and  the  Penates  of  the  Roman  people  the 
Genius  of  the  Imperator.  The  outward  badge  of  monarchy 
was,  according  to  the  view  univerally  diffused  in  antiquity, 
44.  the  image  of  the  monarch  on  the  coins  ;  from  the  year  710 
the  head  of  Caesar  appears  on  those  of  the  Roman  state. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  335 

There  could  accordingly  be  no  complaint  at  least  on  the 
score  that  Caesar  left  the  public  in  the  dark  as  to  his  view 
of  his  position  ;  as  distinctly  and  as  formally  as  possible  he 
came  forward  not  merely  as  monarch,  but  as  very  king  of 
Rome.  It  is  possible  even,  although  not  exactly  probable, 
and  at  any  rate  of  subordinate  importance,  that  he  had  it 
in  view  to  designate  his  official  power  not  with  the  new 
name  of  Imperator,  but  directly  with  the  old  one  of  King.1 
Even  in  his  lifetime  many  of  his  enemies  as  of  his  friends 
were  of  opinion  that  he  intended  to  have  himself  expressly 
nominated  king  of  Rome ;  several  indeed  of  his  most 
vehement  adherents  suggested  to  him  in  different  ways 
and  at  different  times  that  he  should  assume  the  crown ; 
most  strikingly  of  all,  Marcus  Antonius,  when  he  as  consul 
offered  the  diadem  to  Caesar  before  all  the  people  (15 
Feb.  710).  But  Caesar  rejected  these  proposals  without  44. 
exception  at  once.  If  he  at  the  same  time  took  steps 
against  those  who  made  use  of  these  incidents  to  stir 
republican  opposition,  it  by  no  means  follows  from  this 
that   he    was    not    in    earnest    with    his    rejection.      The 

1  On  this  question  there  may  be  difference  of  opinion,  whereas  the  hypo- 
thesis that  it  was  Caesar's  intention  to  rule  the  Romans  as  Imperator,  the 
non- Romans  as  Rex,  must  be  simply  dismissed.  It  is  based  solely  on  the 
story  that  in  the  sitting  of  the  senate  in  which  Caesar  was  assassinated  a 
Sibylline  utterance  was  brought  forward  by  one  of  the  priests  in  charge  of 
the  oracles,  Lucius  Cotta,  to  the  effect  that  the  Parthians  could  only  be 
vanquished  by  a  "  king,"  and  in  consequence  of  this  the  resolution  was 
adopted  to  commit  to  Caesar  regal  power  over  the  Roman  provinces. 
This  story  was  certainly  in  circulation  immediately  after  Caesar's  death. 
But  not  only  does  it  nowhere  find  any  sort  of  even  indirect  confirmation, 
but  it  is  even  expressly  pronounced  false  by  the  contemporary  Cicero  (De 
Div.  ii.  54,  119)  and  reported  by  the  later  historians,  especially  by 
Suetonius  (79)  and  Dio  (xliv.  15)  merely  as  a  rumour  which  they  are  far 
from  wishing  to  guarantee  ;  and  it  is  under  such  circumstances  no  better 
accredited  by  the  fact  of  Plutarch  [Cats.  60,  64  ;  Brut.  10)  and  Appian 
(B.  C.  ii.  no)  repeating  it  after  their  wont,  the  former  by  way  of  anecdote, 
the  latter  by  way  of  causal  explanation.  But  the  story  is  not  merely 
unattested  ;  it  is  also  intrinsically  impossible.  Even  leaving  out  of 
account  that  Caesar  had  too  much  intellect  and  too  much  political  tact 
to  decide  important  questions  of  state  after  the  oligarchic  fashion  by  a 
stroke  of  the  oracle-machinery,  he  could  never  think  of  thus  formally  and 
legally  splitting  uj  the  state  which  he  wished  to  reduce  to  a  level 


33«  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  vr 

assumption  that  these  invitations  took  place  at  his  bidding, 
with  the  view  of  preparing  the  multitude  for  the  unwonted 
spectacle  of  the  Roman  diadem,  utterly  misapprehends  the 
mighty  power   of  the   sentimental   opposition   with   which 
Caesar  had  to  reckon,  and  which  could  not  be  rendered 
more    compliant,  but   on  the  contrary  necessarily  gained 
a  broader  basis,  through  such  a  public  recognition  of  its 
warrant  on  the  part  of  Caesar  himself.     It  may  have  been 
the  uncalled-for  zeal  of  vehement  adherents  alone  that 
occasioned  these  incidents  ;    it  may  be  also,  that  Caesar 
merely  permitted  or  even  suggested  the  scene  with  Anton ius, 
in  order  to  put  an  end  in  as  marked  a  manner  as  possible 
to  the  inconvenient  gossip  by  a  declinature  which  took  place 
before  the  eyes  of  the  burgesses  and  was  inserted  by  his  com- 
mand even  in  the  calendar  of  the  state  and  could  not,  in 
fact,  be  well  revoked.     The  probability  is  that  Caesar,  who 
appreciated  alike  the  value  of  a  convenient  formal  designa- 
tion and  the  antipathies  of  the  multitude  which  fasten  more 
on  the  names  than  on  the  essence  of  things,  was  resolved 
to  avoid  the  name  of  king  as  tainted  with  an  ancient  curse 
and  as  more  familiar  to  the  Romans  of  his  time  when 
applied  to  the  despots  of  the  east  than  to  their  own  Numa 
and  Servius,  and  to  appropriate  the  substance  of  the  regal 
office  under  the  title  of  Imperator. 
The  new  But,  whatever  may  have  been  the  definitive  title  present 

to  his  thoughts,  the  sovereign  ruler  was  there,  and  accord- 
ingly the  court  established  itself  at  once  with  all  its  due 
accompaniments  of  pomp,  insipidity,  and  emptiness.  Caesar 
appeared  in  public  not  in  the  robe  of  the  consuls  which  was 
bordered  with  purple  stripes,  but  in  the  robe  wholly  of 
purple  which  was  reckoned  in  antiquity  as  the  proper  regal 
attire,  and  received,  seated  on  his  golden  chair  and  without 
rising  from  it,  the  solemn  procession  of  the  senate.  The 
festivals  in  his  honour  commemorative  of  birthday,  of 
victories,  and  of  vows,  filled  the  calendar.     When  Caesar 


court. 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  337 

came  to  the  capital,  his  principal  servants  marched  forth 
in  troops  to  great  distances  so  as  to  meet  and  escort  him. 
To  be  near  to  him  began  to  be  of  such  importance,  that 
the  rents  rose  in  the  quarter  of  the  city  where  he  dwelt. 
Personal  interviews  with  him  were  rendered  so  difficult 
by  the  multitude  of  individuals  soliciting  audience,  that 
Caesar  found  himself  compelled  in  many  cases  to  com- 
municate even  with  his  intimate  friends  in  writing,  and 
that  persons  even  of  the  highest  rank  had  to  wait  for  hours 
in  the  antechamber.  People  felt,  more  clearly  than  was 
agreeable  to  Caesar  himself,  that  they  no  longer  approached 
a  fellow- citizen.  There  arose  a  monarchical  aristocracy,  The  new 
which  was  in  a  remarkable  manner  at  once  new  and  old,  Pat™ciau 

nobility. 

and  which  had  sprung  out  of  the  idea  of  casting  into  the 
shade  the  aristocracy  of  the  oligarchy  by  that  of  royalty, 
the  nobility  by  the  patriciate.  The  patrician  body  still 
subsisted,  although  without  essential  privileges  as  an  order, 
in  the  character  of  a  close  aristocratic  guild  (i.  370) ;  but  as 
it  could  receive  no  new  gentes  (i.  333)  it  had  dwindled  away 
more  and  more  in  the  course  of  centuries,  and  in  the  time 
of  Caesar  there  were  not  more  than  fifteen  or  sixteen 
patrician  gentes  still  in  existence.  Caesar,  himself  sprung 
from  one  of  them,  got  the  right  of  creating  new  patrician 
gentes  conferred  on  the  Imperator  by  decree  of  the  people, 
and  so  established,  in  contrast  to  the  republican  nobility, 
the  new  aristocracy  of  the  patriciate,  which  most  happily 
combined  all  the  requisites  of  a  monarchical  aristocracy — 
the  charm  of  antiquity,  entire  dependence  on  the  govern- 
ment, and  total  insignificance.  On  all  sides  the  new  sove- 
reignty revealed  itself. 

Under  a  monarch  thus  practically  unlimited  there  could 
hardly  be  scope  for  a  constitution  at  all — still  less  for  a 
continuance  of  the  hitherto  existing  commonwealth  based 
on  the  legal  co-operation  of  the  burgesses,  the  senate, 
and  the  several  magistrates.  Caesar  fully  and  definitely 
VOL.  V  155 


338  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

reverted  to  the  tradition  of  the  regal  period ;  the  burgess- 
assembly  remained  —  what  it  had  already  been  in  that 
period — by  the  side  of  and  with  the  king  the  supreme 
and  ultimate  expression  of  the  will  of  the  sovereign  people ; 
the  senate  was  brought  back  to  its  original  destination  of 
giving  advice  to  the  ruler  when  he  requested  it ;  and  lastly 
the  ruler  concentrated  in  his  person  anew  the  whole  magis- 
terial authority,  so  that  there  existed  no  other  independent 
state-official  by  his  side  any  more  than  by  the  side  of  the 
kings  of  the  earliest  times. 

Legisla  For  legislation  the  democratic  monarch  adhered  to  the 

primitive  maxim  of  Roman  state-law,  that  the  community 
of  the  people  in  concert  with  the  king  convoking  them  had 
alone  the  power  of  organically  regulating  the  common- 
wealth ;  and  he  had  his  constitutive  enactments  regularly 
sanctioned  by  decree  of  the  people.  The  free  energy  and 
the  authority  half-moral,  half-political,  which  the  yea  or 
nay  of  those  old  warrior-assemblies  had  carried  with  it,  could 
not  indeed  be  again  instilled  into  the  so-called  comitia  of 
this  period;  the  co-operation  of  the  burgesses  in  legisla- 
tion, which  in  the  old  constitution  had  been  extremely 
limited  but  real  and  living,  was  in  the  new  practically  an 
unsubstantial  shadow.  There  was  therefore  no  need  of 
special  restrictive  measures  against  the  comitia  ;  many 
years'  experience  had  shown  that  every  government — the 
oligarchy  as  well  as  the  monarch — easily  kept  on  good 
terms  with  this  formal  sovereign.  These  Caesarian  comitia 
were  an  important  element  in  the  Caesarian  system  and 
indirectly  of  practical  significance,  only  in  so  far  as  they 
served  to  retain  in  principle  the  sovereignty  of  the  people 
and  to  constitute  an  energetic  protest  against  sultanism. 

Edicts.  But  at  the  same  time — as  is  not  only  obvious  of  itself, 

but  is  also  distinctly  attested — the  other  maxim  also  of  the 
oldest  state -law  was  revived  by  Caesar  himself,  and  not 
merely  for  the  first  time  by  his  successors ;  viz.  that  what 


CHAP,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  339 

the  supreme,  or  rather  sole,  magistrate  commands  is  un- 
conditionally valid  so  long  as  he  remains  in  office,  and  that, 
while  legislation  no  doubt  belongs  only  to  the  king  and  the 
burgesses  in  concert,  the  royal  edict  is  equivalent  to  law  at 
least  till  the  demission  of  its  author. 

While  the  democratic  king  thus  conceded  to  the  com-  The  senate 
munity  of  the  people  at  least  a  formal  share  in  the  sove-  ^a[e.e 
reignty,  it  was  by  no  means  his  intention  to  divide  his  council 
authority  with  what  had  hitherto  been  the  governing  body,  ^onarcn- 
the  college  of  senators.  The  senate  of  Caesar  was  to  be — 
in  a  quite  different  way  from  the  later  senate  of  Augustus — 
nothing  but  a  supreme  council  of  state,  which  he  made  use 
of  for  advising  with  him  beforehand  as  to  laws,  and  for  the 
issuing  of  the  more  important  administrative  ordinances 
through  it,  or  at  least  under  its  name — for  cases  in  fact 
occurred  where  decrees  of  senate  were  issued,  of  which 
none  of  the  senators  recited  as  present  at  their  preparation 
had  any  cognizance.  There  were  no  material  difficulties 
of  form  in  reducing  the  senate  to  its  original  deliberative 
position,  which  it  had  overstepped  more  de  facto  than  de 
jure ;  but  in  this  case  it  was  necessary  to  protect  himself 
from  practical  resistance,  for  the  Roman  senate  was  as 
much  the  headquarters  of  the  opposition  to  Caesar  as  the 
Attic  Areopagus  was  of  the  opposition  to  Pericles.  Chiefly 
for  this  reason  the  number  of  senators,  which  had  hitherto 
amounted  at  most  to  six  hundred  in  its  normal  condition 
(iv.  113)  and  had  been  greatly  reduced  by  the  recent  crises, 
was  raised  by  extraordinary  supplement  to  nine  hundred ; 
and  at  the  same  time,  to  keep  it  at  least  up  to  this  mark,  the 
number  of  quaestors  to  be  nominated  annually,  that  is  of 
members  annually  admitted  to  the  senate,  was  raised  from 
twenty  to  forty.1    The  extraordinary  filling  up  of  the  senate 

1  According  to  the  probable  calculation  formerly  assumed  (iv.  113), 
this  would  yield  an  average  aggregate  number  of  from  1000  to  1200 
senators. 


340  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

was  undertaken  by  the  monarch  alone.  In  the  case  of 
the  ordinary  additions  he  secured  to  himself  a  permanent 
influence  through  the  circumstance,  that  the  electoral 
colleges  were  bound  by  law1  to  give  their  votes  to  the 
first  twenty  candidates  for  the  quaestorship  who  were  pro- 
vided with  letters  of  recommendation  from  the  monarch ; 
besides,  the  crown  was  at  liberty  to  confer  the  honorary 
rights  attaching  to  the  quaestorship  or  to  any  office  superior 
to  it,  and  consequently  a  seat  in  the  senate  in  particular, 
by  way  of  exception  even  on  individuals  not  qualified. 
The  selection  of  the  extraordinary  members  who  were 
added  naturally  fell  in  the  main  on  adherents  of  the  new 
order  of  things,  and  introduced,  along  with  equitts  of 
respectable  standing,  various  dubious  and  plebeian  person- 
ages into  the  proud  corporation — former  senators  who  had 
been  erased  from  the  roll  by  the  censor  or  in  consequence 
of  a  judicial  sentence,  foreigners  from  Spain  and  Gaul  who 
had  to  some  extent  to  learn  their  Latin  in  the  senate,  men 
lately  subaltern  officers  who  had  not  previously  received 
even  the  equestrian  ring,  sons  of  freedmen  or  of  such  as 
followed  dishonourable  trades,  and  other  elements  of  a 
like  kind.  The  exclusive  circles  of  the  nobility,  to  whom 
this  change  in  the  personal  composition  of  the  senate 
naturally  gave  the  bitterest  offence,  saw  in  it  an  intentional 
depreciation  of  the  very  institution  itself.  Caesar  was  not 
capable  of  such  a  self-destructive  policy ;  he  was  as  deter- 
mined not  to  let  himself  be  governed  by  his  council  as  he 
was  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  the  institute  in  itself. 
They  might  more  correctly  have  discerned  in  this  proceeding 
the  intention  of  the  monarch  to  take  away  from  the  senate 
its  former  character  of  an  exclusive  representation  of  the 
oligarchic  aristocracy,  and  to  make  it  once  more — what  it 

48.        *  This  certainly  had  reference  merely  to  the  elections  for  the  years  711 
42.   and  71a  {Staatsrechi,  ii.3  730)  ;  but  the  arrangement  was  doubtless  meant 
to  become  permanent. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  341 

had  been  in  the  regal  period — a  state-council  representing 
all  classes  of  persons  belonging  to  the  state  through  their 
most  intelligent  elements,  and  not  necessarily  excluding  the 
man  of  humble  birth  or  even  the  foreigner ;  just  as  those 
earliest  kings  introduced  non  -  burgesses  (i.  102,  329), 
Caesar  introduced  non-Italians  into  his  senate. 

While  the  rule  of  the  nobility  was  thus  set  aside  and  its  Personal 
existence  undermined,  and  while  the  senate  in  its  new  form  j^t™" 
was  merely  a  tool  of  the  monarch,  autocracy  was  at  the  Caesar 
same  time  most  strictly  carried  out  in  the  administration 
and  government  of  the  state,  and  the  whole  executive  was 
concentrated  in  the  hands  of  the  monarch.  First  of  all, 
the  Imperator  naturally  decided  in  person  every  question 
of  any  moment.  Caesar  was  able  to  carry  personal  govern- 
ment to  an  extent  which  we  puny  men  can  hardly  conceive, 
and  which  is  not  to  be  explained  solely  from  the  un- 
paralleled rapidity  and  decision  of  his  working,  but  has 
moreover  its  ground  in  a  more  general  cause.  When  we 
see  Caesar,  Sulla,  Gaius  Gracchus,  and  Roman  statesmen 
in  general  displaying  throughout  an  activity  which  tran- 
scends our  notions  of  human  powers  of  working,  the  reason 
lies,  not  in  any  change  that  human  nature  has  undergone 
since  that  time,  but  in  the  change  which  has  taken  place 
since  then  in  the  organization  of  the  household.  The 
Roman  house  was  a  machine,  in  which  even  the  mental 
powers  of  the  slaves  and  freedmen  yielded  their  produce 
to  the  master ;  a  master,  who  knew  how  to  govern  these, 
worked  as  it  were  with  countless  minds.  It  was  the  beau 
ideal  of  bureaucratic  centralization ;  which  our  counting- 
house  system  strives  indeed  zealously  to  imitate,  but 
remains  as  far  behind  its  prototype  as  the  modern  power 
of  capital  is  inferior  to  the  ancient  system  of  slavery. 
Caesar  knew  how  to  profit  by  this  advantage ;  wherever 
any  post  demanded  special  confidence,  we  see  him  filling 
it  up  on  principle — so  far  as  other  considerations  at  all 


342  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

permit — with  his  slaves,  freedmen,  or  clients  of  humble 
birth.  His  works  as  a  whole  show  what  an  organizing 
genius  like  his  could  accomplish  with  such  an  instrument ; 
but  to  the  question,  how  in  detail  these  marvellous  feats 
were  achieved,  we  have  no  adequate  answer.  Bureau- 
cracy resembles  a  manufactory  also  in  this  respect,  that  the 
work  done  does  not  appear  as  that  of  the  individual  who 
has  worked  at  it,  but  as  that  of  the  manufactory  which 
stamps  it.  This  much  only  is  quite  clear,  that  Caesar  in 
his  work  had  no  helper  at  all  who  exerted  a  personal  in- 
fluence over  it  or  was  even  so  much  as  initiated  into  the 
whole  plan;  he  was  not  only  the  sole  master,  but  he 
worked  also  without  skilled  associates,  merely  with  common 
labourers. 

With  respect  to  details  as  a  matter  of  course  in  strictly 
political  affairs  Caesar  avoided,  so  far  as  was  at  all  possible, 
any  delegation  of  his  functions.  Where  it  was  inevitable, 
as  especially  when  during  his  frequent  absence  from  Rome 
he  had  need  of  a  higher  organ  there,  the  person  destined 
for  this  purpose  was,  significantly  enough,  not  the  legal 
deputy  of  the  monarch,  the  prefect  of  the  city,  but  a 
confidant  without  officially-recognized  jurisdiction,  usually 
Caesar's  banker,  the  cunning  and  pliant  Phoenician 
in  matters  merchant  Lucius  Cornelius  Balbus  from  Gades.  In  ad- 
1  ministration  Caesar  was  above  all  careful  to  resume  the 
keys  of  the  state-chest — which  the  senate  had  appropriated 
to  itself  after  the  fall  of  the  regal  power,  and  by  means  of 
which  it  had  possessed  itself  of  the  government — and  to 
entrust  them  only  to  those  servants  who  with  their  persons 
were  absolutely  and  exclusively  devoted  to  him.  In 
respect  of  ownership  indeed  the  private  means  of  the 
monarch  remained,  of  course,  strictly  separate  from  the 
property  of  the  state ;  but  Caesar  took  in  hand  the 
administration  of  the  whole  financial  and  monetary  system 
of  the  state,  and  conducted  it  entirely  in  the  way  in  which 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  343 

he  and  the  Roman  grandees  generally  were  wont  to 
manage  the  administration  of  their  own  means  and  sub- 
stance. For  the  future  the  levying  of  the  provincial 
revenues  and  in  the  main  also  the  management  of  the 
coinage  were  entrusted  to  the  slaves  and  freedmen  of  the 
Imperator,  and  men  of  the  senatorial  order  were  excluded 
from  it — a  momentous  step,  out  of  which  grew  in  course 
of  time  the  important  class  of  procurators  and  the  "  imperial 
household." 

Of  the  governorships  on  the  other  hand,  which,  after  they  jn  the 

had  handed  their  financial  business  over  to  the  new  imperial  &overnor- 

r  ships, 

tax-receivers,  were  still  more  than  they  had  formerly  been 
essentially  military  commands,  that  of  Egypt  alone  was 
transferred  to  the  monarch's  own  retainers.  The  country 
of  the  Nile,  in  a  peculiar  manner  geographically  isolated 
and  politically  centralized,  was  better  fitted  than  any  other 
district  to  break  off  permanently  under  an  able  leader  from 
the  central  power,  as  the  attempts  which  had  repeatedly 
been  made  by  hard-pressed  Italian  party-chiefs  to  establish 
themselves  there  during  the  recent  crisis  sufficiently  proved. 
Probably  it  was  just  this  consideration  that  induced  Caesar 
not  to  declare  the  land  formally  a  province,  but  to  leave 
the  harmless  Lagids  there ;  and  certainly  for  this  reason 
the  legions  stationed  in  Egypt  were  not  entrusted  to  a  man 
belonging  to  the  senate  or,  in  other  words,  to  the  former 
government,  but  this  command  was,  just  like  the  posts  of 
tax-receivers,  treated  as  a  menial  office  (p.  281).  In  general 
however  the  consideration  had  weight  with  Caesar,  that  the 
soldiers  of  Rome  should  not,  like  those  of  Oriental  kings, 
be  commanded  by  lackeys.  It  remained  the  rule  to  entrust 
the  more  important  governorships  to  those  who  had  been 
consuls,  the  less  important  to  those  who  had  been  praetors; 
and  once  more,  instead  of  the  five  years'  interval  prescribed 
by  the  law  of  702  (p.  147),  the  commencement  of  the  62. 
governorship  probably  was  in  the  ancient  fashion  annexed 


344  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

directly  to  the  close  of  the  official  functions  in  the  city. 
On  the  other  hand  the  distribution  of  the  provinces  among 
the  qualified  candidates,  which  had  hitherto  been  arranged 
sometimes  by  decree  of  the  people  or  senate,  sometimes  by 
concert  among  the  magistrates  or  by  lot,  passed  over  to  the 
monarch.  And,  as  the  consuls  were  frequently  induced  to 
abdicate  before  the  end  of  the  year  and  to  make  room  for 
after- elected  consuls  {consules  suffecti) ;  as,  moreover,  the 
number  of  praetors  annually  nominated  was  raised  from 
eight  to  sixteen,  and  the  nomination  of  half  of  them  was 
entrusted  to  the  Imperator  in  the  same  way  as  that  of  the 
half  of  the  quaestors ;  and,  lastly,  as  there  was  reserved  to 
the  Imperator  the  right  of  nominating,  if  not  titular 
consuls,  at  any  rate  titular  praetors  and  titular  quaestors : 
Caesar  secured  a  sufficient  number  of  candidates  acceptable 
to  him  for  filling  up  the  governorships.  Their  recall 
remained  of  course  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  regent 
as  well  as  their  nomination  ;  as  a  rule  it  was  assumed 
that  the  consular  governor  should  not  remain  more  than 
two  years,  nor  the  praetorian  more  than  one  year,  in  the 
province. 
in  the  Lastly,  so  far  as  concerns  the  administration  of  the  city 

trationof     wnicn   was  his  capital  and  residence,  the  Imperator  evi- 
the  capital,  dently  intended  for  a  time  to  entrust  this  also  to  magis- 
trates similarly  nominated  by  him.      He  revived  the  old 
city-lieutenancy  of  the  regal  period  (i.  83) ;    on  different 
occasions  he  committed  during  his  absence  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  capital  to  one  or  more  such  lieutenants  nomi- 
nated  by  him  without  consulting   the  people  and  for  an 
indefinite  period,  who  united  in  themselves  the  functions 
of  all  the  administrative  magistrates  and  possessed  even  the 
right  of  coining  money  with  their  own  name,  although  of 
47.  course  not  with  their  own  effigy.     In  707  and  in  the  first 
45.  nine  months  of  709  there  were,  moreover,  neither  praetors 
nor  curule  aediles   nor   quaestors ;    the  consuls   too  were 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  345 

nominated  in  the  former  year  only  towards  its  close,  and 
in  the  latter  Caesar  was  even  consul  without  a  colleague. 
This  looks  altogether  like  an  attempt  to  revive  completely 
the  old  regal  authority  within  the  city  of  Rome,  as  far 
as  the  limits  enjoined  by  the  democratic  past  of  the  new 
monarch ;  in  other  words,  of  magistrates  additional  to 
the  king  himself,  to  allow  only  the  prefect  of  the  city 
during  the  king's  absence  and  the  tribunes  and  plebeian 
aediles  appointed  for  protecting  popular  freedom  to  con- 
tinue in  existence,  and  to  abolish  the  consulship,  the 
censorship,  the  praetorship,  the  curule  aedileship  and 
the  quaestorship.1  But  Caesar  subsequently  departed 
from  this ;  he  neither  accepted  the  royal  title  himself, 
nor  did  he  cancel  those  venerable  names  interwoven 
with  the  glorious  history  of  the  republic.  The  consuls, 
praetors,  aediles,  tribunes,  and  quaestors  retained  sub- 
stantially their  previous  formal  powers ;  nevertheless  their 
pqsition  was  totally  altered.  It  was  the  political  idea 
lying  at  the  foundation  of  the  republic  that  the  Roman 
empire  was  identified  with  the  city  of  Rome,  and  in 
consistency  with  it  the  municipal  magistrates  of  the  capital 
were  treated  throughout  as  magistrates  of  the  empire.  In 
the  monarchy  of  Caesar  that  view  and  this  consequence 
of  it  fell  into  abeyance  ;  the  magistrates  of  Rome  formed 
thenceforth  only  the  first  among  the  many  municipalities 
of  the  empire,  and  the  consulship  in  particular  became  a 
purely  titular  post,  which  preserved  a  certain  practical  im- 
portance only  in  virtue  of  the  reversion  of  a  higher 
governorship  annexed  to  it.  The  fate,  which  the  Roman 
community  had  been  wont  to  prepare  for  the  vanquished, 
now  by  means  of  Caesar  befell  itself;  its  sovereignty  over 

1  Hence  accordingly  the  cautious  turns  of  expression  on  the  mention  of 
these  magistracies  in  Caesar's  laws  ;  cum  censor  aliusve  quis  magistratus 
Romae  populi  censum  aget  (L.  Jul.  mun.  1.  144)  ;  praetor  isve  quei  Romae 
iure  deicundo  pratrit  (L.  Rubr.  often)  ;  quaestor  urbanus  queive  aerario 
praerit  (L.  Jul.  mun.  L  37  et  al.). 


346  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

the  Roman  empire  was  converted  into  a  limited  communal 
freedom  within  the  Roman  state.  That  at  the  same  time 
the  number  of  the  praetors  and  quaestors  was  doubled,  has 
been  already  mentioned;  the  same  course  was  followed 
with  the  plebeian  aediles,  to  whom  two  new  "  corn-aediles  " 
(aediles  Ceriales)  were  added  to  superintend  the  supplies  of 
the  capital.  The  appointment  to  those  offices  remained 
with  the  community,  and  was  subject  to  no  restriction  as 
respected  the  consuls  and  perhaps  also  the  tribunes  of 
the  people  and  plebeian  aediles  \  we  have  already  adverted 
to  the  fact,  that  the  Imperator  reserved  a  right  of  proposal 
binding  on  the  electors  as  regards  the  half  of  the  praetors, 
curule  aediles,  and  quaestors  to  be  annually  nominated. 
In  general  the  ancient  and  hallowed  palladia  of  popular 
freedom  were  not  touched  ;  which,  of  course,  did  not 
prevent  the  individual  refractory  tribune  of  the  people 
from  being  seriously  interfered  with  and,  in  fact,  deposed 
and  erased  from  the  roll  of  senators. 

As  the  Imperator  was  thus,  for  the  more  general  and 
more  important  questions,  his  own  minister ;  as  he  con- 
trolled the  finances  by  his  servants,  and  the  army  by  his 
adjutants  ;  and  as  the  old  republican  state- magistracies 
were  again  converted  into  municipal  magistracies  of  the 
city  of  Rome  ;  the  autocracy  was  sufficiently  established. 
The  state-  In  the  spiritual  hierarchy  on  the  other  hand  Caesar, 
hierarchy.  aith0Ugh  he  issued  a  detailed  law  respecting  this  portion  of 
the  state-economy,  made  no  material  alteration,  except  that 
he  connected  with  the  person  of  the  regent  the  supreme 
pontificate  and  perhaps  also  the  membership  of  the  higher 
priestly  colleges  generally ;  and,  partly  in  connection  with 
this,  one  new  stall  was  created  in  each  of  the  three  supreme 
colleges,  and  three  new  stalls  in  the  fourth  college  of  thr 
banquet-masters.  If  the  Roman  state-hierarchy  had  hitherto 
served  as  a  support  to  the  ruling  oligarchy,  it  might  render 
precisely  the  same   service   to  the  new  monarchy.      The 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  347 

conservative  religious  policy  of  the  senate  was  transferred 
to  the  new  kings  of  Rome ;  when  the  strictly  conservative 
Varro  published  about  this  time  his  "  Antiquities  of  Divine 
Things,"  the  great  fundamental  repository  of  Roman  state- 
theology,  he  was  allowed  to  dedicate  it  to  the  Pontifex 
Maximus  Caesar.  The  faint  lustre  which  the  worship  of 
Jovis  was  still  able  to  impart  shone  round  the  newly-estab- 
lished throne ;  and  the  old  national  faith  became  in  its 
last  stages  the  instrument  of  a  Caesarian  papacy,  which, 
however,  was  from  the  outset  but  hollow  and  feeble. 

In  judicial  matters,  first  of  all,  the  old  regal  jurisdiction  Regal 
was  re-established.  As  the  king  had  originally  been  judge  J"?n!" 
in  criminal  and  civil  causes,  without  being  legally  bound  in 
the  former  to  respect  an  appeal  to  the  prerogative  of  mercy 
in  the  people,  or  in  the  latter  to  commit  the  decision  of  the 
question  in  dispute  to  jurymen ;  so  Caesar  claimed  the  right 
of  bringing  capital  causes  as  well  as  private  processes  for 
sole  and  final  decision  to  his  own  bar,  and  disposing  of 
them  in  the  event  of  his  presence  personally,  in  the  event 
of  his  absence  by  the  city-lieutenant.  In  fact  we  find  him, 
quite  after  the  manner  of  the  ancient  kings,  now  sitting  in 
judgment  publicly  in  the  Forum  of  the  capital  on  Roman 
burgesses  accused  of  high  treason,  now  holding  a  judicial 
inquiry  in  his  house  regarding  the  client  princes  accused  of 
the  like  crime ;  so  that  the  only  privilege,  which  the  Roman 
burgesses  had  as  compared  with  the  other  subjects  of  the 
king,  seems  to  have  consisted  in  the  publicity  of  the  judicial 
procedure.  But  this  resuscitated  supreme  jurisdiction  of 
the  kings,  although  Caesar  discharged  its  duties  with 
impartiality  and  care,  could  only  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  find  practical  application  in  exceptional  cases. 

For  the  usual  procedure  in  criminal  and  civil  causes  the  Retention 
former  republican  mode  of  administering  justice  was  sub-  previous 
stantially  retained.     Criminal  causes  were  still  disposed  of  adminis- 
as  formerly  before  the  different  jury-commissions  competent  justice. 


348  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

to  deal  with  the  several  crimes,  civil  causes  partly  before 
the  court  of  inheritance  or,  as  it  was  commonly  called,  of 
the  centumviri,  partly  before  the  single  iudices ;  the  super- 
intendence of  judicial  proceedings  was  as  formerly  con- 
ducted in  the  capital  chiefly  by  the  praetors,  in  the 
provinces  by  the  governors.  Political  crimes  too  continued 
even  under  the  monarchy  to  be  referred  to  a  jury-commis- 
sion ;  the  new  ordinance,  which  Caesar  issued  respecting 
them,  specified  the  acts  legally  punishable  with  precision 
and  in  a  liberal  spirit  which  excluded  a.11  prosecution  of 
opinions,  and  it  fixed  as  the  penalty  not  death,  but  banish- 
ment. As  respects  the  selection  of  the  jurymen,  whom  the 
senatorial  party  desired  to  see  chosen  exclusively  from  the 
senate  and  the  strict  Gracchans  exclusively  from  the  eques- 
trian order,  Caesar,  faithful  to  the  principle  of  reconciling 
the  parties,  left  the  matter  on  the  footing  of  the  com- 
promise-law of  Cotta  (iv.  380),  but  with  the  modification 
— for  which  the  way  was  probably  prepared  by  the  law 
55.  of  Pompeius  of  699  (p.  138) — that  the  tribuni  aerarii  who 
came  from  the  lower  ranks  of  the  people  were  set  aside ; 
so  that  there  was  established  a  rating  for  jurymen  of  at 
least  400,000  sesterces  (^4000),  and  senators  and  equites 
now  divided  the  functions  of  jurymen  which  had  so  long 
been  an  apple  of  discord  between  them. 

The  relations  of  the  regal  and  the  republican  jurisdiction 
were  on  the  whole  co-ordinate,  so  that  any  cause  might  ba 
initiated  as  well  before  the  king's  bar  as  before  the  com- 
petent republican  tribunal,  the  latter  of  course  in  the  event 
of  collision  giving  way  ;  if  on  the  other  hand  the  one  or  the 
other  tribunal  had  pronounced  sentence,  the  cause  was 
Appeal  thereby  finally  disposed  of.  To  overturn  a  verdict  pro- 
msnarcfa.  nounced  by  the  jurymen  duly  called  to  act  in  a  civil  or 
in  a  criminal  cause  even  the  new  ruler  was  not  entitled, 
except  where  special  incidents,  such  as  corruption  or 
violence,   already  according    to  the    law   of  the   republic 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  349 

gave  occasion  for  cancelling  the  jurymen's  sentence.  On 
the  other  hand  the  principle  that,  as  concerned  any 
decree  emanating  merely  from  magistrates,  the  person 
aggrieved  by  it  was  entitled  to  appeal  to  the  superior 
of  the  decreeing  authority,  probably  obtained  even  now 
the  great  extension,  out  of  which  the  subsequent  imperial 
appellate  jurisdiction  arose ;  perhaps  all  the  magistrates 
administering  law,  at  least  the  governors  of  all  the  pro- 
vinces, were  regarded  so  far  as  subordinates  of  the  ruler, 
that  appeal  to  him  might  be  lodged  from  any  of  their 
decrees. 

Certainly  these  innovations,  the  most  important  of  which  Decay 
— the  general  extension  given  to  appeal — cannot  even  be  °fd^^i 
reckoned  absolutely  an  improvement,  by  no  means  healed  system, 
thoroughly  the  evils  from  which  the  Roman  administration 
of  justice  was  suffering.  Criminal  procedure  cannot  be 
sound  in  any  slave-state,  inasmuch  as  the  task  of  proceed- 
ing against  slaves  lies,  if  not  de  jure,  at  least  dt  facto  in  the 
hands  of  the  master.  The  Roman  master,  as  may  readily 
be  conceived,  punished  throughout  the  crime  of  his  serf, 
not  as  a  crime,  but  only  so  far  as  it  rendered  the  slave 
useless  or  disagreeable  to  him ;  slave  criit'nals  were  merely 
drafted  off  somewhat  like  oxen  addicted  to  goring,  and,  as 
the  latter  were  sold  to  the  butcher,  so  were  the  former  sold 
to  the  fencing -booth.  But  even  the  criminal  procedure 
against  free  men,  which  had  been  from  the  outset  and 
always  in  great  part  continued  to  be  a  political  process, 
had  amidst  the  disorder  of  the  last  generations  become 
transformed  from  a  grave  legal  proceeding  into  a  faction- 
fight  to  be  fought  out  by  means  of  favour,  money,  and 
violence.  The  blame  rested  jointly  on  all  that  took  part 
in  it,  on  the  magistrates,  the  jury,  the  parties,  even  the 
public  who  were  spectators  ;  but  the  most  incurable 
wounds  were  inflicted  on  justice  by  the  doings  of  the  advo- 
cates.     In  proportion  as    the  parasitic   plant   of  Roman 


350  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

forensic  eloquence  flourished,  all  positive  ideas  of  right 
became  broken  up ;  and  the  distinction,  so  difficult  of 
apprehension  by  the  public,  between  opinion  and  evidence 
was  in  reality  expelled  from  the  Roman  criminal  practice. 
"A  plain  simple  defendant,"  says  a  Roman  advocate  of 
much  experience  at  this  period,  "may  be  accused  of  any 
crime  at  pleasure  which  he  has  or  has  not  committed,  and 
will  be  certainly  condemned."  Numerous  pleadings  in 
criminal  causes  have  been  preserved  to  us  from  this  epoch; 
there  is  hardly  one  of  them  which  makes  even  a  serious 
attempt  to  fix  the  crime  in  question  and  to  put  into  proper 
shape  the  proof  or  counterproof.1  That  the  contemporary 
civil  procedure  was  likewise  in  various  respects  unsound, 
we  need  hardly  mention  ;  it  too  suffered  from  the  effects 
of  the  party  politics  mixed  up  with  all  things,  as  for 
88-81.  instance  in  the  process  of  Publius  Quinctius  (671- 
673),  where  the  most  contradictory  decisions  were  given 
according  as  Cinna  or  Sulla  had  the  ascendency  in  Rome ; 
and  the  advocates,  frequently  non- jurists,  produced  here 
also  intentionally  and  unintentionally  abundance  of  con- 
fusion. But  it  was  implied  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  that 
party  mixed  itself  up  with  such  matters  only  by  way  of 
exception,  and  that  here  the  quibbles  of  advocates  could 
not  so  rapidly  or  so  deeply  break  up  the  ideas  of  right ; 
accordingly  the  civil  pleadings  which  we  possess  from  this 
epoch,  while  not  according  to  our  stricter  ideas  effective 
compositions  for  their  purpose,  are  yet  of  a  far  less  libellous 
and  far  more  juristic  character  than  the  contemporary 
speeches    in  criminal   causes.      If  Caesar   permitted   the 

1  Plura  enim  multo,  says  Cicero  in  his  treatise  De  Oratore  (ii.  42,  178), 
primarily  with  reference  to  criminal  trials,  homines  iudicant  odio  aut  amore 
aut  cupiditate  aut  iracundia  aut  dolore  aut  laetitia  aut  spe  aut  timore  aut 
errore  aut  aliqua  permotione  mentis,  quam  veritate  aut  praescripto  aut 
iuris  norma  aliqua  aut  iudicii  formula  aut  legibus.  On  this  accordingly 
are  founded  the  further  instructions  which  he  gives  for  advocates  entering 
on  their  profession. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  35* 

curb  imposed  on  the  eloquence  of  advocates  by  Pom- 
peius  (p.  138)  to  remain,  or  even  rendered  it  more  severe, 
there  was  at  least  nothing  lost  by  this ;  and  much  was 
gained,  when  better  selected  and  better  superintended 
magistrates  and  jurymen  were  nominated  and  the  palpable 
corruption  and  intimidation  of  the  courts  came  to  an  end. 
But  the  sacred  sense  of  right  and  the  reverence  for  the 
law,  which  it  is  difficult  to  destroy  in  the  minds  of  the 
multitude,  it  is  still  more  difficult  to  reproduce.  Though 
the  legislator  did  away  with  various  abuses,  he  could  not 
heal  the  root  of  the  evil ;  and  it  might  be  doubted  whether 
time,  which  cures  everything  curable,  would  in  this  case 
bring  relief. 

The  Roman  military  system  of  this  period  was  nearly  Decay  of 
in  the  same  condition  as  the  Carthaginian  at  the  time  of  mjijtary 
HannibaL  The  governing  classes  furnished  only  the  system, 
officers ;  the  subjects,  plebeians  and  provincials,  formed 
the  army.  The  general  was,  financially  and  militarily, 
almost  independent  of  the  central  government,  and, 
whether  in  fortune  or  misfortune,  substantially  left  to 
himself  and  to  the  resources  of  his  province.  Civic 
and  even  national  spirit  had  vanished  from  the  army, 
and  the  esprit  de  corps  was  alone  left  as  a  bond  of  inward 
union.  The  army  had  ceased  to  be  an  instrument  of 
the  commonwealth ;  in  a  political  point  of  view  it  had 
no  will  of  its  own,  but  it  was  doubtless  able  to  adopt 
that  of  the  master  who  wielded  it;  in  a  military  point 
of  view  it  sank  under  the  ordinary  miserable  leaders  into 
a  disorganized  useless  rabble,  but  under  a  right  general 
it  attained  a  military  perfection  which  the  burgess -army 
could  never  reach.  The  class  of  officers  especially  had 
deeply  degenerated.  The  higher  ranks,  senators  and 
equites,  grew  more  and  more  unused  to  arms.  While 
formerly  there  had  been  a  zealous  competition  for  the 
posts  of  staff  officers,  now  every  man  of  equestrian  rank, 


352  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

who  chose  to  serve,  was  sure  of  a  military  tribuneship,  and 
several  of  these  posts  had  even  to  be  filled  with  men  of 
humbler  rank  ;  and  any  man  of  quality  at  all  who  still 
served  sought  at  least  to  finish  his  term  of  service  in  Sicily 
or  some  other  province  where  he  was  sure  not  to  face  the 
enemy.  Officers  of  ordinary  bravery  and  efficiency  were 
stared  at  as  prodigies  ;  as  to  Pompeius  especially,  his 
contemporaries  practised  a  military  idolatry  which  in  every 
respect  compromised  them.  The  staff,  as  a  rule,  gave  the 
signal  for  desertion  and  for  mutiny;  in  spite  of  the  culpable 
indulgence  of  the  commanders  proposals  for  the  cashiering 
of  officers  of  rank  were  daily  occurrences.  We  still  possess 
the  picture — drawn  not  without  irony  by  Caesar's  own 
hand — of  the  state  of  matters  at  his  own  headquarters 
when  orders  were  given  to  march  against  Ariovistus,  of 
the  cursing  and  weeping,  and  preparing  of  testaments, 
and  presenting  even  of  requests  for  furlough.  In  the 
soldiery  not  a  trace  of  the  better  classes  could  any  longer 
be  discovered.  Legally  the  general  obligation  to  bear 
arms  still  subsisted ;  but  the  levy,  if  resorted  to  alongside 
of  enlisting,  took  place  in  the  most  irregular  manner  ; 
numerous  persons  liable  to  serve  were  wholly  passed  over, 
while  those  once  levied  were  retained  thirty  years  and 
longer  beneath  the  eagles.  The  Roman  burgess -cavalry 
now  merely  vegetated  as  a  sort  of  mounted  noble  guard, 
whose  perfumed  cavaliers  and  exquisite  high-bred  horses 
only  played  a  part  in  the  festivals  of  the  capital ;  the  so- 
called  burgess -infantry  was  a  troop  of  mercenaries  swept 
together  from  the  lowest  ranks  of  the  burgess-population; 
the  subjects  furnished  the  cavalry  and  the  light  troops 
exclusively,  and  came  to  be  more  and  more  extensively 
employed  also  in  the  infantry.  The  posts  of  centurions 
in  the  legions,  on  which  in  the  mode  of  warfare  of  that 
time  the  efficiency  of  the  divisions  essentially  depended, 
and  to  which  according  to  the  national  military  constitu- 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  353 

tion  the  soldier  served  his  way  upward  with  the  pike,  were 
now  not  merely  regularly  conferred  according  to  favour, 
but  were  not  unfrequently  sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  In 
consequence  of  the  bad  financial  management  of  the 
government  and  the  venality  and  fraud  of  the  great 
majority  of  the  magistrates,  the  payment  of  the  soldiers 
was  extremely  defective  and  irregular. 

The  necessary  consequence  of  this  was,  that  in  the 
ordinary  course  of  things  the  Roman  armies  pillaged  the 
provincials,  mutinied  against  their  officers,  and  ran  off  in 
presence  of  the  enemy ;  instances  occurred  where  consider- 
able armies,  such  as  the  Macedonian  army  of  Piso  in  697  67. 
(p.  104/),  were  without  any  proper  defeat  utterly  ruined, 
simply  by  this  misconduct.  Capable  leaders  on  the  other 
hand,  such  as  Pompeius,  Caesar,  Gabinius,  formed  doubt- 
less out  of  the  existing  materials  able  and  effective,  and 
to  some  extent  exemplary,  armies  ;  but  these  armies 
belonged  far  more  to  their  general  than  to  the  common- 
wealth. The  still  more  complete  decay  of  the  Roman 
marine  —  which,  moreover,  had  remained  an  object  of 
antipathy  to  the  Romans  and  had  never  been  fully 
nationalized  —  scarcely  requires  to  be  mentioned.  Here 
too,  on  all  sides,  everything  that  could  be  ruined  at  all 
had  been  reduced  to  ruin  under  the  oligarchic  govern- 
ment. 

The  reorganization  of  the  Roman  military  system  by  Its  reor- 
Caesar  was  substantially  limited  to  the  tightening  and  ^Caesar. 
strengthening  of  the  reins  of  discipline,  which  had  been 
relaxed  under  the  negligent  and  incapable  supervision 
previously  subsisting.  The  Roman  military  system  seemed 
to  him  neither  to  need,  nor  to  be  capable  of,  radical 
reform  ;  he  accepted  the  elements  of  the  army,  just  as 
Hannibal  had  accepted  them.  The  enactment  of  his 
municipal  ordinance  that,  in  order  to  the  holding  of  a 
municipal  magistracy  or  sitting  in  the  municipal  council 
VOL.  V  156 


354 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Foreign 
mercen- 
aries. 


Adjutants 
of  the 
legion. 


before  the  thirtieth  year,  three  years'  service  on  horseback 
— that  is,  as  officer — or  six  years'  service  on  foot  should  be 
required,  proves  indeed  that  he  wished  to  attract  the  better 
classes  to  the  army ;  but  it  proves  with  equal  clearness  that 
amidst  the  ever-increasing  prevalence  of  an  unwarlike  spirit 
in  the  nation  he  himself  held  it  no  longer  possible  to 
associate  the  holding  of  an  honorary  office  with  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  time  of  service  unconditionally  as  hitherto. 
This  very  circumstance  serves  to  explain  why  Caesar  made 
no  attempt  to  re-establish  the  Roman  burgess -cavalry. 
The  levy  was  better  arranged,  the  time  of  service  was 
regulated  and  abridged  ;  otherwise  matters  remained  on 
the  footing  that  the  infantry  of  the  line  were  raised  chiefly 
from  the  lower  orders  of  the  Roman  burgesses,  the  cavalry 
and  the  light  infantry  from  the  subjects.  That  nothing 
was  done  for  the  reorganization  of  the  fleet,  is  surprising. 

It  was  an  innovation — hazardous  beyond  doubt  even  in 
the  view  of  its  author — to  which  the  untrustworthy  character 
of  the  cavalry  furnished  by  the  subjects  compelled  him 
(p.  77),  that  Caesar  for  the  first  time  deviated  from  the  old 
Roman  system  of  never  fighting  with  mercenaries,  and  in- 
corporated in  the  cavalry  hired  foreigners,  especially  Germans. 
Another  innovation  was  the  appointment  of  adjutants  of  the 
legion  {legati  legionis).  Hitherto  the  military  tribunes, 
nominated  partly  by  the  burgesses,  partly  by  the  governor 
concerned,  had  led  the  legions  in  such  a  way  that  six  of 
them  were  placed  over  each  legion,  and  the  command 
alternated  among  these  ;  a  single  commandant  of  the 
legion  was  appointed  by  the  general  only  as  a  temporary 
and  extraordinary  measure.  In  subsequent  times  on  the 
other  hand  those  colonels  or  adjutants  of  legions  appear 
as  a  permanent  and  organic  institution,  and  as  nominated 
no  longer  by  the  governor  whom  they  obey,  but  by  the 
supreme  command  in  Rome  ;  both  changes  seem  referable 
to  Caesar's  arrangements  connected  with  the  Gabinian  law 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  355 

(iv.  388).  The  reason  for  the  introduction  of  this  important 
intervening  step  in  the  military  hierarchy  must  be  sought 
partly  in  the  necessity  for  a  more  energetic  centralization  of 
the  command,  partly  in  the  felt  want  of  capable  superior 
officers,  partly  and  chiefly  in  the  design  of  providing  a 
counterpoise  to  the  governor  by  associating  with  him  one 
or  more  colonels  nominated  by  the  Imperator. 

The  most  essential  change  in  the  military  system  con-  The 
sisted  in  the  institution  of  a  permanent  military  head  in  the  ^^°™ 
person  of  the  Imperator,  who,  superseding  the  previous  ship-in- 
unmilitary  and  in  every  respect  incapable  governing  cor- 
poration, united  in  his  hands  the  whole  control  of  the 
army,  and  thus  converted  it  from  a  direction  which  for 
the  most  part  was  merely  nominal  into  a  real  and  energetic 
supreme  command.  We  are  not  properly  informed  as  to  the 
position  which  this  supreme  command  occupied  towards  the 
special  commands  hitherto  omnipotent  in  their  respective 
spheres.  Probably  the  analogy  of  the  relation  subsisting 
between  the  praetor  and  the  consul  or  the  consul  and 
the  dictator  served  generally  as  a  basis,  so  that,  while  the 
governor  in  his  own  right  retained  the  supreme  military 
authority  in  his  province,  the  Imperator  was  entitled  at 
any  moment  to  take  it  away  from  him  and  assume  it  for 
himself  or  his  delegates,  and,  while  the  authority  of  the 
governor  was  confined  to  the  province,  that  of  the  Im- 
perator, like  the  regal  and  the  earlier  consular  authority, 
extended  over  the  whole  empire.  Moreover  it  is  ex- 
tremely probable  that  now  the  nomination  of  the  officers, 
both  the  military  tribunes  and  the  centurions,  so  far  as  it 
had  hitherto  belonged  to  the  governor,1  as  well  as  the  nomi- 
nation of  the  new  adjutants  of  the  legion,  passed  directly 
into  the  hands  of  the  Imperator ;  and  in  like  manner  even 
now  the  arrangement  of  the  levies,  the  bestowal  of  leave  of 

1  With  the  nomination  of  a  part   of  the   military  tribunes   by  the 
burgesses  (in.  13)  Caesar — in  this  also  a  democrat — did  not  meddle. 


356  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

absence,  and  the  more  important  criminal  cases,  may  have 
been  submitted  to  the  judgment  of  the  commander-in- 
chief.  With  this  limitation  of  the  powers  of  the  governors 
and  with  the  regulated  control  of  the  Imperator,  there  was 
no  great  room  to  apprehend  in  future  either  that  the  armies 
might  be  utterly  disorganized  or  that  they  might  be  con- 
verted into  retainers  personally  devoted  to  their  respective 
officers. 
Caesar's  But,  however  decidedly  and  urgently  the  circumstances 

plans  pointed  to  military  monarchy,  and  however  distinctly  Caesar 

took  the  supreme  command  exclusively  for  himself,  he  was 
nevertheless  not  at  all  inclined  to  establish  his  authority  by 
Defence       means  of,  and  on,  the  army.      No  doubt  he  deemed  a 
? L~?  standing  army  necessary  for  his   state,  but   only  because 

from  its  geographical  position  it  required  a  comprehensive 
regulation  of  the  frontiers  and  permanent  frontier  garrisons. 
Partly  at  earlier  periods,  partly  during  the  recent  civil  war, 
he  had  worked  at  the  tranquillizing  of  Spain,  and  had 
established  strong  positions  for  the  defence  of  the  frontier 
in  Africa  along  the  great  desert,  and  in  the  north-west  of 
the  empire  along  the  line  of  the  Rhine.  He  occupied 
himself  with  similar  plans  for  the  regions  on  the  Euphrates 
and  on  the  Danube.  Above  all  he  designed  an  expedition 
against  the  Parthians,  to  avenge  the  day  of  Carrhae ;  he 
had  destined  three  years  for  this  war,  and  was  resolved 
to  settle  accounts  with  these  dangerous  enemies  once  for  all 
and  not  less  cautiously  than  thoroughly.  In  like  manner 
he  had  projected  the  scheme  of  attacking  Burebistas  king 
of  the  Getae,  who  was  greatly  extending  his  power  on  both 
sides  of  the  Danube  (p.  106),  and  of  protecting  Italy  in  the 
north-east  by  border-districts  similar  to  those  which  he  had 
created  for  it  in  Gaul.  On  the  other  hand  there  is  no 
evidence  at  all  that  Caesar  contemplated  like  Alexander 
a  career  of  victory  extending  indefinitely  far ;  it  is  said 
indeed   that  he  had   intended  to  march  from  Parthia  to 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  357 

the  Caspian  and   from  this  to  the   Black   Sea  and  then 

along  its   northern   shores    to  the   Danube,   to  annex   to 

the  empire  all  Scythia  and  Germany  as  far  as  the  Northern 

Ocean — which  according  to  the  notions  of  that  time  was 

not  so  very  distant  from  the  Mediterranean — and  to  return 

home  through  Gaul ;  but  no  authority  at  all  deserving  of 

credit  vouches  for  the  existence  of  these  fabulous  projects. 

In   the  case  of  a  state   which,  like   the   Roman   state  of 

Caesar,    already   included   a    mass    of   barbaric    elements 

difficult   to  be  controlled,  and  had   still  for  centuries   to 

come   more  than   enough   to  do   with    their  assimilation, 

such  conquests,  even  granting  their  military  practicability, 

would  have  been  nothing  but  blunders  far  more  brilliant 

and  far  worse  than   the  Indian  expedition  of  Alexander. 

Judging    both    from    Caesar's    conduct    in    Britain    and 

Germany  and    from    the  conduct  of  those   who  became 

the  heirs   of  his   political   ideas,  it    is   in  a  high   degree 

probable  that   Caesar    with   Scipio   Aemilianus   called  on 

the  gods  not  to  increase  the  empire,  but  to  preserve  it, 

and  that  his  schemes   of  conquest  restricted   themselves 

to  a  settlement  of  the  frontier — measured,  it  is  true,  by 

his  own  great  scale — which  should  secure  the  line  of  the 

Euphrates  and,  instead   of  the  fluctuating  and   militarily 

useless  boundary  of  the  empire  on  the  north-east,  should 

establish  and  render  defensible  the  line  of  the  Danube. 

But,  if  it  remains  a  mere  probability  that  Caesar  ought  Attempts 

not  to  be  designated  a  world-conqueror  in  the  same  sense  °o  J^I 

as  Alexander  and   Napoleon,  it   is  quite  certain  that  his  military 

,    ,  .  ,  •         -i  despotism, 

design   was   not  to   rest   his   new   monarchy  primarily  on 

the  support  of  the  army  nor  generally  to  place  the  military 
authority  above  the  civil,  but  to  incorporate  it  with,  and  as 
far  as  possible  subordinate  it  to,  the  civil  commonwealth. 
The  invaluable  pillars  of  a  military  state,  those  old  and  far- 
famed  Gallic  legions,  were  honourably  dissolved  just  on 
account    of  the    incompatibility   of   their   esprit  de   corps 


358  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

with  a  civil  commonwealth,  and  their  glorious  names 
were  only  perpetuated  in  newly-founded  urban  communi- 
ties. The  soldiers  presented  by  Caesar  with  allotments 
of  land  on  their  discharge  were  not,  like  those  of  Sulla, 
settled  together — as  it  were  militarily — in  colonies  of  their 
own,  but,  especially  when  they  settled  in  Italy,  were  isolated 
as  much  as  possible  and  scattered  throughout  the  penin- 
sula j  it  was  only  in  the  case  of  the  portions  of  the 
Campanian  land  that  remained  for  disposal,  that  an 
aggregation  of  the  old  soldiers  of  Caesar  could  not  be 
avoided.  Caesar  sought  to  solve  the  difficult  task  of 
keeping  the  soldiers  of  a  standing  army  within  the  spheres 
of  civil  life,  partly  by  retaining  the  former  arrangement 
which  prescribed  merely  certain  years  of  service,  and  not 
a  service  strictly  constant,  that  is,  uninterrupted  by  any 
discharge  ;  partly  by  the  already- mentioned  shortening 
of  the  term  of  service,  which  occasioned  a  speedier  change 
in  the  personal  composition  of  the  army  ;  partly  by  the 
regular  settlement  of  the  soldiers  who  had  served  out  their 
time  as  agricultural  colonists  ;  partly  and  principally  by 
keeping  the  army  aloof  from  Italy  and  generally  from  the 
proper  seats  of  the  civil  and  political  life  of  the  nation, 
and  directing  the  soldier  to  the  points,  where  according 
to  the  opinion  of  the  great  king  he  was  alone  in  his  place 
— to  the  frontier  stations,  that  he  might  ward  off  the 
extraneous  foe. 
Absence  The  true  criterion  also  of  the  military  state — the  develop- 

ed corps  of  ment  0f5  an(j  trie  privileged  position  assigned  to,  the  corps 
of  guards — is  not  to  be  met  with  in  the  case  of  Caesar. 
Although  as  respects  the  army  on  active  service  the  institu- 
tion of  a  special  bodyguard  for  the  general  had  been 
already  long  in  existence  (iii.  460),  in  Caesar's  system  this 
fell  completely  into  the  background  ;  his  praetorian  cohort 
seems  to  have  essentially  consisted  merely  of  orderly  officers 
or  non-military  attendants,  and  never  to  have  been  in  the 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  359 

proper  sense  a  select  corps,  consequently  never  an  object 
of  jealousy  to  the  troops  of  the  line.  While  Caesar  even 
as  general  practically  dropped  the  bodyguard,  he  still  less 
as  king  tolerated  a  guard  round  his  person.  Although 
constantly  beset  by  lurking  assassins  and  well  aware  of 
it,  he  yet  rejected  the  proposal  of  the  senate  to  institute 
a  select  guard ;  dismissed,  as  soon  as  things  grew  in  some 
measure  quiet,  the  Spanish  escort  which  he  had  made  use 
of  at  first  in  the  capital ;  and  contented  himself  with  the 
retinue  of  lictors  sanctioned  by  traditional  usage  for  the 
Roman  supreme  magistrates. 

However  much  of  the  idea  of  his  party  and  of  his  youth  Impracti- 
— to  found  a  Periclean  government  in  Rome  not  by  virtue  ^  J^^ 
of  the  sword,  but  by  virtue  of  the  confidence  of  the  nation 
— Caesar  had  been  obliged  to  abandon  in  the  struggle  with 
realities,  he  retained  even  now  the  fundamental  idea — of 
not  founding  a  military  monarchy — with  an  energy  to  which 
history  scarcely  supplies  a  parallel.  Certainly  this  too  was 
an  impracticable  ideal — it  was  the  sole  illusion,  in  regard 
to  which  the  earnest  longing  of  that  vigorous  mind  was 
more  powerful  than  its  clear  judgment.  A  government, 
such  as  Caesar  had  in  view,  was  not  merely  of  necessity 
in  its  nature  highly  personal,  and  so  liable  to  perish  with 
the  death  of  its  author  just  as  the  kindred  creations  of 
Pericles  and  Cromwell  with  the  death  of  their  founders  ; 
but,  amidst  the  deeply  disorganized  state  of  the  nation,  it 
was  not  at  all  credible  that  the  eighth  king  of  Rome  would 
succeed  even  for  his  lifetime  in  ruling,  as  his  seven  prede- 
cessors had  ruled,  his  fellow-burgesses  merely  by  virtue  of 
law  and  justice,  and  as  little  probable  that  he  would  suc- 
ceed in  incorporating  the  standing  army — after  it  had  during 
the  last  civil  war  learned  its  power  and  unlearned  its  rever- 
ence— once  more  as  a  subservient  element  in  civil  society. 
To  any  one  who  calmly  considered  to  what  extent  reverence 
for  the  law  had  disappeared  from  the  lowest  as  from  the 


3<5o  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

highest  ranks  of  society,  the  former  hope  must  have  seemed 
almost  a  dream  ;  and,  if  with  the  Marian  reform  of  the 
military  system  the  soldier  generally  had  ceased  to  be  a 
citizen  (iii.  461),  the  Campanian  mutiny  and  the  battle-field 
of  Thapsus  showed  with  painful  clearness  the  nature  of  the 
support  which  the  army  now  lent  to  the  law.  Even  the 
great  democrat  could  only  with  difficulty  and  imperfectly 
hold  in  check  the  powers  which  he  had  unchained  ; 
thousands  of  swords  still  at  his  signal  flew  from  the 
scabbard,  but  they  were  no  longer  equally  ready  upon 
that  signal  to  return  to  the  sheath.  Fate  is  mightier 
than  genius.  Caesar  desired  to  become  the  restorer  of 
the  civil  commonwealth,  and  became  the  founder  of  the 
military  monarchy  which  he  abhorred ;  he  overthrew  the 
regime  of  aristocrats  and  bankers  in  the  state,  only  to 
put  a  military  regime  in  their  place,  and  the  common- 
wealth continued  as  before  to  be  tyrannized  and  worked 
for  profit  by  a  privileged  minority.  And  yet  it  is  a 
privilege  of  the  highest  natures  thus  creatively  to  err. 
The  brilliant  attempts  of  great  men  to  realize  the  ideal, 
though  they  do  not  reach  their  aim,  form  the  best  treasure 
of  the  nations.  It  was  owing  to  the  work  of  Caesar  that 
the  Roman  military  state  did  not  become  a  police-state  till 
after  the  lapse  of  several  centuries,  and  that  the  Roman 
Imperators,  however  little  they  otherwise  resembled  the 
great  founder  of  their  sovereignty,  yet  employed  the  soldier 
in  the  main  not  against  the  citizen  but  against  the  public 
foe,  and  esteemed  both  nation  and  army  too  highly  to  set 
the  latter  as  constable  over  the  former. 
Financial  The  regulation  of  financial  matters  occasioned  compara- 

f£™mistra*  ^vely  ntt^e  difficulty  in  consequence  of  the  solid  foundations 
which  the  immense  magnitude  of  the  empire  and  the 
exclusion  of  the  system  of  credit  supplied.  If  the  state 
had  hitherto  found  itself  in  constant  financial  embarrass- 
ment, the  fault  was  far  from  chargeable  on  the  inadequacy 


Hon 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  361 

of  the  state  revenues ;  on  the  contrary  these  had  of  late 
years    immensely    increased.       To    the    earlier    aggregate 
income,    which    is    estimated    at     200,000,000    sesterces 
(^2,000,000),    there    were    added    85,000,000    sesterces 
(^850,000)  by  the  erection  of  the  provinces  of  Bithynia- 
Pontus  and   Syria  ;   which  increase,  along  with  the  other 
newly  opened  up  or  augmented  sources  of  income,  especi- 
ally from  the  constantly  increasing   produce  of  the  taxes 
on   luxuries,   far   outweighed   the   loss   of   the   Campanian 
rents.      Besides,  immense  sums  had   been  brought  from 
extraordinary  sources  into  the  exchequer  through  Lucullus, 
Metellus,  Pompeius,  Cato  and  others.     The  cause  of  the 
financial  embarrassments  rather  lay  partly  in  the  increase 
of  the   ordinary  and   extraordinary  expenditure,  partly  in 
the  disorder  of  management.      Under  the  former  head,  the 
distribution  of  corn  to  the  multitude  of  the  capital  claimed 
almost    exorbitant    sums ;    through    the    extension    given 
to  it  by  Cato  in  691  (iv.  490)  the  yearly  expenditure  for  63. 
that  purpose  amounted  to  30,000,000  sesterces  (,£300,000) 
and  after  the  abolition  in  696  of  the  compensation  hitherto  58. 
paid,  it  swallowed  up  even  a  fifth  of  the  state  revenues. 
The   military  budget  also   had  risen,  since   the  garrisons 
of  Cilicia,  Syria,  and  Gaul   had  been  added   to  those  of 
Spain,  Macedonia,  and  the  other  provinces.     Among  the 
extraordinary  items  of  expenditure  must  be  named  in  the 
first   place   the  great  cost  of  fitting  out  fleets,  on  which, 
for   example,   five    years    after   the    great    razzia    of   687,  67. 
34,000,000  sesterces  (^340,000)  were  expended  at  once. 
Add    to    this    the    very    considerable    sums    which    were 
consumed    in    wars    and    warlike    preparations  ;    such    as 
18,000,000   sesterces   (^180,000)  paid  at  once   to  Piso 
merely  for  the  outfit  of  the  Macedonian  army,  24,000,000 
sesterces  (^240,000)  even  annually  to  Pompeius  for  the 
maintenance   and   pay  of  the   Spanish   army,   and  similar 
sums  to  Caesar  for  the  Gallic  legions.     But  considerable 


362  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

as  were  these  demands  made  on  the  Roman  exchequer, 
it  would  still  have  been  able  probably  to  meet  them,  had 
not  its  administration  once  so  exemplary  been  affected 
by  the  universal  laxity  and  dishonesty  of  this  age ;  the 
payments  of  the  treasury  were  often  suspended  meiely 
because  of  the  neglect  to  call  up  its  outstanding  claims. 
The  magistrates  placed  over  it,  two  of  the  quaestors — 
young  men  annually  changed — contented  themselves  at  the 
best  with  inaction;  among  the  official  staff  of  clerks  and 
others,  formerly  so  justly  held  in  high  esteem  for  its  in- 
tegrity, the  worst  abuses  now  prevailed,  more  especially 
since  such  posts  had  come  to  be  bought  and  sold. 
Financial  As  soon  however  as  the  threads  of  Roman  state-finance 

Caesar!  °  were  concentrated  no  longer  as  hitherto  in  the  senate,  but 
in  the  cabinet  of  Caesar,  new  life,  stricter  order,  and  more 
compact  connection  at  once  pervaded  all  the  wheels  and 
springs  of  that  great  machine.  The  two  institutions,  v/hich 
originated  with  Gaius  Gracchus  and  ate  like  a  gangrene  into 
the  Roman  financial  system — the  leasing  of  the  direct 
taxes,  and  the  distributions  of  grain — were  partly  abolished, 
partly  remodelled.  Caesar  wished  not,  like  his  predecessor, 
to  hold  the  nobility  in  check  by  the  banker-aristocracy  and 
the  populace  of  the  capital,  but  to  set  them  aside  and  to 
deliver  the  commonwealth  from  all  parasites  whether  of  high 
or  lower  rank ;  and  therefore  he  went  in  these  two  important 
questions  not  with  Gaius  Gracchus,  but  with  the  oligarch 
Leasing  of  Sulla.  The  leasing  system  was  allowed  to  continue  for  the 
taxes  indirect  taxes,  in  the  case  of  which  it  was  very  old  and — 

abolished,  under  the  maxim  of  Roman  financial  administration,  which 
was  retained  inviolable  also  by  Caesar,  that  the  levying  of 
the  taxes  should  at  any  cost  be  kept  simple  and  readily 
manageable — absolutely  could  not  be  dispensed  with.  But 
the  direct  taxes  were  thenceforth  universally  either  treated, 
like  the  African  and  Sardinian  deliveries  of  corn  and  oil, 
as  contributions  in  kind  to  be  directly  supplied  to  the  state, 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  363 

or  converted,  like  the  revenues  of  Asia  Minor,  into  fixed 
money  payments,  in  which  case  the  collection  of  the 
several  sums  payable   was   entrusted  to  the  tax  -  districts 

themselves. 

The  corn-distributions  in  the  capital  had  hitherto  been  Reform  of 
looked  on  as  a  profitable  prerogative  of  the  community  bmionof 
which  ruled  and,  because  it  ruled,  had  to  be  fed  by  its  corn, 
subjects.  This  infamous  principle  was  set  aside  by  Caesar  ; 
but  it  could  not  be  overlooked  that  a  multitude  of  wholly 
destitute  burgesses  had  been  protected  solely  by  these 
largesses  of  food  from  starvation.  In  this  aspect  Caesar 
retained  them.  While  according  to  the  Sempronian 
ordinance  renewed  by  Cato  every  Roman  burgess  settled 
in  Rome  had  legally  a  claim  to  bread -corn  without 
payment,  this  list  of  recipients,  which  had  at  last  risen  to 
the  number  of  320,000,  was  reduced  by  the  exclusion  of 
all  individuals  having  means  or  otherwise  provided  for  to 
150,000,  and  this  number  was  fixed  once  for  all  as  the 
maximum  number  of  recipients  of  free  corn ;  at  the  same 
time  an  annual  revision  of  the  list  was  ordered,  so  that  the 
places  vacated  by  removal  or  death  might  be  again  filled 
up  with  the  most  needful  among  the  applicants.  By  this 
conversion  of  the  political  privilege  into  a  provision  for  the 
poor,  a  principle  remarkable  in  a  moral  as  well  as  in  a 
historical  point  of  view  came  for  the  first  time  into  living 
operation.  Civil  society  but  slowly  and  gradually  works  its 
way  to  a  perception  of  the  interdependence  of  interests ;  in 
earlier  antiquity  the  state  doubtless  protected  its  members 
from  the  public  enemy  and  the  murderer,  but  it  was  not 
bound  to  protect  the  totally  helpless  fellow-citizen  from  the 
worse  enemy,  want,  by  affording  the  needful  means  of 
subsistence.  It  was  the  Attic  civilization  which  first 
developed,  in  the  Solonian  and  post-Solonian  legislation, 
the  principle  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  community  to  provide 
for  its  invalids  and  indeed  for  its  poor  generally    and  it  was 


income. 


364  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

Caesar  that  first  developed  what  in  the  restricted  compass 
of  Attic  life  had  remained  a  municipal  matter  into  an 
organic  institution  of  state,  and  transformed  an  arrangement, 
which  was  a  burden  and  a  disgrace  for  the  commonwealth, 
into  the  first  of  those  institutions — in  modern  times  as  count- 
less as  they  are  beneficial — where  the  infinite  depth  of  human 
compassion  contends  with  the  infinite  depth  of  human  misery. 
The  In  addition  to  these  fundamental  reforms  a  thorough 

budget  of  vision  of  the  income  and  expenditure  took  place.  The 
ordinary  sources  of  income  were  everywhere  regulated 
and  fixed.  Exemption  from  taxation  was  conferred  on  not 
a  few  communities  and  even  on  whole  districts,  whether 
indirectly  by  the  bestowal  of  the  Roman  or  Latin  franchise, 
or  directly  by  special  privilege ;  it  was  obtained  e.g.  by  all 
the  Sicilian  communities  *  in  the  former,  by  the  town  of 
Ilion  in  the  latter  way.  Still  greater  was  the  number  of 
those  whose  proportion  of  tribute  was  lowered  ;  the  com- 
munities in  Further  Spain,  for  instance,  already  after 
Caesar's  governorship  had  on  his  suggestion  a  reduction  of 
tribute  granted  to  them  by  the  senate,  and  now  the  most 
oppressed  province  of  Asia  had  not  only  the  levying  of  its 
direct  taxes  facilitated,  but  also  a  third  of  them  wholly 
remitted.  The  newly- added  taxes,  such  as  those  of 
the  communities  subdued  in  Illyria  and  above  all  of  the 
Gallic  communities — which  latter  together  paid  annually 
40,000,000  sesterces  (^400,000) — were  fixed  throughout 
on  a  low  scale.  It  is  true  on  the  other  hand  that  various 
towns  such  as  Little  Leptis  in  Africa,  Sulci  in  Sardinia,  and 
several  Spanish  communities,  had  their  tribute  raised  by  way 
of  penalty  for  their  conduct  during  the  last  war.     The  very 

1  Varro   attests    the    discontinuance  of    the  Sicilian   decutnae    in    a 
treatise  published  after  Cicero's  death  (De  R.  R.  2  praef. )  where  he  names 

as  the   corn  -  provinces   whence    Rome  derives  her  subsistence — only 

Africa  and  Sardinia,  no  longer  Sicily.  The  Latinitas,  which  Sicily 
obtained,  must  thus  doubtless  have  included  this  immunity  (comp. 
Staatsrecht,  iii.  684). 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  365 

lucrative  Italian  harbour-tolls  abolished  in  the  recent  times 

of  anarchy  (iv.  502)  were  re-established  all  the  more  readily, 

that  this  tax  fell  essentially  on  luxuries  imported  from  the 

east     To  these  new  or  revived  sources  of  ordinary  income 

were    added    the    sums   which   accrued    by   extraordinary 

means,  especially  in  consequence  of  the  civil  war,  to  the 

victor — the  booty  collected  in  Gaul ;  the  stock  of  cash  in 

the   capital;    the    treasures    taken    from    the    Italian    and 

Spanish  temples ;  the  sums  raised  in  the  shape  of  forced 

loan,    compulsory   present,   or    fine,   from    the   dependent 

communities    and    dynasts,    and    the    pecuniary   penalties 

imposed  in  a  similar  way  by  judicial  sentence,  or  simply  by 

sending  an  order  to  pay,  on  individual  wealthy  Romans; 

and    above   all  things    the   proceeds    from    the    estate  of 

defeated    opponents.      How  productive   these   sources   of 

income  were,  we  may  learn  from  the  fact,  that  the  fine  of 

the  African   capitalists   who  sat    in   the   opposition-senate 

alone   amounted   to   100,000,000  sesterces  (;£i, 000,000) 

and  the   price   paid  by  the   purchasers  of  the  property  of 

Pompeius    to    70,000,000    sesterces    (^700,000).      This 

course   was  necessary,  because  the  power  of  the  beaten 

nobility  rested  in  great  measure   on  their  colossal  wealth 

and  could  only  be  effectually  broken  by  imposing  on  them 

the  defrayment  of  the  costs  of  the  war.     But  the  odium  of 

the   confiscations  was  in  some  measure  mitigated  by  the 

fact  that  Caesar  directed  their  proceeds  solely  to  the  benefit 

of  the  state,  and,  instead  of  overlooking  after  the  manner 

of  Sulla  any  act  of  fraud   in  his   favourites,  exacted  the 

purchase -money  with  rigour  even  from  his  most  faithful 

adherents,  e.g.  from  Marcus  Antonius. 

In  the  expenditure  a  diminution  was  in  the  first  place  The 

obtained  by  the  considerable  restriction  of  the  largesses  of  budSe*  of 

_  .       .      .  expeadi- 

grain.     The  distribution  of  corn  to  the  poor  of  the  capital  ture. 

which  was  retained,  as  well  as  the  kindred  supply  of  oil  newly 

introduced  by  Caesar  for  the  Roman  baths,  were  at  least 


366  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

in  great  part  charged  once  for  all  on  the  contributions  in 
kind  from  Sardinia  and  especially  from  Africa,  and  were 
thereby  wholly  or  for  the  most  part  kept  separate  from  the 
exchequer.  On  the  other  hand  the  regular  expenditure  for 
the  military  system  was  increased  partly  by  the  augmenta- 
tion of  the  standing  army,  partly  by  the  raising  of  the  pay 
of  the  legionary  from  480  sesterces  (,£5)  to  900  (,£9) 
annually.  Both  steps  were  in  fact  indispensable.  There 
was  a  total  want  of  any  real  defence  for  the  frontiers,  and 
an  indispensable  preliminary  to  it  was  a  considerable 
increase  of  the  army.  The  doubling  of  the  pay  was 
doubtless  employed  by  Caesar  to  attach  his  soldiers 
firmly  to  him  (p.  199),  but  was  not  introduced  as  a 
permanent  innovation  on  that  account.  The  former  pay 
of  i£  sesterces  (3  |d.)  per  day  had  been  fixed  in  very  ancient 
times,  when  money  had  an  altogether  different  value  from 
that  which  it  had  in  the  Rome  of  Caesar's  day ;  it  could 
only  have  been  retained  down  to  a  period  when  the 
common  day-labourer  in  the  capital  earned  by  the  labour 
of  his  hands  daily  on  an  average  3  sesterces  (7|d.), 
because  in  those  times  the  soldier  entered  the  army  not  for 
the  sake  of  the  pay,  but  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  the — in 
great  measure  illicit — perquisites  of  military  service.  The 
first  condition  in  order  to  a  serious  reform  in  the  military 
system,  and  to  the  getting  rid  of  those  irregular  gains  of  the 
soldier  which  formed  a  burden  mostly  on  the  provincials, 
was  an  increase  suitable  to  the  times  in  the  regular  pay ; 
and  the  fixing  of  it  at  z\  sesterces  (6|d.)  may  be  regarded 
as  an  equitable  step,  while  the  great  burden  thereby 
imposed  on  the  treasury  was  a  necessary,  and  in  its  con 
sequences  a  beneficial,  course. 

Of  the  amount  of  the  extraordinary  expenses  which 
Caesar  had  to  undertake  or  voluntarily  undertook,  it  is 
difficult  to  form  a  conception.  The  wars  themselves 
consumed  enormous  sums;    and   sums    perhaps   not   less 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  367 

were  required  to  fulfil  the  promises  which  Caesar  had  been 
obliged  to  make  during  the  civil  war.  It  was  a  bad 
example  and  one  unhappily  not  lost  sight  of  in  the 
sequel,  that  every  common  soldier  received  for  his  partici- 
pation in  the  civil  war  20,000  sesterces  (^200),  every 
burgess  of  the  multitude  in  the  capital  for  his  non-participa- 
tion in  it  300  sesterces  (£3)  as  an  addition  to  his  aliment; 
but  Caesar,  after  having  once  under  the  pressure  of 
circumstances  pledged  his  word,  was  too  much  of  a  king  to 
abate  from  it.  Besides,  Caesar  answered  innumerable 
demands  of  honourable  liberality,,  and  put  into  circulation 
immense  sums  for  building  more  especially,  which  had 
been  shamefully  neglected  during  the  financial  distress  of 
the  last  times  of  the  republic — the  cost  of  his  buildings 
executed  partly  during  the  Gallic  campaigns,  partly  after- 
wards, in  the  capital  was  reckoned  at  160,000,000 
sesterces  (^1,600,000).  The  general  result  of  the 
financial  administration  of  Caesar  is  expressed  in  the  fact 
that,  while  by  sagacious  and  energetic  reforms  and  by  a 
right  combination  of  economy  and  liberality  he  amply  and 
fully  met  all  equitable  claims,  nevertheless  already  in 
March  710  there  lay  in  the  public  treasury  700,000,000  44. 
and  in  his  own  100,000,000  sesterces  (together  ^8,000,000) 
— a  sum  which  exceeded  by  tenfold  the  amount  of  cash  in 
the  treasury  in  the  most  flourishing  times  of  the  republic 
(in.  23). 

But  the  task  of  breaking  up  the  old  parties  and  furnish-  Social 
ing  the  new  commonwealth  with  an  appropriate  constitu-  ^^j,^011 
tion,  an  efficient  army,  and  well-ordered  finances,  difficult  nation, 
as  it  was,  was  not  the  most  difficult  part  of  Caesar's  work. 
If  the    Italian    nation    was    really    to    be    regenerated,  it 
required  a  reorganization  which  should  transform  all  parts 
of  the  great  empire — Rome,  Italy,  and  the  provinces.     Let 
us  endeavour  here  also  to  delineate  the  old  state  of  things, 
as  well  as  the  beginnings  of  a  new  and  more  tolerable  time. 


Th« 

capital. 


368  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

The  good  stock  of  the  Latin  nation  had  long  since 
wholly  disappeared  from  Rome.  It  is  implied  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  case,  that  a  capital  loses  its  municipal 
and  even  its  national  stamp  more  quickly  than  any  subor- 
dinate community.  There  the  upper  classes  speedily  with- 
draw from  urban  public  life,  in  order  to  find  their  home 
rather  in  the  state  as  a  whole  than  in  a  single  city ;  there 
are  inevitably  concentrated  the  foreign  settlers,  the  fluctu- 
ating population  of  travellers  for  pleasure  or  business,  the 
mass  of  the  indolent,  lazy,  criminal,  financially  and  morally 
bankrupt,  and  for  that  very  reason  cosmopolitan,  rabble.  All 
this  pre-eminently  applied  to  Rome.  The  opulent  Roman 
frequently  regarded  his  town-house  merely  as  a  lodging. 
When  the  urban  municipal  offices  were  converted  into  im- 
perial magistracies ;  when  the  civic  assembly  became  the 
assembly  of  burgesses  of  the  empire ;  and  when  smaller 
self-governing  tribal  or  other  associations  were  not  tolerated 
within  the  capital :  all  proper  communal  life  ceased  for  Rome. 
From  the  whole  compass  of  the  widespread  empire  people 
flocked  to  Rome,  for  speculation,  for  debauchery,  for 
intrigue,  for  training  in  crime,  or  even  for  the  purpose  of 
hiding  there  from  the  eye  of  the  law. 

These  evils  arose  in  some  measure  necessarily  from  the 
very  nature  of  a  capital;  others  more  accidental  and 
perhaps  still  more  grave  were  associated  with  them.  There 
has  never  perhaps  existed  a  great  city  so  thoroughly 
destitute  of  the  means  of  support  as  Rome;  importation 
on  the  one  hand,  and  domestic  manufacture  by  slaves  on 
the  other,  rendered  any  free  industry  from  the  outset 
impossible  there.  The  injurious  consequences  of  the 
radical  evil  pervading  the  politics  of  antiquity  in  general — 
the  slave-system — were  more  conspicuous  in  the  capital  than 
anywhere  else.  Nowhere  were  such  masses  of  slaves 
accumulated  as  in  the  city  palaces  of  the  great  families  or 
of  wealthy   upstarts.      Nowhere  were  the  nations  of  the 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  369 

three  continents  mingled  as  in  the  slave -population  of 
the  capital — Syrians,  Phrygians  and  other  half- Hellenes 
with  Libyans  and  Moors,  Getae  and  Iberians  with 
the  daily-increasing  influx  of  Celts  and  Germans.  The 
demoralization  inseparable  from  the  absence  of  freedom, 
and  the  terrible  inconsistency  between  formal  and  moral 
right,  were  far  more  glaringly  apparent  in  the  case  of  the 
half  or  wholly  cultivated — as  it  were  genteel — city-slave 
than  in  that  of  the  rural  serf  who  tilled  the  field  in  chains 
like  the  fettered  ox.  Still  worse  than  the  masses  of  slaves 
were  those  who  had  been  de  jure  or  simply  de  facto 
released  from  slavery — a  mixture  of  mendicant  rabble  and 
very  rich  parvenus,  no  longer  slaves  and  not  yet  fully  bur- 
gesses, economically  and  even  legally  dependent  on  their 
master  and  yet  with  the  pretensions  of  free  men ;  and  these 
freedmen  made  their  way  above  all  towards  the  capital, 
where  gain  of  various  sorts  was  to  be  had  and  the  retail 
traffic  as  well  as  the  minor  handicrafts  were  almost  wholly 
in  their  hands.  Their  influence  on  the  elections  is 
expressly  attested;  and  that  they  took  a  leading  part  in 
the  street  riots,  is  very  evident  from  the  ordinary  signal  by 
means  of  which  these  were  virtually  proclaimed  by  the 
demagogues — the  closing  of  the  shops  and  places  of  sale. 

Moreover,  the  government  not  only  did  nothing  to  coun-  Relations 
teract  this  corruption  of  the  population  of  the  capital,  but  °[jg^chy 
even  encouraged  it  for  the  benefit  of  their  selfish  policy,  to  the 
The  judicious   rule   of  law,  which   prohibited   individuals  popu 
condemned   for  a   capital    offence   from   dwelling  in   the 
capital,  was  not  carried  into  effect  by  the  negligent  police. 
The  police-supervision — so  urgently  required — of  associa- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  rabble  was  at  first  neglected,  and 
afterwards  (p.  in)  even  declared  punishable  as  a  restriction 
inconsistent  with  the  freedom  of  the  people.     The  popular 
festivals  had  been  allowed  so  to  increase  that  the  seven 
ordinary  ones  alone — the  Roman,  the  Plebeian,  those  of 
VOL.  V  *i7 


the  capital. 


370  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

the  Mother  of  the  Gods,  of  Ceres,  of  Apollo,  of  Flora  (iii. 
125)  and  of  Victoria — lasted  altogether  sixty-two  days  ;  and 
to  these  were  added  the  gladiatorial  games  and  numerous 
other  extraordinary  amusements.  The  duty  of  providing 
grain  at  low  prices — which  was  unavoidably  necessary  with 
such  a  proletariate  living  wholly  from  hand  to  mouth — was 
treated  with  the  most  unscrupulous  frivolity,  and  the 
fluctuations  in  the  price  of  bread-corn  were  of  a  fabulous 
and  incalculable  description.1  Lastly,  the  distributions  of 
grain  formed  an  official  invitation  to  the  whole  burgess- 
proletariate  who  were  destitute  of  food  and  indisposed  for 
work  to  take  up  their  abode  in  the  capital. 
Anarchy  of  The  seed  sown  was  bad,  and  the  harvest  corresponded. 
The  system  of  clubs  and  bands  in  the  sphere  of  politics, 
the  worship  of  Isis  and  similar  pious  extravagances  in  that 
of  religion,  had  their  root  in  this  state  of  things.  People 
were  constantly  in  prospect  of  a  dearth,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  in  utter  famine.  Nowhere  was  a  man  less  secure 
of  his  life  than  in  the  capital ;  murder  professionally 
prosecuted  by  banditti  was  the  single  trade  peculiar  to  it ; 
the  alluring  of  the  victim  to  Rome  was  the  preliminary  to 
his  assassination ;  no  one  ventured  into  the  country  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  capital  without  an  armed  retinue.  Its  out- 
ward condition  corresponded  to  this  inward  disorganization, 
and  seemed  a  keen  satire  on  the  aristocratic  government. 
Nothing  was  done  for  the  regulation  of  the  stream  of  the 
Tiber;  excepting  that  they  caused  the  only  bridge,  with  which 
they  still  made  shift  (iv.  169),  to  be  constructed  of  stone 
at  least  as  far  as  the  Tiber-island.  As  little  was  anything 
done  toward  the  levelling  of  the  city  of  the  Seven  Hills, 
except  where  perhaps  the  accumulation  of  rubbish  had 
effected  some  improvement.     The  streets  ascended   and 

1  In  Sicily,  the  country  of  production,  the  modius  was  sold  within  a 
few  years  at  two  and  at  twenty  sesterces ;  from  this  we  may  guess  what 
must  have  been  the  fluctuations  of  price  in  Rome,  which  subsisted  on 
transmarine  corn  and  was  the  seat  of  speculators. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  371 

descended  narrow  and  angular,  and  were  wretchedly  kept ; 
the  footpaths  were  small  and  ill  paved.  The  ordinary 
houses  were  built  of  bricks  negligently  and  to  a  giddy 
height,  mostly  by  speculative  builders  on  account  of  the 
small  proprietors ;  by  which  means  the  former  became 
vastly  rich,  and  the  latter  were  reduced  to  beggary.  Like 
isolated  islands  amidst  this  sea  of  wretched  buildings  were 
seen  the  splendid  palaces  of  the  rich,  which  curtailed  the 
space  for  the  smaller  houses  just  as  their  owners  curtailed 
the  burgess-rights  of  smaller  men  in  the  state,  and  beside 
whose  marble  pillars  and  Greek  statues  the  decaying 
temples,  with  their  images  of  the  gods  still  in  great  part 
carved  of  wood,  made  a  melancholy  figure.  A  police- 
supervision  of  streets,  of  river-banks,  of  fires,  or  of  building 
was  almost  unheard  of;  if  the  government  troubled  itself  at 
all  about  the  inundations,  conflagrations,  and  falls  of 
houses  which  were  of  yearly  occurrence,  it  was  only  to  ask 
from  the  state-theologians  their  report  and  advice  regarding 
the  true  import  of  such  signs  and  wonders.  If  we  try  to 
conceive  to  ourselves  a  London  with  the  slave-population 
of  New  Orleans,  with  the  police  of  Constantinople,  with 
the  non-industrial  character  of  the  modern  Rome,  and 
agitated  by  politics  after  the  fashion  of  the  Paris  in  1848, 
we  shall  acquire  an  approximate  idea  of  the  republican 
glory,  the  departure  of  which  Cicero  and  his  associates  in 
their  sulky  letters  deplore. 

Caesar  did  not  deplore,  but  he  sought  to  help  so  far  as  Caesar's 
help  was  possible.     Rome  remained,  of  course,  what  it  was  ^matters 
— a  cosmopolitan  city.     Not  only  would  the  attempt   to  in  the 
give  to  it  once  more  a  specifically  Italian  character  have  capi 
been  impracticable ;  it  would  not  have  suited  Caesar's  plan. 
Just  as  Alexander  found  for  his  Graeco-Oriental  empire  an 
appropriate  capital  in  the  Hellenic,  Jewish,  Egyptian,  and 
above  all  cosmopolitan,  Alexandria,  so  the  capital  of  the 
new   Romano -Hellenic   universal  empire,  situated  at  the 


372  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

meeting-point  of  the  east  and  the  west,  was  to  be  not  an 
Italian  community,  but  the  denationalized  capital  of  many 
nations.  For  this  reason  Caesar  tolerated  the  worship  of 
the  newly-settled  Egyptian  gods  alongside  of  Father  Jovis, 
and  granted  even  to  the  Jews  the  free  exercise  of  their 
strangely  foreign  ritual  in  the  very  capital  of  the  empire. 
However  offensive  was  the  motley  mixture  of  the  parasitic 
— especially  the  Helleno-Oriental — population  in  Rome,  he 
nowhere  opposed  its  extension ;  it  is  significant,  that  at  his 
popular  festivals  for  the  capital  he  caused  dramas  to  be  per- 
formed not  merely  in  Latin  and  Greek,  but  also  in  other  lan- 
guages, presumably  in  Phoenician,  Hebrew,  Syrian,  Spanish. 
Diminution  But,  if  Caesar  accepted  with  the  full  consciousness  of 
ktariate;0"  w^at  ne  was  doing  tne  fundamental  character  of  the  capital 
such  as  he  found  it,  he  yet  worked  energetically  at  the 
improvement  of  the  lamentable  and  disgraceful  state  of 
things  prevailing  there.  Unhappily  the  primary  evils  were 
the  least  capable  of  being  eradicated.  Caesar  could  not 
abolish  slavery  with  its  train  of  national  calamities  ;  it  must 
remain  an  open  question,  whether  he  would  in  the  course 
of  time  have  attempted  at  least  to  limit  the  slave-population 
in  the  capital,  as  he  undertook  to  do  so  in  another  field. 
As  little  could  Caesar  conjure  into  existence  a  free  industry 
in  the  capital ;  yet  the  great  building-operations  remedied 
in  some  measure  the  want  of  means  of  support  there,  and 
opened  up  to  the  proletariate  a  source  of  small  but  honour- 
able gain.  On  the  other  hand  Caesar  laboured  energetically 
to  diminish  the  mass  of  the  free  proletariate.  The  constant 
influx  of  persons  brought  by  the  corn-largesses  to  Rome 
was,  if  not  wholly  stopped,1  at  least  very  materially  restricted 

1  It  is  a  fact  not  without  interest  that  a  political  writer  of  later  date 
but  much  judgment,  the  author  of  the  letters  addressed  in  the  name  of 
Sallust  to  Caesar,  advises  the  latter  to  transfer  the  corn-distribution  of  the 
capital  to  the  several  municipia.  There  is  good  sense  in  the  admonition  ; 
■s  indeed  similar  ideas  obviously  prevailed  in  the  noble  municipal  provision 
for  orphans  under  Trajan. 


hap.  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  373 

y  the  conversion  of  these  largesses  into  a  provision  for 
le  poor  limited  to  a  fixed  number.  The  ranks  of  the 
xisting  proletariate  were  thinned  on  the  one  hand  by  the 
■ibunals  which  were  instructed  to  proceed  with  unrelenting 
igour  against  the  rabble,  on  the  other  hand  by  a  compre- 
ensive  transmarine  colonization ;  of  the  80,000  colonists 
'horn  Caesar  sent  beyond  the  seas  in  the  few  years  of  his 
overnment,  a  very  great  portion  must  have  been  taken 
ora  the  lower  ranks  of  the  population  of  the  capital ;  most 
f  the  Corinthian  settlers  indeed  were  freedmen.  When  in 
eviation  from  the  previous  order  of  things,  which  precluded 
le  freedmen  from  any  urban  honorary  office,  Caesar 
pened  to  them  in  his  colonies  the  doors  of  the  senate- 
ouse,  this  was  doubtless  done  in  order  to  gain  those  of 
lem  who  were  in  better  positions  to  favour  the  cause  of  emi- 
ration.  This  emigration,  however,  must  have  been  more 
lan  a  mere  temporary  arrangement;  Caesar,  convinced 
ke  every  other  man  of  sense  that  the  only  true  remedy 
Dr  the  misery  of  the  proletariate  consisted  in  a  well-regulated 
ystem  of  colonization,  and  placed  by  the  condition  of  the 
mpire  in  a  position  to  realize  it  to  an  almost  unlimited 
xtent,  must  have  had  the  design  of  permanently  continuing 
be  process,  and  so  opening  up  a  constant  means  of  abating 
n  evil  which  was  constantly  reproducing  itself.  Measures 
rere  further  taken  to  set  bounds  to  the  serious  fluctuations  in 
be  price  of  the  most  important  means  of  subsistence  in  the 
larkets  of  the  capital.  The  newly-organized  and  liberally- 
dministered  finances  of  the  state  furnished  the  means  for 
his  purpose,  and  two  newly-nominated  magistrates,  the 
orn-aediles  (p.  346)  were  charged  with  the  special  supervi- 
ion  of  the  contractors  and  of  the  market  of  the  capital. 

The  club  system  was  checked,  more  effectually  than  was  The  club 
tossible  through  prohibitive  laws,  by  the  change  of  the  con-  ^^ted> 
titution ;  inasmuch  as  with  the  republic  and  the  republican 
lections  and  tribunals  the  corruption  and  violence  of  the 


374  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book 

electioneering  and  judicial  collegia — and  generally  the  polit 
cal  Saturnalia  of  the  canaille — came  to  an  end  of  themselve: 
Moreover  the  combinations  called  into  existence  by  th 
Clodian  law  were  broken  up,  and  the  whole  system  c 
association  was  placed  under  the  superintendence  of  th 
governing  authorities.  With  the  exception  of  the  ancier 
guilds  and  associations,  of  the  religious  unions  of  the  Jew: 
and  of  other  specially  excepted  categories,  for  which 
simple  intimation  to  the  senate  seems  to  have  sufficec 
the  permission  to  constitute  a  permanent  society  wit 
fixed  times  of  assembling  and  standing  deposits  was  mad 
dependent  on  a  concession  to  be  granted  by  the  senate 
and,  as  a  rule,  doubtless  only  after  the  consent  of  th 
monarch  had  been  obtained. 
Street  To  this  was  added  a  stricter  administration  of  crimins 

justice  and  an  energetic  police.  The  laws,  especially  a 
regards  the  crime  of  violence,  were  rendered  more  strir 
gent ;  and  the  irrational  enactment  of  the  republican  law 
that  the  convicted  criminal  was  entitled  to  withdraw  himsei 
from  a  part  of  the  penalty  which  he  had  incurred  by  sell 
banishment,  was  with  reason  set  aside.  The  detailei 
regulations,  which  Caesar  issued  regarding  the  police  c 
the  capital,  are  in  great  part  still  preserved  ;  and  all  whi 
choose  may  convince  themselves  that  the  Imperator  di< 
not  disdain  to  insist  on  the  house-proprietors  putting  th< 
streets  into  repair  and  paving  the  footpath  in  its  whoL 
breadth  with  hewn  stones,  and  to  issue  appropriate  enact 
ments  regarding  the  carrying  of  litters  and  the  driving  o 
waggons,  which  from  the  nature  of  the  streets  were  onl; 
allowed  to  move  freely  through  the  capital  in  the  evening 
and  by  night.  The  supervision  of  the  local  police  remainec 
as  hitherto  chiefly  with  the  four  aediles,  who  were  instructec 
now  at  least,  if  not  earlier,  each  to  superintend  a  distinctly 
marked-off  police  district  within  the  capital. 

Lastly,  building  in  the  capital,  and  the  oro vision  con 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  375 

nected  therewith  of  institutions  for  the  public  benefit,  Buildings 
received  from  Caesar — who  combined  in  himself  the  love  ffl  -fw1< 
for  building  of  a  Roman  and  of  an  organizer — a  sudden 
stimulus,  which  not  merely  put  to  shame  the  mismanage- 
ment of  the  recent  anarchic  times,  but  also  left  all  that  the 
Roman  aristocracy  had  done  in  their  best  days  as  far  behind 
as  the  genius  of  Caesar  surpassed  the  honest  endeavours  of 
the  Marcii  and  Aemilii.  It  was  not  merely  by  the  extent 
of  the  buildings  in  themselves  and  the  magnitude  of  the 
sums  expended  on  them  that  Caesar  excelled  his  prede- 
cessors ;  but  a  genuine  statesmanly  perception  of  what 
was  for  the  public  good  distinguishes  what  Caesar  did 
for  the  public  institutions  of  Rome  from  all  similar 
services.  He  did  not  build,  like  his  successors,  temples 
and  other  splendid  structures,  but  he  relieved  the  market- 
place of  Rome — in  which  the  burgess-assemblies,  the  seats 
of  the  chief  courts,  the  exchange,  and  the  daily  business- 
traffic  as  well  as  the  daily  idleness,  still  were  crowded 
together — at  least  from  the  assemblies  and  the  courts  by 
constructing  for  the  former  a  new  comitium,  the  Saepta  Julia 
in  the  Campus  Martius,  and  for  the  latter  a  separate  place 
of  judicature,  the  Forum  Julium  between  the  Capitol  and 
Palatine.  Of  a  kindred  spirit  is  the  arrangement  originat- 
ing with  him,  by  which  there  were  supplied  to  the  baths  of 
the  capital  annually  three  million  pounds  of  oil,  mostly 
from  Africa,  and  they  were  thereby  enabled  to  furnish 
to  the  bathers  gratuitously  the  oil  required  for  the  anoint- 
ing of  the  body — a  measure  of  cleanliness  and  sanitary 
polic2  which,  according  to  the  ancient  dietetics  based 
substantially  on  bathing  and  anointing,  was  highly  judi- 
cious. 

But  these  noble  arrangements  were  only  the  first  steps 
towards  a  complete  remodelling  of  Rome.  Projects  were 
already  formed  for  a  new  senate-house,  for  a  new  magnifi- 
cent bazaar,  for  a  theatre  to  rival  that  of  Pompeius,  for  a 


376  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  \ 

public  Latin  and  Greek  library  after  the  model  of  thai 
recently  destroyed  at  Alexandria — the  first  institution  01 
the  sort  in  Rome — lastly  for  a  temple  of  Mars,  whicr 
was  to  surpass  all  that  had  hitherto  existed  in  riches  anc 
glory.  Still  more  brilliant  was  the  idea,  first,  of  construct 
ing  a  canal  through  the  Pomptine  marshes  and  drawing 
off  their  waters  to  Tarracina,  and  secondly,  of  altering 
the  lower  course  of  the  Tiber  and  of  leading  it  from  th< 
present  Ponte  Molle,  not  through  between  the  Campu! 
Vaticanus  and  the  Campus  Martius,  but  rather  round  th< 
Campus  Vaticanus  and  the  Janiculum  to  Ostia,  where  th< 
miserable  roadstead  was  to  give  place  to  an  adequate  arti 
ficial  harbour.  By  this  gigantic  plan  on  the  one  hand  th< 
most  dangerous  enemy  of  the  capital,  the  malaria  of  th< 
neighbourhood  would  be  banished ;  on  the  other  hand  th< 
extremely  limited  facilities  for  building  in  the  capital  woulc 
be  at  once  enlarged  by  substituting  the  Campus  Vaticanu 
thereby  transferred  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber  for  th< 
Campus  Martius,  and  allowing  the  latter  spacious  field  t< 
be  applied  for  public  and  private  edifices ;  while  the  capita 
would  at  the  same  time  obtain  a  safe  seaport,  the  want  o 
which  was  so  painfully  felt.  It  seemed  as  if  the  Imperato 
would  remove  mountains  and  rivers,  and  venture  to  conteni 
with  nature  herself. 

Much  however  as  the  city  of  Rome  gained  by  the  ne^ 
order  of  things  in  commodiousness  and  magnificence,  it 
political  supremacy  was,  as  we  have  already  said,  lost  to  i 
irrecoverably  through  that  very  change.  The  idea  that  th 
Roman  state  should  coincide  with  the  city  of  Rome  had  ir 
deed  in  the  course  of  time  become  more  and  more  unnatura 
and  preposterous  ;  but  the  maxim  had  been  so  intimatel 
blended  with  the  essence  of  the  Roman  republic,  that  i 
could  not  perish  before  the  republic  itself.  It  was  only  i; 
the  new  state  of  Caesar  that  it  was,  with  the  exception  pei 
haps  of  some  legal  fictions,  completely  set  aside,  and  th 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  377 

community  of  the  capital  was  placed  legally  on  a  level  with 
all  other  municipalities ;  indeed  Caesar — here  as  everywhere 
endeavouring  not  merely  to  regulate  the  thing,  but  also  to 
call  it  officially  by  the  right  name — issued  his  Italian  muni- 
cipal ordinance,  beyond  doubt  purposely,  at  once  for  the 
capital  and  for  the  other  urban  communities.  We  may  add 
that  Rome,  just  because  it  was  incapable  of  a  living  com- 
munal character  as  a  capital,  was  even  essentially  inferior  to 
the  other  municipalities  of  the  imperial  period.  The  re- 
publican Rome  was  a  den  of  robbers,  but  it  was  at  the  same 
time  the  state  ;  the  Rome  of  the  monarchy,  although  it 
began  to  embellish  itself  with  all  the  glories  of  the  three 
continents  and  to  glitter  in  gold  and  marble,  was  yet 
nothing  in  the  state  but  a  royal  residence  in  connec- 
tion with  a  poor-house,  or  in  other  words  a  necessary  evil. 

While  in  the  capital  the  only  object  aimed  at  was  to  Italy. 
get  rid  of  palpable  evils  by  police  ordinances  on  the  great- 
est scale,  it  was  a  far  more  difficult  task  to  remedy  the 
deep  disorganization  of  Italian  economics.  Its  radical 
misfortunes  were  those  which  we  previously  noticed  in 
detail — the  disappearance  of  the  agricultural,  and  the  un- 
natural increase  of  the  mercantile,  population — with  which 
an  endless  train  of  other  evils  was  associated.  The  reader 
will  not  fail  to  remember  what  was  the  state  of  Italian  agri- 
culture. In  spite  of  the  most  earnest  attempts  to  check  the  Italian 
annihilation  of  the  small  holdings,  farm -husbandry  was  agn  ture* 
scarcely  any  longer  the  predominant  species  of  economy 
during  this  epoch  in  any  region  of  Italy  proper,  with  the 
exception  perhaps  of  the  valleys  of  the  Apennines  and 
Abruzzi.  As  to  the  management  of  estates,  no  material 
difference  is  perceptible  between  the  Catonian  system  for- 
merly set  forth  (iii.  64-73)  and  that  described  to  us  by  Varro, 
except  that  the  latter  shows  the  traces  for  better  and  for 
worse  of  the  progress  of  city-life  on  a  great  scale  in  Rome. 
"  Formerly,"  says  Varro,  "  the  barn  on  the  estate  was  larger 


378  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

than  the  manor-house;  now  it  is  wont  to  be  the  reverse." 
In  the  domains  of  Tusculum  and  Tibur,  on  the  shores  of 
Tarracina  and  Baiae — where  the  old  Latin  and  Italian 
farmers  had  sown  and  reaped — there  now  rose  in  barren 
splendour  the  villas  of  the  Roman  nobles,  some  of  which 
covered  the  space  of  a  moderate -sized  town  with  their 
appurtenances  of  garden-grounds  and  aqueducts,  fresh  and 
salt  water  ponds  for  the  preservation  and  breeding  of  river 
and  marine  fishes,  nurseries  of  snails  and  slugs,  game- 
preserves  for  keeping  hares,  rabbits,  stags,  roes,  and  wild 
boars,  and  aviaries  in  which  even  cranes  and  peacocks 
were  kept.  But  the  luxury  of  a  great  city  enriches  also 
many  an  industrious  hand,  and  supports  more  poor  than 
philanthropy  with  its  expenditure  of  alms.  Those  aviaries 
and  fish-ponds  of  the  grandees  were  of  course,  as  a  rule, 
a  very  costly  indulgence.  But  this  system  was  carried  to 
such  an  extent  and  prosecuted  with  so  much  keenness, 
that  e.g.  the  stock  of  a  pigeon-house  was  valued  at  100,000 
sesterces  (^1000);  a  methodical  system  of  fattening  had 
sprung  up,  and  the  manure  got  from  the  aviaries  became 
of  importance  in  agriculture ;  a  single  bird-dealer  was  able 
to  furnish  at  once  5000  fieldfares — for  they  knew  how  to 
rear  these  also — at  three  denarii  (2  s.)  each,  and  a  single 
possessor  of  a  fish-pond  2000  mwaenae  ;  and  the  fishes 
left  behind  by  Lucius  Lucullus  brought  40,000  sesterces 
(^400).  As  may  readily  be  conceived,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances any  one  who  followed  this  occupation  industri- 
ously and  intelligently  might  obtain  very  large  profits  with 
a  comparatively  small  outlay  of  capital.  A  small  bee- 
breeder  of  this  period  sold  from  his  thyme-garden  not 
larger  than  an  acre  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Falerii  honey 
to  an  average  annual  amount  of  at  least  10,000  sesterces 
(^100).  The  rivalry  of  the  growers  of  fruit  was  carried 
so  far,  that  in  elegant  villas  the  fruit-chamber  lined  with 
marble  was  not  unfrequently  fitted  up  at  the  same  time  as 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  379 

a  dining-room,  and  sometimes  fine  fruit  acquired  by  pur- 
chase was  exhibited  there  as  of  home  growth.      At  this 
period  the  cherry  from  Asia  Minor  and  other  foreign  fruit- 
trees  were    first   planted    in    the   gardens   of  Italy.     The 
vegetable  gardens,  the  beds  of  roses  and  violets  in  Latium 
and  Campania,  yielded  rich  produce,  and  the  "  market  for 
dainties  "  {Jorum  cupedinis)  by  the  side  of  the  Via  Sacra, 
where  fruits,  honey,  and  chaplets  were  wont  to  be  exposed 
for  sale,  played  an  important  part  in  the  life  of  the  capital 
Generally  the  management  of  estates,  worked  as  they  were 
on  the  planter-system,  had  reached  in  an  economic  point 
of  view  a  height  scarcely  to  be  surpassed.     The  valley  of 
Rieti,  the  region  round  the  Fucine  lake,  the  districts  on 
the    Liris    and  Volturnus,    and    indeed    Central    Italy  in 
general,  were  as  respects  husbandry  in  the  most  flourishing 
condition ;   even  certain  branches  of  industry,  which  were 
suitable  accompaniments  of  the  management  of  an  estate 
by  means  of  slaves,  were  taken  up  by  intelligent  landlords, 
and,  where  the  circumstances  were  favourable,  inns,  weaving 
factories,  and  especially  brickworks  were  constructed  on 
the    estate.     The   Italian    producers  of  wine  and    oil  in 
particular    not    only    supplied    the    Italian    markets,    but 
carried  on  also  in  both  articles  a  considerable  business  of 
transmarine  exportation.     A  homely  professional  treatise  of 
this  period  compares  Italy  to  a  great  fruit-garden ;  and  the 
pictures  which  a  contemporary  poet  gives  of  his  beautiful 
native  land,  where  the  well-watered  meadow,  the  luxuriant 
corn-field,  the  pleasant  vine-covered  hill  are  fringed  by  the 
dark  line  of  the  olive-trees — where  the  "  ornament "  of  the 
land,   smiling    in    varied    charms,    cherishes    the    loveliest 
gardens  in  its  bosom  and  is  itself  wreathed  round  by  food- 
producing    trees — these    descriptions,    evidently    faithful 
pictures  of  the  landscape  daily  presented  to  the  eye  of  the 
poet,  transplant  us  into   the  most   flourishing   districts  of 
Tuscany  and  Terra  di  Lavoro.     The  pastoral  husbandry, 


3&> 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Money- 
dealing. 


it  is  true,  which  for  reasons  formerly  explained  was  always 
spreading  farther  especially  in  the  south  and  south-east  of 
Italy,  was  in  every  respect  a  retrograde  movement ;  but  it 
too  participated  to  a  certain  degree  in  the  general  progress 
of  agriculture ;  much  was  done  for  the  improvement  of  the 
breeds,  e.g.  asses  for  breeding  brought  60,000  sesterces 
(£600),  100,000  (^iooo),  and  even  400,000  (^4000). 
The  solid  Italian  husbandry  obtained  at  this  period,  when 
the  general  development  of  intelligence  and  abundance  of 
capital  rendered  it  fruitful,  far  more  brilliant  results  than 
ever  the  old  system  of  small  cultivators  could  have  given ; 
and  was  carried  even  already  beyond  the  bounds  of  Italy, 
for  the  Italian  agriculturist  turned  to  account  large  tracts 
in  the  provinces  by  rearing  cattle  and  even  cultivating  corn. 
In  order  to  show  what  dimensions  money- dealing 
assumed  by  the  side  of  this  estate-husbandry  unnaturally 
prospering  over  the  ruin  of  the  small  farmers,  how  the 
Italian  merchants  vying  with  the  Jews  poured  themselves 
into  all  the  provinces  and  client-states  of  the  empire,  and 
how  all  capital  ultimately  flowed  to  Rome,  it  will  be 
sufficient,  after  what  has  been  already  said,  to  point  to  the 
single  fact  that  in  the  money-market  of  the  capital  the 
regular  rate  of  interest  at  this  time  was  six  per  cent,  and 
consequently  money  there  was  cheaper  by  a  half  than  it 
was  on  an  average  elsewhere  in  antiquity. 

In  consequence  of  this  economic  system  based  both  in 
proportion.  ^g  agrarjan  an(j  mercantile  aspects  on  masses  of  capital 
and  on  speculation,  there  arose  a  most  fearful  disproportion 
in  the  distribution  of  wealth.  The  often-used  and  often- 
abused  phrase  of  a  commonwealth  composed  of  millionaires 
and  beggars  applies  perhaps  nowhere  so  completely  as  to 
the  Rome  of  the  last  age  of  the  republic ;  and  nowhere 
perhaps  has  the  essential  maxim  of  the  slave-state — that 
the  rich  man  who  lives  by  the  exertions  of  his  slaves  is 
necessarily  respectable,  and  the  poor  man  who  lives  by  the 


Social  dis- 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  381 

labour  of  his  hands  is  necessarily  vulgar — been  recognized 
with  so  terrible  a  precision  as  the  undoubted  principle 
underlying  all  public  and  private  intercourse.1  A  real 
middle  class  in  our  sense  of  the  term  there  was  not,  as 
indeed  no  such  class  can  exist  in  any  fully-developed  slave- 
state  ;  what  appears  as  if  it  were  a  good  middle  class  and  is 
so  in  a  certain  measure,  is  composed  of  those  rich  men  of 
business  and  landholders  who  are  so  uncultivated  or  so 
highly  cultivated  as  to  content  themselves  within  the  sphere 
of  their  activity  and  to  keep  aloof  from  public  life.  Of  the 
men  of  business — a  class,  among  whom  the  numerous 
freedmen  and  other  upstarts,  as  a  rule,  were  seized  with 
the  giddy  fancy  of  playing  the  man  of  quality — there  were 
not  very  many  who  showed  so  much  judgment.     A  model 

1  The  following  exposition  in  Cicero's  treatise  De  Officiis  (i.  42)  is 
characteristic  :  lam  de  artificiis  et  quaestibus,  qui  liberates  habendi,  qui 
sordidi  sint,  haec  fere  accepimus.  Primum  improbantur  it  quaestus,  qui 
in  odia  hominum  incurrunt,  ut  portitorum,  ut  feneratorum.  Illiberales 
autem  et  sordidi  quaestus  mercenat  iorum  omnium,  quorum  operae,  non 
artes  emuntur.  Est  autem  in  illis  ipsa  merces  auctoramentum  servitutis. 
Sordidi  etiam  putandi,  qui  mercantur  a  mercatoribus  quod  statim  vendant, 
nihil  enim  prqficiant,  nisi  admodu?n  mejitiantur.  Nee  vero  est  quidquum 
turpius  vanitate.  Opificesque  omnes  in  sordida  arte  versantur ;  nee  enim 
quidquam  ingenuum  habere  potest  officina.  Minimeque  artes  eae  pro- 
bandae,  quae  ministrae  sunt  voluptatum, 

"  Cetarii,  lanii,  coqui,  fartores,  piscatores," 

ut  ait  Terentius.  Adde  hue,  si  placet,  unguentarios,  saltatores,  totumque 
ludum  talarium.  Quibus  autem  artibus  aut prudentia  maior  inest,  aut  non 
mediocris  utilitas  quaeritur,  ut  medicina,  ut  architeclura,  ut  doctrina  rerum 
honestarum,  eae  sunt  Us,  quorum  ordini  conveniunt,  honestae.  Merea- 
tura  autem,  si  tenuis  est,  sordida putanda  est ;  sin  magna  et  copiosa,  multa 
undique  apportans,  multaque  sine  vanitate  impertiens,  non  est  admodum 
vituperanda ;  atque  etiam,  si  satiata  quaestu,  vel  contenta  potius ;  ut 
saepe  ex  alto  in  portum,  ex  ipso  portu  in  agros  se  possessionesque  contulerit, 
videtur  Optimo  iure  posse  laudari.  Omnium  autem  rerum,  ex  quibus 
aliquid  acquiritur,  nihil  est  agricultura  melius,  nihil  uberius,  nihil 
dulcius,  nihil  homine  libera  dignius.  According  to  this  the  respectable 
man  must,  in  strictness,  be  a  landowner  ;  the  trade  of  a  merchant  becomes 
him  only  so  far  as  it  is  a  means  to  this  ultimate  end  ;  science  as  a  pro- 
fession is  suitable  only  for  the  Greeks  and  for  Romans  not  belonging  to 
the  ruling  classes,  who  by  this  means  may  purchase  at  all  events  a  certain 
toleration  of  their  personal  presence  in  genteel  circles.  It  is  a  thoroughly 
developed  aristocracy  of  planters,  with  a  strong  infusion  of  mercantile 
speculation  and  a  slight  shading  of  general  culture. 


382  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

of  this  sort  was  the  Titus  Pomponius  Atticus  frequently 
mentioned  in  the  accounts  of  this  period.  He  acquired 
an  immense  fortune  partly  from  the  great  estate-farming 
which  he  prosecuted  in  Italy  and  Epirus,  partly  from  his 
money-transactions  which  ramified  throughout  Italy,  Greece, 
Macedonia,  and  Asia  Minor;  but  at  the  same  time  he 
continued  to  be  throughout  the  simple  man  of  business, 
did  not  allow  himself  to  be  seduced  into  soliciting  office 
or  even  into  monetary  transactions  with  the  state,  and, 
equally  remote  from  the  avaricious  niggardliness  and  from 
the  prodigal  and  burdensome  luxury  of  his  time — his  table, 
for  instance,  was  maintained  at  a  daily  cost  of  ioo  sesterces 
(£i) — contented  himself  with  an  easy  existence  appropri- 
ating to  itself  the  charms  of  a  country  and  a  city  life,  the 
pleasures  of  intercourse  with  the  best  society  of  Rome  and 
Greece,  and  all  the  enjoyments  of  literature  and  art. 

More  numerous  and  more  solid  were  the  Italian  land- 
holders of  the  old  type.  Contemporary  literature  preserves 
in  the  description  of  Sextus  Roscius,  who  was  murdered 
M.  amidst  the  proscriptions  of  673,  the  picture  of  such  a  rural 
nobleman  (pater  fa  mi  lias  riisticanus) ;  his  wealth,  estimated 
at  6,000,000  sesterces  (^60,000),  is  mainly  invested  in 
his  thirteen  landed  estates ;  he  attends  to  the  management 
of  it  in  person  systematically  and  with  enthusiasm;  he 
comes  seldom  or  never  to  the  capital,  and,  when  he  does 
appear  there,  by  his  clownish  manners  he  contrasts  not  less 
with  the  polished  senator  than  the  innumerable  hosts  of 
his  uncouth  rural  slaves  with  the  elegant  train  of  domestic 
slaves  in  the  capital.  Far  more  than  the  circles  of  the 
nobility  with  their  cosmopolitan  culture  and  the  mercantile 
class  at  home  everywhere  and  nowhere,  these  landlords 
and  the  "country  towns"  to  which  they  essentially  gave 
tone  (municipia  rusticana)  preserved  as  well  the  discipline 
and  manners  as  the  pure  and  noble  language  of  their 
fathers.      The   order   of  landlords  was   regarded   as   the 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  383 

flower  of  the  nation ;  the  speculator,  who  has  made  his 
fortune  and  wishes  to  appear  among  the  notables  of  the 
land,  buys  an  estate  and  seeks,  if  not  to  become  himself 
the  squire,  at  any  rate  to  rear  his  son  with  that  view.  We 
meet  the  traces  of  this  class  of  landlords,  wherever  a 
national  movement  appears  in  politics,  and  wherever 
literature  puts  forth  any  fresh  growth  ;  from  it  the  patriotic 
opposition  to  the  new  monarchy  drew  its  best  strength  ; 
to  it  belonged  Varro,  Lucretius,  Catullus ;  and  nowhere 
perhaps  does  the  comparative  freshness  of  this  landlord-life 
come  more  characteristically  to  light  than  in  the  graceful 
Arpinate  introduction  to  the  second  book  of  Cicero's 
treatise  De  Legibus — a  green  oasis  amidst  the  fearful  desert 
of  that  equally  empty  and  voluminous  writer. 

But  the  cultivated  class  of  merchants  and  the  vigorous  The  poor, 
order  of  landlords  were  far  overgrown  by  the  two  classes 
that  gave  tone  to  society — the  mass  of  beggars,  and  the 
world  of  quality  proper.  We  have  no  statistical  figures  to 
indicate  precisely  the  relative  proportions  of  poverty  and 
riches  for  this  epoch ;  yet  we  may  here  perhaps  again  recall 
the  expression  which  a  Roman  statesman  employed  some 
fifty  years  before  (iii.  380) — that  the  number  of  families  of 
firmly-established  riches  among  the  Roman  burgesses  did 
not  amount  to  2000.  The  burgess-body  had  since  then 
become  different ;  but  clear  indications  attest  that  the 
disproportion  between  poor  and  rich  had  remained  at  least 
as  great.  The  increasing  impoverishment  of  the  multitude 
shows  itself  only  too  plainly  in  their  crowding  to  the  corn- 
largesses  and  to  enlistment  in  the  army ;  the  corresponding 
increase  of  riches  is  attested  expressly  by  an  author  of  this 
generation,  when,  speaking  of  the  circumstances  of  the 
Marian  period,  he  describes  an  estate  of  2,000,000  sesterces 
(^20,000)  as  "riches  according  to  the  circumstances  of 
that  day " ;  and  the  statements  which  we  find  as  to  the 
property  of  individuals  lead  to  the  same  conclusion.     The 


384  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

very  rich  Lucius  Domitius  Ahenobarbus  promised  to  twenty 
thousand  soldiers  four  iugera  of  land  each,  out  of  his  own 
property;  the  estate  of  Pompeius  amounted  to  70,000,000 
sesterces  (.£700,000);  that  of  Aesopus  the  actor  to 
20,000,000  (£200,000);  Marcus  Crassus,  the  richest  of 
the  rich,  possessed  at  the  outset  of  his  career,  7,000,000 
(jC7°)000\  a*  its  close,  after  lavishing  enormous  sums  on 
the  people,  170,000,000  sesterces  (£1,700,000).  The 
effect  of  such  poverty  and  such  riches  was  on  both  sides 
an  economic  and  moral  disorganization  outwardly  different, 
but  at  bottom  of  the  same  character.  If  the  common 
man  was  saved  from  starvation  only  by  support  from  the 
resources  of  the  state,  it  was  the  necessary  consequence 
of  this  mendicant  misery — although  it  also  reciprocally 
appears  as  a  cause  of  it — that  he  addicted  himself  to  the 
beggar's  laziness  and  to  the  beggar's  good  cheer.  The 
Roman  plebeian  was  fonder  of  gazing  in  the  theatre  than 
of  working ;  the  taverns  and  brothels  were  so  frequented, 
that  the  demagogues  found  their  special  account  in  gaining 
the  possessors  of  such  establishments  over  to  their  interests. 
The  gladiatorial  games — which  revealed,  at  the  same  time 
that  they  fostered,  the  worst  demoralization  of  the  ancient 
world — had  become  so  flourishing  that  a  lucrative  business 
was  done  in  the  sale  of  the  programmes  for  them ;  and  it 
was  at  this  time  that  the  horrible  innovation  was  adopted 
by  which  the  decision  as  to  the  life  or  death  of  the 
vanquished  became  dependent,  not  on  the  law  of  duel  or 
on  the  pleasure  of  the  victor,  but  on  the  caprice  of  the 
onlooking  public,  and  according  to  its  signal  the  victor 
either  spared  or  transfixed  his  prostrate  antagonist.  The 
trade  of  fighting  had  so  risen  or  freedom  had  so  fallen  in 
value,  that  the  intrepidity  and  the  emulation,  which  were 
lacking  on  the  battle-fields  of  this  age,  were  universal  in 
the  armies  of  the  arena,  and,  where  the  law  of  the  duel 
required,  every  gladiator  allowed  himself  to  be  stabbed 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  385 

mutely  and  without  shrinking ;  that  in  fact  free  men  not 
unfrequently  sold  themselves  to  the  contractors  for  board 
and  wages  as  gladiatorial  slaves.  The  plebeians  of  the 
fifth  century  had  also  suffered  want  and  famine,  but  they 
had  not  sold  their  freedom ;  and  still  less  would  the 
jurisconsults  of  that  period  have  lent  themselves  to  pro- 
nounce the  equally  immoral  and  illegal  contract  of  such  a 
gladiatorial  slave  "to  let  himself  be  chained,  scourged, 
burnt  or  killed  without  opposition,  if  the  laws  of  the 
institution  should  so  require"  by  means  of  unbecoming 
juristic  subtleties  as  a  contract  lawful  and  actionable. 

In  the  world  of  quality  such  things  did  not  occur,  but  Extra- 
at  bottom  it  was  hardly  different,  and  least  of  all  better.  ^S*008- 
In  doing  nothing  the  aristocrat  boldly  competed  with  the 
proletarian;  if  the  latter  lounged  on  the  pavement,  the 
former  lay  in  bed  till  far  on  in  the  day.  Extravagance 
prevailed  here  as  unbounded  as  it  was  devoid  of  taste. 
It  was  lavished  on  politics  and  on  the  theatre,  of  course  to 
the  corruption  of  both ;  the  consular  office  was  purchased 
at  an  incredible  price — in  the  summer  of  700  the  first  54. 
voting  -  division  alone  was  paid  10,000,000  sesterces 
(;£i 00,000) — and  all  the  pleasure  of  the  man  of  culture 
in  the  drama  was  spoilt  by  the  insane  luxury  of  decoration. 
Rents  in  Rome  appear  to  have  been  on  an  average  four 
times  as  high  as  in  the  country-towns ;  a  house  there  was 
once  sold  for  15,000,000  sesterces  (.£15  0,000).  The 
house  of  Marcus  Lepidus  (consul  in  676)  which  was  at  78. 
the  time  of  the  death  of  Sulla  the  finest  in  Rome,  did  not 
rank  a  generation  afterwards  even  as  the  hundredth  on  the 
list  of  Roman  palaces.  We  have  already  mentioned  the 
extravagance  practised  in  the  matter  of  country-houses; 
we  find  that  4,000,000  sesterces  (^40,000)  were  paid 
for  such  a  house,  which  was  valued  chiefly  for  its  fish-pond ; 
and  the  thoroughly  fashionable  grandee  now  needed  at 
least  two  villas — one  in  the  Sabine  or  Alban  mountains 

VOL.  V  158 


386  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

near  the  capital,  and  a  second  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
Campanian  baths — and  in  addition  if  possible  a  garden 
immediately  outside  of  the  gates  of  Rome.  Still  more 
irrational  than  these  villa  -  palaces  were  the  palatial 
sepulchres,  several  of  which  still  existing  at  the  present 
day  attest  what  a  lofty  pile  of  masonry  the  rich  Roman 
needed  in  order  that  he  might  die  as  became  his  rank. 
Fanciers  of  horses  and  dogs  too  were  not  wanting ;  24,000 
sesterces  (,£240)  was  no  uncommon  price  for  a  showy 
horse.  They  indulged  in  furniture  of  fine  wood — a 
table  of  African  cypress-wood  cost  1,000,000  sesterces 
(^io,ooo);  in  dresses  of  purple  stuffs  or  transparent 
gauzes  accompanied  by  an  elegant  adjustment  of  their 
folds  before  the  mirror — the  orator  Hortensius  is  said  to 
have  brought  an  action  of  damages  against  a  colleague 
because  he  ruffled  his  dress  in  a  crowd  ;  in  precious  stones 
and  pearls,  which  first  at  this  period  took  the  place  of  the 
far  more  beautiful  and  more  artistic  ornaments  of  gold — it 
was  already  utter  barbarism,  when  at  the  triumph  of 
Pompeius  over  Mithradates  the  image  of  the  victor 
appeared  wrought  wholly  of  pearls,  and  when  the  sofas 
and  the  shelves  in  the  dining-hall  were  silver-mounted  and 
even  the  kitchen-utensils  were  made  of  silver.  In  a  similar 
spirit  the  collectors  of  this  period  took  out  the  artistic 
medallions  from  the  old  silver  cups,  to  set  them  anew  in 
vessels  of  gold.  Nor  was  there  any  lack  of  luxury  also 
in  travelling.  "  When  the  governor  travelled,"  Cicero  tells 
us  as  to  one  of  the  Sicilian  governors,  "  which  of  course  he 
did  not  in  winter,  but  only  at  the  beginning  of  spring — not 
the  spring  of  the  calendar  but  the  beginning  of  the  season 
of  roses — he  had  himself  conveyed,  as  was  the  custom  with 
the  kings  of  Bithynia,  in  a  litter  with  eight  bearers,  sitting 
on  a  cushion  of  Maltese  gauze  stuffed  with  rose-leaves, 
with  one  garland  on  his  head  and  a  second  twined  round 
his  .neck,  applying  to  his  nose  a  little  smelling  bag  of  fine 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  387 

linen,  with  minute  meshes,  filled  with  roses ;  and  thus  he 
had  himself  carried  even  to  his  bed-chamber." 

But  no  sort  of  luxury  flourished  so  much  as  the  coarsest  Table 

luxury 

of  all — the  luxury  of  the  table.     The  whole  villa  arrange- 
ments and  the  whole  villa  life  had  ultimate  reference  to 
dining ;  not  only  had  they  different  dining-rooms  for  winter 
and  summer,  but  dinner  was  served  in  the  picture-gallery, 
in  the  fruit-chamber,  in  the  aviary,  or  on  a  platform  erected 
in    the    deer-park,    around    which,    when    the    bespoken 
"  Orpheus "  appeared  in  theatrical  costume  and  blew  his 
flourish,  the  duly-trained  roes  and  wild  boars  congregated. 
Such  was  the  care  bestowed  on  decoration ;  but  amidst  all 
this  the  reality  was  by  no  means  forgotten.     Not  only  was 
the  cook  a  graduate  in  gastronomy,  but  the  master  himself 
often  acted  as  the  instructor  of  his  cooks.     The  roast  had 
been  long  ago  thrown  into  the  shade  by  marine  fishes  and 
oysters ;  now  the  Italian  river-fishes  were  utterly  banished 
from  good  tables,  and  Italian  delicacies  and  Italian  wines 
were   looked    on    as    almost    vulgar.      Now    even    at    the 
popular  festivals  there  were  distributed,  besides  the  Italian 
Falerian,  three    sorts   of  foreign  wine — Sicilian,    Lesbian, 
Chian,  while  a  generation  before  it  had  been  sufficient  even 
at  great  banquets  to  send  round  Greek  wine  once ;  in  the 
cellar  of  the  orator  Hortensius  there  was  found  a  stock  of 
10,000  jars   (at   33  quarts)  of  foreign  wine.     It  was  no 
wonder  that  the  Italian  wine-growers  began  to  complain  of 
the  competition  of  the  wines  from  the  Greek  islands.     No 
naturalist  could  ransack  land  and  sea  more  zealously  for 
new   animals   and   plants,   than   the   epicures   of  that   day 
ransacked  them  for  new  culinary  dainties.1     The  circum- 

1  We  have  still  (Macrobius,  iii,  13)   the  bill  of  fare   of  the   banquet 
which  Mucius  Lentulus  Niger  gave  before  691  on  entering  on  his  pontifi-   03. 
cate,  and  of  which  the  pontifices — Caesar  included — the  Vestal  Virgins, 
and  some  other  priests  and  ladies  nearly  related  to  them  partook.      Before 
the  dinner  proper  came  sea-hedgehogs  ;    fresh  oysters  as  many  as  the 
guests  wished  ;    large    mussels  ;    sphondyli  ;    fieldfares  with  asj.  tragus  ; 


388  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

stance  of  the  guest  taking  an  emetic  after  a  banquet,  to 
avoid  the  consequences  of  the  varied  fare  set  before  him, 
no  longer  created  surprise.  Debauchery  of  every  sort 
became  so  systematic  and  aggravated  that  it  found  its 
professors,  who  earned  a  livelihood  by  serving  as  instructors 
of  the  youth  of  quality  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  vice. 
Debt.  It  will  not  be  necessary  to  dwell  longer  on  this  confused 

picture,  so  monotonous  in  its  variety ;  and  the  less  so,  that 
the  Romans  were  far  from  original  in  this  respect,  and  con- 
fined themselves  to  exhibiting  a  copy  of  the  Helleno-Asiatic 
luxury  still  more  exaggerated  and  stupid  than  their  model 
Plutos  naturally  devours  his  children  as  well  as  Kronos ; 
the  competition  for  all  these  mostly  worthless  objects  of 
fashionable  longing  so  forced  up  prices,  than  those  who 
swam  with  the  stream  found  the  most  colossal  estate  melt 
away  in  a  short  time,  and  even  those,  who  only  for  credit's 
sake  joined  in  what  was  most  necessary,  saw  their  inherited 
and  firmly- established  wealth  rapidly  undermined.  The 
canvass  for  the  consulship,  for  instance,  was  the  usual 
highway  to  ruin  for  houses  of  distinction ;  and  nearly  the 
same  description  applies  to  the  games,  the  great  buildings, 
and  all  those  other  pleasant,  doubtless,  but  expensive 
pursuits.  The  princely  wealth  of  that  period  is  only 
surpassed  by  its  still  more  princely  liabilities ;  Caesar  owed 
(52.  about  692,  after  deducting  his  assets,  25,000,000  sesterces 

fattened  fowls  ;  oyster  and  mussel  pasties  ;  black  and  white  sea-acorns ; 
sphondyli  again  ;  glycimarides  ;  sea-netUes  ;  becaficoes  ;  roe-ribs  ;  boar's- 
ribs  ;  fowls  dressed  with  flour ;  becaficoes  ;  purple  shell-fish  of  two  sorts. 
The  dinner  itself  consisted  of  sow's  udder  ;  boar's  -  head  ;  fish-pasties ; 
boar-pasties  ;  ducks  ;  boiled  teals  ;  hares  ;  roasted  fowls  ;  starch-pastry  ; 
Pontic  pastry. 

These  are  the  college-banquets  regarding  which  Varro  (De  R.  R.  iii. 
2,  16)  says  that  they  forced  up  the  prices  of  all  delicacies.  Varro  in  one 
of  his  satires  enumerates  the  following  as  the  most  notable  foreign  delicacies  : 
peacocks  from  Samos  ;  grouse  from  Phrygia ;  cranes  from  Melos  ;  kids 
from  Ambracia  ;  tunny  fishes  from  Chalcedon  ;  muraenas  from  the  Straits 
of  Gades  ;  bleak-fishes  (?  aselli)  from  Pessinus  ;  oysters  and  scallops  fror 
Tarentum  ;  sturgeons  (?)  from  Rhodes  ;  jfarw-fishes  (?)  from  Cilicia ; 
nuts  from  Thasos  ;  dates  from  Egypt ;  acorns  from  Spain. 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  389 

(.£250,000);  Marcus  Antonius,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four 
6,000,000  sesterces  (,£60,000),  fourteen  years  afterwards 
40,000,000  (,£400,000) ;  Curio  owed  60,000,000 
(,£600,000);  Milo  70,000,000  (.£700,000).  That  those 
extravagant  habits  of  the  Roman  world  of  quality  rested 
throughout  on  credit,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  monthly 
interest  in  Rome  was  once  suddenly  raised  from  four  to 
eight  per  cent,  through  the  borrowing  of  the  different 
competitors  for  the  consulship.  Insolvency,  instead  of 
leading  in  due  time  to  a  meeting  of  creditors  or  at  any  rate 
to  a  liquidation  which  might  at  least  place  matters  once 
more  on  a  clear  footing,  was  ordinarily  prolonged  by  the 
debtor  as  much  as  possible ;  instead  of  selling  his  property 
and  especially  his  landed  estates,  he  continued  to  borrow 
and  to  present  the  semblance  of  riches,  till  the  crash  only 
became  the  worse  and  the  winding-up  yielded  a  result 
like  that  of  Milo,  in  which  the  creditors  obtained  some- 
what above  four  per  cent  of  the  sums  for  which  they 
ranked.  Amidst  this  startlingly  rapid  transition  from  riches 
to  bankruptcy  and  this  systematic  swindling,  nobody  of 
course  gained  so  much  as  the  cool  banker,  who  knew  how 
to  give  and  refuse  credit.  The  relations  of  debtor  and 
creditor  thus  returned  almost  to  the  same  point  at  which 
they  had  stood  in  the  worst  times  of  the  social  crises  of 
the  fifth  century ;  the  nominal  landowners  held  virtually  by 
sufferance  of  their  creditors ;  the  debtors  were  either  in 
servile  subjection  to  their  creditors,  so  that  the  humbler  of 
them  appeared  like  freedmen  in  the  creditor's  train  and 
those  of  higher  rank  spoke  and  voted  even  in  the  senate  at 
the  nod  of  their  creditor-lord ;  or  they  were  on  the  point 
of  declaring  war  on  property  itself,  and  either  of  intimidating 
their  creditors  by  threats  or  getting  rid  of  them  by  con- 
spiracy and  civil  war.  On  these  relations  was  based  the 
power  of  Crassus ;  out  of  them  arose  the  insurrections — 
whose  motto  was  "a  clear  sheet " — of  Cinna  (iii.  530,  iv.  74) 


39° 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Im- 
morality. 


Friendship, 


and  still  more  definitely  of  Catilina,  of  Coelius,  of  Dolabella 
entirely  resembling  the  battles  between  those  who  had  and 
those  who  had  not,  which  a  century  before  agitated  the 
Hellenic  world  (ii.  495).  That  amidst  so  rotten  an 
economic  condition  every  financial  or  political  crisis  should 
occasion  the  most  dreadful  confusion,  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  nature  of  the  case ;  we  need  hardly  mention  that 
the  usual  phenomena — the  disappearance  of  capital,  the 
sudden  depreciation  of  landed  estates,  innumerable  bank- 
ruptcies, and  an  almost  universal  insolvency — made  their 
appearance  now  during  the  civil  war,  just  as  they  had  done 
during  the  Social  and  Mithradatic  wars  (iv.  1 7  6). 

Under  such  circumstances,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
morality  and  family  life  were  treated  as  antiquated  things 
among  all  ranks  of  society.  To  be  poor  was  not  merely 
the  sorest  disgrace  and  the  worst  crime,  but  the  only 
disgrace  and  the  only  crime  :  for  money  the  statesman  sold 
the  state,  and  the  burgess  sold  his  freedom ;  the  post  of 
the  officer  and  the  vote  of  the  juryman  were  to  be  had  for 
money ;  for  money  the  lady  of  quality  surrendered  her 
person  as  well  as  the  common  courtesan ;  falsifying  of 
documents  and  perjuries  had  become  so  common  that  in 
a  popular  poet  of  this  age  an  oath  is  called  "the  plaster 
for  debts."  Men  had  forgotten  what  honesty  was ;  a 
person  who  refused  a  bribe  was  regarded  not  as  an  upright 
man,  but  as  a  personal  foe.  The  criminal  statistics  of  all 
times  and  countries  will  hardly  furnish  a  parallel  to  the 
dreadful  picture  of  crimes — so  varied,  so  horrible,  and  so 
unnatural  —  which  the  trial  of  Aulus  Cluentius  unrolls 
before  us  in  the  bosom  of  one  of  the  most  respected 
families  of  an  Italian  country  town. 

But  while  at  the  bottom  of  the  national  life  the  slime 
was  thus  constantly  accumulating  more  and  more  deleteri- 
ously  and  deeply,  so  much  the  more  smooth  and  glittering 
was   the   surface,   overlaid  with   the  varnish   of  polished 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  391 

manners  and  universal  friendship.  All  the  world  inter- 
changed visits ;  so  that  in  the  houses  of  quality  it  was 
necessary  to  admit  the  persons  presenting  themselves  every 
morning  for  the  levee  in  a  certain  order  fixed  by  the  master 
or  occasionally  by  the  attendant  in  waiting,  and  to  give 
audience  only  to  the  more  notable  one  by  one,  while  the 
rest  were  more  summarily  admitted  partly  in  groups,  partly 
en  masse  at  the  close — a  distinction  which  Gaius  Gracchus, 
in  this  too  paving  the  way  for  the  new  monarchy,  is  said 
to  have  introduced.  The  interchange  of  letters  of  courtesy 
was  carried  to  as  great  an  extent  as  the  visits  of  courtesy ; 
"  friendly  "  letters  flew  over  land  and  sea  between  persons 
who  had  neither  personal  relations  nor  business  with  each 
other,  whereas  proper  and  formal  business-letters  scarcely 
occur  except  where  the  letter  is  addressed  to  a  corporation. 
In  like  manner  invitations  to  dinner,  the  customary  new 
year's  presents,  the  domestic  festivals,  were  divested  of 
their  proper  character  and  converted  almost  into  public 
ceremonials ;  even  death  itself  did  not  release  the  Roman 
from  these  attentions  to  his  countless  "  neighbours,"  but  in 
order  to  die  with  due  respectability  he  had  to  provide  each 
of  them  at  any  rate  with  a  keepsake.  Just  as  in  certain 
circles  of  our  mercantile  world,  the  genuine  intimacy  of 
family  ties  and  family  friendships  had  so  totally  vanished 
from  the  Rome  of  that  day  that  the  whole  intercourse  of 
business  and  acquaintance  could  be  garnished  with  forms 
and  flourishes  of  affection  which  had  lost  all  meaning,  and 
thus  by  degrees  the  reality  came  to  be  superseded  by  that 
spectral  shadow  of  "  friendship,"  which  holds  by  no  means 
the  least  place  among  the  various  evil  spirits  brooding  over 
the  proscriptions  and  civil  wars  of  this  age. 

An  equally  characteristic  feature  in  the  brilliant  decay  Wcmen. 
of  this  period  was  the   emancipation   of  women.     In  an 
economic  point  of  view  the  women  had  long  since  made 
themselves  independent  (iii.   123);  in  the  present  epoch 


392  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  BOOK  v 

we  even  meet  with  solicitors  acting  specially  for  women, 
who  officiously  lend  their  aid  to  solitary  rich  ladies  in 
the  management  of  their  property  and  their  lawsuits,  make 
an  impression  on  them  by  their  knowledge  of  business  and 
law,  and  thereby  procure  for  themselves  ampler  perquisites 
and  legacies  than  other  loungers  on  the  exchange.  But  it 
was  not  merely  from  the  economic  guardianship  of  father 
or  husband  that  women  felt  themselves  emancipated. 
Love -intrigues  of  all  sorts  were  constantly  in  progress. 
The  ballet-dancers  (mi'mae)  were  quite  a  match  for  those 
of  the  present  day  in  the  variety  of  their  pursuits  and  the 
skill  with  which  they  followed  them  out ;  their  prima- 
donnas,  Cytheris  and  the  like,  pollute  even  the  pages  of 
history.  But  their,  as  it  were,  licensed  trade  was  very 
materially  injured  by  the  free  art  of  the  ladies  of  aristo- 
cratic circles.  Liaisons  in  the  first  houses  had  become  so 
frequent,  that  only  a  scandal  altogether  exceptional  could 
make  them  the  subject  of  special  talk ;  a  judicial  inter- 
ference seemed  now  almost  ridiculous.  An  unparalleled 
81.  scandal,  such  as  Publius  Clodius  produced  in  693  at  the 
women's  festival  in  the  house  of  the  Pontifex  Maximus, 
although  a  thousand  times  worse  than  the  occurrences 
which  fifty  years  before  had  led  to  a  series  of  capital 
sentences  (iv.  207),  passed  almost  without  investigation 
and  wholly  without  punishment  The  watering-place 
season  —  in  April,  when  political  business  was  suspended 
and  the  world  of  quality  congregated  in  Baiae  and  Puteoli 
— derived  its  chief  charm  from  the  relations  licit  and  illicit 
which,  along  with  music  and  song  and  elegant  breakfasts 
on  board  or  on  shore,  enlivened  the  gondola  voyages. 
There  the  ladies  held  absolute  sway ;  but  they  were  by  no 
means  content  with  this  domain  which  rightfully  belonged 
to  them ;  they  also  acted  as  politicians,  appeared  in  party 
conferences,  and  took  part  with  their  money  and  their 
intrigues  in  the  wild  coterie-doings  of  the  time.     Any  one 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  393 

who  beheld  these  female  statesmen  performing  on  the  stage 
of  Scipio  and  Cato  and  saw  at  their  side  the  young  fop — 
as  with  smooth  chin,  delicate  voice,  and  mincing  gait,  with 
headdress  and  neckerchiefs,  frilled  robe,  and  women's 
sandals  he  copied  the  loose  courtesan — might  well  have 
a  horror  of  the  unnatural  world,  in  which  the  sexes  seemed 
as  though  they  wished  to  change  parts.  What  ideas  as  to 
divorce  prevailed  in  the  circles  of  the  aristocracy  may  be 
discerned  in  the  conduct  of  their  best  and  most  moral 
hero  Marcus  Cato,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  separate  from 
his  wife  at  the  request  of  a  friend  desirous  to  marry  her, 
and  as  little  scrupled  on  the  death  of  this  friend  to  marry 
the  same  wife  a  second  time.  Celibacy  and  childlessness 
became  more  and  more  common,  especially  among  the 
upper  classes.  While  among  these  marriage  had  for  long 
been  regarded  as  a  burden  which  people  took  upon  them 
at  the  best  in  the  public  interest  (iii.  118,  iv.  iZ6f.),  we  now 
encounter  even  in  Cato  and  those  who  shared  Cato's  senti- 
ments the  maxim  to  which  Polybius  a  century  before  traced 
the  decay  of  Hellas  (iii.  265),  that  it  is  the  duty  of  a  citizen 
to  keep  great  wealth  together  and  therefore  not  to  beget 
too  many  children.  Where  were  the  times,  when  the 
designation  "children-producer"  (proletarius)  had  been  a 
term  of  honour  for  the  Roman  ? 

In  consequence  of  such  a  social  condition  the  Latin  Depopula- 
stock  in  Italy  underwent  an  alarming  diminution,  and  its  V°? 
fair  provinces  were  overspread  partly  by  parasitic  immi- 
grants, partly  by  sheer  desolation.  A  considerable  portion 
of  the  population  of  Italy  flocked  to  foreign  lands.  Already 
the  aggregate  amount  of  talent  and  of  working  power, 
which  the  supply  of  Italian  magistrates  and  Italian  garri- 
sons for  the  whole  domain  of  the  Mediterranean  demanded, 
transcended  the  resources  of  the  peninsula,  especially  as 
the  elements  thus  sent  abroad  were  in  great  part  lost  for 
ever  to  the  nation.     For  the  more  that  the  Roman  com- 


394  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

munity  grew  into  an  empire  embracing  many  nations,  the 
more  the  governing  aristocracy  lost  the  habit  of  looking 
on  Italy  as  their  exclusive  home ;  while  of  the  men  levied 
or  enlisted  for  service  a  considerable  portion  perished  in 
the  many  wars,  especially  in  the  bloody  civil  war,  and 
another  portion  became  wholly  estranged  from  their  native 
country  by  the  long  period  of  service,  which  sometimes 
lasted  for  a  generation.  In  like  manner  with  the  public 
service,  speculation  kept  a  portion  of  the  landholders  and 
almost  the  whole  body  of  merchants  all  their  lives  or  at 
any  rate  for  a  long  time  out  of  the  country,  and  the  de- 
moralising itinerant  life  of  trading  in  particular  estranged 
the  latter  altogether  from  civic  existence  in  the  mother 
country  and  from  the  various  conditions  of  family  life. 
As  a  compensation  for  these,  Italy  obtained  on  the  one 
hand  the  proletariate  of  slaves  and  freedmen,  on  the  other 
hand  the  craftsmen  and  traders  flocking  thither  from  Asia 
Minor,  Syria,  and  Egypt,  who  flourished  chiefly  in  the 
capital  and  still  more  in  the  seaport  towns  of  Ostia,  Puteoli, 
and  Brundisium  (iv.  194).  In  the  largest  and  most  im- 
portant part  of  Italy  however,  there  was  not  even  such  a 
substitution  of  impure  elements  for  pure  ;  but  the  popula- 
tion was  visibly  on  the  decline.  Especially  was  this  true 
of  the  pastoral  districts  such  as  Apulia,  the  chosen  land  of 
cattle-breeding,  which  is  called  by  contemporaries  the  most 
deserted  part  of  Italy,  and  of  the  region  around  Rome, 
where  the  Campagna  was  annually  becoming  more  desolate 
under  the  constant  reciprocal  action  of  the  retrograde 
agriculture  and  the  increasing  malaria.  Labici,  Gabii, 
Bovillae,  once  cheerful  little  country  towns,  were  so  de- 
cayed, that  it  was  difficult  to  find  representatives  of  them 
for  the  ceremony  of  the  Latin  festival.  Tusculum,  although 
still  one  of  the  most  esteemed  communities  of  Latium, 
consisted  almost  solely  of  some  genteel  families  who  lived 
in  the  capital  but  retained  their  native  Tusculan  franchise, 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  395 

and  was  far  inferior  in  the  number  of  burgesses  entitled  to 
vote  even  to  small  communities  in  the  interior  of  Italy. 
The  stock  of  men  capable  of  arms  in  this  district,  on  which 
Rome's  ability  to  defend  herself  had  once  mainly  depended, 
had  so  totally  vanished,  that  people  read  with  astonishment 
and  perhaps  with  horror  the  accounts  of  the  annals — 
sounding  fabulous  in  comparison  with  things  as  they  stood 
—  respecting  the  Aequian  and  Volscian  wars.  Matters 
were  not  so  bad  everywhere,  especially  in  the  other  portions 
of  Central  Italy  and  in  Campania ;  nevertheless,  as  Varro 
complains,  "  the  once  populous  cities  of  Italy,"  in  general 
"  stood  desolate." 

It  is  a  dreadful  picture — this  picture  of  Italy  under  the  Italy  under 
rule  of  the  oligarchy.  There  was  nothing  to  bridge  over  or  ^"L^- 
soften  the  fatal  contrast  between  the  world  of  the  beggars 
and  the  world  of  the  rich.  The  more  clearly  and  painfully 
this  contrast  was  felt  on  both  sides — the  giddier  the  height 
to  which  riches  rose,  the  deeper  the  abyss  of  poverty 
yawned — the  more  frequently,  amidst  that  changeful  world 
of  speculation  and  playing  at  hazard,  were  individuals 
tossed  from  the  bottom  to  the  top  and  again  from  the  top  to 
the  bottom.  The  wider  the  chasm  by  which  the  two  worlds 
were  externally  divided,  the  more  completely  they  coincided 
in  the  like  annihilation  of  family  life — which  is  yet  the 
germ  and  core  of  all  nationality — in  the  like  laziness  and 
luxury,  the  like  unsubstantial  economy,  the  like  unmanly 
dependence,  the  like  corruption  differing  only  in  its  tariff, 
the  like  criminal  demoralization,  the  like  longing  to  begin 
the  war  with  property.  Riches  and  misery  in  close  league 
drove  the  Italians  out  of  Italy,  and  filled  the  pemnsula 
partly  with  swarms  of  slaves,  partly  with  awful  silence.  It 
is  a  terrible  picture,  but  not  one  peculiar  to  Italy ;  wher- 
ever the  government  of  capitalists  in  a  slave-state  has  fully 
developed  itself,  it  has  desolated  God's  fair  world  in  the 
same  wav      As  rivers  glisten  in  different  colours,  but  a 


396  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  * 

common  sewer  everywhere  looks  like  itself,  so  the  Italy  of 
the  Ciceronian  epoch  resembles  substantially  the  Hellas  of 
Polybius  and  still  more  decidedly  the  Carthage  of  Hannibal's 
time,  where  in  exactly  similar  fashion  the  all-powerful  rule  of 
capital  ruined  the  middle  class,  raised  trade  and  estate- 
farming  to  the  highest  prosperity,  and  ultimately  led  to  a 
— hypocritically  whitewashed — moral  and  political  corruption 
of  the  nation.     All  the  arrant  sins  that  capital  has  been 
guilty   of  against   nation  and   civilization  in    the    modern 
world,  remain  as  far  inferior  to  the  abominations  of  the 
ancient  capitalist-states  as  the  free  man,  be  he  ever  so  poor, 
remains  superior  to  the  slave ;  and  not  until  the  dragon- 
seed  of  North  America  ripens,  will  the  world  have  again 
similar  fruits  to  reap. 
Reforms  of        These  evils,  under  which  the  national  economy  of  Italy 
lay  prostrate,  were  in  their  deepest  essence  irremediable, 
and  so  much  of  them  as  still  admitted  of  remedy  depended 
essentially  for  its  amendment  on  the  people  and  on  time ; 
for  the   wisest  government  is   as  little  able  as  the  more 
skilful  physician  to  give  freshness  to  the  corrupt  juices  of 
the  organism,  or  to  do  more  in  the  case  of  the  deeper- 
rooted  evils  than  to  prevent  those  accidents  which  obstruct 
the   remedial    power    of    nature    in    its    working.      The 
peaceful  energy  of  the  new  rule  even  of  itself  furnished 
such  a  preventive,  for  by  its  means  some  of  the  worst 
excrescences    were    done    away,     such    as    the    artificial 
pampering    of  the    proletariate,    the    impunity  of  crimes, 
the   purchase   of  offices,    and    various    others.      But    the 
government     could     do    something    more    than     simply 
abstain    from    harm.      Caesar    was    not    one    of    those 
over -wise   people    who    refuse    to    embank    the    sea,    be- 
cause forsooth  no  dike   can  defy  some  sudden  influx  of 
the  tide.     It  is  better,  if  a  nation  and  its  economy  follow 
spontaneously  the  path  prescribed  by  nature ;  but,  seeing 
that  they  had  got  out  of  this  path,  Caesar  applied  all  his 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  397 

energies  to  bring  back  by  special  intervention  the  nation 
to  its  home  and  family  life,  and  to  reform  the  national 
economy  by  law  and  decree. 

With  a  view  to  check  the  continued  absence  of  the  Measures 
Italians  from  Italy  and  to  induce  the  world  of  quality  and  absentees 
the  merchants  to  establish  their  homes  in  their  native  land,  from  Italy, 
not  only  was  the  term  of  service  for  the  soldiers  shortened, 
but  men  of  senatorial  rank  were  altogether  prohibited  from 
taking  up  their  abode  out  of  Italy  except  when  on  public 
business,  while  the  other  Italians  of  marriageable  age  (from 
the  twentieth  to  the  fortieth  year)  were  enjoined  not  to  be 
absent  from  Italy  for  more  than  three  consecutive  years.     In 
the  same  spirit  Caesar  had  already  in  his  first  consulship  on  Measures 
founding  the  colony  of  Capua  kept  specially  in  view  fathers  for  the 
who  had  several  children  (iv.  508);  and  now  as  Imperator  he  of  the 
proposed  extraordinary  rewards  for  the  fathers  of  numerous  faraily«^/ 
families,  while  he  at  the  same  time  as  supreme  judge  of  the 
nation  treated  divorce  and  adultery  with  a  rigour  according 
to  Roman  ideas  unparalleled.  _— ^.^ 

Nor  did  he  even  think  it  beneath  his  dignity  to  issue  a  Laws^\ 
detailed  law  as  to  luxury — which,  among  other  points,  cut  resPectin8 
down  extravagance  in  building  at  least  in  one  of  its  most  l"7' 
irrational  forms,  that  of  sepulchral  monuments;  restricted 
the  use  of  purple  robes  and  pearls  to  certain  times,  ages, 
and  classes,  and  totally  prohibited  it  in  grown-up  men; 
fixed  a  maximum  for  the  expenditure  of  the  table;  and 
directly  forbade  a  number  of  luxurious  dishes.  Such 
ordinances  doubtless  were  not  new ;  but  it  was  a  new  thing 
that  the  "  master  of  morals "  seriously  insisted  on  their 
observance,  superintended  the  provision-markets  by  means 
of  paid  overseers,  and  ordered  that  the  tables  of  men  of 
rank  should  be  examined  by  his  officers  and  the  forbidden 
dishes  on  them  should  be  confiscated.  It  is  true  that  by 
such  theoretical  and  practical  instructions  in  moderation  as 
the  new  monarchical  police  gave  to  the  fashionable  world 


398  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

hardly  more  could  be  accomplished  than  the  compelling 
luxury  to  retire  somewhat  more  into  concealment ;  but,  if 
hypocrisy  is  the  homage  which  vice  pays  to  virtue,  under 
the  circumstances  of  the  times  even  a  semblance  of 
propriety  established  by  police  measures  was  a  step  towards 
improvement  not  to  be  despised. 
The  debt  The   measures   of  Caesar  for  the  better  regulation  of 

Italian  monetary  and  agricultural  relations  were  of  a  graver 
character  and  promised  greater  results.     The  first  question 
here  related  to  temporary  enactments  respecting  the  scarcity 
of  money  and  the  debt-crisis  generally.    The  law  called  forth 
by  the  outcry  as  to  locked-up  capital — that  no  one  should 
have  on  hand  more  than  60,000  sesterces  (^600)  in  gold 
and  silver  cash  —  was  probably  only  issued  to  allay   the 
indignation  of  the   blind  public  against  the  usurers;  the 
form  of  publication,  which  proceeded  on  the  fiction  that 
this  was  merely  the  renewed  enforcing  of  an  earlier  law  that 
had  fallen  into  oblivion,  shows  that  Caesar  was  ashamed 
of  this   enactment,   and  it  can  hardly    have  passed  into 
actual  application.     A  far  more  serious  question  was  the 
treatment  of  the  pending  claims  for  debt,  the  complete 
remission  of  which  was  vehemently  demanded  from  Caesar 
by  the  party  which  called  itself  by  his  name.     We  have 
already  mentioned,  that  he  did  not  yield  to  this  demand 
(p.   318);    but  two  important   concessions  were  made  to 
49.  the  debtors,  and  that  as  early  as  705.     First,  the  interest 
in   arrear   was    struck    off,1   and    that    which    was    paid 
was   deducted   from  the  capital.      Secondly,  the  creditor 
was  compelled  to  accept  the  moveable  and  immoveable 
property  of  the  debtor  in  lieu  of  payment  at  the  estimated 
value  which  his  effects  had  before  the  civil  war  and  the 

1  This  is  not  stated  by  our  authorities,  but  it  necessarily  follows  from  the 
permission  to  deduct  the  interest  paid  by  cash  or  assignation  (si  quid 
usurae  nomine  numeratum  aut  perscriptum  fuisset ;  Sueton.  Cats.  42),  as 
paid  contrary  to  law,  from  the  capital. 


cha?.  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  399 

general  depreciation  which  it  had  occasioned.  The  latter 
enactment  was  not  unreasonable ;  if  the  creditor  was  to  be 
looked  on  de  facto  as  the  owner  of  the  property  of  his 
debtor  to  the  amount  of  the  sum  due  to  him,  it  was  doubt- 
less proper  that  he  should  bear  his  share  in  the  general 
depreciation  of  the  property.  On  the  other  hand  the 
cancelling  of  the  payments  of  interest  made  or  outstanding 
— which  practically  amounted  to  this,  that  the  creditors 
lost,  besides  the  interest  itself,  on  an  average  25  per  cent 
of  what  they  were  entitled  to  claim  as  capital  at  the  time  of 
the  issuing  of  the  law — was  in  fact  nothing  else  than  a 
partial  concession  of  that  cancelling  of  creditors'  claims 
springing  out  of  loans,  for  which  the  democrats  had 
clamoured  so  vehemently;  and,  however  bad  may  have 
been  the  conduct  of  the  usurers,  it  is  not  possible  thereby 
to  justify  the  retrospective  abolition  of  all  claims  for  interest 
without  distinction.  In  order  at  least  to  understand  this 
agitation  we  must  recollect  how  the  democratic  party  stood 
towards  the  question  of  interest.  The  legal  prohibition 
against  taking  interest,  which  the  old  plebeian  opposition 
had  extorted  in  412  (i.  389),  had  no  doubt  been  practi-  8*2. 
cally  disregarded  by  the  nobility  which  controlled  the 
civil  procedure  by  means  of  the  praetorship,  but  had 
still  remained  since  that  period  formally  valid ;  and  the 
democrats  of  the  seventh  century,  who  regarded  themselves 
throughout  as  the  continuers  of  that  old  agitation  as  to 
privilege  and  social  position  (iv.  474),  had  maintained  the 
illegality  of  payment  of  interest  at  any  time,  and  even 
already  practically  enforced  that  principle,  at  least  tem- 
porarily, in  the  confusion  of  the  Marian  period  (iii.  530). 
It  is  not  credible  that  Caesar  shared  the  crude  views  of  his 
party  on  the  interest  question ;  the  fact,  that  in  his  account 
of  the  matter  of  liquidation  he  mentions  the  enactment  as 
to  the  surrender  of  the  property  of  the  debtor  in  lieu  of 
payment  but  is  silent  as  to  the  cancelling  of  the  interest,  is 


4QO  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  V 

perhaps  a  tacit  self-reproach.  But  he  was,  like  every  party- 
leader,  dependent  on  his  party  and  could  not  directly 
repudiate  the  traditional  maxims  of  the  democracy  in  the 
question  of  interest ;  the  more  especially  when  he  had  to 
decide  this  question,  not  as  the  all-powerful  conqueror  of 
Pharsalus,  but  even  before  his  departure  for  Epirus.  But, 
while  he  permitted  perhaps  rather  than  originated  this 
violation  of  legal  order  and  of  property,  it  is  certainly  his 
merit  that  that  monstrous  demand  for  the  annulling  of  all 
claims  arising  from  loans  was  rejected ;  and  it  may  perhaps 
be  looked  on  as  a  saving  of  his  honour,  that  the  debtors 
were  far  more  indignant  at  the — according  to  their  view 
extremely  unsatisfactory — concession  given  to  them  than 
the  injured  creditors,  and  made  under  Caelius  and  Dola- 
bella  those  foolish  and  (as  already  mentioned)  speedily 
frustrated  attempts  to  extort  by  riot  and  civil  war  what 
Caesar  refused  to  them. 
New  But    Caesar   did   not  confine  himself  to   helping  the 

as  to  bank-  debtor  for  the  moment ;  he  did  what  as  legislator  he  could, 
ruptcy.  permanently  to  keep  down  the  fearful  omnipotence  of 
capital.  First  of  all  the  great  legal  maxim  was  proclaimed, 
that  freedom  is  not  a  possession  commensurable  with 
property,  but  an  eternal  right  of  man,  of  which  the  state  is 
entitled  judicially  to  deprive  the  criminal  alone,  not  the 
debtor.  It  was  Caesar,  who,  perhaps  stimulated  in  this 
case  also  by  the  more  humane  Egyptian  and  Greek  legis- 
lation, especially  that  of  Solon,1  introduced  this  principle — 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  maxims  of  the  earlier  ordi- 
nances as  to  bankruptcy — into  the  common  law,  where  it 
has  since  retained  its  place  undisputed.  According  to 
Roman  law  the  debtor  unable  to  pay  became  the  serf  of 

1  The  Egyptian  royal  laws  (Diodorus,  i.  79)  and  likewise  the  legisla- 
tion of  Solon  (Plutarch,  Sol.  13,  15)  forbade  bonds  in  which  the  loss  of  the 
personal  liberty  of  the  debtor  was  made  the  penalty  of  non-payment ;  and 
at  least  the  latter  imposed  on  the  debtor  in  the  event  of  bankruptcy  no 
more  than  the  cession  of  his  whole  assets. 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  401 

his  creditor  (i.  198).  The  Poetelian  law  no  doubt  had 
allowed  a  debtor,  who  had  become  unable  to  pay  only 
through  temporary  embarrassments,  not  through  genuine 
insolvency,  to  save  his  personal  freedom  by  the  cession  of 
his  property  (i.  390) ;  nevertheless  for  the  really  insolvent 
that  principle  of  law,  though  doubtless  modified  in 
secondary  points,  had  been  in  substance  retained  unaltered 
for  five  hundred  years ;  a  direct  recourse  to  the  debtor's 
estate  only  occurred  exceptionally,  when  the  debtor  had 
died  or  had  forfeited  his  burgess -rights  or  could  not  be 
found.  It  was  Caesar  who  first  gave  an  insolvent  the 
right — on  which  our  modern  bankruptcy  regulations  are 
based — of  formally  ceding  his  estate  to  his  creditors, 
whether  it  might  suffice  to  satisfy  them  or  not,  so  as  to 
save  at  all  events  his  personal  freedom  although  with 
diminished  honorary  and  political  rights,  and  to  begin  a 
new  financial  existence,  in  which  he  could  only  be  sued  on 
account  of  claims  proceeding  from  the  earlier  period  and 
not  protected  in  the  liquidation,  if  he  could  pay  them 
without  renewed  financial  ruin. 

While  thus  the  great  democrat  had  the  imperishable  Usury- 
honour  of  emancipating  personal  freedom  in  principle  from  laws" 
capital,  he  attempted  moreover  to  impose  a  police  limit  on 
the  excessive  power  of  capital  by  usury-laws.  He  did  not 
affect  to  disown  the  democratic  antipathy  to  stipulations 
for  interest.  For  Italian  money-dealing  there  was  fixed  a 
maximum  amount  of  the  loans  at  interest  to  be  allowed  in 
the  case  of  the  individual  capitalist,  which  appears  to  have 
been  proportioned  to  the  Italian  landed  estate  belonging 
to  each,  and  perhaps  amounted  to  half  its  value.  Trans- 
gressions of  this  enactment  were,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
procedure  prescribed  in  the  republican  usury-laws,  treated 
as  criminal  offences  and  sent  before  a  special  jury-com- 
mission. If  these  regulations  were  successfully  carried  into 
effect,  every  Italian  man  of  business  would  be  compelled 

VOL.  V  159 


402  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

to  become  at  the  same  time  an  Italian  landholder,  and  the 
class  of  capitalists  subsisting  merely  on  their  interest  would 
disappear  wholly  from  Italy.  Indirectly  too  the  no  less 
injurious  category  of  insolvent  landowners  who  practically 
managed  their  estates  merely  for  their  creditors  was  by 
this  means  materially  curtailed,  inasmuch  as  the  creditors, 
if  they  desired  to  continue  their  lending  business,  were 
compelled  to  buy  for  themselves.  From  this  very  fact 
besides  it  is  plain  that  Caesar  wished  by  no  means  simply 
to  renew  that  naive  prohibition  of  interest  by  the  old 
popular  party,  but  on  the  contrary  to  allow  the  taking  of 
interest  within  certain  limits.  It  is  very  probable  however 
that  he  did  not  confine  himself  to  that  injunction — which 
applied  merely  to  Italy — of  a  maximum  amount  of  sums 
to  be  lent,  but  also,  especially  with  respect  to  the  provinces, 
prescribed  maximum  rates  for  interest  itself.  The  enact- 
ments— that  it  was  illegal  to  take  higher  interest  than  i 
per  cent  per  month,  or  to  take  interest  on  arrears  of 
interest,  or  in  fine  to  make  a  judicial  claim  for  arrears  of 
interest  to  a  greater  amount  than  a  sum  equal  to  the 
capital — were,  probably  also  after  the  Graeco- Egyptian 
model,1  first  introduced  in  the  Roman  empire  by  Lucius 
Lucullus  for  Asia  Minor  and  retained  there  by  his  better 
successors ;  soon  afterwards  they  were  transferred  to  other 
provinces  by  edicts  of  the  governors,  and  ultimately  at 
least  part  of  them  was  provided  with  the  force  of  law  in 
60.  all  provinces  by  a  decree  of  the  Roman  senate  of  704. 
The  fact  that  these  Lucullan  enactments  afterwards  appear 
in  all  their  compass  as  imperial  law  and  have  thus  become 
the  basis  of  the  Roman  and  indeed  of  modern  legislation 
as  to  interest,  may  also  perhaps  be  traced  back  to  an 
ordinance  of  Caesar. 

1  At  least  the  latter  rule  occurs  in  the  old  Egyptian  royal  laws  (Dio- 
dorus,  i.  79).  On  the  other  hand  the  Solonian  legislation  knows  no 
restrictions  on  interest,  but  on  the  contrary  expressly  allows  interest  to  be 
fixed  of  any  amount  at  pleasure. 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  4°3 

Hand  in  hand  with  these  efforts  to  guard  against  the  Elevation 
ascendency  of  capital  went  the  endeavours  to  bring  back  ^^ 
agriculture  to  the  path  which  was  most  advantageous  for 
the  commonwealth.  For  this  purpose  the  improvement  of 
the  administration  of  justice  and  of  police  was  very 
essential.  While  hitherto  nobody  in  Italy  had  been  sure 
of  his  life  and  of  his  moveable  or  immoveable  property, 
while  Roman  condottieri  for  instance,  at  the  intervals  when 
their  gangs  were  not  helping  to  manage  the  politics  of  the 
capital,  applied  themselves  to  robbery  in  the  forests  of 
Etruria  or  rounded  off  the  country  estates  of  their  pay- 
masters by  fresh  acquisitions,  this  sort  of  club-law  was  now 
at  an  end ;  and  in  particular  the  agricultural  population  of 
all  classes  must  have  felt  the  beneficial  effects  of  the 
change.  The  plans  of  Caesar  for  great  works  also,  which 
were  not  at  all  limited  to  the  capital,  were  intended  to  tell 
in  this  respect;  the  construction,  for  instance,  of  a  con- 
venient high-road  from  Rome  through  the  passes  of  the 
Apennines  to  the  Adriatic  was  designed  to  stimulate  the 
internal  traffic  of  Italy,  and  the  lowering  the  level  of  the 
Fucine  lake  to  benefit  the  Marsian  farmers.  But  Caesar 
also  sought  by  more  direct  measures  to  influence  the  state 
of  Italian  husbandry.  The  Italian  graziers  were  required 
to  take  at  least  a  third  of  their  herdsmen  from  freeborn 
adults,  whereby  brigandage  was  checked  and  at  the  same 
time  a  source  of  gain  was  opened  to  the  free  proletariate. 

In  the  agrarian  question  Caesar,  who  already  in  his  first  pistribu- 
consulship  had  been  in  a  position  to  regulate  it  (iv.  508),  ]&aiL 
more  judicious  than  Tiberius  Gracchus,  did  not  seek  to 
restore  the  farmer-system  at  any  price,  even  at  that  of  a  re- 
volution— concealed  under  juristic  clauses — directed  against 
property  ;  by  him  on  the  contrary,  as  by  every  other  genuine 
statesman,  the  security  of  that  which  is  property  or  is  at 
any  rate  regarded  by  the  public  as  property  was  esteemed 
as  the  first  and  most  inviolable  of  all  political  maxims,  and 


404  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  V 

it  was  only  within  the  limits  assigned  by  this  maxim  that 
he  sought  to  accomplish  the  elevation  of  the  Italian  small 
holdings,  which  also  appeared  to  him  as  a  vital  question  for 
the  nation.  Even  as  it  was,  there  was  much  still  left  for 
him  in  this  respect  to  do.  Every  private  right,  whether  it 
was  called  property  or  entitled  heritable  possession,  whether 
traceable  to  Gracchus  or  to  Sulla,  was  unconditionally  re- 
spected by  him.  On  the  other  hand  Caesar,  after  he  had  in 
his  strictly  economical  fashion — which  tolerated  no  waste 
and  no  negligence  even  on  a  small  scale — instituted  a  general 
revision  of  the  Italian  titles  to  possession  by  the  revived 
commission  of  Twenty  (iv.  509),  destined  the  whole  actual 
domain  land  of  Italy  (including  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  real  estates  that  were  in  the  hands  of  spiritual  guilds 
but  legally  belonged  to  the  state)  for  distribution  in  the 
Gracchan  fashion,  so  far,  of  course,  as  it  was  fitted  for 
agriculture ;  the  Apulian  summer  and  the  Samnite  winter 
pastures  belonging  to  the  state  continued  to  be  domain; 
and  it  was  at  least  the  design  of  the  Imperator,  if  these 
domains  should  not  suffice,  to  procure  the  additional  land 
requisite  by  the  purchase  of  Italian  estates  from  the  public 
funds.  In  the  selection  of  the  new  farmers  provision  was 
naturally  made  first  of  all  for  the  veteran  soldiers,  and  as 
far  as  possible  the  burden,  which  the  levy  imposed  on  the 
mother  country,  was  converted  into  a  benefit  by  the  fact 
that  Caesar  gave  the  proletarian,  who  was  levied  from  it  as 
a  recruit,  back  to  it  as  a  farmer ;  it  is  remarkable  also  that 
the  desolate  Latin  communities,  such  as  Veii  and  Capena, 
seem  to  have  been  preferentially  provided  with  new  colonists. 
The  regulation  of  Caesar  that  the  new  owners  should  not 
be  entitled  to  alienate  the  lands  received  by  them  till  after 
twenty  years,  was  a  happy  medium  between  the  full  bestowal 
of  the  right  of  alienation,  which  would  have  brought  the 
larger  portion  of  the  distributed  land  speedily  back  into 
the  hands  of  the  great  capitalists,  and  the  permanent  V 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  405 

strictions  on   freedom  of  dealing  in  land  which  Tiberius 

Gracchus  (Hi.  320,  327,  373)  and  Sulla  (iv.  199,  370)  had 

enacted,  both  equally  in  vain. 

Lastly  while  the  government  thus  energetically  applied  Elevation 

itself  to  remove  the  diseased,  and  to  strengthen  the  sound,  ofth.e. 

0  '   municipal 

elements  of  the  Italian  national  life,  the  newly-regulated  system. 
municipal  system — which  had  but  recently  developed  itself 
out  of  the  crisis  of  the  Social  war  in  and  alongside  of  the 
state-economy  (iv.  131) — was  intended  to  communicate  to 
the  new  absolute  monarchy  the  communal  life  which  was 
compatible  with  it,  and  to  impart  to  the  sluggish  circulation 
of  the  noblest  elements  of  public  life  once  more  a  quickened 
action.  The  leading  principles  in  the  two  municipal  ordi- 
nances issued  in  705  for  Cisalpine  Gaul  and  in  709  for  49.  45. 
Italy,1  the  latter  of  which  remained  the  fundamental  law  for 
all  succeeding  times,  are  apparently,  first,  the  strict  purifying 
of  the  urban  corporations  from  all  immoral  elements,  while 
yet  no  trace  of  political  police  occurs ;  secondly,  the 
utmost  restriction  of  centralization  and  the  utmost  freedom 
of  movement  in  the  communities,  to  which  there  was  even 
now  reserved  the  election  of  magistrates  and  an — although 
limited — civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction.  The  general  police 
enactments,  such  as  the  restrictions  on  the  right  of  associa- 
tion (p.  373),  came,  it  is  true,  into  operation  also  here. 

Such  were  the  ordinances,  by  which  Caesar  attempted 
to  reform  the  Italian  national  economy.  It  is  easy  both  to 
show  their  insufficiency,  seeing  that  they  allowed  a  multitude 
of  evils  still  to  exist,  and  to  prove  that  they  operated  in 
various  respects  injuriously  by  imposing  restrictions,  some 
of  which  were  very  severely  felt,  on  freedom  of  dealing. 
It  is  still  easier  to  show  that  the  evils  of  the  Italian  national 
economy  generally  were  incurable.  But  in  spite  of  this 
the  practical  statesman  will  admire  the  work  as  well  as  the 
master-workman.  It  was  already  no  small  achievement 
1  Of  both  laws  considerable  fragments  still  exist 


406 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Provinces. 


Provincial 
adminis- 
tration 
of  the 
oligarchy. 


that,  where  a  man  like  Sulla,  despairing  of  remedy,  had 
contented  himself  with  a  mere  formal  reorganization,  the 
evil  was  seized  in  its  proper  seat  and  grappled  with  there ; 
and  we  may  well  conclude  that  Caesar  with  his  reforms 
came  as  near  to  the  measure  of  what  was  possible  as  it  was 
given  to  a  statesman  and  a  Roman  to  come.  He  could 
not  and  did  not  expect  from  them  the  regeneration  of  Italy ; 
but  he  sought  on  the  contrary  to  attain  this  in  a  very 
different  way,  for  the  right  apprehension  of  which  it  is 
necessary  first  of  all  to  review  the  condition  of  the  provinces 
as  Caesar  found  them. 

The  provinces,  which  Caesar  found  in  existence,  were 
fourteen  in  number :  seven  European — the  Further  and 
the  Hither  Spain,  Transalpine  Gaul,  Italian  Gaul  with 
Illyricum,  Macedonia  with  Greece,  Sicily,  Sardinia  with 
Corsica ;  five  Asiatic — Asia,  Bithynia  and  Pontus,  Cilicia 
with  Cyprus,  Syria,  Crete ;  and  two  African — Cyrene  and 
Africa.  To  these  Caesar  added  three  new  ones  by  the 
erection  of  the  two  new  governorships  of  Lugdunese  Gaul 
and  Belgica  (p.  95)  and  by  constituting  Illyricum  a  province 
by  itself.1 

In  the  administration  of  these  provinces  oligarchic 
misrule  had  reached  a  point  which,  notwithstanding  various 
noteworthy  performances  in  this  line,  no  second  govern- 
ment has  ever  attained  at  least  in  the  west,  and  which 
according  to  our  ideas  it  seems  no  longer  possible  to 
surpass.  Certainly  the  responsibility  for  this  rests  not 
on  the  Romans  alone.  Almost  everywhere  before  their 
day  the  Greek,  Phoenician,  or  Asiatic  rule  had  already 
driven  out  of  the  nations  the  higher  spirit  and  the  sense 


1  As  according  to  Caesar's  ordinance  annually  sixteen  propraetors  and 
two  proconsuls  divided  the  governorships  among  them,  and  the  latter 
remained  two  years  in  office  (p.  344),  we  might  conclude  that  he  intended 
to  bring  the  number  of  provinces  in  all  up  to  twenty.  Certainty  is,  how- 
ever, the  less  attainable  as  to  this,  seeing  that  Caesar  perhaps  designedly 
instituted  fewer  offices  than  candidatures. 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  407 

of  right  and  of  liberty  belonging  to  better  times.  It  was 
doubtless  bad,  that  every  accused  provincial  was  bound, 
when  asked,  to  appear  personally  in  Rome  to  answer  for 
himself;  that  the  Roman  governor  interfered  at  pleasure 
in  the  administration  of  justice  and  the  management  of 
the  dependent  communities,  pronounced  capital  sentences, 
and  cancelled  transactions  of  the  municipal  council ;  and 
that  in  case  of  war  he  treated  the  militia  as  he  chose  and 
often  infamously,  as  e.g.  when  Cotta  at  the  siege  of  the 
Pontic  Heraclea  assigned  to  the  militia  all  the  posts  of 
danger,  to  spare  his  Italians,  and  on  the  siege  not  going 
according  to  his  wish,  ordered  the  heads  of  his  engineers 
to  be  laid  at  his  feet.  It  was  doubtless  bad,  that  no  rule 
of  morality  or  of  criminal  law  bound  either  the  Roman 
administrators  or  their  retinue,  and  that  violent  outrages, 
rapes,  and  murders  with  or  without  form  of  law  were  of 
daily  occurrence  in  the  provinces.  But  these  things  were 
at  least  nothing  new ;  almost  everywhere  men  had  long 
been  accustomed  to  be  treated  like  slaves,  and  it  signified 
little  in  the  long  run  whether  a  Carthaginian  overseer,  a 
Syrian  satrap,  or  a  Roman  proconsul  acted  as  the  local 
tyrant.  Their  material  well-being,  almost  the  only  thing 
for  which  the  provincials  still  cared,  was  far  less  disturbed 
by  those  occurrences,  which  although  numerous  in  pro- 
portion to  the  many  tyrants  yet  affected  merely  isolated 
individuals,  than  by  the  financial  exactions  pressing  heavily 
on  all,  which  had  never  previously  been  prosecuted  with 
such  energy. 

The  Romans  now  gave  in  this  domain  fearful  proof  of 
their  old  mastery  of  money -matters.  We  have  already 
endeavoured  to  describe  the  Roman  system  of  provincial 
oppression  in  its  modest  and  rational  foundations  as  well 
as  in  its  growth  and  corruption  (iv.  157-166) ;  as  a  matter 
of  course,  the  latter  went  on  increasing.  The  ordinary 
taxes  became  far  more  oppressive  from  the  inequality  of 


408  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

their  distribution  and  from  the  preposterous  system  of 
levying  them  than  from  their  high  amount.  As  to  the 
burden  of  quartering  troops,  Roman  statesmen  themselves 
expressed  the  opinion  that  a  town  suffered  nearly  to  the 
same  extent  when  a  Roman  army  took  up  winter  quarters 
in  it  as  when  an  enemy  took  it  by  storm.  While  the  taxa- 
tion in  its  original  character  had  been  an  indemnification 
for  the  burden  of  military  defence  undertaken  by  Rome, 
and  the  community  paying  tribute  had  thus  a  right  to 
remain  exempt  from  ordinary  service,  garrison-service  was 
now — as  is  attested  e.g.  in  the  case  of  Sardinia — for  the 
most  part  imposed  on  the  provincials,  and  even  in  the 
ordinary  armies,  besides  other  duties,  the  whole  heavy 
burden  of  the  cavalry-service  was  devolved  on  them.  The 
extraordinary  contributions  demanded — such  as,  the  deli- 
veries of  grain  for  little  or  no  compensation  to  benefit  the 
proletariate  of  the  capital ;  the  frequent  and  costly  naval 
armaments  and  coast-defences  in  order  to  check  piracy ; 
the  task  of  supplying  works  of  art,  wild  beasts,  or  other 
demands  of  the  insane  Roman  luxury  in  the  theatre  and 
the  chase ;  the  military  requisitions  in  case  of  war — were 
just  as  frequent  as  they  were  oppressive  and  incalculable. 
A  single  instance  may  show  how  far  things  were  carried. 
During  the  three  years'  administration  of  Sicily  by  Gaius 
Verres  the  number  of  farmers  in  Leontini  fell  from  84  to 
32,  in  Motuca  from  187  to  86,  in  Herbita  from  252  to 
120,  in  Agyrium  from  250  to  80  ;  so  that  in  four  of  the 
most  fertile  districts  of  Sicily  59  per  cent  of  the  land- 
holders preferred  to  let  their  fields  lie  fallow  than  to 
cultivate  them  under  such  government.  And  these  land- 
holders were,  as  their  small  number  itself  shows  and  as 
is  expressly  stated,  by  no  means  small  farmers,  but  respect- 
able planters  and  in  great  part  Roman  burgesses  ! 
In  the  In  the  client-states  the  forms  of  taxation  were  somewhat 

*T?"*"         different,  but  the  burdens  themselves  were  if  possible  still 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  409 

worse,  since  in  addition  to  the  exactions  of  the  Romans 
there  came  those  of  the  native  courts.  In  Cappadocia 
and  Egypt  the  farmer  as  well  as  the  king  was  bankrupt; 
the  former  was  unable  to  satisfy  the  tax-collector,  the 
latter  was  unable  to  satisfy  his  Roman  creditor.  Add  to 
these  the  exactions,  properly  so  called,  not  merely  of  the 
governor  himself,  but  also  of  his  "  friends,"  each  of  whom 
fancied  that  he  had  as  it  were  a  draft  on  the  governor  and 
a  title  accordingly  to  come  back  from  the  province  a  made 
man.  The  Roman  oligarchy  in  this  respect  completely 
resembled  a  gang  of  robbers,  and  followed  out  the  plunder- 
ing of  the  provincials  in  a  professional  and  business-like 
manner ;  capable  members  of  the  gang  set  to  work  not 
too  nicely,  for  they  had  in  fact  to  share  the  spoil  with  the 
advocates  and  the  jurymen,  and  the  more  they  stole,  they 
did  so  the  more  securely.  The  notion  of  honour  in  theft 
too  was  already  developed ;  the  big  robber  looked  down 
on  the  little,  and  the  latter  on  the  mere  thief,  with  con- 
tempt ;  any  one,  who  had  been  once  for  a  wonder  con- 
demned, boasted  of  the  high  figure  of  the  sums  which  he 
was  proved  to  have  exacted.  Such  was  the  behaviour 
in  the  provinces  of  the  successors  of  those  men,  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  bring  home  nothing  from  their 
administration  but  the  thanks  of  the  subjects  and  the 
approbation  of  their  fellow-citizens. 

But  still  worse,  if  possible,  and  still  less  subject  to  any  The 

control  was  the  havoc  committed  by  the  Italian  men  of  Ro™an 

/  capitalist! 

business  among  the  unhappy  provincials.  The  most  lucra-  in  the 
tive  portions  of  the  landed  property  and  the  whole  com-  P1"0™1106* 
mercial  and  monetary  business  in  the  provinces  were 
concentrated  in  their  hands.  The  estates  in  the  trans- 
marine regions,  which  belonged  to  Italian  grandees,  were 
exposed  to  all  the  misery  of  management  by  stewards,  and 
never  saw  their  owners  ;  excepting  possibly  the  hunting- 
parks,  which  occur  as  early  as  this  time  in  Transalpine 


4io 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Robberies 
and 

damage 
by  war. 


Gaul  with  an  area  amounting  to  nearly  twenty  square 
miles.  Usury  flourished  as  it  had  never  flourished  before. 
The  small  landowners  in  Illyricum,  Asia,  and  Egypt  man- 
aged their  estates  even  in  Varro's  time  in  great  part  practi- 
cally as  the  debtor-slaves  of  their  Roman  or  non-Roman 
creditors,  just  as  the  plebeians  in  former  days  for  their 
patrician  lords.  Cases  occurred  of  capital  being  lent  even 
to  urban  communities  at  four  per  cent  per  month.  It  was 
no  unusual  thing  for  an  energetic  and  influential  man  of 
business  to  get  either  the  title  of  envoy l  given  to  him  by 
the  senate  or  that  of  officer  by  the  governor,  and,  if 
possible,  to  have  men  put  at  his  service  for  the  better 
prosecution  of  his  affairs  ;  a  case  is  narrated  on  credible 
authority,  where  one  of  these  honourable  martial  bankers 
on  account  of  a  claim  against  the  town  of  Salamis  in 
Cyprus  kept  its  municipal  council  blockaded  in  the  town- 
house,  until  five  of  the  members  had  died  of  hunger. 

To  these  two  modes  of  oppression,  each  of  which  by 
itself  was  intolerable  and  which  were  always  becoming 
better  arranged  to  work  into  each  other's  hands,  were 
added  the  general  calamities,  for  which  the  Roman  govern- 
ment was  also  in  great  part,  at  least  indirectly,  responsible. 
In  the  various  wars  a  large  amount  of  capital  was  dragged 
away  from  the  country  and  a  larger  amount  destroyed 
sometimes  by  the  barbarians,  sometimes  by  the  Roman 
armies.  Owing  to  the  worthlessness  of  the  Roman  land 
and  maritime  police,  brigands  and  pirates  swarmed  every 
where.  In  Sardinia  and  the  interior  of  Asia  Minor  brigand- 
age was  endemic ;  in  Africa  and  Further  Spain  it  became 
necessary  to  fortify  all  buildings  constructed  outside  of  the 
city-enclosures  with  walls  and  towers.  The  fearful  evil  of 
piracy  has  been  already  described  in  another  connection 
(iv.  307  /.).     The  panaceas  of  the  prohibitive  system,  with 

1  This  is  the  so-called    "free  embassy"  (libera  legatio),   namely  an 
embassy  without  any  proper  public  commission  entrusted  to  it. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  411 

which  the  Roman  governor  was  wont  to  interpose  when 
scarcity  of  money  or  dearth  occurred,  as  under  such 
circumstances  they  could  not  fail  to  do — the  prohibition 
of  the  export  of  gold  or  grain  from  the  province — did 
not  mend  the  matter.  The  communal  affairs  were  almost 
everywhere  embarrassed,  in  addition  to  the  general  distress, 
by  local  disorders  and  frauds  of  the  public  officials. 

Where  such  grievances  afflicted  communities  and  indivi-  Tne  condi- 
duals  not  temporarily  but  for  generations  with  an  inevitable,  pr0vinces 
steady  and  yearly-increasing  oppression,  the  best  regulated  generally, 
public  or  private  economy  could  not  but  succumb  to  them, 
and  the  most  unspeakable  misery  could  not  but  extend  over 
all  the  nations  from  the  Tagus  to  the  Euphrates.  "  All  the 
communities,"  it  is  said  in  a  treatise  published  as  early  as 
684,  "  are  ruined  " ;  the  same  truth  is  specially  attested  as  70. 
regards  Spain  and  Narbonese  Gaul,  the  very  provinces 
which,  comparatively  speaking,  were  still  in  the  most 
tolerable  economic  position.  In  Asia  Minor  even  towns 
like  Samos  and  Halicarnassus  stood  almost  empty;  legal 
slavery  seemed  here  a  haven  of  rest  compared  with  the 
torments  to  which  the  free  provincial  succumbed,  and  even 
the  patient  Asiatic  had  become,  according  to  the  descrip- 
tions of  Roman  statesmen  themselves,  weary  of  life.  Any 
one  who  desires  to  fathom  the  depths  to  which  man  can 
sink  in  the  criminal  infliction,  and  in  the  no  less  criminal 
endurance,  of  all  conceivable  injustice,  may  gather  together 
from  the  criminal  records  of  this  period  the  wrongs  which 
Roman  grandees  could  perpetrate  and  Greeks,  Syrians,  and 
Phoenicians  could  suffer.  Even  the  statesmen  of  Rome 
herself  publicly  and  frankly  conceded  that  the  Roman 
name  was  unutterably  odious  through  all  Greece  and 
Asia ;  and,  when  the  burgesses  of  the  Pontic  Heraclea 
on  one  occasion  put  to  death  the  whole  of  the  Roman  tax- 
collectors,  the  only  matter  for  regret  was  that  such  things 
did  not  occur  oftener. 


412 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Caesar 
and  the 

provinces. 


The 

Caesarian 
magis- 
trates. 


The  Optimates  scoffed  at  the  new  master  who  went  in 
person  to  inspect  his  "  farms "  one  after  the  other  j  in 
reality  the  condition  of  the  several  provinces  demanded  all 
the  earnestness  and  all  the  wisdom  of  one  of  those  rare 
men,  who  redeem  the  name  of  king  from  being  regarded 
by  the  nations  as  merely  a  conspicuous  example  of  human 
insufficiency.  The  wounds  inflicted  had  to  be  healed  by 
time ;  Caesar  took  care  that  they  might  be  so  healed,  and 
that  there  should  be  no  fresh  inflictions. 

The  system  of  administration  was  thoroughly  remodelled. 
The  Sullan  proconsuls  and  propraetors  had  been  in  their 
provinces  essentially  sovereign  and  practically  subject  to  no 
control;  those  of  Caesar  were  the  well -disciplined  servants 
of  a  stern  master,  who  from  the  very  unity  and  life-tenure 
of  his  power  sustained  a  more  natural  and  more  tolerable 
relation  to  the  subjects  than  those  numerous,  annually 
changing,  petty  tyrants.  The  governorships  were  no  doubt 
still  distributed  among  the  annually- retiring  two  consuls 
and  sixteen  praetors,  but,  as  the  Imperator  directly  nomi- 
nated eight  of  the  latter  and  the  distribution  of  the  provinces 
among  the  competitors  depended  solely  on  him  (p.  344), 
they  were  in  reality  bestowed  by  the  Imperator.  The 
functions  also  of  the  governors  were  practically  restricted. 
The  superintendence  of  the  administration  of  justice  and 
the  administrative  control  of  the  communities  remained  in 
their  hands ;  but  their  command  was  paralyzed  by  the  new 
supreme  command  in  Rome  and  its  adjutants  associated 
with  the  governor  (p.  354),  and  the  raising  of  the  taxes  was 
probably  even  now  committed  in  the  provinces  substantially 
to  imperial  officials  (p.  343),  so  that  the  governor  was  thence- 
forward surrounded  with  an  auxiliary  staff  which  was  abso- 
lutely dependent  on  the  Imperator  in  virtue  either  of  the 
laws  of  the  military  hierarchy  or  of  the  still  stricter  laws  of 
domestic  discipline.  While  hitherto  the  proconsul  and  his 
quaestor  had  appeared  as  if  they  were  members  of  a  gang 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  413 

of  robbers  despatched  to  levy  contributions,  the  magistrates 
of  Caesar  were  present  to  protect  the  weak  against  the 
strong ;  and,  instead  of  the  previous  worse  than  useless 
control  of  the  equestrian  or  senatorian  tribunals,  they  had 
to  answer  for  themselves  at  the  bar  of  a  just  and  unyielding 
monarch.  The  law  as  to  exactions,  the  enactments  of 
which  Caesar  had  already  in  his  first  consulate  made  more 
stringent,  was  applied  by  him  against  the  chief  command- 
ants in  the  provinces  with  an  inexorable  severity  going 
iiven  beyond  its  letter ;  and  the  tax-officers,  if  indeed  they 
ventured  to  indulge  in  an  injustice,  atoned  for  it  to  their 
master,  as  slaves  and  freedmen  according  to  the  cruel 
domestic  law  of  that  time  were  wont  to  atone. 

The  extraordinary  public  burdens  were  reduced  to  the  Regula- 
right  proportion  and  the  actual  necessity;  the  ordinary  J^j^L 
burdens  were  materially  lessened.  We  have  already  men- 
tioned the  comprehensive  regulation  of  taxation  (p.  362); 
the  extension  of  the  exemptions  from  tribute,  the  general 
lowering  of  the  direct  taxes,  the  limitation  of  the  system  of 
decumae  to  Africa  and  Sardinia,  the  complete  setting  aside 
of  middlemen  in  the  collection  of  the  direct  taxes,  were 
most  beneficial  reforms  for  the  provincials.  That  Caesar 
after  the  example  of  one  of  his  greatest  democratic  prede- 
cessors, Sertorius  (iv.  285),  wished  to  free  the  subjects  from 
the  burden  of  quartering  troops  and  to  insist  on  the  soldiers 
erecting  for  themselves  permanent  encampments  resembling 
towns,  cannot  indeed  be  proved ;  but  he  was,  at  least  after 
he  had  exchanged  the  part  of  pretender  for  that  of  king, 
not  the  man  to  abandon  the  subject  to  the  soldier;  and  it 
was  in  keeping  with  his  spirit,  when  the  heirs  of  his  policy 
created  such  military  camps,  and  then  converted  them  into 
towns  which  formed  rallying-points  for  Italian  civilization 
amidst  the  barbarian  frontier  districts. 

It  was  a  task  far  more  difficult  than  the  checking  of 
official  irregularities,   to   deliver  the  provincials   from   the 


4I4  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

influence  oppressive  ascendency  of  Roman  capital.  Its  power  could 
capitalist  not  ^e  directly  broken  without  applying  means  which  were 
system.  still  more  dangerous  than  the  evil ;  the  government  could 
for  the  time  being  abolish  only  isolated  abuses — as  when 
Caesar  for  instance  prohibited  the  employment  of  the  title 
of  state-envoy  for  financial  purposes — and  meet  manifest 
acts  of  violence  and  palpable  usury  by  a  sharp  application 
of  the  general  penal  laws  and  of  the  laws  as  to  usury,  which 
extended  also  to  the  provinces  (p.  410) ;  but  a  more  radical 
cure  of  the  evil  was  only  to  be  expected  from  the  reviving 
prosperity  of  the  provincials  under  a  better  administration. 
Temporary  enactments,  to  relieve  the  insolvency  of  parti- 
cular provinces,  had  been  issued  on  several  occasions  in 
60.  recent  times.  Caesar  himself  had  in  694  when  governor 
of  Further  Spain  assigned  to  the  creditors  two  thirds  of  the 
income  of  their  debtors  in  order  to  pay  themselves  from 
that  source.  Lucius  Lucullus  likewise  when  governor  of 
Asia  Minor  had  directly  cancelled  a  portion  of  the  arrears 
of  interest  which  had  swelled  beyond  measure,  and  had 
for  the  remaining  portion  assigned  to  the  creditors  a  fourth 
part  of  the  produce  of  the  lands  of  their  debtors,  as  well  as 
a  suitable  proportion  of  the  profits  accruing  to  them  from 
house-rents  or  slave-labour.  We  are  not  expressly  informed 
that  Caesar  after  the  civil  war  instituted  similar  general 
liquidations  of  debt  in  the  provinces ;  yet  from  what  has 
just  been  remarked  and  from  what  was  done  in  the  case  of 
Italy  (p.  409),  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  Caesar  likewise 
directed  his  efforts  towards  this  object,  or  at  least  that  it 
formed  part  of  his  plan. 

While  thus  the  Imperator,  as  far  as  lav  within  human 
power,  relieved  the  provincials  from  tne  oppressions  of  the 
magistrates  and  capitalists  of  Rome,  it  might  at  the  same 
time  be  with  certainty  expected  from  the  government  to 
which  he  imparted  fresh  vigour,  that  it  would  scare  off  the 
wild  border-peoples  and  disperse  the  freebooters  by  land 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  415 

and  sea,  as  the  rising  sun  chases  away  the  mist.  However 
the  old  wounds  might  still  smart,  with  Caesar  there 
appeared  for  the  sorely- tortured  subjects  the  dawn  of  a 
more  tolerable  epoch,  the  first  intelligent  and  humane 
government  that  had  appeared  for  centuries,  and  a  policy 
of  peace  which  rested  not  on  cowardice  but  on  strength. 
Well  might  the  subjects  above  all  mourn  along  with  the 
best  Romans  by  the  bier  of  the  great  liberator. 

But  this  abolition  of  existing  abuses  was  not  the  main  The 
matter    in    Caesar's    provincial    reform.     In    the    Roman  0ffhening* 
republic,   according  to    the  view  of  the    aristocracy  and  Heiieno- 

Itcilic 

democracy  alike,  the  provinces  had  been  nothing  but —  state> 
what  they  were  frequently  called — country- estates  of  the 
Roman  people,  and  they  were  employed  and  worked  out  as 
such.  This  view  had  now  passed  away.  The  provinces  as 
such  were  gradually  to  disappear,  in  order  to  prepare  for 
the  renovated  Helleno- Italic  nation  a  new  and  more 
spacious  home,  of  whose  several  component  parts  no  one 
existed  merely  for  the  sake  of  another  but  all  for  each  and 
each  for  all ;  the  new  existence  in  the  renovated  home,  the 
fresher,  broader,  grander  national  life,  was  of  itself  to  over- 
bear the  sorrows  and  wrongs  of  the  nation  for  which  there 
was  no  help  in  the  old  Italy.  These  ideas,  as  is  well 
known,  were  not  new.  The  emigration  from  Italy  to  the 
provinces  that  had  been  regularly  going  on  for  centuries 
had  long  since,  though  unconsciously  on  the  part  of  the 
emigrants  themselves,  paved  the  way  for  such  an  extension 
of  Italy.  The  first  who  in  a  systematic  way  guided  the 
Italians  to  settle  beyond  the  bounds  of  Italy  was  Gaius 
Gracchus,  the  creator  of  the  Roman  democratic  monarchy, 
the  author  of  the  Transalpine  conquests,  the  founder  of  the 
colonies  of  Carthage  and  Narbo.  Then  the  second  states- 
man of  genius  produced  by  the  Roman  democracy,  Quintus 
Sertorius,  began  to  introduce  the  barbarous  Occidentals  to 
Latin  civilization ;  he  gave  to  the  Spanish  yoath  of  rank 


4i6  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

the  Roman  dress,  and  urged  them  to  speak  Latin  and  to 
acquire  the  higher  Italian  culture  at  the  training  institute 
founded  by  him  in  Osca.  When  Caesar  entered  on  the 
government,  a  large  Italian  population — though,  in  great 
part,  lacking  stability  and  concentration — already  existed 
in  all  the  provinces  and  client-states.  To  say  nothing  of 
the  formally  Italian  towns  in  Spain  and  southern  Gaul,  we 
need  only  recall  the  numerous  troops  of  burgesses  raised 
by  Sertorius  and  Pompeius  in  Spain,  by  Caesar  in  Gaul, 
by  Juba  in  Numidia,  by  the  constitutional  party  in  Africa, 
Macedonia,  Greece,  Asia  Minor,  and  Crete ;  the  Latin  lyre 
— ill-tuned  doubtless — on  which  the  town-poets  of  Corduba 
as  early  as  the  Sertorian  war  sang  the  praises  of  the  Roman 
generals ;  and  the  translations  of  Greek  poetry  valued  on 
account  of  their  very  elegance  of  language,  which  the 
earliest  extra-Italian  poet  of  note,  the  Transalpine  Publius 
Terentius  Varro  of  the  Aude,  published  shortly  after 
Caesar's  death. 

On  the  other  hand  the  interpenetration  of  the  Latin  and 
Hellenic  character  was,  we  might  say,  as  old  as  Rome. 
On  occasion  of  the  union  of  Italy  the  conquering  Latin 
nation  had  assimilated  to  itself  all  the   other  conquered 
nationalities,  excepting  only  the  Greek,  which  was  received 
just  as  it  stood  without  any  attempt  at  external  amalgama- 
tion.     Wherever  the  Roman  legionary  went,  the   Greek 
schoolmaster,  no  less  a  conqueror  in  his  own  way,  followed; 
at  an  early  date  we  find   famous  teachers  of  the  Greek 
language  settled  on  the  Guadalquivir,  and  Greek  was  as 
well  taught  as  Latin  in  the  institute  of  Osca.     The  higher 
Roman  culture  itself  was  in   fact  nothing  else  than  the 
proclamation  of  the  great  gospel  of  Hellenic  manners  and 
art  in  the  Italian  idiom ;  against  the  modest  pretension  of 
the  civilizing  conquerors  to  proclaim  it  first  of  all  in  their 
own  language  to  the  barbarians  of  the  west  the  Hellene  at 
least  could  not  loudly  protest.     Already  the  Greek  every 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  417 

where — and,  most  decidedly,  just  where  the  national  feeling 
was  purest  and  strongest,  on  the  frontiers  threatened  by 
barbaric  denationalization,  e.g.  in  Massilia,  on  the  north 
coast  of  the  Black  Sea,  and  on  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris — 
descried  the  protector  and  avenger  of  Hellenism  in  Rome ; 
and  in  fact  the  foundation  of  towns  by  Pompeius  in  the  far 
east  resumed  after  an  interruption  of  centuries  the  bene- 
ficent work  of  Alexander. 

The  idea  of  an  Italo-Hellenic  empire  with  two  languages 
and  a  single  nationality  was  not  new — otherwise  it  would 
have  been  nothing  but  a  blunder ;  but  the  development  of 
it  from  floating  projects  to  a  firmly -grasped  conception, 
from  scattered  initial  efforts  to  the  laying  of  a  concentrated 
foundation,  was  the  work  of  the  third  and  greatest  of  the 
democratic  statesmen  of  Rome. 

The  first  and  most  essential  condition  for  the  political  The  ruling 
and  national  levelling  of  the  empire  was  the  preservation  na  lons' 
and  extension  of  the  two  nations  destined  to  joint  dominion, 
along  with  the  absorption  as  rapidly  as  possible  of  the 
barbarian  races,  or  those  termed  barbarian,  existing  by 
their  side.  In  a  certain  sense  we  might  no  doubt  name  The  Jews. 
akng  with  Romans  and  Greeks  a  third  nationality,  which 
vied  with  them  in  ubiquity  in  the  world  of  that  day,  and 
was  destined  to  play  no  insignificant  part  in  the  new  state 
of  Caesar.  We  speak  of  the  Jews.  This  remarkable 
people,  yielding  and  yet  tenacious,  was  in  the  ancient  as  in 
the  modern  world  everywhere  and  nowhere  at  home,  and 
everywhere  and  nowhere  powerful.  The  successors  of 
David  and  Solomon  were  of  hardly  more  significance  for 
the  Jews  of  that  age  than  Jerusalem  for  those  of  the  present 
day;  the  nation  found  doubtless  for  its  religious  and 
intellectual  unity  a  visible  rallying-point  in  the  petty 
kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  but  the  nation  itself  consisted  not 
merely  of  the  subjects  of  the  Hasmonaeans,  but  of  the 
innumerable  bodies  of  Jews  scattered  through  the  whole 
VOL.  V  160 


4i8  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

Parthian  and  the  whole  Roman  empire.  Within  the  cities 
of  Alexandria  especially  and  of  Cyrene  the  Jews  formed 
special  communities  administratively  and  even  locally 
distinct,  not  unlike  the  "  Jews'  quarters  "  of  our  towns,  but 
with  a  freer  position  and  superintended  by  a  "  master  of 
the  people"  as  superior  judge  and  administrator.  How 
numerous  even  in  Rome  the  Jewish  population  was  already 
before  Caesar's  time,  and  how  closely  at  the  same  time  the 
Jews  even  then  kept  together  as  fellow-countrymen,  is 
shown  by  the  remark  of  an  author  of  this  period,  that  it 
was  dangerous  for  a  governor  to  offend  the  Jews  in  his 
province,  because  he  might  then  certainly  reckon  on  being 
hissed  after  his  return  by  the  populace  of  the  capital. 
Even  at  this  time  the  predominant  business  of  the  Jews 
was  trade ;  the  Jewish  trader  moved  everywhere  with  the 
conquering  Roman  merchant  then,  in  the  same  way  as  he 
afterwards  accompanied  the  Genoese  and  the  Venetian,  and 
capital  flowed  in  on  all  hands  to  the  Jewish,  by  the  side  of 
the  Roman,  merchants.  At  this  period  too  we  encounter 
the  peculiar  antipathy  of  the  Occidentals  towards  this  so 
thoroughly  Oriental  race  and  their  foreign  opinions  and 
customs.  This  Judaism,  although  not  the  most  pleasing 
feature  in  the  nowhere  pleasing  picture  of  the  mixture  of 
nations  which  then  prevailed,  was  nevertheless  a  historical 
element  developing  itself  in  the  natural  course  of  things, 
which  the  statesman  could  neither  ignore  nor  combat,  and 
which  Caesar  on  the  contrary,  just  like  his  predecessor 
Alexander,  with  correct  discernment  of  the  circumstances, 
fostered  as  far  as  possible.  While  Alexander,  by  laying  the 
foundation  of  Alexandrian  Judaism,  did  not  much  less  for  the 
nation  than  its  own  David  by  planning  the  temple  of  Jeru- 
salem, Caesar  also  advanced  the  interests  of  the  Jews  in  Alex- 
andria and  in  Rome  by  special  favours  and  privileges,  and 
protected  in  particular  their  peculiar  worship  against  the 
Roman  as  well  as  against  the  Greek  local  priests.     The 


CHAP.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  419 

two  great  men  of  course  did  not  contemplate  placing  the 
Jewish  nationality  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  Hellenic  or 
Italo-Hellenic.  But  the  Jew  who  has  not  like  the  Occi- 
dental received  the  Pandora's  gift  of  political  organization, 
and  stands  substantially  in  a  relation  of  indifference  to  the 
state ;  who  moreover  is  as  reluctant  to  give  up  the  essence 
of  his  national  idiosyncrasy,  as  he  is  ready  to  clothe  it  with 
any  nationality  at  pleasure  and  to  adapt  himself  up  to  a 
certain  degree  to  foreign  habits — the  Jew  was  for  this  very 
reason  as  it  were  made  for  a  state,  which  was  to  be  built  on 
the  ruins  of  a  hundred  living  polities  and  to  be  endowed 
with  a  somewhat  abstract  and,  from  the  outset,  toned-down 
nationality.  Even  in  the  ancient  world  Judaism  was  an 
effective  leaven  of  cosmopolitanism  and  of  national  decom- 
position, and  to  that  extent  a  specially  privileged  member 
in  the  Caesarian  state,  the  polity  of  which  was  strictly 
speaking  nothing  but  a  citizenship  of  the  world,  and  the 
nationality  of  which  was  at  bottom  nothing  but  humanity. 

But  the  Latin  and  Hellenic  nationalities  continued  to  be  Hellenism, 
exclusively  the  positive  elements  of  the  new  citizenship. 
The  distinctively  Italian  state  of  the  republic  was  thus  at  an 
end ;  but  the  rumour  that  Caesar  was  ruining  Italy  and 
Rome  on  purpose  to  transfer  the  centre  of  the  empire  to 
the  Greek  east  and  to  make  Ilion  or  Alexandria  its  capital, 
was  nothing  but  a  piece  of  talk — very  easy  to  be  accounted 
for,  but  also  very  silly — of  the  angry  nobility.  On  the 
contrary  in  Caesar's  organizations  the  Latin  nationality 
always  retained  the  preponderance ;  as  is  indicated  in  the 
very  fact  that  he  issued  all  his  enactments  in  Latin,  although 
those  destined  for  the  Greek-speaking  countries  were  at  the 
same  time  issued  in  Greek.  In  general  he  arranged  the 
relations  of  the  two  great  nations  in  his  monarchy  just  as 
his  republican  predecessors  had  arranged  them  in  the  united 
Italy ;  the  Hellenic  nationality  was  protected  where  it  ex- 
isted, the  Italian  was  extended  as  far  as  circumstances  per- 


420  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

mitted,  and  the  inheritance  of  the  races  to  be  absorbed  was 
destined  for  it.  This  was  necessary,  because  an  entire 
equalizing  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  elements  in  the  state 
would  in  all  probability  have  in  a  very  short  time  occasioned 
that  catastrophe  which  Byzantinism  brought  about  several 
centuries  later ;  for  the  Greek  element  was  superior  to  the 
Roman  not  merely  in  all  intellectual  aspects,  but  also  in 
the  measure  of  its  predominance,  and  it  had  within  Italy 
itself  in  the  hosts  of  Hellenes  and  half- Hellenes  who 
migrated  compulsorily  or  voluntarily  to  Italy  an  endless 
number  of  apostles  apparently  insignificant,  but  whose  in- 
fluence could  not  be  estimated  too  highly.  To  mention 
only  the  most  conspicuous  phenomenon  in  this  respect,  the 
rule  of  Greek  lackeys  over  the  Roman  monarchs  is  as  old 
as  the  monarchy.  The  first  in  the  equally  long  and  repul- 
sive list  of  these  personages  is  the  confidential  servant  of 
Pompeius,  Theophanes  of  Mytilene,  who  by  his  power  over 
his  weak  master  contributed  probably  more  than  any  one 
else  to  the  outbreak  of  the  war  between  Pompeius  and 
Caesar.  Not  wholly  without  reason  he  was  after  his  death 
treated  with  divine  honours  by  his  countrymen  j  he  com- 
menced, forsooth,  the  valet  de  chambre  government  of  the 
imperial  period,  which  in  a  certain  measure  was  just  a 
dominion  of  the  Hellenes  over  the  Romans.  The  govern- 
ment had  accordingly  every  reason  not  to  encourage  by  its 
fostering  action  the  spread  of  Hellenism  at  least  in  the  west. 
If  Sicily  was  not  simply  relieved  of  the  pressure  of  the 
decumae  but  had  its  communities  invested  with  Latin  rights, 
which  was  presumably  meant  to  be  followed  in  due  time  by 
full  equalization  with  Italy,  it  can  only  have  been  Caesar's 
design  that  this  glorious  island,  which  was  at  that  time 
desolate  and  had  as  to  management  passed  for  the  greater 
part  into  Italian  hands,  but  which  nature  has  destined  to  be 
not  so  much  a  neighbouring  land  to  Italy  as  rather  the 
finest  of  its  provinces,  should  become  altogether  merged  in 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  421 

Italy.  But  otherwise  the  Greek  element,  wherever  it  existed, 
was  preserved  and  protected.  However  political  crises 
might  suggest  to  the  Imperator  the  demolition  of  the  strong 
pillars  of  Hellenism  in  the  west  and  in  Egypt,  Massilia  and 
Alexandria  were  neither  destroyed  nor  denationalized. 

On  the  other  hand  the  Roman  element  was  promoted  Latinizing, 
by  the  government  through  colonization  and  Latinizing  with 
all  vigour  and  at  the  most  various  points  of  the  empire. 
The  principle,  which  originated  no  doubt  from  a  bad  com- 
bination of  formal  law  and  brute  force,  but  was  inevitably 
necessary  in  order  to  freedom  in  dealing  with  the  nations 
destined  to  destruction — that  all  the  soil  in  the  provinces 
not  ceded  by  special  act  of  the  government  to  communities 
or  private  persons  was  the  property  of  the  state,  and  the 
holder  of  it  for  the  time  being  had  merely  an  heritable 
possession  on  sufferance  and  revocable  at  any  time — was 
retained  also  by  Caesar  and  raised  by  him  from  a  demo- 
cratic party-theory  to  a  fundamental  principle  of  monarchical 
law. 

Gaul,  of  course,  fell  to  be  primarily  dealt  with  in  the  Cisalpine 
extension  of  Roman  nationality.  Cisalpine  Gaul  obtained  a 
throughout — what  a  great  part  of  the  inhabitants  had  long 
enjoyed — political  equalization  with  the  leading  country  by 
the  admission  of  the  Transpadane  communities  into  the 
Roman  burgess-union,  which  had  for  long  been  assumed  by 
the  democracy  as  accomplished  (iv.  264,  p.  131),  and  was  now 
(705)  finally  accomplished  by  Caesar.  Practically  this  pro-  49. 
vince  had  already  completely  Latinized  itself  during  the  forty 
years  which  had  elapsed  since  the  bestowal  of  Latin  rights. 
The  exclusives  might  ridicule  the  broad  and  gurgling  accent 
of  the  Celtic  Latin,  and  miss  "  an  undefined  something  of 
the  grace  of  the  capital "  in  the  Insubrian  or  Venetian,  who 
as  Caesar's  legionary  had  conquered  for  himself  with  his 
sword  a  place  in  the  Roman  Forum  and  even  in  the  Roman 
senate-house.     Nevertheless  Cisalpine  Gaul  with  its  dense 


422  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

chiefly  agricultural  population  was  even  before  Caesar's  time 
in  reality  an  Italian  country,  and  remained  for  centuries 
the  true  asylum  of  Italian  manners  and  Italian  culture ;  in- 
deed the  teachers  of  Latin  literature  found  nowhere  else 
out  of  the  capital  so  much  encouragement  and  approbation. 
The  While  Cisalpine  Gaul  was  thus  substantially  merged  in 

Narbo.06  °  Itaty>  tne  place  which  it  had  hitherto  occupied  was  taken 
by  the  Transalpine  province,  which  had  been  converted  by 
the  conquests  of  Caesar  from  a  frontier  into  an  inland 
province,  and  which  by  its  vicinity  as  well  as  by  its  climate 
was  fitted  beyond  all  other  regions  to  become  in  due 
course  of  time  likewise  an  Italian  land.  Thither  princi- 
pally, according  to  the  old  aim  of  the  transmarine  settle- 
ments of  the  Roman  democracy,  was  the  stream  of  Italian 
emigration  directed.  There  the  ancient  colony  of  Narbo 
was  reinforced  by  new  settlers,  and  four  new  burgess-colonies 
were  instituted  at  Baeterrae  (Beziers)  not  far  from  Narbo, 
at  Arelate  (Aries)  and  Arausio  (Orange)  on  the  Rhone,  and 
at  the  new  seaport  Forum  Julii  (Fre*jus) ;  while  the  names 
assigned  to  them  at  the  same  time  preserved  the  memory 
of  the  brave  legions  which  had  annexed  northern  Gaul  to 
the  empire.1  The  townships  not  furnished  with  colonists 
appear,  at  least  for  the  most  part,  to  have  been  led  on 
towards  Romanization  in  the  same  way  as  Transpadane 
Gaul  in  former  times  (iii.  517)  by  the  bestowal  of  Latin 
urban  rights ;  in  particular  Nemausus  (Nimes),  as  the  chief 

1  Narbo  was  called  the  colony  of  the  Decimani,  Baeterrae  of  the 
Septimani,  Forum  Julii  of  the  Octavani,  Arelate  of  the  Sextani,  Arausio  of 
the  Secundani.  The  ninth  legion  is  wanting,  because  it  had  disgraced  its 
number  by  the  mutiny  of  Placentia  (p.  246).  That  the  colonists  of  these 
colonies  belonged  to  the  legions  from  which  they  took  their  names,  is  not 
stated  and  is  not  credible  ;  the  veterans  themselves  were,  at  least  the  great 
majority  of  them,  settled  in  Italy  (p.  358).  Cicero's  complaint,  that  Caesar 
"had  confiscated  whole  provinces  and  districts  at  a  blow"  (De  Off.  ii.  7, 
27  ;  comp.  Philipp.  xiii.  15,  31,  32)  relates  beyond  doubt,  as  its  close 
connection  with  the  censure  of  the  triumph  over  the  Massiliots  proves,  to 
the  confiscations  of  land  made  on  account  of  these  colonies  in  the  Nar- 
bonese  province  and  primarily  to  the  losses  of  territory  imposed  on 
Massilia. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  423 

place  of  the  territory  taken  from  the  Massiliots  in  conse- 
quence of  their  revolt  against  Caesar  (p.  229),  was  converted 
from  a  Massiliot  village  into  a  Latin  urban  community,  and 
endowed  with  a  considerable  territory  and  even  with  the 
right  of  coinage.1  While  Cisalpine  Gaul  thus  advanced 
from  the  preparatory  stage  to  full  equality  with  Italy,  the 
Narbonese  province  advanced  at  the  same  time  into  that 
preparatory  stage ;  just  as  previously  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  the 
most  considerable  communities  there  had  the  full  franchise, 
the  rest  Latin  rights. 

In  the  other  non-Greek  and  non-Latin  regions  of  the 
empire,  which  were  still  more  remote  from  the  influence  of 
Italy  and  the  process  of  assimilation,  Caesar  confined  him- 
self to  the  establishment  of  several  centres  for  Italian 
civilization  such  as  Narbo  had  hitherto  been  in  Gaul,  in 
order  by  their  means  to  pave  the  way  for  a  future  complete 
equalization.  Such  initial  steps  can  be  pointed  out  in  all 
the  provinces  of  the  empire,  with  the  exception  of  the 
poorest  and  least  important  of  all,  Sardinia.  How  Caesar 
proceeded  in  Northern  Gaul,  we  have  already  set  forth  Northern 
(p.  96);  the  Latin  language  there  obtained  throughout 
official  recognition,  though  not  yet  employed  for  all 
branches  of  public  intercourse,  and  the  colony  of  Novio- 
dunum  (Nyon)  arose  on  the  Leman  lake  as  the  most 
northerly  town  with  an  Italian  constitution. 

In  Spain,  which  was  presumably  at  that  time  the  most  Spain, 
densely  peopled  country  of  the  Roman  empire,  not  merely 

1  We  are  not  expressly  informed  from  whom  the  Latin  rights  of  the 
non-colonized  townships  of  this  region  and  especially  of  Nemausus  pro- 
ceeded. But  as  Caesar  himself  (B.  C.  i.  35)  virtually  states  that  Nemausus 
up  to  705  was  a  Massiliot  village;  as  according  to  Livy's  account  (Dio,  49. 
xli.  25  ;  Flor.  ii.  13  ;  Oros.  vi.  15)  this  very  portion  of  territory  was  taken 
from  the  Massiliots  by  Caesar  ;  and  lastly  as  even  on  pre-Augustan  coins 
and  then  in  Strabo  the  town  appears  as  a  community  of  Latin  rights, 
Caesar  alone  can  have  been  the  author  of  this  bestowal  of  Latinity.  As 
to  Ruscino  (Roussillon  near  Perpignan)  and  other  communities  in  Nar- 
bonese Gaul  which  early  attained  a  Latin  urban  constitution,  we  can  only 
conjecture  that  they  received  it  contemporarily  with  Nemausus. 


424  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  BOOK  V 

were  Caesarian  colonists  settled  in  the  important  Helleno- 
Iberian  seaport  town  of  Emporiae  by  the  side  of  the  old 
population  ;  but,  as  recently-discovered  records  have  shown, 
a  number  of  colonists  probably  taken  predominantly  from 
the  proletariate  of  the  capital  were  provided  for  in  the 
town  of  Urso  (Osuna),  not  far  from  Seville  in  the  heart  of 
Andalusia,  and  perhaps  also  in  several  other  townships  of 
this  province.  The  ancient  and  wealthy  mercantile  city 
of  Gades,  whose  municipal  system  Caesar  even  when 
praetor  had  remodelled  suitably  to  the  times,  now  obtained 
from  the  Imperator  the  full  rights  of  the  Italian  tnunicipia 

49-  (7°5)  and  became — what  Tusculum  had  been  in  Italy 
(i.  448) — the  first  extra-Italian  community  not  founded  by 
Rome  which  was  admitted  into  the  Roman  burgess-union. 

45.  Some  years  afterwards  (709)  similar  rights  were  conferred 
also  on  some  other  Spanish  communities,  and  Latin  rights 
presumably  on  still  more. 
Carthage.  In  Africa  the  project,  which  Gaius  Gracchus  had  not 

been  allowed  to  bring  to  an  issue,  was  now  carried  out, 
and  on  the  spot  where  the  city  of  the  hereditary  foes  of 
Rome  had  stood,  3000  Italian  colonists  and  a  great 
number  of  the  tenants  on  lease  and  sufferance  resident  in 
the  Carthaginian  territory  were  settled;  and  the  new 
"  Venus-colony,"  the  Roman  Carthage,  throve  with  amazing 
rapidity  under  the  incomparably  favourable  circumstances 
of  the  locality.  Utica,  hitherto  the  capital  and  first  com- 
mercial town  in  the  province,  had  already  been  in  some 
measure  compensated  beforehand,  apparently  by  the  be- 
stowal of  Latin  rights,  for  the  revival  of  its  superior  rival. 
In  the  Numidian  territory  newly  annexed  to  the  empire 
the  important  Cirta  and  the  other  communities  assigned  to 
the  Roman  condottiere  Publius  Sittius  for  himself  and  his 
troops  (p.  300)  obtained  the  legal  position  of  Roman  military 
colonies.  The  stately  provincial  towns  indeed,  which  the 
insane  fury  of  Juba  and  of  the  desperate  remnant  of  the 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  425 

constitutional  party  had  converted  into  ruins,  did  not 
revive  so  rapidly  as  they  had  been  reduced  to  ashes,  and 
many  a  ruinous  site  recalled  long  afterwards  this  fatal 
period ;  but  the  two  new  Julian  colonies,  Carthage  and 
Cirta,  became  and  continued  to  be  the  centres  of  Africano- 
Roman  civilization. 

In  the  desolate  land  of  Greece,  Caesar,  besides  other  Corinth, 
plans  such  as  the  institution  of  a  Roman  colony  in  Buth- 
rotum  (opposite  Corfu),  busied  himself  above  all  with  the 
restoration  of  Corinth.  Not  only  was  a  considerable 
burgess-colony  conducted  thither,  but  a  plan  was  projected 
for  cutting  through  the  isthmus,  so  as  to  avoid  the 
dangerous  circumnavigation  of  the  Peloponnesus  and  to 
make  the  whole  traffic  between  Italy  and  Asia  pass  through 
the  Corintho-Saronic  gulf  Lastly  even  in  the  remote  The  east 
Hellenic  east  the  monarch  called  into  existence  Italian 
settlements ;  on  the  Black  Sea,  for  instance,  at  Heraclea 
and  Sinope,  which  towns  the  Italian  colonists  shared,  as 
in  the  case  of  Emporiae,  with  the  old  inhabitants;  on 
the  Syrian  coast,  in  the  important  port  of  Berytus,  which 
like  Sinope  obtained  an  Italian  constitution ;  and  even 
in  Egypt,  where  a  Roman  station  was  established  on 
the  lighthouse -island  commanding  the  harbour  of  Alex- 
andria. 

Through   these  ordinances  the  Italian   municipal  free-  Extension 
dom  was  carried  into  the  provinces  in  a  manner  far  more  ?'  *.  e 
comprehensive  than  had  been  previously  the  case.     The  municipal 
communities  of  full   burgesses — that  is,  all   the  towns  of  tj^toVhe 
the  Cisalpine  province  and  the  burgess-colonies  and  burgess-  provinces. 
municipia  scattered  in  Transalpine  Gaul  and  elsewhere — 
were  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  Italian,  in  so  far  as  they 
administered  their  own  affairs,  and  even  exercised  a  cer- 
tainly limited  jurisdiction ;   while  on  the  other  hand  the 
more  important  processes  came  before  the  Roman  authori- 
ties competent  to  deal  with  them — as  a  rule,  the  governor 


426  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  BOOK  V 

of  the  province.1  The  formally  autonomous  Latin  and  the 
other  emancipated  communities — thus  including  all  those 
of  Sicily  and  of  Narbonese  Gaul,  so  far  as  they  were  not 
burgess-communities,  and  a  considerable  number  also  in 
the  other  provinces — had  not  merely  free  administration, 
but  probably  unlimited  jurisdiction ;  so  that  the  governor 
was  only  entitled  to  interfere  there  by  virtue  of  his — 
certainly  very  arbitrary — administrative  control.  No  doubt 
even  earlier  there  had  been  communities  of  full  burgesses 
within  the  provinces  of  governors,  such  as  Aquileia,  and 
Narbo,  and  whole  governors'  provinces,  such  as  Cisalpine 
Gaul,  had  consisted  of  communities  with  Italian  constitu- 
tion ;  but  it  was,  if  not  in  law,  at  least  in  a  political  point 
of  view  a  singularly  important  innovation,  that  there  was 
now  a  province  which  as  well  as  Italy  was  peopled  solely 
by  Roman  burgesses,2  and  that  others  promised  to  become 
such. 

1  That  no  community  of  full  burgesses  had  more  than  limited  jurisdic- 
tion, is  certain.  But  the  fact,  which  is  distinctly  apparent  from  the 
Caesarian  municipal  ordinance  for  Cisalpine  Gaul,  is  a  surprising  one — 
that  the  processes  lying  beyond  municipal  competency  from  this  province 
went  not  before  its  governor,  but  before  the  Roman  praetor  ;  for  in  other 
cases  the  governor  is  in  his  province  quite  as  much  representative  of  the 
praetor  who  administers  justice  between  burgesses  as  of  the  praetor  who 
administers  justice  between  burgess  and  non-burgess,  and  is  thoroughly 
competent  to  determine  all  processes.  Beyond  doubt  this  is  a  remnant  of 
the  arrangement  before  Sulla,  under  which  in  the  whole  continental 
territory  as  far  as  the  Alps  the  urban  magistrates  alone  were  competent, 
and  thus  all  the  processes  there,  where  they  exceeded  municipal  competency, 
necessarily  came  before  the  praetors  in  Rome.  In  Narbo  again,  Gades, 
Carthage,  Corinth,  the  processes  in  such  a  case  went  certainly  to  the 
governor  concerned  ;  as  indeed  even  from  practical  considerations  the 
carrying  of  a  suit  to  Rome  could  not  well  be  thought  of. 

2  It  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  bestowal  of  the  Roman  franchise  on  a 
province  collectively,  and  the  continuance  of  a  provincial  administration 
for  it,  should  be  usually  conceived  as  contrasts  excluding  each  other. 
Besides,  Cisalpine  Gaul  notoriously  obtained  the  civitas  by  the  Roscian 

49.  decree  of  the  people  of  the  nth  March  705,  while  it  remained  a  province 
as  long  as  Caesar  lived  and  was  only  united  with  Italy  after  his  death 

43.  (Dio,  xlviii.  12)  ;  the  governors  also  can  be  pointed  out  down  to  711. 
The  very  fact  that  the  Caesarian  municipal  ordinance  never  designates  the 
country  as  Italy,  but  as  Cisalpine  Gaul,  ought  to  have  led  to  the  right 
view. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  427 

With  this  disappeared  the  first  great  practical  distinction  Italy 
that  separated  Italy  from  the  provinces ;  and  the  second —  ^ovinces 
that  ordinarily  no  troops  were  stationed  in  Italy,  while  reduced  to 
they  were  stationed  in  the  provinces — was  likewise  in  the 
course  of  disappearing;  troops  were  now  stationed  only 
where  there  was  a  frontier  to  be  defended,  and  the  com- 
mandants of  the  provinces  in  which  this  was  not  the  case, 
such  as  Narbo  and  Sicily,  were  officers  only  in  name.  The 
formal  contrast  between  Italy  and  the  provinces,  which  had 
at  all  times  depended  on  other  distinctions  (iii.  309),  con- 
tinued certainly  even  now  to  subsist,  for  Italy  was  the  sphere 
of  civil  jurisdiction  and  of  consuls  and  praetors,  while  the 
provinces  were  districts  under  the  jurisdiction  of  martial  law 
and  subject  to  proconsuls  and  propraetors ;  but  the  pro- 
cedure according  to  civil  and  according  to  martial  law  had 
for  long  been  practically  coincident,  and  the  different  titles 
of  the  magistrates  signified  little  after  the  one  Imperator 
was  over  all. 

In  all  these  various  municipal  foundations  and  ordinances 
— which  are  traceable  at  least  in  plan,  if  not  perhaps  all  in 
execution,  to  Caesar — a  definite  system  is  apparent.  Italy 
was  converted  from  the  mistress  of  the  subject  peoples  into 
the  mother  of  the  renovated  Italo- Hellenic  nation.  The 
Cisalpine  province  completely  equalized  with  the  mother- 
country  was  a  promise  and  a  guarantee  that,  in  the 
monarchy  of  Caesar  just  as  in  the  healthier  times  of  the 
republic,  every  Latinized  district  might  expect  to  be  placed 
on  an  equal  footing  by  the  side  of  its  elder  sisters  and  of 
the  mother  herself.  On  the  threshold  of  full  national  and 
political  equalization  with  Italy  stood  the  adjoining  lands, 
the  Greek  Sicily  and  the  south  of  Gaul,  which  was  rapidly 
becoming  Latinized.  In  a  more  remote  stage  of  prepara- 
tion stood  the  other  provinces  of  the  empire,  in  which, 
just  as  hitherto  in  southern  Gaul  Narbo  had  been  a  Roman 
colony,  the  great  maritime  cities — Emporiae,  Gades,  Car 


428 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Organiza- 
tion of 
the  new 
empire. 


thage,  Corinth,  Heraclea  in  Pontus,  Sinope,  Berytus, 
Alexandria — now  became  Italian  or  Helleno-Italian  com- 
munities, the  centres  of  an  Italian  civilization  even  in  the 
Greek  east,  the  fundamental  pillars  of  the  future  national 
and  political  levelling  of  the  empire.  The  rule  of  the 
urban  community  of  Rome  over  the  shores  of  the  Medi- 
terranean was  at  an  end ;  in  its  stead  came  the  new  Medi- 
terranean state,  and  its  first  act  was  to  atone  for  the  two 
greatest  outrages  which  that  urban  community  had  perpe- 
trated on  civilization.  While  the  destruction  of  the  two 
greatest  marts  of  commerce  in  the  Roman  dominions 
marked  the  turning-point  at  which  the  protectorate  of  the 
Roman  community  degenerated  into  political  tyrannizing 
over,  and  financial  exaction  from,  the  subject  lands,  the 
prompt  and  brilliant  restoration  of  Carthage  and  Corinth 
marked  the  foundation  of  the  new  great  commonwealth 
which  was  to  train  up  all  the  regions  on  the  Mediterranean 
to  national  and  political  equality,  to  union  in  a  genuine 
state.  Well  might  Caesar  bestow  on  the  city  of  Corinth 
in  addition  to  its  far-famed  ancient  name  the  new  one  of 
"  Honour  to  Julius  "  (Lavs  Jvli). 

While  thus  the  new  united  empire  was  furnished  with  a 
national  character,  which  doubtless  necessarily  lacked  indi- 
viduality and  was  rather  an  inanimate  product  of  art  than 
a  fresh  growth  of  nature,  it  further  had  need  of  unity  in 
those  institutions  which  express  the  general  life  of  nations 
— in  constitution  and  administration,  in  religion  and  juris- 
prudence, in  money,  measures,  and  weights ;  as  to  which,  of 
course,  local  diversities  of  the  most  varied  character  were 
quite  compatible  with  essential  union.  In  all  these  depart- 
ments we  can  only  speak  of  the  initial  steps,  for  the  thorough 
formation  of  the  monarchy  of  Caesar  into  an  unity  was  the 
work  of  the  future,  and  all  that  he  did  was  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion for  the  building  of  centuries.  But  of  the  lines,  which 
the  great  man  drew  in  these  departments,  several  can  still 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  429 

be  recognized  ;  and  it  is  more  pleasing  to  follow  him  here, 
than  in  the  task  of  building  from  the  ruins  of  the  nation- 
alities. 

As  to  constitution  and  administration,  we  have  already  Census 
noticed  elsewhere  the  most  important  elements  of  the  new  empjret 
unity — the  transition  of  the  sovereignty  from  the  municipal 
council  of  Rome  to  the  sole  master  of  the  Mediterranean 
monarchy ;  the  conversion  of  that  municipal  council  into 
a  supreme  imperial  council  representing  Italy  and  the 
provinces;  above  all,  the  transference — now  commenced 
— of  the  Roman,  and  generally  of  the  Italian,  municipal 
organization  to  the  provincial  communities.  This  latter 
course — the  bestowal  of  Latin,  and  thereafter  of  Roman, 
rights  on  the  communities  ripe  for  full  admission  to  the 
united  state-  -gradually  of  itself  brought  about  uniform 
communal  arrangements.  In  one  respect  alone  this  pro- 
cess could  not  be  waited  for.  The  new  empire  needed 
immediately  an  institution  which  should  place  before  the 
government  at  a  glance  the  principal  bases  of  administra- 
tion— the  proportions  of  population  and  property  in  the 
different  communities — in  other  words  an  improved  census. 
First  the  census  of  Italy  was  reformed.  According  to 
Caesar's  ordinance1 — which  probably,  indeed,  only  carried 
out  the  arrangements  which  were,  at  least  as  to  principle, 
adopted  in  consequence  of  the  Social  war — in  future,  when 
a  census  took  place  in  the  Roman  community,  there  were 
to  be  simultaneously  registered  by  the  highest  authority 
in  each  Italian  community  the  name  of  every  municipal 
burgess  and  that  of  his  father  or  manumitter,  his  district, 
his  age,  and  his  property ;  and  these  lists  were  to  be 
furnished  to  the   Roman   censor  early  enough  to  enable 


1  The  continued  subsistence  of  the  municipal  census-authorities  speaks 
for  the  view,  that  the  local  holding  of  the  census  had  already  been  estab- 
lished for  Italy  in  consequence  of  the  Social  war  (Staatsreckt,  ii.s  368)  ; 
but  probably  the  carrying  out  of  this  system  was  Caesar's  work. 


43° 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Religion 
of  the 
empire. 


him  to  complete  in  proper  time  the  general  list  of  Roman 
burgesses  and  of  Roman  property.     That  it  was  Caesar's 
intention  to  introduce  similar  institutions  also  in  the  pro- 
vinces is  attested  partly  by  the  measurement  and  survey 
of  the  whole  empire  ordered  by  him,  partly  by  the  nature 
of  the  arrangement    itself ;    for   it    in   fact   furnished   the 
general   instrument  appropriate   for  procuring,  as   well  in 
the  Italian  as  in  the  non-Italian  communities  of  the  state, 
the   information   requisite   for    the   central   administration. 
Evidently  here  too  it  was  Caesar's  intention  to  revert  to 
the    traditions    of    the    earlier    republican    times,    and    to 
reintroduce  the  census   of  the   empire,  which  the  earlier 
republic  had    effected  —  essentially   in    the   same   way  as 
Caesar   effected   the   Italian  —  by  analogous   extension  of 
the  institution  of  the  urban  censorship  with  its  set  terms 
and  other  essential  rules   to  all   the  subject  communities 
of  Italy  and  Sicily  (ii.  58,  211).     This  had  been  one  of  the 
first   institutions   which   the  torpid   aristocracy  allowed   to 
drop,  and   in   this  way  deprived  the  supreme  administra- 
tive authority  of  any  view   of  the  resources  in  men  and 
taxation  at  its  disposal  and  consequently  of  all  possibility 
of  an    effective   control  (iii.   34).       The    indications    still 
extant,  and  the  very  connection  of  things,   show  irrefrag- 
ably  that  Caesar  made  preparations  to  renew  the  general 
census  that  had  been  obsolete  for  centuries. 

We  need  scarcely  say  that  in  religion  and  in  jurisprudence 
no  thorough  levelling  could  be  thought  of;  yet  with  all 
toleration  towards  local  faiths  and  municipal  statutes  the 
new  state  needed  a  common  worship  corresponding  to  the 
Italo-Hellenic  nationality  and  a  general  code  of  law  superior 
to  the  municipal  statutes.  It  needed  them  ;  for  de  facto 
both  were  already  in  existence.  In  the  field  of  religion 
men  had  for  centuries  been  busied  in  fusing  together  the 
Italian  and  Hellenic  worships  partly  by  external  adoption, 
partly  by  internal  adjustment  of  their  respective  conceptions 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  43* 

of  the  gods  ;  and  owing  to  the  pliant  formless  character  of 
the  Italian  gods,  there  had  been  no  great  difficulty  in 
resolving  Jupiter  into  Zeus,  Venus  into  Aphrodite,  and  so 
every  essential  idea  of  the  Latin  faith  into  its  Hellenic 
counterpart.  The  Italo- Hellenic  religion  stood  forth  in 
its  outlines  ready-made;  how  much  in  this  very  depart- 
ment men  were  conscious  of  having  gone  beyond  the 
specifically  Roman  point  of  view  and  advanced  towards 
an  Italo- Hellenic  quasi -nationality,  is  shown  by  the  dis- 
tinction made  in  the  already-mentioned  theology  of  Varro 
between  the  "  common  "  gods,  that  is,  those  acknowledged 
by  Romans  and  Greeks,  and  the  special  gods  of  the  Roman 
community. 

So  far  as  concerns  the  field  of  criminal  and  police  law,  Law  of  the 
where  the  government  more  directly  interferes  and  the  ne-  emPlre- 
cessities  of  the  case  are  substantially  met  by  a  judicious 
legislation,  there  was  no  difficulty  in  attaining,  in  the  way  of 
legislative  action,  that  degree  of  material  uniformity  which 
certainly  was  in  this  department  needful  for  the  unity  of  the 
empire.  In  the  civil  law  again,  where  the  initiative  belongs  to 
commercial  intercourse  and  merely  the  formal  shape  to  the 
legislator,  the  code  for  the  united  empire,  which  the  legis- 
lator certainly  could  not  have  created,  had  been  already  long 
since  developed  in  a  natural  way  by  commercial  intercourse 
itself.  The  Roman  urban  law  was  still  indeed  legally  based 
on  the  embodiment  of  the  Latin  national  law  contained  in 
the  Twelve  Tables.  Later  laws  had  doubtless  introduced 
various  improvements  of  detail  suited  to  the  times,  among 
which  the  most  important  was  probably  the  abolition  of  the 
old  inconvenient  mode  of  commencing  a  process  through 
standing  forms  of  declaration  by  the  parties  (i.  202)  and 
the  substitution  of  an  instruction  drawn  up  in  writing  by 
the  presiding  magistrate  for  the  single  juryman  (formu/a): 
but  in  the  main  the  popular  legislation  had  only  piled  upon 
that  venerable  foundation  an  endless  chaos  of  special  laws 


432  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

long  since  in  great  part  antiquated  and  forgotten,  which 
can  only  be  compared  to  the  English  statute-law.  The 
attempts  to  impart  to  them  scientific  shape  and  system  had 
certainly  rendered  the  tortuous  paths  of  the  old  civil  law 
accessible,  and  thrown  light  upon  them  (iv.  252)  ;  but 
no  Roman  Blackstone  could  remedy  the  fundamental 
defect,  that  an  urban  code  composed  four  hundred  years 
ago  with  its  equally  diffuse  and  confused  supplements  was 
now  to  serve  as  the  law  of  a  great  state. 
The  new  Commercial    intercourse    provided    for   itself    a   more 

or  the         thorough  remedy.     The  lively  intercourse  between  Romans 
edict.  and  non-Romans  had   long  ago   developed  in  Rome  an 

international  private  law  (jus  gentium;  i.  200),  that  is  to 
say,  a  body  of  maxims  especially  relating  to  commercial 
matters,  according  to  which  Roman  judges  pronounced 
judgment,  when  a  cause  could  not  be  decided  either 
according  to  their  own  or  any  other  national  code  and 
they  were  compelled — setting  aside  the  peculiarities  of 
Roman,  Hellenic,  Phoenician  and  other  law — to  revert  to 
the  common  views  of  right  underlying  all  dealings.  The 
formation  of  the  newer  law  attached  itself  to  this  basis.  In 
the  first  place  as  a  standard  for  the  legal  dealings  of  Roman 
burgesses  with  each  other,  it  de  facto  substituted  for  the 
old  urban  law,  which  had  become  practically  useless,  a 
new  code  based  in  substance  on  a  compromise  between 
the  national  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  and  the  international 
law  or  so-called  law  of  nations.  The  former  was  essentially 
adhered  to,  though  of  course  with  modifications  suited  to 
the  times,  in  the  law  of  marriage,  family,  and  inheritance ; 
whereas  in  all  regulations  which  concerned  dealings  with 
property,  and  consequently  in  reference  to  ownership  and 
contracts,  the  international  law  was  the  standard ;  in  these 
matters  indeed  various  important  arrangements  were 
borrowed  even  from  local  provincial  law,  such  as  the  legisla 
tion  as  to  usury  (p.  401),  and  the  institution  of  hypotheca. 


chap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  433 

Through  whom,  when,  and  how  this  comprehensive  innova- 
tion came  into  existence,  whether  at  once  or  gradually, 
whether  through  one  or  several  authors,  are  questions  to 
which  we  cannot  furnish  a  satisfactory  answer.  We  know 
only  that  this  reform,  as  was  natural,  proceeded  in  the  first 
instance  from  the  urban  court;  that  it  first  took  formal 
shape  in  the  instructions  annually  issued  by  the  praetor 
urbanus,  when  entering  on  office,  for  the  guidance  of  the 
parties  in  reference  to  the  most  important  maxims  of  law  to  be 
observed  in  the  judicial  year  then  beginning  {edictum  annuum 
or  perpetuum  praetoris  urbani  de  iuris  dictione) ;  and  that,  al- 
though various  preparatory  steps  towards  it  may  have  been 
taken  in  earlier  times,  it  certainly  only  attained  its  completion 
in  this  epoch.  The  new  code  was  theoretic  and  abstract, 
inasmuch  as  the  Roman  view  of  law  had  therein  divested 
itself  of  such  of  its  national  peculiarities  as  it  had  become 
aware  of;  but  it  was  at  the  same  time  practical  and  positive, 
inasmuch  as  it  by  no  means  faded  away  into  the  dim 
twilight  of  general  equity  or  even  into  the  pure  nothingness 
of  the  so-called  law  of  nature,  but  was  applied  by  definite 
functionaries  for  definite  concrete  cases  according  to  fixed 
rules,  and  was  not  merely  capable  of,  but  had  already 
essentially  received,  a  legal  embodiment  in  the  urban  edict. 
This  code  moreover  corresponded  in  matter  to  the  wants 
of  the  time,  in  so  far  as  it  furnished  the  more  convenient 
forms  required  by  the  increase  of  intercourse  for  legal  pro- 
cedure, for  acquisition  of  property,  and  for  conclusion  of 
contracts.  Lastly,  it  had  already  in  the  main  become 
subsidiary  law  throughout  the  compass  of  the  Roman 
empire,  inasmuch  as — while  the  manifold  local  statutes 
were  retained  for  those  legal  relations  which  were  not 
directly  commercial,  as  well  as  for  local  transactions 
between  members  of  the  same  legal  district — dealings 
relating  to  property  between  subjects  of  the  empire  belong- 
ing to  different  legal   districts  were  regulated   throughout 

rCL.  V  l6l 


434  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

after  the  model  of  the  urban  edict,  though  not  applicable 
de  jure  to  these  cases,  both  in  Italy  and  in  the  provinces. 
The  law  of  the  urban  edict  had  thus  essentially  the  same 
position  in  that  age  which  the  Roman  law  has  occupied  in 
our  political  development ;  this  also  is,  so  far  as  such 
opposites  can  be  combined,  at  once  abstract  and  positive ; 
this  also  recommended  itself  by  its  (compared  with  the 
earlier  legal  code)  flexible  forms  of  intercourse,  and  took 
its  place  by  the  side  of  the  local  statutes  as  universal 
subsidiary  law.  But  the  Roman  legal  development  had  an 
essential  advantage  over  ours  in  this,  that  the  denationalized 
legislation  appeared  not,  as  with  us,  prematurely  and  by 
artificial  birth,  but  at  the  right  time  and  agreeably  to 
nature. 
Caesar's  Such  was  the  state  of  the  law  as  Caesar  found  it.     If 

codlfica-0      ^e  projected  the  plan  for  a  new  code,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
tion.  say  what  were  his  intentions.     This  code  could  only  com- 

prehend the  law  of  Roman  burgesses,  and  could  be  a 
general  code  for  the  empire  merely  so  far  as  a  code  of  the 
ruling  nation  suitable  to  the  times  could  not  but  of  itself 
become  general  subsidiary  law  throughout  the  compass  of  the 
empire.  In  criminal  law,  if  the  plan  embraced  this  at  all, 
there  was  needed  only  a  revision  and  adjustment  of  the 
Sullan  ordinances.  In  civil  law,  for  a  state  whose  nation- 
ality was  properly  humanity,  the  necessary  and  only  possible 
formal  shape  was  to  invest  that  urban  edict,  which  had 
already  spontaneously  grown  out  of  lawful  commerce,  with 
the  security  and  precision  of  statute-law.  The  first  step 
67.  towards  this  had  been  taken  by  the  Cornelian  law  of  687, 
when  it  enjoined  the  judge  to  keep  to  the  maxims  set  forth 
at  the  beginning  of  his  magistracy  and  not  arbitrarily  to 
administer  other  law  (iv.  457) — a  regulation,  which  may 
well  be  compared  with  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  and 
which  became  almost  as  significant  for  the  fixing  of  the 
later  urban  law  as  that  collection  for  the  fixing  of  the  earlier. 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  435 

But  although  after  the  Cornelian  decree  of  the  people  the 
edict  was  no  longer  subordinate  to  the  judge,  but  the  judge 
was  by  law  subject  to  the  edict ;  and  though  the  new  code 
had  practically  dispossessed  the  old  urban  law  in  judicial 
usage  as  in  legal  instruction — every  urban  judge  was  still 
free  at  his  entrance  on  office  absolutely  and  arbitrarily  to 
alter  the  edict,  and  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  with  its 
additions  still  always  outweighed  formally  the  urban  edict, 
so  that  in  each  individual  case  of  collision  the  antiquated 
rule  had  to  be  set  aside  by  arbitrary  interference  of  the 
magistrates,  and  therefore,  strictly  speaking,  by  violation  of 
formal  law.  The  subsidiary  application  of  the  urban  edict 
in  the  court  of  the  praetor  peregrinus  at  Rome  and  in  the 
different  provincial  judicatures  was  entirely  subject  to  the 
arbitrary  pleasure  of  the  individual  presiding  magistrates. 
It  was  evidently  necessary  to  set  aside  definitely  the  old 
urban  law,  so  far  as  it  had  not  been  transferred  to  the 
newer,  and  in  the  case  of  the  latter  to  set  suitable  limits  to 
its  arbitrary  alteration  by  each  individual  urban  judge, 
possibly  also  to  regulate  its  subsidiary  application  by  the 
side  of  the  local  statutes.  This  was  Caesar's  design,  when 
he  projected  the  plan  for  his  code ;  for  it  could  not  have 
been  otherwise.  The  plan  was  not  executed ;  and  thus 
that  troublesome  state  of  transition  in  Roman  jurisprudence 
was  perpetuated  till  this  necessary  reform  was  accomplished 
six  centuries  afterwards,  and  then  but  imperfectly,  by  one  of 
the  successors  of  Caesar,  the  Emperor  Justinian. 

Lastly,  in  money,  measures,  and  weights  the  substantial 
equalization  of  the  Latin  and  Hellenic  systems  had  long 
been  in  progress.  It  was  very  ancient  so  far  as  concerned 
the  definitions  of  weight  and  the  measures  of  capacity  and 
of  length  indispensable  for  trade  and  commerce  (i.  263/), 
and  in  the  monetary  system  little  more  recent  than  the 
introduction  of  the  silver  coinage  (iii.  87).  But  these  older 
equations    were   not    sufficient,   because    in    the    Hellenic 


436  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

world  itself  the  most  varied  metrical  and  monetary  systems 
subsisted  side  by  side ;  it  was  necessary,  and  formed  part 
doubtless  of  Caesar's  plan,  now  to  introduce  everywhere  in 
the  new  united  empire,  so  far  as  this  had  not  been  done 
already,  Roman  money,  Roman  measures,  and  Roman 
weights  in  such  a  manner  that  they  alone  should  be 
reckoned  by  in  official  intercourse,  and  that  the  non-Roman 
systems  should  be  restricted  to  local  currency  or  placed  in 
a — once  for  all  regulated — ratio  to  the  Roman.1  The 
action  of  Caesar,  however,  can  only  be  pointed  out  in  two 
of  the  most  important  of  these  departments,  the  monetary 
system  and  the  calendar. 
Gold  coin  The  Roman  monetary  system  was   based   on  the  two 

currency  Preci°us  metals  circulating  side  by  side  and  in  a  fixed 
relation  to  each  other,  gold  being  given  and  taken  according 
to  weight,2  silver  in  the  form  of  coin;  but  practically  in 
consequence  of  the  extensive  transmarine  intercourse  the 
gold  far  preponderated  over  the  silver.  Whether  the 
acceptance  of  Roman  silver  money  was  not  even  at  an 
earlier  period  obligatory  throughout  the  empire,  is  uncertain ; 
at  any  rate  uncoined  gold  essentially  supplied  the  place  of 
imperial  money  throughout  the  Roman  territory,  the  more 
so  as  the  Romans  had  prohibited  the  coining  of  gold  in  all 
the  provinces  and  client -states,  and  the  denarius  had,  in 
addition  to  Italy,  de  jure  or  de  facto  naturalized  itself  in 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  in  Sicily,  in  Spain  and  various  other 
places,  especially  in  the  west  (iv.  180).  But  the  imperial 
coinage  begins  with  Caesar.     Exactly  like  Alexander,  he 

1  Weights  recently  brought  to  light  at  Pompeii  suggest  the  hypothesis 
that  at  the  commencement  of  the  imperial  period  alongside  of  the  Roman 
pound  the  Attic  mina  (presumably  in  the  ratio  of  3  14)  passed  current  as  a 
second  imperial  weight  {Hermes,  xvi.  311). 

2  The  gold  pieces,  which  Sulla  (iv.  179)  and  contemporarily  Pompeius 
caused  to  be  struck,  both  in  small  quantity,  do  not  invalidate  this  proposi- 
tion ;  for  they  probably  came  to  be  taken  solely  by  weight  just  like  the 
golden  Phillippei  which  were  in  circulation  even  down  to  Caesar's  time. 
They  are  certainly  remarkable,  because  they  anticipate  the  Caesarian 
imperial  gold  just  as  Sulla's  regency  anticipated  the  new  monarchy. 


hap.  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  ,  437 

narked  the  foundation  of  the  new  monarchy  embracing 
he  civilized  world  by  the  fact  that  the  only  metal  forming 
n  universal  medium  obtained  the  first  place  in  the  coinage, 
"he  greatness  of  the  scale  on  which  the  new  Caesarian  gold 
iece  (20s.  7d.  according  to  the  present  value  of  the  metal) 
ras  immediately  coined,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  a 
ingle  treasure  buried  seven  years  after  Caesar's  death 
0,000  of  these  pieces  were  found  together.  It  is  true 
tiat  financial  speculations  may  have  exercised  a  collateral 
ifluence  in  this  respect.1  As  to  the  silver  money,  the 
xclusive  rule  of  the  Roman  denarius  in  all  the  west,  for 
rhich  the  foundation  had  previously  been  laid,  was  finally 
stablished  by  Caesar,  when  he  definitively  closed  the  only 
)ccidental  mint  that  still  competed  in  silver  currency  with 
le  Roman,  that  of  Massilia.  The  coining  of  silver  or 
opper  small  money  was  still  permitted  to  a  number  of 
)ccidental  communities ;  three-quarter  denarii  were  struck 
y  some  Latin  communities  of  southern  Gaul,  half  denarii 
y  several  cantons  in  northern  Gaul,  copper  small  coins  in 
arious  instances  even  after  Caesar's  time  by  communes  of 
tie  west;  but  this  small  money  was  throughout  coined 
fter  the  Roman  standard,  and  its  acceptance  moreover 
ras  probably  obligatory  only  in  local  dealings.  Caesar 
ioes  not  seem  any  more  than  the  earlier  government  to 
iave  contemplated  the  regulation  with  a  view  to  unity  of 
he  monetary  system  of  the  east,  where  great  masses  of 
oarse  silver  money — much  of  which  too  easily  admitted 
if  being  debased  or  worn  away — and  to  some  extent  even, 
,s  in  Egypt,  a  copper  coinage  akin  to  our  paper  money 

1  It  appears,  namely,  that  in  earlier  times  the  claims  of  the  state- 
reditors  payable  in  silver  could  not  be  paid  against  their  will  in  gold 
ccording  to  its  legal  ratio  to  silver  ;  whereas  it  admits  of  no  doubt,  that 
rom  Caesar's  time  the  gold  piece  had  to  be  taken  as  a  valid  tender  for  100 
ilver  sesterces.  This  was  just  at  that  time  the  more  important,  as  in 
onsequence  of  the  great  quantities  of  gold  put  into  circulation  by  Caesar 
t  stood  for  a  time  in  the  currency  of  trade  25  per  cent  below  the  legal 
alio. 


438 


THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND 


BOOK  V 


Reform 
of  the 
calendar. 


were  in  circulation,  and  the  Syrian  commercial  cities  would 
have  felt  very  severely  the  want  of  their  previous  national 
coinage  corresponding  to  the  Mesopotamian  currency.  We 
find  here  subsequently  the  arrangement  that  the  denarius 
has  everywhere  legal  currency  and  is  the  only  medium  of 
official  reckoning,1  while  the  local  coins  have  legal  currency 
within  their  limited  range  but  according  to  a  tariff  unfavour- 
able for  them  as  compared  with  the  denarius!1  This  was 
probably  not  introduced  all  at  once,  and  in  part  perhaps 
may  have  preceded  Caesar;  but  it  was  at  any  rate  the 
essential  complement  of  the  Caesarian  arrangement  as  to 
the  imperial  coinage,  whose  new  gold  piece  found  its 
immediate  model  in  the  almost  equally  heavy  coin  of 
Alexander  and  was  doubtless  calculated  especially  for 
circulation  in  the  east. 

Of  a  kindred  nature  was  the  reform  of  the  calendar. 
The  republican  calendar,  which  strangely  enough  was  still 
the  old  decemviral  calendar — an  imperfect  adoption  of  the 
octaeteris  that  preceded  Meton  (ii.  216) — had  by  a  com- 
bination of  wretched  mathematics  and  wretched  administra- 
tion come  to  anticipate  the  true  time  by  67  whole  days,  so 
that  e.g.  the  festival  of  Flora  was  celebrated  on  the  nth 
July  instead  of  the  28th  April.  Caesar  finally  removed 
this  evil,  and  with  the  help  of  the  Greek  mathematician 
Sosigenes  introduced  the  Italian  farmer's  year  regulated 
according  to  the  Egyptian  calendar  of  Eudoxus,  as  well  as 
a  rational  system  of  intercalation,  into  religious  and  official 
use ;  while  at  the  same  time  the  beginning  of  the  year  on 


1  There  is  probably  no   inscription   of  the   Imperial   period,    whict 

specifies  sums  of  money  otherwise  than  in  Roman  coin. 

2  Thus  the  Attic  drachma,  although  sensibly  heavier  than  the  denarius \ 
was  yet  reckoned  equal  to  it  ;  the  tetradrachmon  of  Antioch,  weighing  or 
an  average  15  grammes  of  silver,  was  made  equal  to  3  Roman  denarii 
which  only  weigh  about  12  grammes  ;  the  cistophorus  of  Asia  Minor  wa; 
according  to  the  value  of  silver  above  3,  according  to  the  legal  tariff  =2J 
denarii;  the  Rhodian  half  drachma  according  to  the  value  of  silver=J 
according  to  the  legal  tariff  =£  of  a  denarius,  and  so  on. 


:hap.  XI  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  439 

he  i  st  March  of  the  old  calendar  was  abolished,  and  the 
late  of  the  ist  January — fixed  at  first  as  the  official  term  for 
:hanging  the  supreme  magistrates  and,  in  consequence  of 
his,  long  since  prevailing  in  civil  life — was  assumed  also  as 
he  calendar- period  for  commencing  the  year.  Both 
hanges  came  into  effect  on  the  ist  January  709,  and  45. 
long  with  them  the  use  of  the  Julian  calendar  so  named 
fter  its  author,  which  long  after  the  fall  of  the  monarchy 
>f  Caesar  remained  the  regulative  standard  of  the  civilized 
/orld  and  in  the  main  is  so  still.  By  way  of  explanation 
here  was  added  in  a  detailed  edict  a  star-calendar  derived 
rom  the  Egyptian  astronomical  observations  and  trans- 
erred — not  indeed  very  skilfully — to  Italy,  which  fixed 
he  rising  and  setting  of  the  stars  named  according  to  days 
>f  the  calendar.1  In  this  domain  also  the  Roman  and 
ireek  worlds  were  thus  placed  on  a  par. 

Such  were  the  foundations  of  the  Mediterranean  mon-  Caesar  and 
rchy  of  Caesar.  For  the  second  time  in  Rome  the  social  1S  wor 
[uestion  had  reached  a  crisis,  at  which  the  antagonisms  not 
mly  appeared  to  be,  but  actually  were,  in  the  form  of  their 
xhibition,  insoluble  and,  in  the  form  of  their  expression, 
[•reconcilable.  On  the  former  occasion  Rome  had  been 
aved  by  the  fact  that  Italy  was  merged  in  Rome  and  Rome 
1  Italy,  and  in  the  new  enlarged  and  altered  home  those 
Jd  antagonisms  were  not  reconciled,  but  fell  into  abeyance. 
>[ow  Rome  was  once  more  saved  by  the  fact  that  the  coun- 
ties of  the  Mediterranean  were  merged  in  it  or  became 
irepared  for  merging ;  the  war  between  the  Italian  poor 

1  The  identity  of  this  edict  drawn  up  perhaps  by  Marcus  Flavius 
Macrob.  Sat.  i.  14,  2)  and  the  alleged  treatise  of  Caesar,  De  Stellis,  is 
bown  by  the  joke  of  Cicero  (Plutarch,  Caes.  59)  that  now  the  Lyre  rises 
ccording  to  edict. 

We  may  add  that  it  was  known  even  before  Caesar  that  the  solar  year 
f  365  days  6  hours,  which  was  the  basis  of  the  Egyptian  calendar,  and 
rhich  he  made  the  basis  of  his,  was  somewhat  too  long.  The  most  exact 
alculation  of  the  tropical  year  which  the  ancient  world  was  acquainted 
nth,  that  of  Hipparchus,  put  it  at  365  d.  5  h.  52'  12"  ;  the  true  length 
i  365  d.  5  h.  48'  48". 


440  THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  book  v 

and  rich,  which  in  the  old  Italy  could  only  end  with  the 
destruction  of  the  nation,  had  no  longer  a  battle-field  or  a 
meaning  in  the  Italy  of  three  continents.  The  Latin 
colonies  closed  the  gap  which  threatened  to  swallow  up  the 
Roman  community  in  the  fifth  century ;  the  deeper  chasm 
of  the  seventh  century  was  filled  by  the  Transalpine  and 
transmarine  colonizations  of  Gaius  Gracchus  and  Caesar. 
For  Rome  alone  history  not  merely  performed  miracles,  but 
also  repeated  its  miracles,  and  twice  cured  the  internal 
crisis,  which  in  the  state  itself  was  incurable,  by  regenerating 
the  state.  There  was  doubtless  much  corruption  in  this 
regeneration ;  as  the  union  of  Italy  was  accomplished  over 
the  ruins  of  the  Samnite  and  Etruscan  nations,  so  the 
Mediterranean  monarchy  built  itself  on  the  ruins  of  count- 
less states  and  tribes  once  living  and  vigorous ;  but  it  was 
a  corruption  out  of  which  sprang  a  fresh  growth,  part  oi 
which  remains  green  at  the  present  day.  What  was  pulled 
down  for  the  sake  of  the  new  building,  was  merely  the 
secondary  nationalities  which  had  long  since  been  marked 
out  for  destruction  by  the  levelling  hand  of  civilization. 
Caesar,  wherever  he  came  forward  as  a  destroyer,  only 
carried  out  the  pronounced  verdict  of  historical  develop- 
ment ;  but  he  protected  the  germs  of  culture,  where  and  as 
he  found  them,  in  his  own  land  as  well  as  among  the  sistei 
nation  of  the  Hellenes.  He  saved  and  renewed  the  Roman 
type ;  and  not  only  did  he  spare  the  Greek  type,  but  with 
the  same  self-relying  genius  with  which  he  accomplished 
the  renewed  foundation  of  Rome  he  undertook  also  the 
regeneration  of  the  Hellenes,  and  resumed  the  interrupted 
work  of  the  great  Alexander,  whose  image,  we  may  well 
believe,  never  was  absent  from  Caesar's  soul.  He  solved 
these  two  great  tasks  not  merely  side  by  side,  but  the 
one  by  means  of  the  other.  The  two  great  essentials  ol 
humanity — general  and  individual  development,  or  state  and 
culture — once  in  embryo  united  in  those  old  Graeco-Italians 


chap,  xi  THE  NEW  MONARCHY  441 

feeding  their  flocks  in  primeval  simplicity  far  from  the  coasts 
and  islands  of  the  Mediterranean,  had  become  dissevered 
when  these  were  parted  into  Italians  and  Hellenes,  and  had 
thenceforth  remained  apart  for  many  centuries.  Now  the 
descendant  of  the  Trojan  prince  and  the  Latin  king's 
daughter  created  out  of  a  state  without  distinctive  culture 
and  a  cosmopolitan  civilization  a  new  whole,  in  which  state 
and  culture  again  met  together  at  the  acme  of  human  exist- 
ence in  the  rich  fulness  of  blessed  maturity  and  worthily 
filled  the  sphere  appropriate  to  such  an  union. 

The  outlines  have  thus  been  set  forth,  which  Caesar 
drew  for  this  work,  according  to  which  he  laboured  himself, 
and  according  to  which  posterity — for  many  centuries  con- 
fined to  the  paths  which  this  great  man  marked  out — 
^endeavoured  to  prosecute  the  work,  if  not  with  the  intellect 
and  energy,  yet  on  the  whole  in  accordance  with  the  inten- 
tions, of  the  illustrious  master.  Little  was  finished ;  much 
even  was  merely  begun.  Whether  the  plan  was  complete, 
those  who  venture  to  vie  in  thought  with  such  a  man  may 
decide ;  we  observe  no  material  defect  in  what  lies  before 
us — every  single  stone  of  the  building  enough  to  make  a 
man  immortal,  and  yet  all  combining  to  form  one  harmo- 
nious whole.  Caesar  ruled  as  king  of  Rome  for  five  years 
and  a  half,  not  half  as  long  as  Alexander ;  in  the  intervals 
of  seven  great  campaigns,  which  allowed  him  to  stay  not 
more  than  fifteen  months  altogether l  in  the  capital  of  his 
empire,  he  regulated  the  destinies  of  the  world  for  the 
present  and  the  future,  from  the  establishment  of  the 
boundary-line  between  civilization  and  barbarism  down  to 
the  removal  of  the  pools  of  rain  in  the  streets  of  the  capital, 
and  yet  retained  time  and  composure  enough  attentively 
to  follow  the  prize-pieces  in  the  theatre  and  to  confer  the 

1  Caesar  stayed  in  Rome  in  April  and  Dec.  705,  on  each  occasion  for  a  49. 
few  days ;  from  Sept.  to  Dec.  707 ;  some  four  months  in  the  autumn  of  47. 
the  year  of  fifteen  months  708,  and  from  Oct.  709  to  March  710.  46.  45.  44. 


442     THE  OLD  REPUBLIC  AND  NEW  MONARCHY     bk.  v 

chaplet  on  the  victor  with  improvised  verses.  The  rapidity 
and  self-precision  with  which  the  plan  was  executed  prove 
that  it  had  been  long  meditated  thoroughly  and  all  its  parts 
settled  in  detail ;  but,  even  thus,  they  remain  not  much  less 
wonderful  than  the  plan  itself.  The  outlines  were  laid 
down  and  thereby  the  new  state  was  defined  for  all  coming 
time ;  the  boundless  future  alone  could  complete  the 
structure.  So  far  Caesar  might  say,  that  his  aim  was  at- 
tained ;  and  this  was  probably  the  meaning  of  the  words 
which  were  sometimes  heard  to  fall  from  him — that  he  had 
"lived  enough."  But  precisely  because  the  building  was 
an  endless  one,  the  master  as  long  as  he  lived  restlessly 
added  stone  to  stone,  with  always  the  same  dexterity  and 
always  the  same  elasticity  busy  at  his  work,  without  ever 
overturning  or  postponing,  just  as  if  there  were  for  him 
merely  a  to-day  and  no  to-morrow.  Thus  he  worked  and 
created  as  never  did  any  mortal  before  or  after  him ;  and 
as  a  worker  and  creator  he  still,  after  wellnigh  two  thousand 
years,  lives  in  the  memory  of  the  nations — the  first,  and 
withal  unique,  Imperator  Caesar. 


chap,  xii    RELIGION,  CULTURE,  LITERATURE,  ART    443 


CHAPTER  XII 

RELIGION,  CULTURE,  LITERATURE,  AND  ART 

In  the  development  of  religion  and  philosophy  no  new  State, 
element  appeared  during  this  epoch.  The  Romano-  re  glon* 
Hellenic  state -religion  and  the  Stoic  state -philosophy 
inseparably  combined  with  it  were  for  every  government 
— oligarchy,  democracy  or  monarchy — not  merely  a  con- 
venient instrument,  but  quite  indispensable  for  the  very 
reason  that  it  was  just  as  impossible  to  construct  the 
state  wholly  without  religious  elements  as  to  discover  any 
new  state-religion  fitted  to  take  the  place  of  the  old.  So 
the  besom  of  revolution  swept  doubtless  at  times  very 
roughly  through  the  cobwebs  of  the  augural  bird-lore 
(p.  in);  nevertheless  the  rotten  machine  creaking  at  every 
joint  survived  the  earthquake  which  swallowed  up  the 
republic  itself,  and  preserved  its  insipidity  and  its  arrogance 
without  diminution  for  transference  to  the  new  monarchy. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  it  fell  more  and  more  into  disfavour 
with  all  those  who  preserved  their  freedom  of  judgment. 
Towards  the  state-religion  indeed  public  opinion  maintained 
an  attitude  essentially  indifferent;  it  was  on  all  sides 
recognized  as  an  institution  of  political  convenience,  and 
no  one  specially  troubled  himself  about  it  with  the  exception 
of  political  and  antiquarian  literati.  But  towards  its  philo- 
sophical sister  there  gradually  sprang  up  among  the  unpre- 
judiced public  that  hostility,  which  the  empty  and  yet  per- 


444  XELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  V 

fidious  hypocrisy  of  set  phrases  never  fails  in  the  long  run 
to  awaken.  That  a  presentiment  of  its  own  worthlessness 
began  to  dawn  on  the  Stoa  itself,  is  shown  by  its  attempt 
artificially  to  infuse  into  itself  some  fresh  spirit  in  the  way 
of  syncretism.  Antiochus  of  Ascalon  (flourishing  about 
79.  675),  who  professed  to  have  patched  together  the  Stoic  and 
Platonic- Aristotelian  systems  into  one  organic  unity,  in 
reality  so  far  succeeded  that  his  misshapen  doctrine  became 
the  fashionable  philosophy  of  the  conservatives  of  his  time 
and  was  conscientiously  studied  by  the  genteel  dilettanti 
and  literati  of  Rome.  Every  one  who  displayed  any 
intellectual  vigour,  opposed  the  Stoa  or  ignored  it.  It  was 
principally  antipathy  towards  the  boastful  and  tiresome 
Roman  Pharisees,  coupled  doubtless  with  the  increasing 
disposition  to  take  refuge  from  practical  life  in  indolent 
apathy  or  empty  irony,  that  occasioned  during  this  epoch 
the  extension  of  the  system  of  Epicurus  to  a  larger  circle 
and  the  naturalization  of  the  Cynic  philosophy  of  Diogenes 
in  Rome.  However  stale  and  poor  in  thought  the  former 
might  be,  a  philosophy,  which  did  not  seek  the  way  to 
wisdom  through  an  alteration  of  traditional  terms  but 
contented  itself  with  those  in  existence,  and  throughout 
recognized  only  the  perceptions  of  sense  as  true,  was 
always  better  than  the  terminological  jingle  and  the  hollow 
conceptions  of  the  Stoic  wisdom  ;  and  the  Cynic  philo- 
sophy was  of  all  the  philosophical  systems  of  the  times 
in  so  far  by  much  the  best,  as  its  system  was  confined  to 
the  having  no  system  at  all  and  sneering  at  all  systems  and 
all  systematizers.  In  both  fields  war  was  waged  against 
the  Stoa  with  zeal  and  success ;  for  serious  men,  the 
Epicurean  Lucretius  preached  with  the  full  accents  of 
heartfelt  conviction  and  of  holy  zeal  against  the  Stoical 
faith  in  the  gods  and  providence  and  the  Stoical  doctrine 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  for  the  great  public  ready 
to  laugh,  the  Cynic  Varro  hit  the  mark  still  more  sharply 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  445 

with  the  flying  darts  of  his  extensively-read  satires.  While 
thus  the  ablest  men  of  the  older  generation  made  war  on 
the  Stoa,  the  younger  generation  again,  such  as  Catullus, 
stood  in  no  inward  relation  to  it  at  all,  and  passed  a  far 
sharper  censure  on  it  by  completely  ignoring  it. 

But,  if  in  the  present  instance  a  faith  no  longer  believed  The 
in  was  maintained  out  of  political  convenience,  they  amply  ^^^ 
made  up  for  this  in  other  respects.  Unbelief  and  supersti- 
tion, different  hues  of  the  same  historical  phenomenon, 
went  in  the  Roman  world  of  that  day  hand  in  hand,  and 
there  was  no  lack  of  individuals  who  in  themselves  com- 
bined both — who  denied  the  gods  with  Epicurus,  and  yet 
prayed  and  sacrificed  before  every  shrine.  Of  course  only 
the  gods  that  came  from  the  east  were  still  in  vogue,  and, 
as  the  men  continued  to  flock  from  the  Greek  lands  to 
Italy,  so  the  gods  of  the  east  migrated  in  ever-increasing 
numbers  to  the  west.  The  importance  of  the  Phrygian 
cultus  at  that  time  in  Rome  is  shown  both  by  the  polemical 
tone  of  the  older  men  such  as  Varro  and  Lucretius,  and  by 
the  poetical  glorification  of  it  in  the  fashionable  Catullus, 
which  concludes  with  the  characteristic  request  that  the 
goddess  may  deign  to  turn  the  heads  of  others  only,  and 
not  that  of  the  poet  himself. 

A  fresh  addition  was  the  Persian  worship,  which  is  said  Worship 
to  have  first  reached  the  Occidental  through  the  medium 
of  the  pirates  who  met  on  the  Mediterranean  from  the  east 
and  from  the  west ;  the  oldest  seat  of  this  cultus  in  the  west 
is  stated  to  have  been  Mount  Olympus  in  Lycia.  That  in 
the  adoption  of  Oriental  worships  in  the  west  such  higher 
speculative  and  moral  elements  as  they  contained  were 
generally  allowed  to  drop,  is  strikingly  evinced  by  the  fact 
that  Ahuramazda,  the  supreme  god  of  the  pure  doctrine  of 
Zarathustra,  remained  virtually  unknown  in  the  west,  and 
adoration  there  was  especially  directed  to  that  god  who  had 
occupied  the  first  place  in  the  old  Persian  national  religion 


446  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

and  had  been  transferred  by  Zarathustra  to  the  second — the 
sun-god  Mithra. 
Worship  But   the   brighter  and   gentler   celestial   forms    of  the 

ls"  Persian  religion  did  not  so  rapidly  gain  a  footing  in  Rome 
as  the  wearisome  mystical  host  of  the  grotesque  divinities 
of  Egypt — Isis  the  mother  of  nature  with  her  whole  train, 
the  constantly  dying  and  constantly  reviving  Osiris,  the 
gloomy  Sarapis,  the  taciturn  and  grave  Harpocrates,  the 
dog-headed  Anubis.  In  the  year  when  Clodius  emanci- 
58.  pated  the  clubs  and  conventicles  (696),  and  doubtless  in 
consequence  of  this  very  emancipation  of  the  populace, 
that  host  even  prepared  to  make  its  entry  into  the  old 
stronghold  of  the  Roman  Jupiter  in  the  Capitol,  and  it  was 
with  difficulty  that  the  invasion  was  prevented  and  the 
inevitable  temples  were  banished  at  least  to  the  suburbs  of 
Rome.  No  worship  was  equally  popular  among  the  lower 
orders  of  the  population  in  the  capital :  when  the  senate 
ordered  the  temples  of  Isis  constructed  within  the  ring-wall 
to  be  pulled  down,  no  labourer  ventured  to  lay  the  first 
hand  on  them,  and  the  consul  Lucius  Paullus  was  himself 
50.  obliged  to  apply  the  first  stroke  of  the  axe  (704)  j  a  wager 
might  be  laid,  that  the  more  loose  any  woman  was,  the 
more  piously  she  worshipped  Isis.  That  the  casting  of 
lots,  the  interpretation  of  dreams,  and  similar  liberal  arts 
supported  their  professors,  was  a  matter  of  course.  The 
casting  of  horoscopes  was  already  a  scientific  pursuit ; 
Lucius  Tarutius  of  Firmum,  a  respectable  and  in  his  own 
way  learned  man,  a  friend  of  Varro  and  Cicero,  with  all 
gravity  cast  the  nativity  of  kings  Romulus  and  Numa  and 
of  the  city  of  Rome  itself,  and  for  the  edification  of  the 
credulous  on  either  side  confirmed  by  means  of  his 
Chaldaean  and  Egyptian  wisdom  the  accounts  of  the  Roman 
annals. 
The  new  But  by  far  the  most  remarkable  phenomenon  in  this 

goreanism.   domain  was  tn^  ^rst  attempt  to  mingle  crude  faith  with 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  447 

speculative  thought,  the  first  appearance  of  those  tendencies, 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  describe  as  Neo-Platonic,  in 
the  Roman  world.  Their  oldest  apostle  there  was  Publius  Nigidiui 
Nigidius  Figulus,  a  Roman  of  rank  belonging  to  the  strictest  lg  us" 
section  of  the  aristocracy,  who  filled  the  praetorship  in  696  58. 
and  died  in  709  as  a  political  exile  beyond  the  bounds  of  45. 
Italy.  With  astonishing  copiousness  of  learning  and  still 
more  astonishing  strength  of  faith  he  created  out  of  the 
most  dissimilar  elements  a  philosophico-religious  structure, 
the  singular  outline  of  which  he  probably  developed  still 
more  in  his  oral  discourses  than  in  his  theological  and 
physical  writings.  In  philosophy,  seeking  deliverance  from 
the  skeletons  of  the  current  systems  and  abstractions,  he 
recurred  to  the  neglected  fountain  of  the  pre-Socratic 
philosophy,  to  whose  ancient  sages  thought  had  still  pre- 
sented itself  with  sensuous  vividness.  The  researches  of 
physical  science — which,  suitably  treated,  afford  even  now 
so  excellent  a  handle  for  mystic  delusion  and  pious  sleight 
of  hand,  and  in  antiquity  with  its  more  defective  insight 
into  physical  laws  lent  themselves  still  more  easily  to  such 
objects — played  in  this  case,  as  may  readily  be  conceived, 
a  considerable  part.  His  theology  was  based  essentially 
on  that  strange  medley,  in  which  Greeks  of  a  kindred 
spirit  had  intermingled  Orphic  and  other  very  old  or  very 
new  indigenous  wisdom  with  Persian,  Chaldaean,  and 
Egyptian  secret  doctrines,  and  with  which  Figulus  incor- 
porated the  quasi-results  of  the  Tuscan  investigation  into 
nothingness  and  of  the  indigenous  lore  touching  the  flight 
of  birds,  so  as  to  produce  further  harmonious  confusion. 
The  whole  system  obtained  its  consecration — political, 
religious,  and  national — from  the  name  of  Pythagoras,  the 
ultra-conservative  statesman  whose  supreme  principle  was 
"to  promote  order  and  to  check  disorder,"  the  miracle- 
worker  and  necromancer,  the  primeval  sage  who  was  a 
native  of  Italy,  who  was  interwoven  even  with  the  legendary 


448  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

history  of  Rome,  and  whose  statue  was  to  be  seen  in  the 
Roman  Forum.  As  birth  and  death  are  kindred  with  each 
other,  so — it  seemed — Pythagoras  was  to  stand  not  merely 
by  the  cradle  of  the  republic  as  friend  of  the  wise  Nuraa 
and  colleague  of  the  sagacious  mother  Egeria,  but  also  by 
its  grave  as  the  last  protector  of  the  sacred  bird-lore.  But 
the  new  system  was  not  merely  marvellous,  it  also  worked 
marvels;  Nigidius  announced  to  the  father  of  the  subse- 
quent emperor  Augustus,  on  the  very  day  when  the  latter 
was  born,  the  future  greatness  of  his  son ;  nay  the  prophets 
conjured  up  spirits  for  the  credulous,  and,  what  was  of 
more  moment,  they  pointed  out  to  them  the  places  where 
their  lost  money  lay.  The  new-and-old  wisdom,  such  as  it 
was,  made  a  profound  impression  on  its  contemporaries; 
men  of  the  highest  rank,  of  the  greatest  learning,  of  the 
most  solid  ability,  belonging  to  very  different  parties — the 
49.  consul  of  705,  Appius  Claudius,  the  learned  Marcus  Varro, 
the  brave  officer  Publius  Vatinius — took  part  in  the  citation 
of  spirits,  and  it  even  appears  that  a  police  interference 
was  necessary  against  the  proceedings  of  these  societies. 
These  last  attempts  to  save  the  Roman  theology,  like  the 
kindred  efforts  of  Cato  in  the  field  of  politics,  produce  at 
once  a  comical  and  a  melancholy  impression ;  we  may 
smile  at  the  creed  and  its  propagators,  but  still  it  is  a  grave 
matter  when  even  able  men  begin  to  addict  themselves  to 
absurdity. 
Training  The  training  of  youth   followed,  as  may  naturally  be 

o  youth,  supposed,  the  course  of  bilingual  humane  culture  chalked 
out  in  the  previous  epoch,  and  the  general  culture  also  of 
the  Roman  world  conformed  more  and  more  to  the  forms 
established  for  that  purpose  by  the  Greeks.  Even  the 
bodily  exercises  advanced  from  ball-playing,  running,  and 
fencing  to  the  more  artistically-developed  Greek  gymnastic 
contests ;  though  there  were  not  yet  any  public  institutions 
for  gymnastics,  in  the  principal  country-houses  the  palaestra 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  449 

was  already  to  be  found  by  the  side  of  the  bath-rooms. 
The  manner  in  which  the  cycle  of  general  culture  had  Sciences  of 
changed  in  the  Roman  world  during  the  course  of  a  culture  at 
century,  is  shown  by  a  comparison  of  the  encyclopaedia  of  this  period. 
Cato  (iii.  195)  with  the  similar  treatise  of  Varro  "concern- 
ing the  school-sciences."  As  constituent  elements  of  non- 
professional culture,  there  appear  in  Cato  the  art  of  oratory, 
the  sciences  of  agriculture,  of  law,  of  war,  and  of  medicine ; 
in  Varro — according  to  probable  conjecture — grammar, 
logic  or  dialectics,  rhetoric,  geometry,  arithmetic,  astronomy, 
music,  medicine,  and  architecture.  Consequently  in  the 
course  of  the  seventh  century  the  sciences  of  war,  juris- 
prudence, and  agriculture  had  been  converted  from  general 
into  professional  studies.  On  the  other  hand  in  Varro  the 
Hellenic  training  of  youth  appears  already  in  all  its  com- 
pleteness :  by  the  side  of  the  course  of  grammar,  rhetoric, 
and  philosophy,  which  had  been  introduced  at  an  earlier 
period  into  Italy,  we  now  find  the  course  which  had  longer 
remained  distinctively  Hellenic,  of  geometry,  arithmetic, 
astronomy,  and  music.1  That  astronomy  more  especially, 
which  ministered,  in  the  nomenclature  of  the  stars,  to  the 
thoughtless  erudite  dilettantism  of  the  age  and,  in  its 
relations  to  astrology,  to  the  prevailing  religious  delusions, 
was  regularly  and  zealously  studied  by  the  youth  in  Italy, 
can  be  proved  also  otherwise ;  the  astronomical  didactic 
poems  of  Aratus,  among  all  the  works  of  Alexandrian 
literature,  found  earliest  admittance  into  the  instruction  of 
Roman  youth.  To  this  Hellenic  course  there  was  added 
the  study  of  medicine,  which  was  retained  from  the  older 
Roman  instruction,  and  lastly  that  of  architecture — indispens- 
able to  the  genteel  Roman  of  this  period,  who  instead  of 
cultivating  the  ground  built  houses  and  villas. 

1  These  form,  as  is  well  known,  the  so-called  seven  liberal  arts,  which, 
with  this  distinction  between  the  three  branches  of  discipline  earlier 
naturalized  in  Italy  and  the  four  subsequently  received,  maintained  their 
position  throughout  the  middle  ages. 

vol.  v  1 6a 


45° 


RELIGION,  CULTURE, 


BOOK  V 


Greek  in- 

struction. 


Alexan- 

drinism. 


In  comparison  with  the  previous  epoch  the  Greek  as 
well  as  the  Latin  training  improved  in  extent  and  in 
scholastic  strictness  quite  as  much  as  it  declined  in  purity 
and  in  refinement.  The  increasing  eagerness  after  Greek 
lore  gave  to  instruction  of  itself  an  erudite  character.  To 
explain  Homer  or  Euripides  was  after  all  no  art ;  teachers 
and  scholars  found  their  account  better  in  handling  the 
Alexandrian  poems,  which,  besides,  were  in  their  spirit  far 
more  congenial  to  the  Roman  world  of  that  day  than  the 
genuine  Greek  national  poetry,  and  which,  if  they  were  not 
quite  so  venerable  as  the  Iliad,  possessed  at  any  rate  an 
age  sufficiently  respectable  to  pass  as  classics  with  school- 
masters. The  love-poems  of  Euphorion,  the  "  Causes  "  of 
Callimachus  and  his  "Ibis,"  the  comically  obscure  "Alex- 
andra "  of  Lycophron  contained  in  rich  abundance  rare 
vocables  {glossae)  suitable  for  being  extracted  and  interpreted, 
sentences  laboriously  involved  and  difficult  of  analysis, 
prolix  digressions  full  of  mystic  combinations  of  antiquated 
myths,  and  generally  a  store  of  cumbersome  erudition  of 
all  sorts.  Instruction  needed  exercises  more  and  more 
difficult ;  these  productions,  in  great  part  model  efforts  of 
schoolmasters,  were  excellently  adapted  to  be  lessons  for 
model  scholars.  Thus  the  Alexandrian  poems  took  a 
permanent  place  in  Italian  scholastic  instruction,  especially 
as  trial-themes,  and  certainly  promoted  knowledge,  although 
at  the  expense  of  taste  and  of  discretion.  The  same  un- 
healthy appetite  for  culture  moreover  impelled  the  Roman 
youths  to  derive  their  Hellenism  as  much  as  possible  from 
the  fountain-head.  The  courses  of  the  Greek  masters  in 
Rome  sufficed  only  for  a  first  start ;  every  one  who  wished 
to  be  able  to  converse  heard  lectures  on  Greek  philosophy 
at  Athens,  and  on  Greek  rhetoric  at  Rhodes,  and  made  a 
literary  and  artistic  tour  through  Asia  Minor,  where  most 
of  the  old  art-treasures  of  the  Hellenes  were  still  to  be 
found  on  the  spot,  and  the  cultivation  of  the  fine  arts  had 


:hap.  xir  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  451 

been  continued,  although  after  a  mechanical  fashion;  whereas 
Alexandria,  more  distant  and  more  celebrated  as  the  seat 
of  the  exact  sciences,  was  far  more  rarely  the  point  whither 
poung  men  desirous  of  culture  directed  their  travels. 

The  advance  in  Latin  instruction  was  similar  to  that  of  Latin  in- 
Greek.  This  in  part  resulted  from  the  mere  reflex  influ- 
ence of  the  Greek,  from  which  it  in  fact  essentially  borrowed 
its  methods  and  its  stimulants.  Moreover,  the  relations  of 
politics,  the  impulse  to  mount  the  orators'  platform  in  the 
Forum  which  was  imparted  by  the  democratic  doings 
to  an  ever -widening  circle,  contributed  not  a  little  to 
the  diffusion  and  enhancement  of  oratorical  exercises ; 
"wherever  one  casts  his  eyes,"  says  Cicero,  "every  place  is 
full  of  rhetoricians."  Besides,  the  writings  of  the  sixth 
century,  the  farther  they  receded  into  the  past,  began  to  be 
more  decidedly  regarded  as  classical  texts  of  the  golden 
age  of  Latin  literature,  and  thereby  gave  a  greater  pre- 
ponderance to  the  instruction  which  was  essentially  concen- 
trated upon  them.  Lastly  the  immigration  and  spreading 
of  barbarian  elements  from  many  quarters  and  the  incipient 
Latinizing  of  extensive  Celtic  and  Spanish  districts, 
naturally  gave  to  Latin  grammar  and  Latin  instruction  a 
higher  importance  than  they  could  have  had,  so  long  as 
Latium  only  spoke  Latin ;  the  teacher  of  Latin  literature 
had  from  the  outset  a  different  position  in  Comum  and 
Narbo  than  he  had  in  Praeneste  and  Ardea.  Taken  as  a 
whole,  culture  was  more  on  the  wane  than  on  the  advance. 
The  ruin  of  the  Italian  country  towns,  the  extensive 
intrusion  of  foreign  elements,  the  political,  economic,  and 
moral  deterioration  of  the  nation,  above  all,  the  distracting 
civil  wars  inflicted  more  injury  on  the  language  than  all 
the  schoolmasters  of  the  world  could  repair.  The  closer 
contact  with  the  Hellenic  culture  of  the  present,  the  more 
decided  influence  of  the  talkative  Athenian  wisdom  and  of 
the  rhetoric  of  Rhodes  and  Asia  Minor,  supplied  to  the 


452  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

Roman  youth  just  the  very  elements  that  were  most  per* 
nicious   in   Hellenism.     The   propagandist  mission  which 
Latium  undertook  among  the  Celts,  Iberians,  and  Libyans 
— proud  as  the  task  was — could  not  but  have  the  like  con- 
sequences for  the  Latin  language  as  the  Hellenizing  of  the 
east  had  had  for  the  Hellenic.     The  fact  that  the  Roman 
public   of  this   period    applauded   the   well  arranged   and 
rhythmically  balanced  periods  of  the  orator,  and  any  offence 
in  language  or  metre  cost  the  actor  dear,  doubtless  shows 
that   the   insight   into  the   mother  tongue  which  was   the 
reflection  of  scholastic  training  was  becoming  the  common 
possession  of  an  ever- widening  circle.     But  at  the  same 
time  contemporaries  capable  of  judging  complain  that  the 
64.  Hellenic  culture  in  Italy  about  690  was  at  a  far  lower  level 
than  it  had  been  a  generation  before ;  that  opportunities  of 
hearing  pure  and  good   Latin   were  but  rare,  and  these 
chiefly  from  the  mouth  of  elderly  cultivated  ladies;  that 
the  tradition  of  genuine  culture,  the  good  old  Latin  mother 
wit,  the  Lucilian  polish,  the  cultivated  circle  of  readers  of 
the    Scipionic    age    were    gradually    disappearing.       The 
circumstance  that  the  term  urbanitas,  and  the  idea  of  a 
polished  national  culture  which  it  expressed,  arose  during 
this  period,  proves,  not  that  it  was  prevalent,  but  that  it 
was  on  the  wane,  and  that  people  were  keenly  alive  to  the 
absence  of  this  urbanitas  in  the  language  and  the  habits  of 
the  Latinized  barbarians  or  barbarized  Latins.     Where  we 
still  meet  with  the  urbane  tone  of  conversation,  as  in  Varro's 
Satires  and  Cicero's  Letters,  it  is  an  echo  of  the  old  fashion 
which  was  not  yet  so  obsolete  in  Reate  and  Arpinum  as  in 
Rome. 
Germs  of  Thus  the  previous  culture  of  youth  remained  substan- 

sta.te.  tially  unchanged,  except  that — not  so  much  from  its  own 

school?  deterioration  as  from  the  general  decline  of  the  nation — it 
was  productive  of  less  good  and  more  evil  than  in  the 
preceding  epoch.     Caesar  initiated  a  revolution  also  in  this 


CHAP,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  453 

department.  While  the  Roman  senate  had  first  combated 
and  then  at  the  most  had  simply  tolerated  culture,  the 
government  of  the  new  Italo-Hellenic  empire,  whose 
essence  in  fact  was  humanitas,  could  not  but  adopt  measures 
to  stimulate  it  after  the  Hellenic  fashion.  If  Caesar 
conferred  the  Roman  franchise  on  all  teachers  of  the 
liberal  sciences  and  all  the  physicians  of  the  capital,  we 
may  discover  in  this  step  a  paving  of  the  way  in  some 
degree  for  those  institutions  in  which  subsequently  the 
higher  bilingual  culture  of  the  youth  of  the  empire  was 
provided  for  on  the  part  of  the  state,  and  which  form  the 
most  significant  expression  of  the  new  state  of  humanitas ; 
and  if  Caesar  had  further  resolved  on  the  establishment  of 
a  public  Greek  and  Latin  library  in  the  capital  and  had 
already  nominated  the  most  learned  Roman  of  the  age, 
Marcus  Varro,  as  principal  librarian,  this  implied  unmistake- 
ably  the  design  of  connecting  the  cosmopolitan  monarchy 
with  cosmopolitan  literature. 

The   development  of  the  language   during  this  period  Language, 
turned  on  the  distinction  between   the  classical   Latin  of 
cultivated  society  and  the  vulgar  language  of  common  life. 
The  former  itself  was  a  product  of  the  distinctively  Italian 
culture ;  even  in   the  Scipionic  circle  "  pure   Latin "  had 
become  the  cue,  and  the  mother  tongue  was  spoken,  no 
longer  in  entire  naivete,  but  in  conscious  contradistinction 
to  the  language  of  the  great  multitude.     This  epoch  opens  The 
with  a  remarkable  reaction  against    the    classicism  which  off^sm 
had  hitherto  exclusively  prevailed  in  the  higher  language  of  Minor, 
conversation  and  accordingly  also  in  literature — a  reaction 
which  had  inwardly  and  outwardly  a  close  connection  with 
the  reaction  of  a  similar  nature  in  the  language  of  Greece. 
Just  about  this  time  the  rhetor  and  romance-writer  Hegesias 
of  Magnesia  and  the  numerous  rhetors  and  literati  of  Asia 
Minor  who  attached    themselves   to  him   began   to   rebel 
against    the    orthodox    Atticism.      They    demanded    full 


454  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

recognition  for  the  language  of  life,  without  distinction, 
whether  the  word  or  the  phrase  originated  in  Attica  or  in 
Caria  and  Phrygia ;  they  themselves  spoke  and  wrote  not 
for  the  taste  of  learned  cliques,  but  for  that  of  the  great 
public.  There  could  not  be  much  objection  to  the 
principle;  only,  it  is  true,  the  result  could  not  be  better 
than  was  the  public  of  Asia  Minor  of  that  day,  which  had 
totally  lost  the  taste  for  chasteness  and  purity  of  production, 
and  longed  only  after  the  showy  and  brilliant.  To  say 
nothing  of  the  spurious  forms  of  art  that  sprang  out  of  this 
tendency — especially  the  romance  and  the  history  assuming 
the  form  of  romance — the  very  style  of  these  Asiatics  was,  as 
may  readily  be  conceived,  abrupt  and  without  modulation 
and  finish,  minced  and  effeminate,  full  of  tinsel  and 
bombast,  thoroughly  vulgar  and  affected ;  "  any  one  who 
knows  Hegesias,"  says  Cicero,  "knows  what  silliness  is." 

Roman  Yet  this   new  style  found  its  way  also  into  the  Latin 

gansm.  worj(j>  When  the  Hellenic  fashionable  rhetoric,  after 
having  at  the  close  of  the  previous  epoch  obtruded  into  the 
Latin  instruction  of  youth  (iv.  214),  took  at  the  beginning 
of  the  present  period  the  final  step  and  mounted  the 
Roman    orators'     platform    in    the    person    of    Quintus 

Hortensius.  Hortensius  (640-704),  the  most  celebrated  pleader  of  the 
'  Sullan  age,  it  adhered  closely  even  in  the  Latin  idiom  to 
the  bad  Greek  taste  of  the  time ;  and  the  Roman  public, 
no  longer  having  the  pure  and  chaste  culture  of  the 
Scipionic  age,  naturally  applauded  with  zeal  the  innovator 
who  knew  how  to  give  to  vulgarism  the  semblance  of  an 
artistic  performance.  This  was  of  great  importance.  As 
in  Greece  the  battles  of  language  were  always  waged  at 
first  in  the  schools  of  the  rhetoricians,  so  in  Rome  the 
forensic  oration  to  a  certain  extent  even  more  than 
literature  set  the  standard  of  style,  and  accordingly  there 
was  combined,  as  it  were  of  right,  with  the  leadership  of 
the  bar  the  prerogative  of  giving  the  tone  to  the  fashion- 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  455 

able  mode  of  speaking  and  writing.     The  Asiatic  vulgarism 
of  Hortensius  thus  dislodged  classicism  from  the  Roman 
platform  and  partly  also  from  literature.     But  the  fashion  Reaction, 
soon  changed  once  more  in  Greece  and  in  Rome.     In  the 
former  it  was  the  Rhodian  school  of  rhetoricians,  which,  The 
without  reverting  to  all  the  chaste  severity  of  the  Attic  style,  R^od!an 
attempted  to  strike  out  a  middle  course  between  it  and  the 
modern  fashion  :  if  the  Rhodian  masters  were  not  too  par- 
ticular as  to  the  internal  correctness  of  their  thinking  and 
speaking,  they  at  least  insisted  on  purity  of  language  and 
style,  on  the  careful  selection  of  words  and  phrases,  and  the 
giving  thorough  effect  to  the  modulation  of  sentences. 

In  Italy  it  was  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero  (648-7 1 1)  who,  Cicero- 
after  having  in  his  early  youth  gone  along  with  the  ?Jff^" 
Hortensian  manner,  was  brought  by  hearing  the  Rhodian 
masters  and  by  his  own  more  matured  taste  to  better  paths, 
and  thenceforth  addicted  himself  to  strict  purity  of 
language  and  the  thorough  periodic  arrangement  and 
modulation  of  his  discourse.  The  models  of  language, 
which  in  this  respect  he  followed,  he  found  especially  in 
those  circles  of  the  higher  Roman  society  which  had  suffered 
but  little  or  not  at  all  from  vulgarism ;  and,  as  was  already 
said,  there  were  still  such,  although  they  were  beginning 
to  disappear.  The  earlier  Latin  and  the  good  Greek 
literature,  however  considerable  was  the  influence  of  the 
latter  more  especially  on  the  rhythm  of  his  oratory,  were  in 
this  matter  only  of  secondary  moment :  this  purifying  of 
the  language  was  by  no  means  a  reaction  of  the  language 
of  books  against  that  of  conversation,  but  a  reaction  of  the 
language  of  the  really  cultivated  against  the  jargon  of 
spurious  and  partial  culture.  Caesar,  in  the  department  of 
language  also  the  greatest  master  of  his  time,  expressed  the 
fundamental  idea  of  Roman  classicism,  when  he  enjoined 
that  in  speech  and  writing  every  foreign  word  should  be 
avoided,  as  rocks  are  avoided  by  the  mariner ;  the  poetical 


456 


RELIGION,  CULTURE, 


BOOK  V 


The  new 
Roman 

poetry. 


and  the  obsolete  word  of  the  older  literature  was  rejected 
as  well  as  the  rustic  phrase  or  that  borrowed  from  the 
language  of  common  life,  and  more  especially  the  Greek 
words  and  phrases  which,  as  the  letters  of  this  period  show, 
had  to  a  very  great  extent  found  their  way  into  conversa- 
tional language.  Nevertheless  this  scholastic  and  artificial 
classicism  of  the  Ciceronian  period  stood  to  the  Scipionic 
as  repentance  to  innocence,  or  the  French  of  the  classicists 
under  Napoleon  to  the  model  French  of  Moliere  and 
Boileau ;  while  the  former  classicism  had  sprung  out  of  the 
full  freshness  of  life,  the  latter  as  it  were  caught  just  in 
right  time  the  last  breath  of  a  race  perishing  beyond 
recovery.  Such  as  it  was,  it  rapidly  diffused  itself.  With 
the  leadership  of  the  bar  the  dictatorship  of  language  and 
taste  passed  from  Horlensius  to  Cicero,  and  the  varied  and 
copious  authorship  of  the  latter  gave  to  this  classicism — 
what  it  had  hitherto  lacked — extensive  prose  texts.  Thus 
Cicero  became  the  creator  of  the  modern  classical  Latin 
prose,  and  Roman  classicism  attached  itself  throughout  and 
altogether  to  Cicero  as  a  stylist ;  it  was  to  the  stylist  Cicero, 
not  to  the  author,  still  less  to  the  statesman,  that  the 
panegyrics — extravagant  yet  not  made  up  wholly  of  verbiage 
— applied,  with  which  the  most  gifted  representatives  of 
classicism,  such  as  Caesar  and  Catullus,  loaded  him. 

They  soon  went  farther.  What  Cicero  did  in  prose, 
was  carried  out  in  poetry  towards  the  end  of  the  epoch  by 
the  new  Roman  school  of  poets,  which  modelled  itself  on 
the  Greek  fashionable  poetry,  and  in  which  the  man  of 
most  considerable  talent  was  Catullus.  Here  too  the 
higher  language  of  conversation  dislodged  the  archaic 
reminiscences  which  hitherto  to  a  large  extent  prevailed  in 
this  domain,  and  as  Latin  prose  submitted  to  the  Attic 
rhythm,  so  Latin  poetry  submitted  gradually  to  the  strict 
or  rather  painful  metrical  laws  of  the  Alexandrines ;  e.g. 
from  the  time  of  Catullus,  it  is  no  longer  allowable  at  once 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  457 

to  begin  a  verse  and  to  close  a  sentence  begun  in  the  \erse 
preceding  with  a  monosyllabic  word  or  a  dissyllabic  one 
not  specially  weighty. 

At  length  science  stepped  in,  fixed  the  law  of  language,  Grammati- 
and  developed  its  rule,  which  was  no  longer  determined  on  science. 
the  basis  of  experience,  but  made  the  claim  to  determine 
experience.  The  endings  of  declension,  which  hitherto 
had  in  part  been  variable,  were  now  to  be  once  for  all 
fixed ;  e.g.  of  the  genitive  and  dative  forms  hitherto  current 
side  by  side  in  the  so-called  fourth  declension  (senatuis  and 
senatus,  senatui  and  senatu)  Caesar  recognized  exclusively 
as  valid  the  contracted  forms  {us  and  u).  In  orthography 
various  changes  were  made,  to  bring  the  written  more  fully 
into  correspondence  with  the  spoken  language ;  thus  the  u 
in  the  middle  of  words  like  maxumus  was  replaced  after 
Caesar's  precedent  by  i;  and  of  the  two  letters  which  had 
become  superfluous,  k  and  q,  the  removal  of  the  first  was 
effected,  and  that  of  the  second  was  at  least  proposed. 
The  language  was,  if  not  yet  stereotyped,  in  the  course  of 
becoming  so ;  it  was  not  yet  indeed  unthinkingly  dominated 
by  rule,  but  it  had  already  become  conscious  of  it.  That 
this  action  in  the  department  of  Latin  grammar  derived 
generally  its  spirit  and  method  from  the  Greek,  and  not 
only  so,  but  that  the  Latin  language  was  also  directly 
rectified  in  accordance  with  Greek  precedent,  is  shown, 
for  example,  by  the  treatment  of  the  final  s,  which  till 
towards  the  close  of  this  epoch  had  at  pleasure  passed 
sometimes  as  a  consonant,  sometimes  not  as  one,  but  was 
treated  by  the  new-fashioned  poets  throughout,  as  in  Greek, 
as  a  consonantal  termination.  This  regulation  of  language 
is  the  proper  domain  of  Roman  classicism ;  in  the  most 
various  ways,  and  for  that  very  reason  all  the  more  signifi- 
cantly, the  rule  is  inculcated  and  the  offence  against  it 
rebuked  by  the  coryphaei  of  classicism,  by  Cicero,  by 
Caesar,  even  in  the  poems  of  Catullus ;  whereas  the  older 


458  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

generation  expresses  itself  with  natural  keenness  of  feeling 
respecting  the  revolution  which  had  affected  the  field  of 
language  as  remorselessly  as  the  field  of  politics.1  But 
while  the  new  classicism — that  is  to  say,  the  standard 
Latin  governed  by  rule  and  as  far  as  possible  placed  on  a 
parity  with  the  standard  Greek — which  arose  out  of  a 
conscious  reaction  against  the  vulgarism  intruding  into 
higher  society  and  even  into  literature,  acquired  literary 
fixity  and  systematic  shape,  the  latter  by  no  means  evacu- 
ated the  field.  Not  only  do  we  find  it  naively  employed 
in  the  works  of  secondary  personages  who  have  drifted  into 
the  ranks  of  authors  merely  by  accident,  as  in  the  account 
of  Caesar's  second  Spanish  war,  but  we  shall  meet  it  also 
with  an  impress  more  or  less  distinct  in  literature  proper, 
in  the  mime,  in  the  semi-romance,  in  the  aesthetic  writings 
of  Varro ;  and  it  is  a  significant  circumstance,  that  it 
maintains  itself  precisely  in  the  most  national  departments 
of  literature,  and  that  truly  conservative  men,  like  Varro, 
take  it  into  protection.  Classicism  was  based  on  the  death 
of  the  Italian  language  as  monarchy  on  the  decline  of  the 
Italian  nation ;  it  was  completely  consistent  that  the  men, 
in  whom  the  republic  was  still  living,  should  continue  to 
give  to  the  living  language  its  rights,  and  for  the  sake  of 
its  comparative  vitality  and  nationality  should  tolerate  its 
aesthetic  defects.  Thus  then  the  linguistic  opinions  and 
tendencies  of  this  epoch  are  everywhere  divergent ;  by  the 
side  of  the  old-fashioned  poetry  of  Lucretius  appears  the 
thoroughly  modern  poetry  of  Catullus,  by  the  side  of 
Cicero's  well -modulated  period  stands  the  sentence  of 
Varro  intentionally  disdaining  all  subdivision.  In  this 
field  likewise  is  mirrored  the  distraction  of  the  age. 
Literary  In  the  literature  of  this  period  we  are  first  of  all  struck 

by   the   outward  increase,   as  compared   with    the   former 

1  Thus  Varro  (De  J?.  J?,  i.  2)  says :  ab  aeditimo,  ut  dicere  didicimus 
mfatribus  nostris  ;  ut  corrigimur  ab  recenlibus  urbanis,  ab  aedituo. 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  459 

epoch,  of  literary  effort  in  Rome.      It  was  long  since  the  Greek 
literary  activity  of  the  Greeks  flourished  no  more  in  the  j^^^^ 
free  atmosphere  of  civic  independence,  but   only  in  the 
scientific  institutions  of  the  larger  cities  and  especially  of 
the  courts.      Left  to  depend  on  the  favour  and  protection 
of  the  great,  and  dislodged  from  the  former  seats  of  the 
Muses1  by  the  extinction   of  the  dynasties  of  Pergamus 
(621),  Cyrene  (658),  Bithynia  (679),  and  Syria  (690)  and  133.    96. 
by  the  waning  splendour  of  the  court  of  the  Lagids — more-      ' 
over,  since  the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great,  necessarily 
cosmopolitan  and  at  least  quite  as  much  strangers  among 
the    Egyptians    and    Syrians    as    among   the   Latins — the 
Hellenic  literati  began  more  and  more  to  turn  their  eyes 
towards  Rome.     Among  the  host  of  Greek  attendants  with 
which  the  Roman  of  quality  at  this  time  surrounded  him- 
self,  the    philosopher,    the    poet,    and    the  memoir- writer 
played  conspicuous  parts  by  the  side  of  the  cook,  the  boy- 
favourite,  and  the  jester.     We  meet  already  literati  of  note 
in  such  positions ;  the  Epicurean  Philodemus,  for  instance, 
was   installed  as   domestic  philosopher  with   Lucius   Piso 
consul  in  696,  and  occasionally  edified  the  initiated  with  58. 
his  clever  epigrams  on  the  coarse-grained  Epicureanism  of 

1  The  dedication  of  the  poetical  description  of  the  earth  which  passes 
under  the  name  of  Scymnus  is  remarkable  in  reference  to  those  relations. 
After  the  poet  has  declared  his  purpose  of  preparing  in  the  favourite 
Menandrian  measure  a  sketch  of  geography  intelligible  for  scholars  and 
easy  to  be  learned  by  heart,  he  dedicates — as  Apollodorus  dedicated  his 
similar  historical  compendium  to  Attalus  Philadelphus  king  of  Pergamus 

ddavarov  bicovipovTa.  bb^av  'ArTaky 
•rijs  ir pay fiare las  iwtypa<pr]v  etXrjcpbn — 

his  manual  to  Nicomedes  III.  king  (663  7-679)  of  Bithynia  (  91-75. 

4yw  5'  aKotiuv,  Si&ri  tQv  vvv  fiacCKiwv 
fi6vos  /3a<n\iK7)v  \pt]aTbTt)Ta  ifpo<T<p4peis, 
vetpav  iireOviM-qcr'  avrbs  4ir'  iftavrov  \a/3e?v 
Kal  irapayevtadai  Kal  rl  fiaaikevs  icr'  ioelv. 
Sib  t-q  rrpodtaei  ffv/j.j3ov\ov  ^eXe^d/iT/v 
.  .   .   rbv  'AirbWuva  rbv  Atdv/uiTj  .  .  . 
08  S^  <r%fSbv  fiaXicrra  Kal  Treireiff/j^vof 
vpbs  ar\v  Kara  \6yov  TjKa  (kolv'Ijv  yap  o"^e53l» 
rets  (bCkonaOovaiv  avadtdetxas)  iirrlav. 


46o  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

his  patron.  From  all  sides  the  most  notable  representa- 
tives of  Greek  art  and  science  migrated  in  daily-increasing 
numbers  to  Rome,  where  literary  gains  were  now  more 
abundant  than  anywhere  else.  Among  those  thus  men- 
tioned as  settled  in  Rome  we  find  the  physician  Asclepiades 
whom  king  Mithradates  vainly  endeavoured  to  draw  away 
from  it  into  his  service;  the  universalist  in  learning, 
Alexander  of  Miletus,  termed  Polyhistor;  the  poet  Par- 
thenius  from  Nicaea  in  Bithynia;  Posidonius  of  Apamea 
in  Syria  equally  celebrated  as  a  traveller,  teacher,  and 
51.  author,  who  at  a  great  age  migrated  in  703  from  Rhodes 
to  Rome ;  and  various  others.  A  house  like  that  of 
Lucius  Lucullus  was  a  seat  of  Hellenic  culture  and  a 
rendezvous  for  Hellenic  literati  almost  like  the  Alexandrian 
Museum ;  Roman  resources  and  Hellenic  connoisseurship 
had  gathered  in  these  halls  of  wealth  and  science  an  in- 
comparable collection  of  statues  and  paintings  of  earlier 
and  contemporary  masters,  as  well  as  a  library  as  carefully 
selected  as  it  was  magnificently  fitted  up,  and  every  person 
of  culture  and  especially  every  Greek  was  welcome  there — 
the  master  of  the  house  himself  was  often  seen  walking  up 
and  down  the  beautiful  colonnade  in  philological  or  philo- 
sophical conversation  with  one  of  his  learned  guests.  No 
doubt  these  Greeks  brought  along  with  their  rich  treasures 
of  culture  their  preposterousness  and  servility  to  Italy; 
one  of  these  learned  wanderers  for  instance,  the  author  of 
54.  the  "Art  of  Flattery,"  Aristodemus  of  Nysa  (about  700) 
recommended  himself  to  his  masters  by  demonstrating  that 
Homer  was  a  native  of  Rome  ! 
Extent  of  In  the  same  measure  as  the  pursuits  of  the  Greek  literati 

the  literary  prospered  in  Rome,  literary  activity  and  literary  interest  in- 
of  the         creased  among  the  Romans  themselves.     Even  Greek  com- 
Romans.      p0Siti0n,  which  the  stricter  taste  of  the  Scipionic  age  had 
totally  set  aside,  now  revived.     The  Greek  language  was 
now  universally  current,  and  a  Greek  treatise  found  a  quite 


:hap.  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  461 

different  public  from  a  Latin  one ;  therefore  Romans  of 
rank,  such  as  Lucius  Lucullus,  Marcus  Cicero,  Titus 
A.tticus,  Quintus  Scaevola  (tribune  of  the  people  in  700),  64 
;ike  the  kings  of  Armenia  and  Mauretania,  published 
Dccasionally  Greek  prose  and  even  Greek  verses.  Such 
Sreek  authorship  however  by  native  Romans  remained  a 
secondary  matter  and  almost  an  amusement ;  the  literary 
is  well  as  the  political  parties  of  Italy  all  coincided  in 
idhering  to  their  Italian  nationality,  only  more  or  less 
Dervaded  by  Hellenism.  Nor  could  there  be  any  com- 
)laint  at  least  as  to  want  of  activity  in  the  field  of  Latin 
mthorship.  There  was  a  flood  of  books  and  pamphlets 
)f  all  sorts,  and  above  all  of  poems,  in  Rome.  Poets 
iwarmed  there,  as  they  did  only  in  Tarsus  or  Alexandria ; 
poetical  publications  had  become  the  standing  juvenile  sin 
>f  livelier  natures,  and  even  then  the  writer  was  reckoned 
ortunate  whose  youthful  poems  compassionate  oblivion 
vithdrew  from  criticism.  Any  one  who  understood  the  art, 
vrote  without  difficulty  at  a  sitting  his  five  hundred  hexa- 
neters  in  which  no  schoolmaster  found  anything  to  censure, 
)ut  no  reader  discovered  anything  to  praise.  The  female 
vorld  also  took  a  lively  part  in  these  literary  pursuits  ;  the 
adies  did  not  confine  themselves  to  dancing  and  music,  but 
>y  their  spirit  and  wit  ruled  conversation  and  talked  ex- 
:ellently  on  Greek  and  Latin  literature ;  and,  when  poetry 
aid  siege  to  a  maiden's  heart,  the  beleaguered  fortress  not 
eldom  surrendered  likewise  in  graceful  verses.  Rhythms 
>ecame  more  and  more  the  fashionable  plaything  of  the 
>ig  children  of  both  sexes  ;  poetical  epistles,  joint  poetical 
ixercises  and  competitions  among  good  friends,  were  of 
loramon  occurrence,  and  towards  the  end  of  this  epoch 
nstitutions  were  already  opened  in  the  capital,  at  which 
infledged  Latin  poets  might  learn  verse-making  for  money. 
n  consequence  of  the  large  consumption  of  books  the 
nachinery  for   the    manufacture   of  copies    was   substan- 


462 


RELIGION,  CULTURE, 


BOOK  V 


The 

classicists 
and  the 
moderns. 


t/ally  perfected,  and  publication  was  effected  with  com- 
parative rapidity  and  cheapness  ;  bookselling  became  a 
respectable  and  lucrative  trade,  and  the  bookseller's  shop 
a  usual  meeting -place  of  men  of  culture.  Reading  had 
become  a  fashion,  nay  a  mania ;  at  table,  where  coarser 
pastimes  had  not  already  intruded,  reading  was  regularly 
introduced,  and  any  one  who  meditated  a  journey  seldom 
forgot  to  pack  up  a  travelling  library.  The  superior  officer 
was  seen  in  the  camp-tent  with  the  obscene  Greek  romance, 
the  statesman  in  the  senate  with  the  philosophical  treatise, 
in  his  hands.  Matters  accordingly  stood  in  the  Roman 
state  as  they  have  stood  and  will  stand  in  every  state 
where  the  citizens  read  "  from  the  threshold  to  the  closet." 
The  Parthian  vizier  was  not  far  wrong,  when  he  pointed 
out  to  the  citizens  of  Seleucia  the  romances  found  in  the 
camp  of  Crassus  and  asked  them  whether  they  still 
regarded  the  readers  of  such  books  as  formidable  op- 
ponents. 

The  literary  tendency  of  this  age  was  varied  and  could 
not  be  otherwise,  for  the  age  itself  was  divided  between  the 
old  and  the  new  modes.  The  same  tendencies  which  came 
into  conflict  on  the  field  of  politics,  the  national- Italian 
tendency  of  the  conservatives,  the  Helleno- Italian  or,  if 
the  term  be  preferred,  cosmopolitan  tendency  of  the  new 
monarchy,  fought  their  battles  also  on  the  field  of  litera- 
ture. The  former  attached  itself  to  the  older  Latin 
literature,  which  in  the  theatre,  in  the  school,  and  in 
erudite  research  assumed  more  and  more  the  character 
of  classical.  With  less  taste  and  stronger  party  tendencies 
than  the  Scipionic  epoch  showed,  Ennius,  Pacuvius,  and 
especially  Plautus  were  now  exalted  to  the  skies.  The 
leaves  of  the  Sibyl  rose  in  price,  the  fewer  they  became ; 
the  relatively  greater  nationality  and  relatively  greater  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  poets  of  the  sixth  century  were  never 
more  vividly  felt  than  in  this  epoch  of  thoroughly  developed 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  4«3 

Epigonism,  which  in  literature  as  decidedly  as  in  politics 
looked  up  to  the  century  of  the  Hannibalic  warriors  as 
to  the  golden  age  that  had  now  unhappily  passed  away 
beyond  recall.  No  doubt  there  was  in  this  admiration 
of  the  old  classics  no  small  portion  of  the  same  hollowness 
and  hypocrisy  which  are  characteristic  of  the  conservatism 
of  this  age  in  general ;  and  here  too  there  was  no  want  of 
trimmers.  Cicero  for  instance,  although  in  prose  one  of 
the  chief  representatives  of  the  modern  tendency,  revered 
nevertheless  the  older  national  poetry  nearly  with  the  same 
antiquarian  respect  which  he  paid  to  the  aristocratic  consti- 
tution and  the  augural  discipline  ;  "  patriotism  requires," 
we  find  him  saying,  "that  we  should  rather  read  a  notori- 
ously wretched  translation  of  Sophocles  than  the  original." 
While  thus  the  modern  literary  tendency  cognate  to  the 
democratic  monarchy  numbered  secret  adherents  enough 
even  among  the  orthodox  admirers  of  Ennius,  there  were 
not  wanting  already  bolder  judges,  who  treated  the  native 
literature  as  disrespectfully  as  the  senatorial  politics.  Not 
only  did  they  resume  the  strict  criticism  of  the  Scipionic 
epoch  and  set  store  by  Terence  only  in  order  to  condemn 
Ennius  and  still  more  the  Ennianists,  but  the  younger  and 
bolder  men  went  much  farther  and  ventured  already — 
though  only  as  yet  in  heretical  revolt  against  literary 
orthodoxy — to  call  Plautus  a  rude  jester  and  Lucilius 
a  bad  verse-smith.  This  modern  tendency  attached  itself 
not  to  the  native  authorship,  but  rather  to  the  more 
recent  Greek  literature  or  the  so-called  Alexandrinism. 

We  cannot  avoid  saying  at  least  so  much  respecting  this  The  Greek 
remarkable  winter-garden  of  Hellenic  language  and  art,  as  is  jjjSjjjT 
requisite  for  the  understanding  of  the  Roman  literature  of 
this  and  the  later  epochs.  The  Alexandrian  literature  was 
based  on  the  decline  of  the  pure  Hellenic  idiom,  which  from 
the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great  was  superseded  in  daily  life 
by  an  inferior  jargon  deriving  its  origin  from  the  contact  of 


464  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

the  Macedonian  dialect  with  various  Greek  and  barbarian 
tribes ;  or,  to  speak  more  accurately,  the  Alexandrian  litera- 
ture sprang  out  of  the  ruin  of  the  Hellenic  nation  generally, 
which  had  to  perish,  and  did  perish,  in  its  national  indi- 
viduality in  order  to  establish  the  universal  monarchy  of 
Alexander  and  the  empire  of  Hellenism.  Had  Alexander's 
universal  empire  continued  to  subsist,  the  former  national 
and  popular  literature  would  have  been  succeeded  by  a  cos- 
mopolitan literature  Hellenic  merely  in  name,  essentially 
denationalized  and  called  into  life  in  a  certain  measure  by 
royal  patronage,  but  at  all  events  ruling  the  world  ;  but,  as 
the  state  of  Alexander  was  unhinged  by  his  death,  the  germs 
of  the  literature  corresponding  to  it  rapidly  perished.  Never- 
theless the  Greek  nation  with  all  that  it  had  possessed — with 
its  nationality,  its  language,  its  art — belonged  to  the  past. 
It  was  only  in  a  comparatively  narrow  circle  not  of  men  of 
culture — for  such,  strictly  speaking,  no  longer  existed — but 
of  men  of  erudition  that  the  Greek  literature  was  still 
cherished  even  when  dead ;  that  the  rich  inheritance  which 
it  had  left  was  inventoried  with  melancholy  pleasure  or  arid 
refinement  of  research  ;  and  that,  possibly,  the  living  sense 
of  sympathy  or  the  dead  erudition  was  elevated  into  a 
semblance  of  productiveness.  This  posthumous  produc- 
tiveness constitutes  the  so-called  Alexandrinism.  It  is 
essentially  similar  to  that  literature  of  scholars,  which, 
keeping  aloof  from  the  living  Romanic  nationalities  and 
their  vulgar  idioms,  grew  up  during  the  fifteenth  and 
sixteenth  centuries  among  a  cosmopolitan  circle  of  erudite 
philologues — as  an  artificial  aftergrowth  of  the  departed 
antiquity  ;  the  contrast  between  the  classical  and  the 
vulgar  Greek  of  the  period  of  the  Diadochi  is  doubtless 
less  strongly  marked,  but  is  not,  properly  speaking,  differ- 
ent from  that  between  the  Latin  of  Manutius  and  the 
Italian  of  Macchiavelli. 

Italy  had  hitherto  been  in  the  main  disinclined  towards 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  465 

Alexandrinism.  Its  season  of  comparative  brilliance  was  The 
the  period  shortly  before  and  after  the  first  Punic  war ;  yet  j^™**_ 
Naevius,  Ennius,  Pacuvius  and  generally  the  whole  body  drinism. 
of  the  national  Roman  authors  down  to  Varro  and 
Lucretius  in  all  branches  of  poetical  production,  not 
excepting  even  the  didactic  poem,  attached  themselves,  not 
to  their  Greek  contemporaries  or  very  recent  predecessors, 
but  without  exception  to  Homer,  Euripides,  Menander  and 
the  other  masters  of  the  living  and  national  Greek  literature. 
Roman  literature  was  never  fresh  and  national ;  but,  as 
long  as  there  was  a  Roman  people,  its  authors  instinctively 
sought  for  living  and  national  models,  and  copied,  if  not 
always  to  the  best  purpose  or  the  best  authors,  at  least  such 
as  were  original  The  Greek  literature  originating  after 
Alexander  found  its  first  Roman  imitators — for  the  slight 
initial  attempts  from  the  Marian  age  (iv.  242)  can  scarcely 
be  taken  into  account — among  the  contemporaries  of 
Cicero  and  Caesar;  and  now  the  Roman  Alexandrinism 
spread  with  singular  rapidity.  In  part  this  arose  from 
external  causes.  The  increased  contact  with  the  Greeks, 
especially  the  frequent  journeys  of  the  Romans  into  the 
Hellenic  provinces  and  the  assemblage  of  Greek  literati  in 
Rome,  naturally  procured  a  public  even  among  the  Italians 
for  the  Greek  literature  of  the  day,  for  the  epic  and  elegiac 
poetry,  epigrams,  and  Milesian  tales  current  at  that  time 
in  Greece.  Moreover,  as  we  have  already  stated  (p.  450) 
the  Alexandrian  poetry  had  its  established  place  in  the 
instruction  of  the  Italian  youth ;  and  thus  reacted  on  Latin 
literature  all  the  more,  since  the  latter  continued  to  be 
essentially  dependent  at  all  times  on  the  Hellenic  school- 
training.  We  find  in  this  respect  even  a  direct  connection 
of  the  new  Roman  with  the  new  Greek  literature;  the 
already- mentioned  Parthenius,  one  of  the  better  known 
Alexandrian  elegists,  opened,  apparently  about  700,  a  64. 
school  for  literature  and  poetry  in  Rome,  and  the  excerpts 
VOL.  V  163 


466  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

are  still  extant  in  which  he  supplied  one  of  his  pupils  of  rank 
with  materials  for  Latin  elegies  of  an  erotic  and  mythological 
nature  according  to  the  well-known  Alexandrian  receipt. 
But  it  was  by  no  means  simply  such  accidental  occasions 
which  called  into  existence  the  Roman  Alexandrinism ;  it 
was  on  the  contrary  a  product — perhaps  not  pleasing,  but 
thoroughly  inevitable — of  the  political  and  national 
development  of  Rome.  On  the  one  hand,  as  Hellas 
resolved  itself  into  Hellenism,  so  now  Latium  resolved  itself 
into  Romanism;  the  national  development  of  Italy  out- 
grew itself,  and  was  merged  in  Caesar's  Mediterranean 
empire,  just  as  the  Hellenic  development  in  the  eastern 
empire  of  Alexander.  On  the  other  hand,  as  the  new 
empire  rested  on  the  fact  that  the  mighty  streams  of 
Greek  and  Latin  nationality,  after  having  flowed  in  parallel 
channels  for  many  centuries,  now  at  length  coalesced,  the 
Italian  literature  had  not  merely  as  hitherto  to  seek  its 
groundwork  generally  in  the  Greek,  but  had  also  to  put 
itself  on  a  level  with  the  Greek  literature  of  the  present, 
or  in  other  words  with  Alexandrinism.  With  the  scholastic 
Latin,  with  the  closed  number  of  classics,  with  the  exclusive 
circle  of  classic-reading  urbant,  the  national  Latin  literature 
was  dead  and  at  an  end;  there  arose  instead  of  it  a 
thoroughly  degenerate,  artificially  fostered,  imperial 
literature,  which  did  not  rest  on  any  definite  nationality, 
but  proclaimed  in  two  languages  the  universal  gospel  of 
humanity,  and  was  dependent  in  point  of  spirit  throughout 
and  consciously  on  the  old  Hellenic,  in  point  of  language 
partly  on  this,  partly  on  the  old  Roman  popular,  literature. 
This  was  no  improvement.  The  Mediterranean  monarchy 
of  Caesar  was  doubtless  a  grand  and — what  is  more — a 
necessary  creation ;  but  it  had  been  called  into  life  by  an 
arbitrary  superior  will,  and  therefore  there  was  nothing  to 
be  found  in  it  of  the  fresh  popular  life,  of  the  overflowing 
national  vigour,  which  are  characteristic  of  younger,  more 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  467 

limited,  and  more  natural  commonwealths,  and  which  the 
Italian  state  of  the  sixth  century  had  still  been  able  to 
exhibit.  The  ruin  of  the  Italian  nationality,  accomplished 
in  the  creation  of  Caesar,  nipped  the  promise  of  literature. 
Every  one  who  has  any  sense  of  the  close  affinity  between 
art  and  nationality  will  always  turn  back  from  Cicero  and 
Horace  to  Cato  and  Lucretius;  and  nothing  but  the 
schoolmaster's  view  of  history  and  of  literature — which  has 
acquired,  it  is  true,  in  this  department  the  sanction  of 
prescription — could  have  called  the  epoch  of  art  beginning 
with  the  new  monarchy  pre-eminently  the  golden  age.  But 
while  the  Romano-Hellenic  Alexandrinism  of  the  age  of 
Caesar  and  Augustus  must  be  deemed  inferior  to  the  older, 
however  imperfect,  national  literature,  it  is  on  the  other 
hand  as  decidedly  superior  to  the  Alexandrinism  of  the 
age  of  the  Diadochi  as  Caesar's  enduring  structure  to  the 
ephemeral  creation  of  Alexander.  We  shall  have  afterwards 
to  show  that  the  Augustan  literature,  compared  with  the 
kindred  literature  of  the  period  of  the  Diadochi,  was  far 
less  a  literature  of  philologues  and  far  more  an  imperial 
literature  than  the  latter,  and  therefore  had  a  far  more 
permanent  and  far  more  general  influence  in  the  upper 
circles  of  society  than  the  Greek  Alexandrinism  ever 
had. 

Nowhere  was   the   prospect  more   lamentable  than  in  Dramatic 
dramatic    literature.     Tragedy    and    comedy    had   already  Tragedy2' 
before  the  present  epoch  become  inwardly  extinct  in  the  and 
Roman  national   literature.     New  pieces  were  no   longer  disappear, 
performed.     That    the    public    still    in    the    Sullan    age 
expected    to  see  such,  appears  from   the  reproductions — 
belonging  to  this  epoch — of  Plautine  comedies  with   the 
titles  and  names  of  the  persons  altered,  with  reference  to 
which  the  managers  well  added  that  it  was  better  to  see  a 
good  old  piece  than  a  bad  new  one.     From  this  the  step 
was  not  great  to  that  entire  surrender  of  the  stage  to  the 


468  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

dead  poets,  which  we  find  in  the  Ciceronian  age,  and  to 
which  Alexandrinism  made  no  opposition.  Its  productive- 
ness in  this  department  was  worse  than  none.  Real 
dramatic  composition  the  Alexandrian  literature  never 
knew ;  nothing  but  the  spurious  drama,  which  was  written 
primarily  for  reading  and  not  for  exhibition,  could  be 
introduced  by  it  into  Italy,  and  soon  accordingly  these 
dramatic  iambics  began  to  be  quite  as  prevalent  in  Rome 
as  in  Alexandria,  and  the  writing  of  tragedy  in  particular 
began  to  figure  among  the  regular  diseases  of  adolescence. 
We  may  form  a  pretty  accurate  idea  of  the  quality  of 
these  productions  from  the  fact  that  Quintus  Cicero,  in 
order  homoeopathically  to  beguile  the  weariness  of 
winter  quarters  in  Gaul,  composed  four  tragedies  in  sixteen 
days. 
The  mime.  In  the  "  picture  of  life  "  or  mime  alone  the  last  still 
vigorous  product  of  the  national  literature,  the  Atellan 
farce,  became  engrafted  with  the  ethological  offshoots  of 
Greek  comedy,  which  Alexandrinism  cultivated  with  greater 
poetical  vigour  and  better  success  than  any  other  branch 
of  poetry.  The  mime  originated  out  of  the  dances  in 
character  to  the  flute,  which  had  long  been  usual,  and 
which  were  performed  sometimes  on  other  occasions,  e.g. 
for  the  entertainment  of  the  guests  during  dinner,  but  more 
especially  in  the  pit  of  the  theatre  during  the  intervals 
between  the  acts.  It  was  not  difficult  to  form  out  of  these 
dances — in  which  the  aid  of  speech  had  doubtless  long 
since  been  occasionally  employed— by  means  of  the  intro- 
duction of  a  more  organized  plot  and  a  regular  dialogue 
little  comedies,  which  were  yet  essentially  distinguished 
from  the  earlier  comedy  and  even  from  the  farce  by  the 
facts,  that  the  dance  and  the  lasciviousness  inseparable 
from  such  dancing  continued  in  this  case  to  play  a  chief 
part,  and  that  the  mime,  as  belonging  properly  not  to  the 
boards  but  to  the  pit,  threw  aside  all  ideal  scenic  effects, 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  469 

such  as  masks  for  the  face  and  theatrical  buskins,  and — 
what  was  specially  important — admitted  of  the  female 
characters  being  represented  by  women.  This  new  mime, 
which  first  seems  to  have  come  on  the  stage  of  the  capital 
about  672,  soon  swallowed  up  the  national  harlequinade,  82. 
with  which  it  indeed  in  the  most  essential  respects  coin- 
cided, and  was  employed  as  the  usual  interlude  and 
especially  as  afterpiece  along  with  the  other  dramatic  per- 
formances.1 The  plot  was  of  course  still  more  indifferent, 
loose,  and  absurd  than  in  the  harlequinade ;  if  it  was  only 
sufficiently  chequered,  the  public  did  not  ask  why  it 
laughed,  and  did  not  remonstrate  with  the  poet,  who 
instead  of  untying  the  knot  cut  it  to  pieces.  The  subjects 
were  chiefly  of  an  amorous  nature,  mostly  of  the  licentious 
sort ;  for  example,  poet  and  public  without  exception  took 
part  against  the  husband,  and  poetical  justice  consisted  in 
the  derision  of  good  morals.  The  artistic  charm  depended 
wholly,  as  in  the  Atellana,  on  the  portraiture  of  the  manners 
of  common  and  low  life ;  in  which  rural  pictures  are  laid 
aside  for  those  of  the  life  and  doings  of  the  capital,  and 
the  sweet  rabble  of  Rome — just  as  in  the  similar  Greek 
pieces  the  rabble  of  Alexandria — is  summoned  to  applaud 
its  own  likeness.  Many  subjects  are  taken  from  the  life 
of  tradesmen  ;  there  appear  the — here  also  inevitable — 
"  Fuller,"  then  the  "  Ropemaker,"  the  "  Dyer,"  the  "  Salt- 
man,"  the  "  Female  Weavers,"  the  "  Rascal  " ;  other  pieces 

1  Cicero  testifies  that  the  mime  in  his  time  had  taken  the  place  of  the 
Atellana  (Ad  Fam.  ix.  16)  ;  with  this  accords  the  fact,  that  the  mimi  and 
mimae  first  appear  about  the  Sullan  epoch  (Ad  Her.  i.  14,  24  ;  ii.  13,  19  ; 
Atta  Fr.  1  Ribbeck  ;  Plin.  H.  N.  vii.  48,  158  ;  Plutarch,  Sull.  2,  36). 
The  designation  mimus,  however,  is  sometimes  inaccurately  applied  to 
the  comedian  generally.  Thus  the  mimus  who  appeared  at  the  festival  of 
Apollo  in  542-543  (Festus  under  salva  res  est ;  comp.  Cicero,  De  Orat.  212-211. 
ii.  59,  242)  was  evidently  nothing  but  an  actor  of  the  fialliata,  for  there 
was  at  this  period  no  room  in  the  development  of  the  Roman  theatre  for 
real  mimes  in  the  later  sense. 

With  the  mimus  of  the  classical  Greek  period — prose  dialogues,  in 
which  genre  pictures,  particularly  of  a  rural  kind,  were  presented — the 
Roman  mimus  had  no  especial  relation. 


47°  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

give  sketches  of  character,  as  the  "  Forgetful,"  the  "  Brag- 
gart," the  "Man  of  100,000  sesterces";1  or  pictures  of 
other  lands,  the  "Etruscan  Woman,"  the  "Gauls,"  the 
"  Cretan,"  "  Alexandria  " ;  or  descriptions  of  popular  festi- 
vals, as  the  " Compitalia,"  the  "Saturnalia,"  "Anna  Pe- 
renna,"  the  "Hot  Baths";  or  parodies  of  mythology,  as 
the  "Voyage  to  the  Underworld,"  the  "Arvernian  Lake." 
Apt  nicknames  and  short  commonplaces  which  were  easily 
retained  and  applied  were  welcome ;  but  every  piece  of 
nonsense  was  of  itself  privileged ;  in  this  preposterous 
world  Bacchus  is  applied  to  for  water  and  the  fountain- 
nymph  for  wine.  Isolated  examples  even  of  the  political 
allusions  formerly  so  strictly  prohibited  in  the  Roman 
theatre  are  found  in  these  mimes.2  As  regards  metrical 
form,  these  poets  gave  themselves,  as  they  tell  us,  "but 
moderate  trouble  with  the  versification " ;  the  language 
abounded,  even  in  the  pieces  prepared  for  publication, 
with  vulgar  expressions  and  low  newly-coined  words,  The 
mime  was,  it  is  plain,  in  substance  nothing  but  the  former 
farce ;  with  this  exception,  that  the  character-masks  and 
the  standing  scenery  of  Atella  as  well  as  the  rustic  impress 
are  dropped,  and  in  their  room  the  life  of  the  capital  in  its 
boundless  liberty  and  licence  is  brought  on  the  stage. 
Most  pieces  of  this  sort  were  doubtless  of  a  very  fugitive 
nature  and  made  no  pretension  to  a  place  in  literature; 

1  With  the  possession  of  this  sum,  which  constituted  the  qualification 
for  the  first  voting-class  and  subjected  the  inheritance  to  the  Voconian 
law,  the  boundary  line  was  crossed  which  separated  the  men  of  slender 
means  (Unuiores)  from  respectable  people.  Therefore  the  poor  client  of 
Catullus  (xxiii.  26)  beseeches  the  gods  to  help  him  to  this  fortune. 

2  In  the  * '  Descensus  ad  Inferos  "  of  Laberius  all  sorts  of  people  come 
forward,  who  have  seen  wonders  and  signs ;  to  one  there  appeared  a 
husband  with  two  wives,  whereupon  a  neighbour  is  of  opinion  that  this  is 
still  worse  than  the  vision,  recently  seen  by  a  soothsayer  in  a  dream,  of 
six  aediles.  Caesar  forsooth  desired — according  to  the  talk  of  the  time — 
to  introduce  polygamy  in  Rome  (Suetonius,  Caes.  82)  and  he  nominated 
in  reality  six  aediles  instead  of  four.  One  sees  from  this  that  Laberius 
understood  how  to  exercise  the  fool's  privilege  and  Caesar  how  to  permit 
the  fool's  freedom. 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  471 

but  the  mimes  of  Laberius,  full  of  pungent  delineation  of  Laberiui. 
character  and  in  point  of  language  and  metre  exhibiting 
the  hand  of  a  master,  maintained  their  ground  in  it ;  and 
even  the  historian  must  regret  that  we  are  no  longer  per- 
mitted to  compare  the  drama  of  the  republican  death- 
struggle  in  Rome  with  its  great  Attic  counterpart. 

With  the  worthlessness  of  dramatic  literature  the  increase  Dramatic 
of  scenic  spectacles  and  of  scenic  pomp  went  hand  in  hand.  spec  ac  ^ 
Dramatic  representations  obtained  their  regular  place  in 
the  public  life  not  only  of  the  capital  but  also  of  the 
country  towns ;  the  former  also  now  at  length  acquired  by 
means  of  Pompeius  a  permanent  theatre  (699  ;  see  p.  117),  55. 
and  the  Campanian  custom  of  stretching  canvas  over  the 
theatre  for  the  protection  of  the  actors  and  spectators 
during  the  performance,  which  in  ancient  times  always 
took  place  in  the  open  air,  now  likewise  found  admission 
to  Rome  (676).  As  at  that  time  in  Greece  it  was  not  the  78. 
— more  than  pale — Pleiad  of  the  Alexandrian  dramatists, 
but  the  classic  drama,  above  all  the  tragedies  of  Euripides, 
which  amidst  the  amplest  development  of  scenic  resources 
kept  the  stage,  so  in  Rome  at  the  time  of  Cicero  the 
tragedies  of  Ennius,  Pacuvius,  and  Accius,  and  the  comedies 
of  Plautus  were  those  chiefly  produced.  While  the  latter 
had  been  in  the  previous  period  supplanted  by  the  more 
tasteful  but  in  point  of  comic  vigour  far  inferior  Terence, 
Roscius  and  Varro,  or  in  other  words  the  theatre  and 
philology,  co-operated  to  procure  for  him  a  resurrection 
similar  to  that  which  Shakespeare  experienced  at  the  hands 
of  Garrick  and  Johnson ;  but  even  Plautus  had  to  suffer 
from  the  degenerate  susceptibility  and  the  impatient  haste 
of  an  audience  spoilt  by  the  short  and  slovenly  farces,  so 
that  the  managers  found  themselves  compelled  to  excuse 
the  length  of  the  Plautine  comedies  and  even  perhaps  to 
make  omissions  and  alterations.  The  more  limited  the 
stock  of  plays,  the  more  the  activity  of  the  managing  and 


472  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

executive  staff  as  well  as  the  interest  of  the  public  was 
directed  to  the  scenic  representation  of  the  pieces.  There 
was  hardly  any  more  lucrative  trade  in  Rome  than  that  of 
the  actor  and  the  dancing -girl  of  the  first  rank.  The 
princely  estate  of  the  tragic  actor  Aesopus  has  been  already 
mentioned  (p.  384);  his  still  more  celebrated  contem- 
porary Roscius  (iv.  236)  estimated  his  annual  income  at 
600,000  sesterces  (^6000) x  and  Dionysia  the  dancer  esti- 
mated hers  at  200,000  sesterces  (^2000).  At  the  same 
time  immense  sums  were  expended  on  decorations  and 
costume;  now  and  then  trains  of  six  hundred  mules  in 
harness  crossed  the  stage,  and  the  Trojan  theatrical  army 
was  employed  to  present  to  the  public  a  tableau  of  the 
nations  vanquished  by  Pompeius  in  Asia.  The  music 
which  accompanied  the  delivery  of  the  inserted  choruses 
likewise  obtained  a  greater  and  more  independent  im- 
portance ;  as  the  wind  sways  the  waves,  says  Varro,  so  the 
skilful  flute-player  sways  the  minds  of  the  listeners  with 
every  modulation  of  melody.  It  accustomed  itself  to  the 
use  of  quicker  time,  and  thereby  compelled  the  player  to 
more  lively  action.  Musical  and  dramatic  connoisseurship 
was  developed ;  the  habitue  recognized  every  tune  by  the 
first  note,  and  knew  the  texts  by  heart ;  every  fault  in  the 
music  or  recitation  was  severely  censured  by  the  audience. 
The  state  of  the  Roman  stage  in  the  time  of  Cicero  vividly 
reminds  us  of  the  modern  French  theatre.  As  the  Roman 
mime  corresponds  to  the  loose  tableaux  of  the  pieces  of 
the  day,  nothing  being  too  good  and  nothing  too  bad  for 
either  the  one  or  the  other,  so  we  find  in  both  the  same 
traditionally  classic  tragedy  and  comedy,  which  the  man  of 
culture  is  in  duty  bound  to  admire  or  at  least  to  applaud. 
The  multitude  is  satisfied,  when  it  meets  its  own  reflection 

1  He  obtained  from  the  state  for  every  day  on  which  he  acted  1000 
denarii  (^40)  and  besides  this  the  pay  for  his  company.  In  later  years 
he  declined  the  honorarium  for  himself. 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  473 

in  the  farce,  and  admires  the  decorative  pomp  and  receives 
the  general  impression  of  an  ideal  world  in  the  drama ;  the 
man  of  higher  culture  concerns  himself  at  the  theatre  not 
with  the  piece,  but  only  with  its  artistic  representation. 
Moreover  the  Roman  histrionic  art  oscillated  in  its  different 
spheres,  just  like  the  French,  between  the  cottage  and  the 
drawing-room.  It  was  nothing  unusual  for  the  Roman 
dancing-girls  to  throw  off  at  the  finale  the  upper  robe  and 
to  give  a  dance  in  undress  for  the  benefit  of  the  public  j 
but  on  the  other  hand  in  the  eyes  of  the  Roman  Talma 
the  supreme  law  of  his  art  was,  not  the  truth  of  nature,  but 
symmetry. 

In  recitative  poetry  metrical  annals  after  the  model  of  Metrical 
those  of  Ennius  seem  not  to  have  been  wanting ;  but  they  anna  ^ 
were  perhaps  sufficiently  criticised  by  that  graceful  vow  of 
his  mistress  of  which  Catullus  sings — that  the  worst  of  the 
bad  heroic  poems  should  be  presented  as  a  sacrifice  to  holy 
Venus,  if  she  would  only  bring  back  her  lover  from  his  vile 
political  poetry  to  her  arms. 

Indeed  in  the  whole  field  of  recitative  poetry  at  this  Lucretius 
epoch  the  older  national- Roman  tendency  is  represented 
only  by  a  single  work  of  note,  which,  however,  is  altogether 
one  of  the  most  important  poetical  products  of  Roman 
literature.  It  is  the  didactic  poem  of  Titus  Lucretius  Carus 
(655—699)  "Concerning  the  Nature  of  Things,"  whose  99-55. 
author,  belonging  to  the  best  circles  of  Roman  society,  but 
taking  no  part  in  public  life  whether  from  weakness  of  health 
or  from  disinclination,  died  in  the  prime  of  manhood  shortly 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war.  As  a  poet  he  attached 
himself  decidedly  to  Ennius  and  thereby  to  the  classical 
Greek  literature.  Indignantly  he  turns  away  from  the 
"  hollow  Hellenism  "  of  his  time,  and  professes  himself  with 
his  whole  soul  and  heart  to  be  the  scholar  of  the  "  chaste 
Greeks,"  as  indeed  even  the  sacred  earnestness  of  Thucy- 
dides  has  found  no  unworthy  echo  in  one  of  the  best-known 


474  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

sections  of  this  Roman  poem.  As  Ennius  draws  his  wisdom 
from  Epicharmus  and  Euhemerus,  so  Lucretius  borrows  the 
form  of  his  representation  from  Empedocles,  "the  most 
glorious  treasure  of  the  richly  gifted  Sicilian  isle  " ;  and,  as 
to  the  matter,  gathers  "  all  the  golden  words  together  from 
the  rolls  of  Epicurus,"  "who  outshines  other  wise  men  as 
the  sun  obscures  the  stars."  Like  Ennius,  Lucretius  dis- 
dains the  mythological  lore  with  which  poetry  was  over- 
loaded by  Alexandrinism,  and  requires  nothing  from  his 
reader  but  a  knowledge  of  the  legends  generally  current.1 
In  spite  of  the  modern  purism  which  rejected  foreign  words 
from  poetry,  Lucretius  prefers  to  use,  as  Ennius  had  done, 
a  significant  Greek  word  in  place  of  a  feeble  and  obscure 
Latin  one.  The  old  Roman  alliteration,  the  want  of  due 
correspondence  between  the  pauses  of  the  verse  and  those 
of  the  sentence,  and  generally  the  older  modes  of  expression 
and  composition,  are  still  frequently  found  in  Lucretius' 
rhythms,  and  although  he  handles  the  verse  more  melodi- 
ously than  Ennius,  his  hexameters  move  not,  as  those  of 
the  modern  poetical  school,  with  a  lively  grace  like  the 
rippling  brook,  but  with  a  stately  slowness  like  the  stream  of 
liquid  gold.  Philosophically  and  practically  also  Lucretius 
leans  throughout  on  Ennius,  the  only  indigenous  poet  whom 
his  poem  celebrates.  The  confession  of  faith  of  the  singer 
of  Rudiae  (iii.  175) — 

Ego  deum  genus  esse  semper  dixi  et  dicam  caelitum, 
Sed  eos  non  curare  opinor,  quid  agat  humanum  genus— 

describes  completely  the  religious  standpoint  of  Lucretius, 
and  not  unjustly  for  that  reason  he  himself  terms  his  poem 
as  it  were  the  continuation  of  Ennius  : — 


1  Such  an  individual  apparent  exception  as  Panchaea  the  land  of  incense 
(ii.  417)  is  to  be  explained  from  the  circumstance  that  this  had  passed  from 
the  romance  of  the  Travels  of  Euhemerus  already  perhaps  into  the  poetry 
of  Ennius,  at  any  rate  into  the  poems  of  Lucius  Manlius  (iv.  242  ;  Plin. 
H.  N.  x.  2,  4)  and  thence  was  well  known  to  the  public  for  which 
Lucretius  wrote. 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  475 

Ennius  ut  noster  cecinit,  qui  primus  amoeno 
Detulit  ex  Helicone  perenni  fronde  coronam, 
Per  gentis  It  alas  kominum  quae  clara  clueret. 

Once  more — and  for  the  last  time — the  poem  of  Lucre- 
tius is  resonant  with  the  whole  poetic  pride  and  the  whole 
poetic  earnestness  of  the  sixth  century,  in  which,  amidst 
the  images  of  the  formidable  Carthaginian  and  the  glorious 
Scipiad,  the  imagination  of  the  poet  is  more  at  home  than 
in  his  own  degenerate  age.1  To  him  too  his  own  song 
"  gracefully  welling  up  out  of  rich  feeling  "  sounds,  as  com- 
pared with  the  common  poems,  "  like  the  brief  song  of  the 
swan  compared  with  the  cry  of  the  crane  " ; — with  him  too 
the  heart  swells,  listening  to  the  melodies  of  its  own  inven- 
tion, with  the  hope  of  illustrious  honours — just  as  Ennius 
forbids  the  men  to  whom  he  "gave  from  the  depth  of  the 
heart  a  foretaste  of  fiery  song,"  to  mourn  at  his,  the 
immortal  singer's,  tomb. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fatality,  that  this  man  of  extraordinary 
talents,  far  superior  in  originality  of  poetic  endowments  to 
most  if  not  to  all  his  contemporaries,  fell  upon  an  age  in 
which  he  felt  himself  strange  and  forlorn,  and  in  conse- 
quence of  this  made  the  most  singular  mistake  in  the 
selection  of  a  subject.  The  system  of  Epicurus,  which 
converts  the  universe  into  a  great  vortex  of  atoms  and 
undertakes  to  explain  the  origin  and  end  of  the  world  as 
well  as  all  the  problems  of  nature  and  of  life  in  a  purely 
mechanical  way,  was  doubtless  somewhat  less  silly  than  the 
conversion  of  myths  into  history  which  was  attempted  by 
Euhemerus  and  after  him  by  Ennius ;  but  it  was  not  an 
ingenious  or  a  fresh  system,  and  the  task  of  poetically 
unfolding  this  mechanical  view  of  the  world  was  of  such  a 
nature  that  never  probably  did  poet  expend  life  and  art  on 

1  This  naively  appears  in  the  descriptions  of  war,  in  which  the  sea- 
storms  that  destroy  armies,  and  the  hosts  of  elephants  that  trample  down 
those  who  are  on  their  own  side — pictures,  that  is,  from  the  Punic  wars- 
appear  as  if  they  belong  to  the  immediate  present.  Comp.  ii.  41 ;  v. 
1226,  1303,  1339. 


476  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

a  more  ungrateful  theme.  The  philosophic  reader  censures 
in  the  Lucretian  didactic  poem  the  omission  of  the  finer 
points  of  the  system,  the  superficiality  especially  with  vhich 
controversies  are  presented,  the  defective  division,  the 
frequent  repetitions,  with  quite  as  good  reason  as  *he 
poetical  reader  frets  at  the  mathematics  put  into  rhythm 
which  makes  a  great  part  of  the  poem  absolutely  unreadable. 
In  spite  of  these  incredible  defects,  before  which  every 
man  of  mediocre  talent  must  inevitably  have  succumbed, 
this  poet  might  justly  boast  of  having  carried  off  from  the 
poetic  wilderness  a  new  chaplet  such  as  the  Muses  had  not 
yet  bestowed  on  any ;  and  it  was  by  no  means  merely  the 
occasional  similitudes,  and  the  other  inserted  descriptions 
of  mighty  natural  phenomena  and  yet  mightier  passions, 
which  acquired  for  the  poet  this  chaplet.  The  genius 
which  marks  the  view  of  life  as  well  as  the  poetry  of 
Lucretius  depends  on  his  unbelief,  which  came  forward  and 
was  entitled  to  come  forward  with  the  full  victorious  power 
of  truth,  and  therefore  with  the  full  vigour  of  poetry,  in 
opposition  to  the  prevailing  hypocrisy  or  superstition. 

Humana  ante  oculos  foede  cum  vita  iaceret 
In  terris  oppressa  gravi  sub  religione, 
Quae  caput  a  caeli  regionibus  ostendebat 
Horribili  super  aspectu  mortalibus  instans, 
Primum  Graius  homo  mortalis  tendere  contra 
Est  oculos  ausus  primusque  obsistere  contra. 
Ergo  vivida  vis  animi  pervicit,  et  extra 
Processit  longe  flammantia  moenia  mundi 
Atque  omne  immensum  peragravit  mente  animoqui. 

The  poet  accordingly  was  zealous  to  overthrow  the  gods, 
as  Brutus  had  overthrown  the  kings,  and  "  to  release  nature 
from  her  stern  lords."  But  it  was  not  against  the  long 
ago  enfeebled  throne  of  Jovis  that  these  flaming  words 
were  hurled ;  just  like  Ennius,  Lucretius  fights  practically 
above  all  things  against  the  wild  foreign  faiths  and  super- 
stitions of  the  multitude,  the  worship  of  the  Great  Mother 
for  instance  and  the  childish  lightning-lore  of  the  Etruscans. 


:hap.  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  477 

Horror  and  antipathy  towards  that  terrible  world  in  general, 
n  which  and  for  which  the  poet  wrote,  suggested  his  poem. 
[t  was  composed  in  that  hopeless  rime  when  the  rule  of  the 
)ligarchy  had  been  overthrown  and  that  of  Caesar  had  not 
ret  been  established,  in  the  sultry  years  during  which  the 
>utbreak  of  the  civil  war  was  awaited  with  long  and  painful 
uspense.  If  we  seem  to  perceive  in  its  unequal  and 
estless  utterance  that  the  poet  daily  expected  to  see  the 
did  tumult  of  revolution  break  forth  over  himself  and  his 
rork,  we  must  not  with  reference  to  his  view  of  men  and 
hings  forget  amidst  what  men,  and  in  prospect  of  what 
hings,  that  view  had  its  origin.  In  the  Hellas  of  the 
:poch  before  Alexander  it  was  a  current  saying,  and  one 
wofoundly  felt  by  all  the  best  men,  that  the  best  thing  of 
.11  was  not  to  be  born,  and  the  next  best  to  die.  Of  all 
iews  of  the  world  possible  to  a  tender  and  poetically 
►rganized  mind  in  the  kindred  Caesarian  age  this  was  the 
toblest  and  the  most  ennobling,  that  it  is  a  benefit  for  man 
0  be  released  from  a  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul 
nd  thereby  from  the  evil  dread  of  death  and  of  the  gods 
mich  malignantly  steals  over  men  like  terror  creeping  over 
hildren  in  a  dark  room ;  that,  as  the  sleep  of  the  night  is 
nore  refreshing  than  the  trouble  of  the  day,  so  death, 
ternal  repose  from  all  hope  and  fear,  is  better  than  life,  as 
ideed  the  gods  A  the  poet  themselves  are  nothing,  and 
ave  nothing,  but  an  eternal  blessed  rest ;  that  the  pains 
f  hell  torment  man,  not  after  life,  but  during  its  course,  in 
le  wild  and  unruly  passions  of  his  throbbing  heart ;  that 
lie  task  of  man  is  to  attune  his  soul  to  equanimity,  to 
steem  the  purple  no  higher  than  the  warm  dress  worn  at 
ome,  rather  to  remain  in  the  ranks  of  those  that  obey  than 
d  press  int  the  confused  crowd  of  candidates  for  the  office 
f  ruler,  rather  to  lie  on  the  grass  beside  the  brook  than  to 
ike  part  under  the  golden  ceiling  of  the  rich  in  emptying 
is  countless  dishes.     This  philosophico-practical  tendency 


478  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

is  the  true  ideal  essence  of  the  Lucretian  poem  and  is  only 
overlaid,  not  choked,  by  all  the  dreariness  of  its  physical 
demonstrations.  Essentially  on  this  rests  its  comparative 
wisdom  and  truth.  The  man  who  with  a  reverence  for  his 
great  predecessors  and  a  vehement  zeal,  to  which  this 
century  elsewhere  knew  no  parallel,  preached  such  doctrine 
and  embellished  it  with  the  charm  of  art,  may  be  termed 
at  once  a  good  citizen  and  a  great  poet.  The  didactic 
poem  concerning  the  Nature  of  Things,  however  much 
in  it  may  challenge  censure,  has  remained  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  stars  in  the  poorly  illuminated  expanse  of  Roman 
literature ;  and  with  reason  the  greatest  of  German  philo- 
logues  chose  the  task  of  making  the  Lucretian  poem  once 
more  readable  as  his  last  and  most  masterly  work. 
The  Lucretius,  although  his  poetical  vigour  as  well  as  his  art 

fashionable  was  admhed  by  his  cultivated  contemporaries,  yet  remained 
poetry.  — of  late  growth  as  he  was — a  master  without  scholars.  In 
the  Hellenic  fashionable  poetry  on  the  other  hand  there 
was  no  lack  at  least  of  scholars,  who  exerted  themselves  to 
emulate  the  Alexandrian  masters.  With  true  tact  the  more 
gifted  of  the  Alexandrian  poets  avoided  larger  works  and 
the  pure  forms  of  poetry — the  drama,  the  epos,  the  lyric ; 
the  most  pleasing  and  successful  performances  consisted 
with  them,  just  as  with  the  new  Latin  poets,  in  "  short- 
winded  "  tasks,  and  especially  in  such  as  belonged  to  the 
domains  bordering  on  the  pure  forms  of  art,  more  especially 
to  the  wide  field  intervening  between  narrative  and  song. 
Multifarious  didactic  poems  were  written.  Small  half- 
heroic,  half-erotic  epics  were  great  favourites,  and  especially 
an  erudite  sort  of  love -elegy  peculiar  to  this  autumnal 
summer  of  Greek  poetry  and  characteristic  of  the  philo- 
logical source  whence  it  sprang,  in  which  the  poet  more  or 
less  arbitrarily  interwove  the  description  of  his  own  feelings, 
predominantly  sensuous,  with  epic  shreds  from  the  cycle  of 
Greek   legend.      Festal   lays  were  diligently  and  artfully 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  479 

manufactured ;  in  general,  owing  to  the  want  of  spon- 
taneous poetical  invention,  the  occasional  poem  prepon- 
derated and  especially  the  epigram,  of  which  the  Alex- 
andrians produced  excellent  specimens.  The  poverty  of 
materials  and  the  want  of  freshness  in  language  and 
rhythm,  which  inevitably  cleave  to  every  literature  not 
national,  men  sought  as  much  as  possible  to  conceal  under 
odd  themes,  far-fetched  phrases,  rare  words  and  artificial 
versification,  and  generally  under  the  whole  apparatus 
of  philologico-antiquarian  erudition  and  technical  dexterity. 
Such  was  the  gospel  which  was  preached  to  the  Roman 
boys  of  this  period,  and  they  came  in  crowds  to  hear  and 
to  practise  it;  already  (about  700)  the  love-poems  of  54. 
Euphorion  and  similar  Alexandrian  poetry  formed  the 
ordinary  reading  and  the  ordinary  pieces  for  declamation 
of  the  cultivated  youth.1  The  literary  revolution  took 
place ;  but  it  yielded  in  the  first  instance  with  rare  excep- 
tions only  premature  or  unripe  fruits.  The  number  of  the 
"  new-fashioned  poets  "  was  legion,  but  poetry  was  rare  and 
Apollo  was  compelled,  as  always  when  so  many  throng 
towards  Parnassus,  to  make  very  short  work.  The  long 
poems  never  were  worth  anything,  the  short  ones  seldom. 
Even  in  this  literary  age  the  poetry  of  the  day  had  become 
a  public  nuisance ;  it  sometimes  happened  that  one's  friend 
would  send  home  to  him  by  way  of  mockery  as  a  festal 
present  a  pile  of  trashy  verses  fresh  from  the  bookseller's 
shop,  whose  value  was  at  once  betrayed  by  the  elegant 
binding  and  the  smooth  paper.  A  real  public,  in  the 
sense  in  which  national  literature  has  a  public,  was  wanting 
to  the  Roman  Alexandrians  as  well  as  to  the  Hellenic; 

1  "No  doubt,"  says  Cicero  (Tusc.  iii.  19,  45)  in  reference  to  Ennius, 
"the  glorious  poet  is  despised  by  our  reciters  of  Euphorion."  "I  have 
safely  arrived,"  he  writes  to  Atticus  (vii.  2  init.),  "as  a  most  favourable 
north  wind  blew  for  us  across  from  Epirus.  This  spondaic  line  you  may, 
if  you  choose,  sell  to  one  of  the  new-fashioned  poets  as  your  own"  (ita 
belle  nobis  Jlavit  ab  Epiro  lenissumus  Onchesmites.  Hunc  airovdeid^ovTa 
si  cui  voUs  tu»>  vewripwv  pro  tuo  vendito). 


480  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

it  was  thoroughly  the  poetry  of  a  clique  or  rather  cliques, 
whose  members  clung  closely  together,  abused  intruders» 
read  and  criticised  among  themselves  the  new  poems, 
sometimes  also  quite  after  the  Alexandrian  fashion  cele- 
brated the  successful  productions  in  fresh  verses,  and 
variously  sought  to  secure  for  themselves  by  clique-praises 
a  spurious  and  ephemeral  renown.  A  notable  teacher  of 
Latin  literature,  himself  poetically  active  in  this  new 
direction,  Valerius  Cato  appears  to  have  exercised  a  sort 
of  scholastic  patronage  over  the  most  distinguished  men 
of  this  circle  and  to  have  pronounced  final  decision  on  the 
relative  value  of  the  poems.  As  compared  with  their 
Greek  models,  these  Roman  poets  evince  throughout  a 
want  of  freedom,  sometimes  a  schoolboy  dependence; 
most  of  their  products  must  have  been  simply  the  austere 
fruits  of  a  school  poetry  still  occupied  in  learning  and  by 
no  means  yet  dismissed  as  mature.  Inasmuch  as  in 
language  and  in  measure  they  adhered  to  the  Greek 
patterns  far  more  closely  than  ever  the  national  Latin 
poetry  had  done,  a  greater  correctness  and  consistency  in 
language  and  metre  were  certainly  attained  \  but  it  was  at 
the  expense  of  the  flexibility  and  fulness  of  the  national 
idiom.  As  respects  the  subject-matter,  under  the  influence 
partly  of  effeminate  models,  partly  of  an  immoral  age, 
amatory  themes  acquired  a  surprising  preponderance  little 
conducive  to  poetry ;  but  the  favourite  metrical  compendia 
of  the  Greeks  were  also  in  various  cases  translated,  such 
as  the  astronomical  treatise  of  Aratus  by  Cicero,  and,  either 
at  the  end  of  this  or  more  probably  at  the  commencement 
of  the  following  period,  the  geographical  manual  of 
Eratosthenes  by  Publius  Varro  of  the  Aude  and  the 
physico-medicinal  manual  of  Nicander  by  Aemilius  Macer. 
It  is  neither  to  be  wondered  at  nor  regretted  that  of  this 
countless  host  of  poets  but  few  names  have  been  preserved 
to  us;  and  even  these  are  mostly  mentioned  merely  as 


chap.  *u  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  481 

curiositKws  or  as  once  upon  a  time  great ;  such  as  the 
orator  Quintus  Hortensius  with  his  "  five  hundred  thousand 
lines"  of  tiresome  obscenity,  and  the  somewhat  more 
frequently  mentioned  Laevius,  whose  Erotopaegnia  attracted 
a  certain  interest  only  by  their  complicated  measures  and 
affected  phraseology.  Even  the  small  epic  Smyrna  by 
Gaius  Helvius  Cinna  (1710?),  much  as  it  was  praised  by  44. 
the  clique,  bears  both  in  its  subject — the  incestuous  love 
of  a  daughter  for  her  father — and  in  the  nine  years'  toil 
bestowed  on  it  the  worst  characteristics  of  the  time. 

Those  poets  alone  of  this  school  constitute  an  original 
and  pleasing  exception,  who  knew  how  to  combine  with 
its  neatness  and  its  versatility  of  form  the  national  elements 
of  worth  still  existing  in  the  republican  life,  especially  in 
that  of  the  country-towns.  To  say  nothing  here  of  Laberius 
and  Varro,  this  description  applies  especially  to  the  three 
poets  already  mentioned  above  (p.  140)  of  the  republican 
opposition,  Marcus  Furius  Bibaculus  (652-691),  Gaius  102-63. 
Licinius  Calvus  (672—706)  and  Quintus  Valerius  Catullus  82-48. 
(667-f.  700).  Of  the  two  former,  whose  writings  have  87-54. 
perished,  we  can  indeed  only  conjecture  this ;  respecting 
the  poems  of  Catullus  we  can  still  form  a  judgment.  He  Catullus, 
too  depends  in  subject  and  form  on  the  Alexandrians. 
We  find  in  his  collection  translations  of  pieces  of  Calli- 
machus,  and  these  not  altogether  the  very  good,  but  the 
very  difficult.  Among  the  original  pieces,  we  meet  with 
elaborately-turned  fashionable  poems,  such  as  the  over- 
artificial  Galliambics  in  praise  of  the  Phrygian  Mother; 
and  even  the  poem,  otherwise  so  beautiful,  of  the  marriage 
of  Thetis  has  been  artistically  spoiled  by  the  truly  Alex- 
andrian insertion  of  the  complaint  of  Ariadne  in  the 
principal  poem.  But  by  the  side  of  these  school -pieces 
we  meet  with  the  melodious  lament  of  the  genuine  elegy, 
the  festal  poem  in  the  full  pomp  of  individual  and  almost 
dramatic  execution,  above  all,  the  freshest  miniature 
VOL.  V  164 


482  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

painting  of  cultivated  social  life,  the  pleasant  and  very 
unreserved  amatory  adventures  of  which  half  the  charm 
consists  in  prattling  and  poetizing  about  the  mysteries 
of  love,  the  delightful  life  of  youth  with  full  cups  and 
empty  purses,  the  pleasures  of  travel  and  of  poetry,  the 
Roman  and  still  more  frequently  the  Veronese  anecdote 
of  the  town,  and  the  humorous  jest  amidst  the  familiar 
circle  of  friends.  But  not  only  does  Apollo  touch  the 
lyre  of  the  poet,  he  wields  also  the  bow ;  the  winged  dart 
of  sarcasm  spares  neither  the  tedious  verse-maker  nor  the 
provincial  who  corrupts  the  language,  but  it  hits  none 
more  frequently  and  more  sharply  than  the  potentates  by 
whom  the  liberty  of  the  people  is  endangered.  The  short- 
lined  and  merry  metres,  often  enlivened  by  a  graceful 
refrain,  are  of  finished  art  and  yet  free  from  the  repulsive 
smoothness  of  the  manufactory.  These  poems  lead  us 
alternately  to  the  valleys  of  the  Nile  and  the  Po ;  but  the 
poet  is  incomparably  more  at  home  in  the  latter.  His 
poems  are  based  on  Alexandrian  art  doubtless,  but  at  the 
same  time  on  the  self- consciousness  of  a  burgess  and  a 
burgess  in  fact  of  a  rural  town,  on  the  contrast  of  Verona 
with  Rome,  on  the  contrast  of  the  homely  municipal  with 
the  high-born  lords  of  the  senate  who  usually  maltreat 
their  humble  friends — as  that  contrast  was  probably  felt 
more  vividly  than  anywhere  else  in  Catullus'  home,  the 
flourishing  and  comparatively  vigorous  Cisalpine  Gaul.  The 
most  beautiful  of  his  poems  reflect  the  sweet  pictures  of 
the  Lago  di  Garda,  and  hardly  at  this  time  could  any  man 
of  the  capital  have  written  a  poem  like  the  deeply  pathetic 
one  on  his  brother's  death,  or  the  excellent  genuinely 
homely  festal  hymn  for  the  marriage  of  Manlius  and 
Aurunculeia.  Catullus,  although  dependent  on  the  Alex- 
andrian masters  and  standing  in  the  midst  of  the  fashion- 
able and  clique  poetry  of  that  age,  was  yet  not  merely  a 
good  scholar  among  many  mediocre  and  bad  ones,   but 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  483 

himself  as  much  superior  to  his  masters  as  the  burgess  of 
a  free  Italian  community  was  superior  to  the  cosmopolitan 
Hellenic  man  of  letters.  Eminent  creative  vigour  indeed 
and  high  poetic  intentions  we  may  not  look  for  in  him ;  he 
is  a  richly  gifted  and  graceful  but  not  a  great  poet,  and  his 
poems  are,  as  he  himself  calls  them,  nothing  but  "  pleas- 
antries and  trifles."  Yet  when  we  find  not  merely  his  con- 
temporaries electrified  by  these  fugitive  songs,  but  the  art- 
critics  of  the  Augustan  age  also  characterizing  him  along 
with  Lucretius  as  the  most  important  poet  of  this  epoch, 
his  contemporaries  as  well  as  their  successors  were  com- 
pletely right.  The  Latin  nation  has  produced  no  second 
poet  in  whom  the  artistic  substance  and  the  artistic  form 
appear  in  so  symmetrical  perfection  as  in  Catullus ;  and  in 
this  sense  the  collection  of  the  poems  of  Catullus  is 
certainly  the  most  perfect  which  Latin  poetry  as  a  whole 
can  show. 

Lastly,  poetry  in  a  prose   form  begins  in  this  epoch.  Poems  in 
The  law  of  genuine  naive  as  well  as  conscious  art,  which  pr< 
had    hitherto    remained    unchangeable — that  the    poetical 
subject-matter  and  the  metrical  setting  should  go  together 
— gave  way  before  the  intermixture  and  disturbance  of  all 
kinds  and  forms  of  art,  which  is  one  of  the  most  significant 
features  of  this  period.     As  to  romances  indeed  nothing  Romances 
farther  is  to  be  noticed,  than  that  the  most  famous  historian 
of  this  epoch,  Sisenna,  did  not  esteem  himself  too  good  to 
translate    into    Latin    the    much -read     Milesian    tales    of 
Aristides — licentious  fashionable  novels  of  the  most  stupid 
sort 

A  more  original  and  more  pleasing  phenomenon  in  this  Varro's 
debateable  border-land  between  poetry  and  prose  was  the  ^jLn 
aesthetic  writings  of  Varro,  who  was  not  merely  the  most 
important  representative  of  Latin  philologico- historical  re- 
search, but  one  of  the  most  fertile  and  most  interesting 
authors  in  belles-lettres.     Descended  from  a  plebeian  gens 


484  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

which  had  its  home  in  the  Sabine  land  but  had  belonged 
for  the  last  two  hundred  years  to  the  Roman  senate,  strictly 
reared  in  antique  discipline  and  decorum,1  and  already  at 
the  beginning  of  this  epoch  a  man  of  maturity,  Marcus 
116-27.  Terentius  Varro  of  Reate  (638-727)  belonged  in  politics, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  to  the  cjnstitutional  party,  and  bore 
an  honourable  and  energetic  part  in  its  doings  and  suffer- 
ings. He  supported  it,  partly  in  literature — as  when  he 
combated  the  first  coalition,  the  "three-headed  monster,"  in 
pamphlets ;  partly  in  more  serious  warfare,  where  we  found 
him  in  the  army  of  Pompeius  as  commandant  of  Further 
Spain  (p.  219).  When  the  cause  of  the  republic  was  lost, 
Varro  was  destined  by  his  conqueror  to  be  librarian  of  the 
library  which  was  to  be  formed  in  the  capital.  The 
troubles  of  the  following  period  drew  the  old  man  once 
more  into  their  vortex,  and  it  was  not  till  seventeen  years 
after  Caesar's  death,  in  the  eighty-ninth  year  of  his  well- 
occupied  life,  that  death  called  him  away. 
Varro's  The  aesthetic  writings,  which  have  made  him  a  name, 

were  brief  essays,  some  in  simple  prose  and  of  graver 
contents,  others  humorous  sketches  the  prose  groundwork 
of  which  was  inlaid  with  various  poetical  effusions.  The 
former  were  the  " philosophico-historical  dissertations" 
{logistorici),  the  latter  the  Menippean  Satires.  In  neither 
case  did  he  follow  Latin  models,  and  the  Satura  of  Varro  in 
particular  was  by  no  means  based  on  that  of  Lucilius.  In 
fact  the  Roman  Satura  in  general  was  not  properly  a  fixed 
species  of  art,  but  only  indicated  negatively  the  fact  that 
the  "  multifarious  poem  "  was  not  to  be  included  under  any 
of  the  recognized  forms  of  art ;  and  accordingly  the  Satura- 
poetry  assumed  in  the  hands  of  every  gifted  poet  a  different 

1  "  For  me  when  a  boy,"  he  somewhere  says,  "there  sufficed  a  single 
rough  coat  and  a  single  under-garment,  shoes  without  stockings,  a  horse 
without  a  saddle ;  I  had  no  daily  warm  bath,  and  but  seldom  a  river- 
bath."  On  account  of  his  personal  valour  he  obtained  in  the  Piratic  war, 
where  he  commanded  a  division  of  the  fleet,  the  naval  crown. 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  48$ 

and    peculiar    character.       It    was    rather    in    the    pre- 
Alexandrian  Greek  philosophy  that  Varro  found  the  models 
for  his   more  severe  as  well  as   for  his  lighter  aesthetic 
works ;  for  the  graver  dissertations,   in  the  dialogues    of 
Heraclides  of  Heraclea  on  the  Black  Sea  (f  about  450),  300. 
for  the  satires,  in  the  writings  of  Menippus  of  Gadara  in 
Syria  (flourishing  about  475).     The  choice  was  significant.  280. 
Heraclides,  stimulated  as  an  author  by  Plato's  philosophic 
dialogues,  had  amidst  the  brilliance  of  their  form  totally  lost 
sight   of  the    scientific   contents    and    made  the  poetico- 
fabulistic  dress  the  main  matter ;  he  was  an  agreeable  and 
largely-read  author,  but  far  from  a  philosopher.      Menippus 
was  quite  as  little  a   philosopher,  but  the  most  genuine 
literary   representative   of  that   philosophy   whose   wisdom 
consisted  in  denying  philosophy  and  ridiculing  philosophers^ 
the  cynical  wisdom  of  Diogenes ;  a  comic  teacher  of  serious 
wisdom,  he  proved  by  examples  and  merry  sayings  that 
except   an  upright  life   everything   is    vain    in  earth  and 
heaven,  and  nothing  more  vain  than  the  disputes  of  so- 
called  sages.     These  were  the   true   models   for  Varro,  a 
man  full  of  old  Roman  indignation  at  the  pitiful  times  and 
full  of  old  Roman  humour,  by  no  means  destitute  withal  of 
plastic   talent,  but  as   to  everything  which   presented   the 
appearance  not  of  palpable  fact,  but  of  idea  or  even  of 
system,  utterly  stupid,  and  perhaps  the  most  unphilosophical 
among  the  unphilosophical  Romans.1     But  Varro  was  no 
slavish  pupil.     The  impulse  and  in  general  the  form   he 
derived  from   Heraclides   and   Menippus ;  but  his  was  a 

1  There  is  hardly  anything  more  childish  than  Varro' s  scheme  of  all  the 
philosophies,  which  in  the  first  place  summarily  declares  all  systems  that 
do  not  propose  the  happiness  of  man  as  their  ultimate  aim  to  be  non- 
existent, and  then  reckons  the  number  of  philosophies  conceivable  under 
this  supposition  as  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight.  The  vigorous  man  was 
unfortunately  too  much  a  scholar  to  confess  that  he  neither  could  nor 
would  be  a  philosopher,  and  accordingly  as  such  throughout  life  he  per- 
formed a  blind  dance — not  altogether  becoming — between  the  Stoa, 
Py thagort  anism,  and  Diogenism. 


486 


RELIGION,  CULTURE, 


BOOK  V 


Varro's 

philo- 
sophico- 
historical 
essays. 


Varro's 

Menippean 
satires. 


nature  too  individual  and  too  decidedly  Roman  not  to 
keep  his  imitative  creations  essentially  independent  and 
national. 

For  his  grave  dissertations,  in  which  a  moral  maxim  or 
other  subject  of  general  interest  is  handled,  he  disdained  in 
his  framework  to  approximate  to  the  Milesian  tales,  ae 
Heraclides  had  done,  and  so  to  serve  up  to  the  reader  even 
childish  little  stories  like  those  of  Abaris  and  of  the  maiden 
reawakened  to  life  after  being  seven  days  dead.  But  seldom 
he  borrowed  the  dress  from  the  nobler  myths  of  the  Greeks, 
as  in  the  essay  "  Orestes  or  concerning  Madness  " ;  history 
ordinarily  afforded  him  a  worthier  frame  for  his  subjects, 
more  especially  the  contemporary  history  of  his  country,  so 
that  these  essays  became,  as  they  were  called,  laudationes 
of  esteemed  Romans,  above  all  of  the  Coryphaei  of  the 
constitutional  party.  Thus  the  dissertation  "concerning 
Peace  "  was  at  the  same  time  a  memorial  of  Metellus  Pius, 
the  last  in  the  brilliant  series  of  successful  generals  of  the 
senate  ;  that  "  concerning  the  Worship  of  the  Gods  "  was  at 
the  same  time  destined  to  preserve  the  memory  of  the 
highly-respected  Optimate  and  Pontifex  Gains  Curio ;  the 
essay  "  on  Fate  "  was  connected  with  Marius,  that  "  on  the 
Writing  of  History "  with  Sisenna  the  first  historian  of 
this  epoch,  that  "  on  the  Beginnings  of  the  Roman  Stage  " 
with  the  princely  giver  of  scenic  spectacles  Scaurus,  that 
''on  Numbers"  with  the  highly -cultured  Roman  banker 
Atticus.  The  two  philosophico-historical  essays  "Laelius 
or  concerning  Friendship,"  "  Cato  or  concerning  Old  Age," 
which  Cicero  wrote  probably  after  the  model  of  those  of 
Varro,  may  give  us  some  approximate  idea  of  Varro's  half- 
didactic,  half-narrative,  treatment  of  these  subjects. 

The  Menippean  satire  was  handled  by  Varro  with  equal 
originality  of  form  and  contents  ;  the  bold  mixture  of  prose 
and  verse  is  foreign  to  the  Greek  original,  and  the  whole 
intellectual  contents  are  pervaded  by  Roman  idiosyncrasy 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  487 

— one  might  say,  by  a  savour  of  the  Sabine  soil.  These 
satires  like  the  philosophico- historical  essays  handle  some 
moral  or  other  theme  adapted  to  the  larger  public,  as  is 
shown  by  the  several  titles — Columnae  Herculis,  -Kf.pl  8o^s; 
Evpev  rj  Ao7ras  rb  IlaJ/ia,  irepl  yeya/^KOTwv ;  Est  Modus 
Matulae,  irepi  fieOrjs ',  Papiapapae,  irepl  eyKw/xtwi'.  The 
plastic  dress,  which  in  this  case  might  not  be  wanting,  is  of 
course  but  seldom  borrowed  from  the  history  of  his  native 
country,  as  in  the  satire  Serramis,  -jrepl  apxatpeo-itov.  The 
Cynic-world  of  Diogenes  on  the  other  hand  plays,  as  might 
be  expected,  a  great  part  j  we  meet  with  the  Kwkttw/j,  the 
K.wopprJT(i>p,  the  iTnroKvwv,  the  YSpoKvoiv,  the  KwoSiSao"- 
kclXikov  and  others  of  a  like  kind.  Mythology  is  also  laid 
under  contribution  for  comic  purposes ;  we  find  a  Prometheus 
Liber,  an  Ajax  Stramenticius,  a  Hercules  Socraticus,  a 
Sesqueulixes  who  had  spent  not  merely  ten  but  fifteen  years 
in  wanderings.  The  outline  of  the  dramatic  or  romantic 
framework  is  still  discoverable  from  the  fragments  in  some 
pieces,  such  as  the  Prometheus  Liber,  the  Sexagessis,  Manius  ; 
it  appears  that  Varro  frequently,  perhaps  regularly,  narrated 
the  tale  as  his  own  experience;  e.g.  in  the  Manius  the 
dramatis  personae  go  to  Varro  and  discourse  to  him 
"because  he  was  known  to  them  as  a  maker  of  books." 
As  to  the  poetical  value  of  this  dress  we  are  no  longer 
allowed  to  form  any  certain  judgment ;  there  still  occur  in 
our  fragments  several  very  charming  sketches  full  of  wit 
and  liveliness — thus  in  the  Prometheus  Liber  the  hero  after 
the  loosing  of  his  chains  opens  a  manufactory  of  men,  in 
which  Goldshoe  the  rich  (Chrysosandatos)  bespeaks  for 
himself  a  maiden,  of  milk  and  finest  wax,  such  as  the 
Milesian  bees  gather  from  various  flowers,  a  maiden  without 
bones  and  sinews,  without  skin  or  hair,  pure  and  polished, 
slim,  smooth,  tender,  charming.  The  life-breath  of  this 
poetry  is  polemics — not  so  much  the  political  warfare  of 
party,    such  as   Lucilius  and   Catullus  practised,   but  the 


488  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

general  moral  antagonism  of  the  stern  elderly  man  to  the 
unbridled  and  perverse  youth,  of  the  scholar  living  in  the 
midst  of  his  classics  to  the  loose  and  slovenly,  or  at  any 
rate  in  point  of  tendency  reprobate,  modern  poetry,1  of  the 
good  burgess  of  the  ancient  type  to  the  new  Rome  in  which 
the  Forum,  to  use  Varro's  language,  was  a  pigsty  and  Numa, 
if  he  turned  his  eyes  towards  his  city,  would  see  no  longer 
a  trace  of  his  wise  regulations.  In  the  constitutional 
struggle  Varro  did  what  seemed  to  him  the  duty  of  a 
citizen  ;  but  his  heart  was  not  in  such  party-doings — "why/' 
he  complains  on  one  occasion,  "do  ye  call  me  from  my 
pure  life  into  the  filth  of  your  senate-house  ?  "  He  belonged 
to  the  good  old  time,  when  the  talk  savoured  of  onions  and 
garlic,  but  the  heart  was  sound.  His  polemic  against  the 
hereditary  foes  of  the  genuine  Roman  spirit,  the  Greek 
philosophers,  was  only  a  single  aspect  of  this  old-fashioned 
opposition  to  the  spirit  of  the  new  times ;  but  it  resulted 
both  from  the  nature  of  the  Cynical  philosophy  and  from 
the  temperament  of  Varro,  that  the  Menippean  lash  was 
very  specially  plied  round  the  cars  of  the  philosophers  and 
put  them  accordingly  into  proportional  alarm — it  was  not 
without  palpitation  that  the  philosophic  scribes  of  the  time 
transmitted  to  the  "  severe  man  "  their  newly-issued  treatises. 
Philosophizing  is  truly  no  art.  With  the  tenth  part  of  the 
trouble  with  which  a  master  rears  his  slave  to  be  a  pro- 

1  On  one  occasion  he  writes,  "  Quintiporis  Clodii  foria  acpoemata  ejus 
gargaridians  dices  ;  O  for  tuna,  O  fors  fortuna  I"  And  elsewhere,  "Cum 
Quintipor  Clodius  tot  comoedias  sine  ulla  fecerit  Musa,  ego  unum  libellum 
rum  '  edolem '  ut  ait  Ennius  f"  This  not  otherwise  known  Clodius  must  have 
been  in  all  probability  a  wretched  imitator  of  Terence,  as  those  words 
sarcastically  laid  at  his  door  ' '  O  fortuna,  O  fors  fortuna  J ' '  are  found 
occurring  in  a  Terentian  comedy. 

The  following  description  of  himself  by  a  poet  in  Varro's  "Oos  Avpas, 

Pacuvi  discipulus  dicor,  porro  isfuit  Enni, 
Ennius  Musarum  ;  Pompilius  clueor 

might  aptly  parody  the  introduction  of  Lucretius  (p.  474),  to  whom  Varro  as 
a  declared  enemy  of  the  Epicurean  system  cannot  have  been  well  disposed, 
and  whom  he  never  quotes. 


chap,  xn  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  489 

fessional  baker,  he  trains  himself  to  be  a  philosopher ;  no 
doubt,  when  the  baker  and  the  philosopher  both  come 
under  the  hammer,  the  artist  of  pastry  goes  off  a  hundred 
times  dearer  than  the  sage.  Singular  people,  these  philo- 
sophers !  One  enjoins  that  corpses  be  buried  in  honey — 
it  is  a  fortunate  circumstance  that  his  desire  is  not  complied 
with,  otherwise  where  would  any  honey -wine  be  left? 
Another  thinks  that  men  grow  out  of  the  earth  like  cresses. 
A  third  has  invented  a  world-borer  (Koa-fLoropvvrj)  by  which 
the  earth  will  some  day  be  destroyed. 

Postremo,  nemo  aegrotus  quicquam  somniat 

Tarn  infandum,  quod  non  aliquis  dicat  fhilosophus. 

It  is  ludicrous  to  observe  how  a  Long-beard — by  which 
is  meant  an  etymologizing  Stoic — cautiously  weighs  every 
word  in  goldsmith's  scales  ;  but  there  is  nothing  that  sur- 
passes the  genuine  philosophers'  quarrel — a  Stoic  boxing- 
match  far  excels  any  encounter  of  athletes.  In  the  satire 
Marcopolis,  irepl  dpxrjs,  when  Marcus  created  for  himself  a 
Cloud-Cuckoo-Home  after  his  own  heart,  matters  fared, 
just  as  in  the  Attic  comedy,  well  with  the  peasant,  but  ill 
with  the  philosopher ;  the  Ce/er-Si'-h'bs-X-q/JL/j.aTos-Xoyo's,  son 
of  Antipater  the  Stoic,  beats  in  the  skull  of  his  opponent — 
evidently  the  philosophic  Dilemma — with  the  mattock. 

With  this  morally  polemic  tendency  and  this  talent  for 
embodying  it  in  caustic  and  picturesque  expression,  which, 
as  the  dress  of  dialogue  given  to  the  books  on  Husbandry 
written  in  his  eightieth  year  shows,  never  forsook  him  down 
to  extreme  old  age,  Varro  most  happily  combined  an  incom- 
parable knowledge  of  the  national  manners  and  language, 
which  is  embodied  in  the  philological  writings  of  his  old 
age  after  the  manner  of  a  commonplace-book,  but  displays 
itself  in  his  Satires  in  all  its  direct  fulness  and  freshness. 
Varro  was  in  the  best  and  fullest  sense  of  the  term  a  local 
antiquarian,  who  from  the  personal  observation  of  many 


49°  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

years  knew  his  nation  in  its  former  idiosyncrasy  and  secli* 
sion  as  well  as  in  its  modern  state  of  transition  and  dis- 
persion, and  had  supplemented  and  deepened  his  direct 
knowledge  of  the  national  manners  and  national  language 
by  the  most  comprehensive  research  in  historical  and  literary 
archives.     His  partial  deficiency  in  rational  judgment  and 
learning — in  our  sense  of  the  words — was  compensated  for 
by  his  clear  intuition  and   the  poetry  which  lived  within 
him.     He  sought  neither  after  antiquarian  notices  nor  after 
rare  antiquated  or  poetical  words  j1  but  he  was  himself  an 
old  and  old-fashioned  man  and  almost  a  rustic,  the  classics 
of  his  nation   were   his   favourite   and   long-familiar   com- 
panions ;  how  could  it  fail  that  many  details  of  the  manners 
of  his  forefathers,  which  he  loved  above  all  and  especially 
knew,  should  be  narrated  in  his  writings,  and  that  his  dis- 
course  should  abound  with  proverbial   Greek  and   Latin 
phrases,   with  good   old    words   preserved    in  the    Sabine 
conversational    language,    with    reminiscences    of   Ennius, 
Lucilius,  and  above  all  of  Plautus  ?     We  should  not  judge 
as  to  the  prose  style  of  these  aesthetic  writings  of  Varro's 
earlier  period  by  the  standard  of  his  work  on  Language 
written  in  his  old  age  and  probably  published  in  an  un- 
finished state,  in  which  certainly  the  clauses  of  the  sentence 
are  arranged  on  the  thread  of  the  relative  like  thrushes  on 
a  string ;  but  we  have  already  observed  that  Varro  rejected 
on  principle  the  effort  after  a  chaste  style  and  Attic  periods 
(p.  458),  and  his  aesthetic  essays,  while  destitute  of  the 
mean  bombast  and  the  spurious  tinsel  of  vulgarism,  were 
yet  written  after  an  unclassic  and  even  slovenly  fashion, 
in  sentences  rather  directly  joined  on  to  each  other  than 
regularly  subdivided.     The  poetical  pieces  inserted  on  the 
other  hand  show  not  merely  that  their  author  knew  how  to 

1  He  himself  once  aptly  says,  that  he  had  no  special  fondness  for 
•ntiquated  words,  but  frequently  used  them,  and  that  he  was  very  fond  of 
poetical  words,  but  did  not  use  them. 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  49* 

mould  the  most  varied  measures  with  as  much  mastery  as 
any  of  the  fashionable  poets,  but  that  he  had  a  right  to 
include  himself  among  those  to  whom  a  god  has  granted 
the  gift  of  "  banishing  cares  from  the  heart  by  song  and 
sacred  poesy."1  The  sketches  of  Varro  no  more  created  a 
school  than  the  didactic  poem  of  Lucretius ;  to  the  more 
general  causes  which  prevented  this  there  falls  to  be  added 
their  thoroughly  individual  stamp,  which  was  inseparable 
from  the  greater  age,  from  the  rusticity,  and  even  from  the 
peculiar  erudition  of  their  author.  But  the  grace  and 
humour  of  the  Menippean  satires  above  all,  which  seem  to 
have  been  in  number  and  importance  far  superior  to  Varro's 
graver  works,  captivated  his  contemporaries  as  well  as  those 
in  after  times  who  had  any  relish  for  originality  and  national 

1  The  following  description  is  taken  from  the  Marcipor  ("Slave  of 
Marcus  ") : — 

Repente  noctis  circiter  meridie 
Cum  pictus  aer  fervidis  late  ignibus 
Caeli  chorean  astricen  ostenderet, 
Nubes  aquali,  frigido  velo  leves 
Caeli  cavemas  aureas  subduxerant, 
Aquam  vomentes  inferam  mortalibus. 
Ventique  frigido  se  at  axe  erupcrant, 
Phrenetici  septentrionum  Jilii, 
Secum  ferentes  tegulas,  ramos,  syrus. 
At  nos  caduci,  naufragi,  ut  ciconiae 
Quarum  bipennis  fulminis  plumas  vapor 
Perussit,  alte  maesti  in  terrain  cecidimus. 

In  the  'Av$p(i)Tr6iro\is  we  find  the  lines  : 

Non  Jit  thesauris,  non  auro  pectu'  solutum  ; 
Non  demunt  animis  curas  ac  relligiones 
Persarum  monies,  non  atria  diviii'  Crassi. 

But  the  poet  was  successful  also  in  a  lighter  vein.     In  the  Est  Modus 
Matulae  there  stood  the  following  elegant  commendation  of  wine  : — 
Vino  nihil  iucundius  quisquam  bibit. 
Hoc  aegritudinem  ad  medendam  invenerunt, 
Hoc  hilaritatis  dulce  seminarium, 
Hoc  continet  coagulum  convivia. 

And  in  the  Koj/ioropiivT]  the  wanderer  returning  home  thus  concludes 
his  address  to  the  sailors  : 

Delis  habenas  animae  lent, 
Dum  nos  ventus  Jlamine  sudo 
Suavetn  ad  patriam  perducit. 


492  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

spirit ;  and  even  we,  who  are  no  longer  permitted  to  read 
them,  may  still  from  the  fragments  preserved  discern  in 
some  measure  that  the  writer  "  knew  how  to  laugh  and  how 
to  jest  in  moderation."  And  as  the  last  breath  of  the  good 
spirit  of  the  old  burgess-times  ere  it  departed,  as  the  latest 
fresh  growth  which  the  national  Latin  poetry  put  forth,  the 
Satires  of  Varro  deserved  that  the  poet  in  his  poetical 
testament  should  commend  these  his  Menippean  children 
to  every  one  "who  had  at  heart  the  prosperity  of  Rome 
and  of  Latium  ";  and  they  accordingly  retain  an  honourable 
place  in  the  literature  as  in  the  history  of  the  Italian  people.1 

1  The  sketches  of  Varro  have  so  uncommon  historical  and  even 
poetical  significance,  and  are  yet,  in  consequence  of  the  fragmentary 
shape  in  which  information  regarding  them  has  reached  us,  known  to  so 
few  and  so  irksome  to  study,  that  we  may  be  allowed  to  give  in  this  place 
a  rfoumt  of  some  of  them  with  the  few  restorations  indispensable  for 
making  them  readable. 

The  satire  Manius  (Early  Up!)  describes  the  management  of  a  rural 
household.  "Manius  summons  his  people  to  rise  with  the  sun,  and  in 
person  conducts  them  to  the  scene  of  their  work.  The  youths  make  their 
own  bed,  which  labour  renders  soft  to  them,  and  supply  themselves  with 
water-jar  and  lamp.  Their  drink  is  the  clear  fresh  spring,  their  fare  bread, 
and  onions  as  relish.  Everything  prospers  in  house  and  field.  The 
house  is  no  work  of  art ;  but  an  architect  might  learn  symmetry  from  it. 
Care  is  taken  of  the  field,  that  it  shall  not  be  left  disorderly  and  waste,  01 
go  to  ruin  through  slovenliness  and  neglect ;  in  return  the  grateful  Ceres 
wards  off  damage  from  the  produce,  that  the  high-piled  sheaves  may 
gladden  the  heart  of  the  husbandman.  Here  hospitality  still  holds  good  ; 
every  one  who  has  but  imbibed  mother's  milk  is  welcome.  The  bread- 
pantry  and  wine -vat  and  the  store  of  sausages  on  the  rafters,  lock  and 
key  are  at  the  sendee  of  the  traveller,  and  piles  of  food  are  set  before 
him  ;  contented  sits  the  sated  guest,  looking  neither  before  nor  behind, 
dozing  by  the  hearth  in  the  kitchen.  The  warmest  double -wool  sheep- 
skin is  spread  as  a  couch  for  him.  Here  people  still  as  good  burgesses 
obey  the  righteous  law,  which  neither  out  of  envy  injures  the  innocent, 
nor  out  of  favour  pardons  the  guilty.  Here  they  speak  no  evil  agains*. 
their  neighbours.  Here  they  trespass  not  with  their  feet  on  the  sacred 
hearth,  but  honour  the  gods  with  devotion  and  with  sacrifices,  throw  for 
the  house-spirit  his  little  bit  of  flesh  into  his  appointed  little  dish,  and 
when  the  master  of  the  household  dies,  accompany  the  bier  with  the  same 
prayer  with  which  those  of  his  father  and  of  his  grandfather  were  borne 
forth." 

In  another  satire  there  appears  a  ' '  Teacher  of  the  Old " 
(TepovTodiSd<TKa\os),  of  whom  the  degenerate  age  seems  to  stand  more 
urgently  in  need  than  of  the  teacher  of  youth,  and  he  explains  how  "  once 
everything  in  Rome  was  chaste  and  pious,"  and  now  all  things  are  so 
entirely  changed.      ' '  Do  my  eyes  deceive  me,  or  do  I  see  slaves  in  arms 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  493 

The  critical  writing  of  history,  after  the  manner  in  which  Historical 
the  Attic  authors  wrote  the  national  history  in  their  classic  ^0^>p0SI" 
period  and  in  which  Polybius  wrote  the  history  of  the  world, 
was  never  properly  developed  in  Rome.     Even  in  the  field 
most  adapted   for  it — the  representation  of  contemporary 
and  of  recently  past  events — there  was  nothing,  on   the 
whole,  but  more  or  less  inadequate  attempts ;  in  the  epoch 
especially  from  Sulla  to  Caesar  the  not  very  important  con- 
tributions, which  the  previous  epoch  had  to  show  in  this 
field — the  labours  of  Antipater  and  Asellius — were  barely 
even  equalled.     The  only  work  of  note  belonging  to  this  Sisenn* 
field,  which  arose  in  the  present  epoch,  was  the  history  of 
the  Social  and  Civil  Wars  by  Lucius  Cornelius  Sisenna 

against  their  masters  ? — Formerly  every  one  who  did  not  present  himself 
for  the  levy,  was  sold  on  the  part  of  the  state  into  slavery  abroad  ;  now 
the  censor  who  allows  cowardice  and  everything  to  pass  is  called  [by  the 
aristocracy,  iii.  10;  iv.  125,  380;  p.  148]  a  great  citizen,  and  earns  praise 
because  he  does  not  seek  to  make  himself  a  name  by  annoying  his  fellow- 
citizens. — Formerly  the  Roman  husbandman  had  his  beard  shaven  once 
every  week  ;  now  the  rural  slave  cannot  have  it  fine  enough. — Formerly  one 
saw  on  the  estates  a  corn-granary,  which  held  ten  harvests,  spacious  cellars 
for  the  wine-vats  and  corresponding  wine-presses  ;  now  the  master  keeps 
flocks  of  peacocks,  and  causes  his  doors  to  be  inlaid  with  African  cypress- 
wood. — Formerly  the  housewife  turned  the  spindle  with  the  hand  and  kept 
at  the  same  time  the  pot  on  the  hearth  in  her  eye,  that  the  pottage  might 
not  be  singed  ;  now,"  it  is  said  in  another  satire,  "  the  daughter  begs  her 
father  for  a  pound  of  precious  stones,  and  the  wife  her  husband  for  a  bushel 
of  pearls. — Formerly  a  newly-married  husband  was  silent  and  bashful  ;  now 
the  wife  surrenders  herself  to  the  first  coachman  that  comes.  — Formerly  the 
blessing  of  children  was  woman's  pride  ;  now  if  her  husband  desires  for 
himself  children,  she  replies  :  Knowest  thou  not  what  Ennius  says  ? 

Ter  sub  armis  malim  vitam  cernere 
Quam  semel  modo  parere. — 

Formerly  the  wife  was  quite  content,  when  the  husband  once  or  twice 
in  the  year  gave  her  a  trip  to  the  country  in  the  uncushioned  waggon  ; " 
now,  he  could  add  (comp.  Cicero,  Pro  Mil.  21,  55),  the  wife  sulks  if  her 
husband  goes  to  his  country  estate  without  her,  and  the  travelling  lady 
is  attended  to  the  villa  by  the  fashionable  host  of  Greek  menials  and  the 
choir.  — In  a  treatise  of  a  graver  kind,  ' '  Catus  or  the  Training  of 
Children,"  Varro  not  only  instructs  the  friend  who  had  asked  him  for 
advice  on  that  point,  regarding  the  gods  who  were  according  to  old  usage 
to  be  sacrificed  to  for  the  children's  welfare,  but,  referring  to  the  more 
judicious  mode  of  rearing  children  among  the  Persians  and  to  his  own 
strictly  spent  youth,  he  warns  against  over-feeding  and  over-sleeping, 
against  sweet  bread  and  fine  fare — the  whelps,  the  old  man  thinks,  are 


494  RELIGION,  CULTURE,       .  book  v 

78.  (praetor  in  676).     Those  who  had  read  it  testify  that  it  far 

excelled    in    liveliness    and    readableness    the    old    dry 

chronicles,  but   was  written  withal   in  a   style   thoroughly 

impure  and  even  degenerating  into  puerility ;  as  indeed  the 

few   remaining    fragments    exhibit   a    paltry    painting    of 

horrible  details,1  and  a  number  of  words  newly  coined  or 

derived  from  the  language  of  conversation.     When  it  is 

added  that  the  author's  model  and,  so  to  speak,  the  only 

Greek  historian  familiar  to  him  was  Clitarchus,  the  author 

of  a  biography  of  Alexander  the  Great  oscillating  between 

history  and  fiction  in  the  manner  of  the  semi-romance 

which  bears  the  name  of  Curtius,  we  shall  not  hesitate  to 

recognize  in    Sisenna's  celebrated   historical   work,   not  a 

now  fed  more  judiciously  than  the  children — and  likewise  against  the 
enchantresses'  charms  and  blessings,  which  in  cases  of  sickness  so  often 
take  the  place  of  the  physician's  counsel.  He  advises  to  keep  the  girls  at 
embroidery,  that  they  may  afterwards  understand  how  to  judge  properly 
of  embroidered  and  textile  work,  and  not  to  allow  them  to  put  off  the 
child's  dress  too  early  ;  he  warns  against  carrying  boys  to  the  gladiatorial 
games,  in  which  the  heart  is  early  hardened  and  cruelty  learned. — In  the 
"Man  of  Sixty  Years"  Varro  appears  as  a  Roman  Epimenides  who  had 
fallen  asleep  when  a  boy  of  ten  and  waked  up  again  after  half  a  century. 
He  is  astonished  to  find  instead  of  his  smooth-shorn  boy's  head  an  old 
bald  pate  with  an  ugly  snout  and  savage  bristles  like  a  hedgehog  ;  but  he 
is  still  more  astonished  at  the  change  in  Rome.  Lucrine  oysters,  formerly 
a  wedding  dish,  are  now  everyday  fare ;  for  which,  accordingly,  the 
bankrupt  glutton  silently  prepares  the  incendiary  torch.  While  formerly 
the  father  disposed  of  his  boy,  now  the  disposal  is  transferred  to  the 
latter  :  he  disposes,  forsooth,  of  his  father  by  poison.  The  comitium  had 
become  an  exchange,  the  criminal  trial  a  mine  of  gold  for  the  jurymen. 
No  law  is  any  longer  obeyed  save  only  this  one,  that  nothing  is  given  for 
nothing.  All  virtues  have  vanished  ;  in  their  stead  the  awakened  man  is 
saluted  by  impiety,  perfidy,  lewdness,  as  new  denizens.  "Alas  for  thee, 
Marcus,  with  such  a  sleep  and  such  an  awakening  I " — The  sketch 
S7.  resembles  the  Catilinarian  epoch,  shortly  after  which  (about  697)  the  old 
man  must  have  written  it,  and  there  lay  a  truth  in  the  bitter  turn  at  the 
close  ;  where  Marcus,  properly  reproved  for  his  unseasonable  accusations 
and  antiquarian  reminiscences,  is — with  a  mock  application  of  a  primitive 
Roman  custom — dragged  as  a  useless  old  man  to  the  bridge  and  thrown 
into  the  Tiber.  There  was  certainly  no  longer  room  for  such  men  in 
Rome. 

1  "The  innocent,"  so  ran  a  speech,  "thou  draggest  forth,  trembling 
in  every  limb,  and  on  the  high  margin  of  the  river's  Lank  in  the  dawn  of 
the  morning"  [thou  causest  them  to  be  slaughtered].  Several  such 
phrases,  that  might  be  inserted  without  difficulty  in  a  commonplace  novel, 
occur. 


chap.  XII  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  495 

product  of  genuine  historical  criticism  and  art,  but  the 
first  Roman  essay  in  that  hybrid  mixture  of  history  and 
romance  so  much  a  favourite  with  the  Greeks,  which  desires 
to  make  the  groundwork  of  facts  life-like  and  interesting  by 
means  of  fictitious  details  and  thereby  makes  it  insipid  and 
untrue ;  and  it  will  no  longer  excite  surprise  that  we  meet 
with  the  same  Sisenna  also  as  translator  of  Greek  fashion- 
able romances  (p.  483). 

That  the  prospect  should  be  still  more  lamentable  in  the  Annals  oi 
field  of  the  general  annals  of  the  city  and  even  of  the  world,  l  e  Clty" 
was  implied  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  The  increasing 
activity  of  antiquarian  research  induced  the  expectation  that 
the  current  narrative  would  be  rectified  from  documents 
and  other  trustworthy  sources  ;  but  this  hope  was  not  ful- 
filled. The  more  and  the  deeper  men  investigated,  the 
more  clearly  it  became  apparent  what  a  task  it  was  to  write 
a  critical  history  of  Rome.  The  difficulties  even,  which 
opposed  themselves  to  investigation  and  narration,  were 
immense ;  but  the  most  dangerous  obstacles  were  not  those 
of  a  literary  kind.  The  conventional  early  history  of  Rome, 
as  it  had  now  been  narrated  and  believed  for  at  least  ten 
generations,  was  most  intimately  mixed  up  with  the  civil 
life  of  the  nation ;  and  yet  in  any  thorough  and  honest 
inquiry  not  only  had  details  to  be  modified  here  and  there, 
but  the  whole  building  had  to  be  overturned  as  much  as 
the  Franconian  primitive  history  of  king  Pharamund  or  the 
British  of  king  Arthur.  An  inquirer  of  conservative  views, 
such  as  was  Varro  for  instance,  could  have  no  wish  to  put  his 
hand  to  such  a  work;  and  if  a  daring  freethinker  had 
undertaken  it,  an  outcry  would  have  been  raised  by  all  good 
citizens  against  this  worst  of  all  revolutionaries,  who  was 
preparing  to  deprive  the  constitutional  party  even  of  their 
past  Thus  philological  and  antiquarian  research  deterred 
from  the  writing  of  history  rather  than  conduced  towards  it 
Varro  and  the  more  sagacious  men  in  general  evidently  gave 


496  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  \ 

up  the  task  of  annals  as  hopeless;  at  the  most  they 
arranged,  as  did  Titus  Pomponius  Atticus,  the  official  and 
gentile  lists  in  unpretending  tabular  shape — a  work  by 
which  the  synchronistic  Graeco-  Roman  chronology  was 
finally  brought  into  the  shape  in  which  it  was  conventionally 
fixed  for  posterity.  But  the  manufacture  of  city-chronicles 
of  course  did  not  suspend  its  activity;  it  continued  to 
supply  its  contributions  both  in  prose  and  verse  to  the 
great  library  written  by  ennui  for  ennui,  while  the  makers 
of  the  books,  in  part  already  freedmen,  did  not  trouble 
themselves  at  all  about  research  properly  so  called.  Such 
of  these  writings  as  are  mentioned  to  us — not  one  of  them 
is  preserved — seem  to  have  been  not  only  of  a  wholly 
secondary  character,  but  in  great  part  even  pervaded  by 
interested  falsification.     It  is  true  that  the   chronicle  of 

78!  Quintus  Claudius  Quadrigarius  (about  676?)  was  written 
in  an  old-fashioned  but  good  style,  and  studied  at  least  a 
commendable  brevity  in  the  representation  of  the  fabulous 

66.  period.  Gaius  Licinius  Macer  (f  as  late  praetor  in  688), 
father  of  the  poet  Calvus  (p.  481),  and  a  zealous  democrat, 
laid  claim  more  than  any  other  chronicler  to  documentary 
research  and  criticism,  but  his  libri  lintei  and  other  matters 
peculiar  to  him  are  in  the  highest  degree  suspicious,  and  an 
interpolation  of  the  whole  annals  in  the  interest  of  demo- 
cratic tendencies — an  interpolalion  of  a  very  extensive  kind, 
and  which  has  passed  over  in  part  to  the  later  annalists — 
is  probably  traceable  to  him. 

Valerius  Lastly,  Valerius  Antias  excelled  all  his  predecessors  in 

Antlas.  ...  11        • 

prolixity  as  well  as  in  puerile  story-telling.     The  falsification 

of  numbers  was  here  systematically  carried  out  down  even  to 

contemporary  history,  and  the  primitive  history  of  Rome  was 

elaborated  once  more  from  one  form  of  insipidity  to  another  • 

for  instance  the  narrative  of  the  way  in  which  the  wise  Numa 

according  to  the  instructions  of  the  nymph  Egeria  caught 

the  gods  Faunus  and  Picus  with  wine,  and  the  beautiful 


chap.  XII  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  497 

conversation  thereupon  held  by  the  same  Numa  with  the 
god  Jupiter,  cannot  be  too  urgently  recommended  to  all 
worshippers  of  the  so-called  legendary  history  of  Rome  in 
order  that,  if  possible,  they  may  believe  these  things — of 
course,  in  substance.  It  would  have  been  a  marvel  if  the 
Greek  novel-writers  of  this  period  had  allowed  such 
materials,  made  as  if  for  their  use,  to  escape  them.  In  fact 
there  were  not  wanting  Greek  literati,  who  worked  up  the 
Roman  history  into  romances ;  such  a  composition,  for 
instance,  was  the  Five  Books  "  Concerning  Rome  "  of  the 
Alexander  Polyhistor  already  mentioned  among  the  Greek 
literati  living  in  Rome  (p.  460),  a  preposterous  mixture  of 
vapid  historical  tradition  and  trivial,  principally  erotic,  fiction. 
He,  it  may  be  presumed,  took  the  first  steps  towards  fill- 
ing up  the  five  hundred  years,  which  were  wanting  to  bring 
the  destruction  of  Troy  and  the  origin  of  Rome  into  the 
chronological  connection  required  by  the  fables  on  either 
side,  with  one  of  those  lists  of  kings  without  achievements 
which  are  unhappily  familiar  to  the  Egyptian  and  Greek 
chroniclers ;  for,  to  all  appearance,  it  was  he  that  launched 
into  the  world  the  kings  Aventinus  and  Tiberinus  and  the 
Alban  gens  of  the  Silvii,  whom  the  following  times  accord- 
ingly did  not  neglect  to  furnish  in  detail  with  name,  period 
of  reigning,  and,  for  the  sake  of  greater  definiteness,  also 
a  portrait. 

Thus  from  various  sides  the  historical  romance  of  the 
Greeks  finds  its  way  into  Roman  historiography ;  and  it  is 
more  than  probable  that  not  the  least  portion  of  what  we 
are  accustomed  nowadays  to  call  tradition  of  the  Roman 
primitive  times  proceeds  from  sources  of  the  stamp  of 
Amadis  of  Gaul  and  the  chivalrous  romances  of  Fouque* — 
an  edifying  consideration,  at  least  for  those  who  have  a 
relish  for  the  humour  of  history  and  who  know  how  to 
appreciate  the  comical  aspect  of  the  piety  still  cherished  in 
certain  circles  of  the  nineteenth  century  for  king  Numa, 

VOL.  V  165 


100-30. 


498  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

Universal  A  novelty  in  the  Roman  literature  of  this  period  is  the 

story.        appearance  of  universal  history  or,  to  speak  more  correctly, 

of  Roman  and  Greek  history  conjoined,  alongside  of  the 

Nepos.  native  annals.  Cornelius  Nepos  from  Ticinum  (c.  650— c. 
725)  first  supplied  an  universal  chronicle  (published  before 
54.  700)  and  a  general  collection  of  biographies — arranged 
according  to  certain  categories — of  Romans  and  Greeks 
distinguished  in  politics  or  literature  or  of  men  at  any  rate 
who  exercised  influence  on  the  Roman  or  Greek  history. 
These  works  are  of  a  kindred  nature  with  the  universal 
histories  which  the  Greeks  had  for  a  considerable  time  been 
composing  ;  and  these  very  Greek  world-chronicles,  such  as 
that  of  Kastor  son-in-law  of  the  Galatian  king  Deiotarus, 
66.  concluded  in  698,  now  began  to  include  in  their  range  the 
Roman  history  which  previously  they  had  neglected. 
These  works  certainly  attempted,  just  like  Polybius,  to 
substitute  the  history  of  the  Mediterranean  world  for  the 
more  local  one ;  but  that  which  in  Polybius  was  the  result 
of  a  grand  and  clear  conception  and  deep  historical  feeling 
was  in  these  chronicles  rather  the  product  of  the  practical 
exigencies  of  school  and  self- instruction.  These  general 
chronicles,  text-books  for  scholastic  instruction  or  manuals 
for  reference,  and  the  whole  literature  therewith  connected 
which  subsequently  became  very  copious  in  the  Latin 
language  also,  can  hardly  be  reckoned  as  belonging  to 
artistic  historical  composition ;  and  Nepos  himself  in 
particular  was  a  pure  compiler  distinguished  neither  by 
spirit  nor  even  merely  by  symmetrical  plan. 

The  historiography  of  this  period  is  certainly  remarkable 
and  in  a  high  degree  characteristic,  but  it  is  as  far  from 
pleasing  as  the  age  itself.  The  interpenetration  of  Greek 
and  Latin  literature  is  in  no  field  so  clearly  apparent  as  in 
that  of  history ;  here  the  respective  literatures  become 
earliest  equalized  in  matter  and  form,  and  the  conception 
of   Helleno-Italic  history  as  an  unity,  in  which    Polybius 


HAP.  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  499 

ras  so  far  in  advance  of  his  age,  was  now  learned  even 
y  Greek  and  Roman  boys  at  school.  But  while  the 
lediterranean  state  had  found  a  historian  before  it  had 
ecome  conscious  of  its  own  existence,  now,  when  that 
onsciousness  had  been  attained,  there  did  not  arise  either 
tnong  the  Greeks  or  among  the  Romans  any  man  who 
as  able  to  give  to  it  adequate  expression.  "  There  is  no 
jch  thing,"  says  Cicero,  "as  Roman  historical  composi- 
on  " ;  and,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  this  is  no  more  than 
le  simple  truth.  The  man  of  research  turns  away  from 
riting  history,  the  writer  of  history  turns  away  from 
isearch ;  historical  literature  oscillates  between  the 
moolbook  and  the  romance.  All  the  species  of  pure  art 
-epos,  drama,  lyric  poetry,  history — are  worthless  in  this 
orthless  world ;  but  in  no  species  is  the  intellectual 
scay  of  the  Ciceronian  age  reflected  with  so  terrible  a 
earness  as  in  its  historiography. 

The  minor  historical  literature  of  this  period  displays  on  Literature 
le  other   hand,  amidst  many  insignificant  and   forgotten  toi^f17 
roductions,  one  treatise  of  the  first  rank — the  Memoirs  of 
aesar,  or  rather  the  Military  Report  of  the  democratic  Caesar's 
meral   to  the  people    from  whom  he   had    received    his     ePOIt• 
>mmission.     The  finished  section,  and  that  which  alone 
as  published  by  the  author  himself,  describing  the  Celtic 
impaigns  down  to  702,  is  evidently  designed  to  justify  as  52. 
ell  as  possible  before  the  public  the  formally  unconstitu- 
anal  enterprise  of  Caesar  in  conquering  a  great  country 
id  constantly  increasing  his  army  for  that  object  without 
structions  from  the  competent  authority ;  it  was  written 
id  given  forth  in  703,  when  the  storm  broke  out  against  61. 
aesar   in  Rome  and   he  was  summoned    to  dismiss  his 
my  and   answer  for   his  conduct.1     The  author  of  this 

1  That  the  treatise  on  the  Gallic  war  was  published  all  at  once,  has 
en  long  conjectured  ;  the  distinct  proof  that  it  was  so,  is  furnished  by  the 
ention  of  the  equalization  of  the  Boii  and  the  Haedui  already  in  the  first 
10k  (c.  28)  whereas  the  Boii  still  occur  in  the  seventh  (c.  10)  as  tributary 


500  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

vindication  writes,  as  he  himself  says,  entirely  as  an  officer 
and  carefully  avoids  extending  his  military  report  to  the 
hazardous  departments  of  political  organization  and  adminis- 
tration. His  incidental  and  partisan  treatise  cast  in  the 
form  of  a  military  report  is  itself  a  piece  of  history  like  the 
bulletins  of  Napoleon,  but  it  is  not,  and  was  not  intended 
to  be,  a  historical  work  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word ;  the 
objective  form  which  the  narrative  assumes  is  that  of  the 
magistrate,  not  that  of  the  historian.  But  in  this  modest 
character  the  work  is  masterly  and  finished,  more  than  any 
other  in  all  Roman  literature.  The  narrative  is  always 
terse  and  never  scanty,  always  simple  and  never  careless, 
always  of  transparent  vividness  and  never  strained  or 
affected.  The  language  is  completely  pure  from  archaisms 
and  from  vulgarisms — the  type  of  the  modern  urbanitas. 
In  the  Books  concerning  the  Civil  War  we  seem  to  feel 
that  the  author  had  desired  to  avoid  war  and  could  not 
avoid  it,  and  perhaps  also  that  in  Caesar's  soul,  as  in  every 
other,  the  period  of  hope  was  a  purer  and  fresher  one  than 
that  of  fulfilment ;  but  over  the  treatise  on  the  Gallic  war 
there  is  diffused  a  bright  serenity,  a  simple  charm,  which 
are  no  less  unique  in  literature  than  Caesar  is  in  history. 

subjects  of  the  Haedui,  and  evidently  only  obtained  equal  rights  with  their 
former  masters  on  account  of  their  conduct  and  that  of  the  Haedui  in  the 
war  against  Vercingetorix.  On  the  other  hand  any  one  who  attentively 
follows  the  history  of  the  time  will  find  in  the  expression  as  to  the  Milonian 
crisis  (vii.  6)  a  proof  that  the  treatise  was  published  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  civil  war  ;    not  because   Pompeius  is  there  praised,  but    because 

62.  Caesar  there  approves  the  exceptional  laws  of  702  (p.  146).  This  he 
might  and  could  not  but  do,  so  long  as  he  sought  to  bring  about  a 
peaceful  accommodation  with  Pompeius  (p.  175),  but  not  after  the  rupture, 
when  he  reversed  the  condemnations  that  took  place  on  the  basis  of  those 
laws  injurious  for  him   (p.   316).     Accordingly  the   publication  of  this 

SI.   treatise  has  been  quite  rightly  placed  in  703. 

The  tendency  of  the  work  we  discern  most  distinctly  in  the  constant, 
often — most  decidedly,  doubtless,  in  the  case  of  the  Aquitanian  expedition 
iii.  1 1 — not  successful,  justification  of  every  single  act  of  war  as  a  defensive 
measure  which  the  state  of  things  had  rendered  inevitable.  That  the 
adversaries  of  Caesar  censured  his  attacks  on  the  Celts  and  Germans 
above  all  as  unprovoked,  is  well  known  (Sueton.  Caes.  24). 


iap.  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  501 

Of  a  kindred  nature  were  the  letters  interchanged  Corre- 
:tween  the  statesmen  and  literati  of  this  period,  which  spoR  ence* 
ire  carefully  collected  and  published  in  the  following 
>och;  such  as  the  correspondence  of  Caesar  himself,  of 
icero,  Calvus  and  others.  They  can  still  less  be  numbered 
aong  strictly  literary  performances ;  but  this  literature  of 
irrespondence  was  a  rich  store-house  for  historical  as  for 
1  other  research,  and  the  most  faithful  mirror  of  an  epoch 
which  so  much  of  the  worth  of  past  times  and  so  much 
irit,  cleverness,  and  talent  were  evaporated  and  dissipated 
trifling. 

A  journalist  literature  in  the  modern  sense  was  never 
:med  in  Rome ;  literary  warfare  continued  to  be  confined 

the  writing  of  pamphlets  and,  along  with  this,  to  the 
stom  generally  diffused  at  that  time  of  annotating  the 
tices  destined  Lr  the  public  in  places  of  resort  with  the 
ncil  or  the  pen.  On  the  other  hand  subordinate  persons 
:re  employed  to  note  down  the  events  of  the  day  and 
ws  of  the  city  for  the  absent  men  of  quality ;  and  Caesar 
early  as  his  first  consulship  took  fitting  measures  for  the 
mediate  publication  of  an  extract  from  the  transactions 
the  senate.  From  the  private  journals  of  those  Roman 
nny-a-liners  and  these  official  current  reports  there  arose 
;ort  of  news-sheet  for  the  capital  {acta  diurna),  in  which  News- 

sheet 

1  resume  of  the  business  discussed  before  the  people  and 
the  senate,  and  births,  deaths,  and  such  like  were 
:orded.  This  became  a  not  unimportant  source  for 
itory,  but  remained  without  proper  political  as  without 
srary  significance. 

To  subsidiary  historical  literature  belongs  of  right  also  Speeches 
;  composition  of  orations.  The  speech,  whether  written 
wn  or  not,  is  in  its  nature  ephemeral  and  does  not 
long  to  literature;  but  it  may,  like  the  report  and  the 
ter,  and  indeed  still  more  readily  than  these,  come  to  be 
:luded,  through  the  significance  of  the  moment  and  the 


5Q2  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

power   of  the   mind    from  which    it    springs,  among    the 
permanent  treasures  of  the  national   literature.      Thus  in 
Rome  the  records  of  orations  of  a  political  tenor  delivered 
before  the  burgesses  or  the  jurymen  had  for  long  played  a 
great  part  in  public  life ;  and  not  only  so,  but  the  speeches 
of  Gaius  Gracchus  in  particular  were  justly  reckoned  among 
Decline  of    the  classical  Roman  writings.      But  in  this  epoch  a  singular 
oratory.       change    occurred    on    all    hands.     The    composition    of 
political  speeches  was  on  the  decline  like  political  speaking 
itself.     The  political  speech  in  Rome,  as  generally  in  the 
ancient    polities,    reached    its    culminating    point    in    the 
discussions  before  the  burgesses ;  here  the  orator  was  not 
fettered,  as  in  the  senate,  by  collegiate  considerations  and 
burdensome  forms,  nor,  as  in  the  judicial  addresses,  by  the 
interests — in     themselves     foreign     to     politics — of    the 
accusation   and    defence;    here    alone    his    heart    swelled 
proudly  before  the  whole  great  and  mighty  Roman  people 
hanging  on  his  lips.     But  all  this  was  now  gone.     Not  as 
though  there  was  any  lack  of  orators  or  of  the  publishing 
of  speeches  delivered  before  the  burgesses ;  on  the  contrary 
political  authorship  only  now  waxed  copious,  and  it  began 
to   become  a  standing  complaint  at  table  that  the  host 
incommoded  his  guests  by  reading  before  them  his  latest 
orations.     Publius  Clodius  had  his  speeches  to  the  people 
issued   as  pamphlets,  just  like   Gaius  Gracchus;    but  two 
men    may  do  the  same  thing  without  producing  the  same 
effect.     The  more  important  leaders  even  of  the  opposition, 
especially    Caesar    himself,    did    not    often    address    the 
burgesses,  and    no    longer  published  the  speeches  which 
they  delivered ;  indeed  they  partly  sought  for  their  political 
fugitive  writings  another  form  than  the  traditional  one  of 
contiones,  in    which    respect    more    especially  the  writings 
praising   and   censuring    Cato    (p.    321)    are   remarkable. 
This  is  easily  explained.     Gaius  Gracchus  had  addressed 
the  burgesses ;  now  men  addressed  the  populace ;  and  as 


iap.  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  503 

ie  audience,  so  was  the  speech.     No  wonder  that   the 
putable  political  author  shunned  a  dress  which  implied 
lat  he  had  directed  his  words  to  the  crowd  assembled  in 
ie  market-place  of  the  capital. 
While  the  composition  of  orations  thus  declined  from  Rise  of  a 

ljtp  r*  1  til  t*  f* 

5  former  literary  and  political  value  in  the  same  way  as  0fpiead- 
1  branches  of  literature  which  were  the  natural  growth  of  inSs- 
te  national  life,  there  began  at  the  same  time  a  singular, 
Dn-political,  literature  of  pleadings.     Hitherto  the  Romans 
id  known  nothing  of  the  idea  that    the  address  of  an 
Ivocate  as  such  was  destined  not  only  for  the  judges  and 
ie  parties,  but  also  for  the  literary  edification  of  contem- 
Draries  and  posterity ;  no  advocate  had  written  down  and 
jblished  his  pleadings,  unless  they  were  possibly  at  the 
irae  time  political  orations  and  in  so  far  were  fitted  to  be 
rculated  as  party  writings,  and  this  had  not  occurred  very 
equently.     Even    Quintus    Hortensius    (640-704),    the  114-50. 
lost  celebrated  Roman  advocate  in  the  first  years  of  this 
sriod,  published  but  few  speeches  and  these  apparently 
nly  such   as  were  wholly  or    half   political.     It  was    his  Cicero. 
lccessor    in  the    leadership  of  the  Roman    bar,  Marcus 
ullius  Cicero  (648-711)  who  was  from  the  outset  quite  106-43. 
5    much    author    as    forensic    orator;     he    published    his 
leadings  regularly,  even  when  they  were  not  at  all  or  but 
miotely  connected  with  politics.     This  was  a  token,  not 
f  progress,  but  of  an  unnatural  and  degenerate  state  of 
lings.     Even  in  Athens  the  appearance  of  non-political 
leadings   among  the    forms  of   literature  was  a  sign   of 
ebility ;  and  it  was  doubly  so  in  Rome,  which  did  not  like 
Lthens  by  a  sort  of  necessity  produce  this  malformation 
om  the  exaggerated  pursuit  of  rhetoric,  but  borrowed  it 
om  abroad  arbitrarily  and    in  antagonism  to  the    better 
raditions  of  the  nation.     Yet  this  new  species  of  literature 
ame   rapidly  into  vogue,  partly   because    it   had  various 
oints  of  contact  and  coincidence  with  the  earlier  authorship 


504  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

of  political  orations,  partly  because  the  unpoetic,  dog- 
matical, rhetorizing  temperament  of  the  Romans  offered  a 
favourable  soil  for  the  new  seed,  as  indeed  at  the  present 
day  the  speeches  of  advocates  and  even  a  sort  of  literature 
of  law-proceedings  are  of  some  importance  in  Italy. 
Hi*  Thus   oratorical   authorship   emancipated  from   politics 

cll3.r3.CtGr. 

was  naturalized  in  the  Roman  literary  world  by  Cicero 
We  have  already  had  occasion  several  times  to  mention 
this  many-sided  man.  As  a  statesman  without  insight, 
idea,  or  purpose,  he  figured  successively  as  democrat,  as 
aristocrat,  and  as  a  tool  of  the  monarchs,  and  was  never 
more  than  a  short-sighted  egotist.  Where  he  exhibited 
the  semblance  of  action,  the  questions  to  which  his  action 
applied  had,  as  a  rule,  just  reached  their  solution  ;  thus 
he  came  forward  in  the  trial  of  Verres  against  the  senatorial 
courts  when  they  were  already  set  aside ;  thus  he  was  silent 
at  the  discussion  on  the  Gabinian,  and  acted  as  a  champion 
of  the  Manilian,  law ;  thus  he  thundered  against  Catilina 
when  his  departure  was  already  settled,  and  so  forth.  He 
was  valiant  in  opposition  to  sham  attacks,  and  he  knocked 
down  many  walls  of  pasteboard  with  a  loud  din ;  no  serious 
matter  was  ever,  either  in  good  or  evil,  decided  by  him,  and 
the  execution  of  the  Catilinarians  in  particular  was  far  more 
due  to  his  acquiescence  than  to  his  instigation.  In  a  liter- 
ary point  of  view  we  have  already  noticed  that  he  was  the 
creator  of  the  modern  Latin  prose  (p.  456) ;  his  importance 
rests  on  his  mastery  of  style,  and  it  is  only  as  a  stylist  that 
he  shows  confidence  in  himself.  In  the  character  of  an 
author,  on  the  other  hand,  he  stands  quite  as  low  as  in 
that  of  a  statesman.  He  essayed  the  most  varied  tasks, 
sang  the  great  deeds  of  Marius  and  his  own  petty  achieve- 
ments in  endless  hexameters,  beat  Demosthenes  off  the 
field  with  his  speeches,  and  Plato  with  his  philosophic 
dialogues;  and  time  alone  was  wanting  for  him  to  vanquish 
also-  Thucydides.     He  was  in  fact  so  thoroughly  a  dabbler, 


jap.  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  505 

iat  it  was  pretty  much  a  matter  of  indifference  to  what 
ork  he  applied  his  hand.  By  nature  a  journalist  in  the 
orst  sense  of  that  term — abounding,  as  he  himself  says,  in 
ords,  poor  beyond  all  conception  in  ideas — there  was  no 
epartment  in  which  he  could  not  with  the  help  of  a  few 
ooks  have  rapidly  got  up  by  translation  or  compilation  a 
jadable  essay.  His  correspondence  mirrors  most  faithfully 
is  character.  People  are  in  the  habit  of  calling  it  interest- 
ig  and  clever ;  and  it  is  so,  as  long  as  it  reflects  the  urban 
r  villa  life  of  the  world  of  quality ;  but  where  the  writer  is 
irown  on  his  own  resources,  as  in  exile,  in  Cilicia,  and 
fter  the  battle  of  Pharsalus,  it  is  stale  and  empty  as  was 
ver  the  soul  of  a  feuilletonist  banished  from  his  familiar 
ircles.  It  is  scarcely  needful  to  add  that  such  a  states- 
lan  and  such  a  litterateur  could  not,  as  a  man,  exhibit 
tight  else  than  a  thinly  varnished  superficiality  and  heart- 
sssness.  Must  we  still  describe  the  orator  ?  The  great 
uthor  is  also  a  great  man  ;  and  in  the  great  orator  more 
specially  conviction  or  passion  flows  forth  with  a  clearer 
nd  more  impetuous  stream  from  the  depths  of  the  breast 
lan  in  the  scantily-gifted  many  who  merely  count  and  are 
othing.  Cicero  had  no  conviction  and  no  passion ;  he  was 
othing  but  an  advocate,  and  not  a  good  one.  He  under- 
tood  how  to  set  forth  his  narrative  of  the  case  with 
iquancy  of  anecdote,  to  excite,  if  not  the  feeling,  at  any 
ite  the  sentimentality  of  his  hearers,  and  to  enliven  the 
ry  business  of  legal  pleading  by  cleverness  or  witticisms 
lostly  of  a  personal  sort ;  his  better  orations,  though  they 
re  far  from  coming  up  to  the  free  gracefulness  and  the 
are  point  of  the  most  excellent  compositions  of  this  sort, 
)r  instance  the  Memoirs  of  Beaumarchais,  yet  form  easy  and 
greeable  reading.  But  while  the  very  advantages  just 
idicated  will  appear  to  the  serious  judge  as  advantages  of 
ery  dubious  value,  the  absolute  want  of  political  discern- 
lent  in  the  orations  on  constitutional  questions  and  of 


506  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

juristic  deduction  in  the  forensic  addresses,  the  egotism 
forgetful  of  its  duty  and  constantly  losing  sight  of  the  cause 
while  thinking  of  the  advocate,  the  dreadful  barrenness  of 
thought  in  the  Ciceronian  orations  must  revolt  every  reader 
of  feeling  and  judgment. 
Jcco-  If  there  is  anything  wonderful  in  the  case,  it  is  in  truth 

nianism.  not  ^e  orationSj  Dut  the  admiration  which  they  excited. 
As  to  Cicero  every  unbiassed  person  will  soon  make  up 
his  mind  :  Ciceronianism  is  a  problem,  which  in  fact 
cannot  be  properly  solved,  but  can  only  be  resolved  into 
that  greater  mystery  of  human  nature — language  and  the 
effect  of  language  on  the  mind.  Inasmuch  as  the  noble 
Latin  language,  just  before  it  perished  as  a  national  idiom, 
was  once  more  as  it  were  comprehensively  grasped  by  that 
dexterous  stylist  and  deposited  in  his  copious  writings, 
something  of  the  power  which  language  exercises,  and  of 
the  piety  which  it  awakens,  was  transferred  to  the  unworthy 
vessel.  The  Romans  possessed  no  great  Latin  prose- 
writer  ;  for  Caesar  was,  like  Napoleon,  only  incidentally  an 
author.  Was  it  to  be  wondered  at  that,  in  the  absence  of 
such  an  one,  they  should  at  least  honour  the  genius  of  the 
language  in  the  great  stylist  ?  and  that,  like  Cicero  himself, 
Cicero's  readers  also  should  accustom  themselves  to  ask  not 
what,  but  how  he  had  written  ?  Custom  and  the  school- 
master then  completed  what  the  power  of  language  had 
begun. 
Opposition  Cicero's  contemporaries  however  were,  as  may  readily 
be  conceived,  far  less  involved  in  this  strange  idolatry  than 
many  of  their  successors.  The  Ciceronian  manner  ruled  no 
doubt  throughout  a  generation  the  Roman  advocate-world, 
just  as  the  far  worse  manner  of  Hortensius  had  done  ;  but 
the  most  considerable  men,  such  as  Caesar,  kept  themselves 
always  aloof  from  it,  and  among  the  younger  generation 
there  arose  in  all  men  of  fresh  and  living  talent  the  most 
decided   opposition   to   that    hybrid    and    feeble    rhetoric 


nianism. 


chap,  xil  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  507 

They  found  Cicero's  language  deficient  in  precision  and 
chasteness,  his  jests  deficient  in  liveliness,  his  arrangement 
deficient  in  clearness  and  articulate  division,  and  above  all 
his  whole  eloquence  wanting  in  the  fire  which  makes  the 
orator.  Instead  of  the  Rhodian  eclectics  men  began  to 
recur  to  the  genuine  Attic  orators,  especially  to  Lysias  and  Calvus 
Demosthenes,  and  sought  to  naturalize  a  more  vigorous  and  and  his 

3SSOC13.tCS 

masculine  eloquence   in   Rome.      Representatives  of  this 
tendency  were,  the  solemn  but  stiff  Marcus  Junius  Brutus 
(669-712);    the  two  political  partisans  Marcus  Caelius  85-42. 
Rufus  (672-706;   p.  317)  and    Gaius    Scribonius   Curio  82-48. 
(t  705;  p.  183,  233) — both  as  orators  full  of  spirit  and  49. 
life;  Calvus  well  known  also  as  a  poet  (672  —  706),  the  82-48. 
literary  coryphaeus  of  this  younger  group  of  orators ;  and 
the  earnest  and  conscientious  Gaius  Asinius  Pollio  (678-  76-4  a.d. 
757).    Undeniably  there  was  more  taste  and  more  spirit  in 
this   younger  oratorical   literature  than  in  the  Hortensian 
and  Ciceronian  put  together ;  but  we  are  not  able  to  judge 
how  far,  amidst  the  storms  of  the  revolution  which  rapidly 
swept  away  the  whole  of  this  richly-gifted  group  with  the 
single  exception  of  Pollio,   those    better   germs    attained 
development.    The  time  allotted  to  them  was  but  too  brief. 
The  new  monarchy  began  by  making  war  on  freedom  of 
speech,  and  soon  wholly  suppressed  the  political  oration. 
Thenceforth  the  subordinate  species  of  the  pure  advocate- 
pleading  was  doubtless  still  retained  in  literature ;  but  the 
higher   art    and    literature    of  oratory,    which    thoroughly 
depend  on  political  excitement,  perished  with  the  latter  of 
necessity  and  for  ever. 

Lastly  there  sprang  up  in  the  aesthetic  literature  of  this  The 

period  the  artistic  treatment  of  subjects   of  professional  a^dal 

.    .  dialogue 

science  in  the  form  of  the  stylistic  dialogue,  which  had  been  applied  to 

very  extensively  in  use  among  the  Greeks  and  had  been  ^j^ 

already  employed  also  in  isolated  cases  among  the  Romans  sciences 

(iv.  251).     Cicero  especially  made  various  attempts  at  pre- 


5°8  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  V 

Cicero's       senting  rhetorical  and  philosophical  subjects  in  this  form  and 
ogues-    making  the  professional  manual  a  suitable  book  for  reading. 

65.  His  chief  writings  are  the  De  Oratore  (written  in  699),  to 
which  the  history  of  Roman  eloquence  (the  dialogue  Brutus, 

46.  written  in   708)  and  other  minor  rhetorical  essays  were 
added  by  way  of  supplement ;  and  the  treatise  De  Republicct 

64.  (written  in  700),  with  which  the  treatise  De  Legibus  (written 

52?  in  702  ?)  after  the  model  of  Plato  is  brought  into  connec- 
tion.    They  are  no  great  works  of  art,  but  undoubtedly 
they  are  the  works  in  which  the  excellences  of  the  author 
are  most,  and  his  defects  least,  conspicuous.    The  rhetorical 
writings  are  far  from  coming  up  to  the  didactic  chasteness 
of  form  and  precision  of  thought  of  the  Rhetoric  dedicated 
to  Herennius,  but  they  contain  instead  a  store  of  practical 
forensic    experience    and    forensic    anecdotes  of  all    sorts 
easily   and    tastefully   set    forth,    and    in    fact    solve    the 
problem  of  combining   didactic    instruction    with    amuse- 
ment.    The  treatise  De  Republic^,  carries  out,  in  a  singular 
mongrel  compound  of  history  and  philosophy,  the  leading 
idea  that  the  existing  constitution  of  Rome  is  substantially 
the  ideal  state-organization  sought  for  by  the  philosophers ; 
an  idea  indeed  just  as  unphilosophical  as  unhistorical,  and 
besides  not  even  peculiar  to  the  author,  but  which,  as  may 
readily  be  conceived,  became  and  remained  popular.     The 
scientific  groundwork  of  these  rhetorical  and  political  writings 
of  Cicero  belongs  of  course  entirely  to  the  Greeks,  and  many 
of  the  details  also,  such  as  the  grand  concluding  effect  in 
the  treatise  De  Republic^  the  Dream  of  Scipio,  are  directly 
borrowed  from  them  ;  yet  they  possess  comparative  origin- 
ality, inasmuch  as  the  elaboration  shows  throughout  Roman 
local  colouring,  and  the  proud  consciousness  of  political  life, 
which  the  Roman  was  certainly  entitled  to  feel  as  compared 
with  the  Greeks,  makes  the  author  even  confront  his  Greek 
instructors   with  a  certain  independence.      The   form  of 
Cicero's  dialogue  is  doubtless  neither  the  genuine  inter- 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  509 

rogative  dialectics  of  the  best  Greek  artificial  dialogue  nor 
the  genuine  conversational  tone  of  Diderot  or  Lessing ;  but 
the  great  groups  of  advocates  gathering  around  Crassus  and 
Antonius  and  of  the  older  and  younger  statesmen  of  the 
Scipionic  circle  furnish  a  lively  and  effective  framework, 
fitting  channels  for  the  introduction  of  historical  references 
and  anecdotes,  and  convenient  resting-points  for  the  scien- 
tific discussion.  The  style  is  quite  as  elaborate  and 
polished  as  in  the  best- written  orations,  and  so  far  more 
pleasing  than  these,  since  the  author  does  not  often  in  this 
field  make  a  vain  attempt  at  pathos. 

While  these  rhetorical  and  political  writings  of  Cicero 
with  a  philosophic  colouring  are  not  devoid  of  merit,  the 
compiler  on  the  other  hand  completely  failed,  when  in  the 
involuntary  leisure  of  the  last  years  of  his  life  (709-710)  45-44. 
he  applied  himself  to  philosophy  proper,  and  with  equal 
peevishness  and  precipitation  composed  in  a  couple  of 
months  a  philosophical  library.  The  receipt  was  very 
simple.  In  rude  imitation  of  the  popular  writings  of 
Aristotle,  in  which  the  form  of  dialogue  was  employed 
chiefly  for  the  setting  forth  and  criticising  of  the  different 
older  systems,  Cicero  stitched  together  the  Epicurean, 
Stoic,  and  Syncretist  writings  handling  the  same  problem, 
as  they  came  or  were  given  to  his  hand,  into  a  so-called 
dialogue.  And  all  that  he  did  on  his  own  part  was,  to 
supply  an  introduction  prefixed  to  the  new  book  from  the 
ample  collection  of  prefaces  for  future  works  which  he  had 
beside  him  ;  to  impart  a  certain  popular  character,  inasmuch 
as  he  interwove  Roman  examples  and  references,  and 
sometimes  digressed  to  subjects  irrelevant  but  more  familiar 
to  the  writer  and  the  reader,  such  as  the  treatment  of  the 
deportment  of  the  orator  in  the  De  Officii s ;  and  to  exhibit 
that  sort  of  bungling,  which  a  man  of  letters,  who  has  not 
attained  to  philosophic  thinking  or  even  to  philosophic 
knowledge  and  who  works  rapidly  and  boldly,  shows  in  the 


5i° 


RELIGION,  CULTURE, 


BOOK  V 


Profes- 
sional 
sciences. 
Latin 
philology, 
Varro. 


67. 


reproduction  of  dialectic  trains  of  thought.  In  this  way 
no  doubt  a  multitude  of  thick  tomes  might  very  quickly 
come  into  existence — "They  are  copies,"  wrote  the  author 
himself  to  a  friend  who  wondered  at  his  fertility;  "they 
give  me  little  trouble,  for  I  supply  only  the  words  and 
these  I  have  in  abundance."  Against  this  nothing  further 
could  be  said ;  but  any  one  who  seeks  classical  productions 
in  works  so  written  can  only  be  advised  to  study  in  literary 
matters  a  becoming  silence. 

Of  the  sciences  only  a  single  one  manifested  vigorous 
life,  that  of  Latin  philology.  The  scheme  of  linguistic  and 
antiquarian  research  within  the  domain  of  the  Latin  race, 
planned  by  Silo,  was  carried  out  especially  by  his  disciple 
Varro  on  the  grandest  scale.  There  appeared  compre- 
hensive elaborations  of  the  whole  stores  of  the  language, 
more  especially  the  extensive  grammatical  commentaries  of 
Figulus  and  the  great  work  of  Varro  De  Lingua  Latina ; 
monographs  on  grammar  and  the  history  of  the  language, 
such  as  Varro's  writings  on  the  usage  of  the  Latin  language, 
on  synonyms,  on  the  age  of  the  letters,  on  the  origin  of  the 
Latin  tongue ;  scholia  on  the  older  literature,  especially  on 
Plautus;  works  of  literary  history,  biographies  of  poets, 
investigations  into  the  earlier  drama,  into  the  scenic  division 
of  the  comedies  of  Plautus,  and  into  their  genuineness. 
Latin  archaeology,  which  embraced  the  whole  older  history 
and  the  ritual  law  apart  from  practical  jurisprudence,  was 
comprehended  in  Varro's  "Antiquities  of  Things  Human 
and  Divine,"  which  was  and  for  all  times  remained  the 
fundamental  treatise  on  the  subject  (published  between 
45.  687  and  709).  The  first  portion,  "Of  Things  Human," 
described  the  primeval  age  of  Rome,  the  divisions  of  city 
and  country,  the  sciences  of  the  years,  months,  and  days, 
lastly,  the  public  transactions  at  home  and  in  war ;  in  the 
second  half,  "Of  Things  Divine,"  the  state -theology,  the 
nature  and  significance  of  the  colleges  of  experts,  of  the 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  511 

holy  places,  of  the  religious  festivals,  of  sacrificial  and 
votive  gifts,  and  lastly  of  the  gods  themselves  were 
summarily  unfolded.  Moreover,  besides  a  number  of 
monographs  —  e.g.  on  the  descent  of  the  Roman  people, 
on  the  Roman  gentes  descended  from  Troy,  on  the  tribes — ■ 
there  was  added,  as  a  larger  and  more  independent 
supplement,  the  treatise  "  Of  the  Life  of  the  Roman  People  " 
— a  remarkable  attempt  at  a  history  of  Roman  manners, 
which  sketched  a  picture  of  the  state  of  domestic  life, 
finance,  and  culture  in  the  regal,  the  early  republican,  the 
Hannibalic,  and  the  most  recent  period.  These  labours 
of  Varro  were  based  on  an  empiric  knowledge  of  the 
Roman  world  and  its  adjacent  Hellenic  domain  more 
various  and  greater  in  its  kind  than  any  other  Roman 
either  before  or  after  him  possessed — a  knowledge  to 
which  living  observation  and  the  study  of  literature  alike 
contributed.  The  eulogy  of  his  contemporaries  was  well 
deserved,  that  Varro  had  enabled  his  countrymen — strangers 
in  their  own  world — to  know  their  position  in  their  native 
land,  and  had  taught  the  Romans  who  and  where  they 
were.  But  criticism  and  system  will  be  sought  for  in  vain. 
His  Greek  information  seems  to  have  come  from  somewhat 
confused  sources,  and  there  are  traces  that  even  in  the 
Roman  field  the  writer  was  not  free  from  the  influence 
of  the  historical  romance  of  his  time.  The  matter  is 
doubtless  inserted  in  a  convenient  and  symmetrical  frame- 
work, but  not  classified  or  treated  methodically ;  and  with 
all  his  efforts  to  bring  tradition  and  personal  observation 
into  harmony,  the  scientific  labours  of  Varro  are  not  to  be 
acquitted  of  a  certain  implicit  faith  in  tradition  or  of  an 
unpractical    scholasticism.1     The    connection   with    Greek 


1  A  remarkable  example  is  the  general  exposition  regarding  cattle  in 
the  treatise  on  Husbandry  (ii.  1)  with  the  nine  time3  nine  subdivisions  of 
the  doctrine  of  cattle-rearing,  with  the  "  incredible  but  true  "  fact  that  the 
mares  at  Olisipo  (Lisbon)  become  pregnant  by  the  wind,  and  generally 


512 


RELIGION,  CULTURE, 


BOOK  V 


68.    50. 


The  other 
profes- 
sional 
sciences. 


philology  consists  in  the  imitation  of  its  defects  more  than 
of  its  excellences ;  for  instance,  the  basing  of  etymologies 
on  mere  similarity  of  sound  both  in  Varro  himself  and  in 
the  other  philologues  of  this  epoch  runs  into  pure  guess- 
work and  often  into  downright  absurdity.1  In  its  empiric 
confidence  and  copiousness  as  well  as  in  its  empiric  in- 
adequacy and  want  of  method  the  Varronian  vividly  re- 
minds us  of  the  English  national  philology,  and  just  like 
the  latter,  finds  its  centre  in  the  study  of  the  older  drama. 
We  have  already  observed  that  the  monarchical  literature 
developed  the  rules  of  language  in  contradistinction  to  this 
linguistic  empiricism  (p.  457).  It  is  in  a  high  degree  signi- 
ficant that  there  stands  at  the  head  of  the  modern  gram- 
marians no  less  a  man  than  Caesar  himself,  who  in  his 
treatise  on  Analogy  (given  forth  between  696  and  704) 
first  undertook  to  bring  free  language  under  the  power  of 
law. 

Alongside  of  this  extraordinary  stir  in  the  field  of  philo- 
logy the  small  amount  of  activity  in  the  other  sciences  is 
surprising.  What  appeared  of  importance  in  philosophy — 
such  as  Lucretius'  representation  of  the  Epicurean  system 
in  the  poetical  child- dress  of  the  pre-Socratic  philosophy, 
and  the  better  writings  of  Cicero — produced  its  effect  and 
found  its  audience  not  through  its  philosophic  contents, 
but  in  spite  of  such  contents  solely  through  its  aesthetic 
form ;  the  numerous  translations  of  Epicurean  writings 
and  the  Pythagorean  works,  such  as  Varro's  great  treatise 

with  its  singular  mixture  of  philosophical,   historical,  and   agricultural 

notices. 

1  Thus  Varro  derives  facere  from  fades,  because  he  who  makes  any- 
thing gives  to  it  an  appearance,  volpes,  the  fox,  after  Stilo  from  volare 
fedibus  as  the  flying  -  footed ;  Gaius  Trebatius,  a  philosophical  jurist  of 
this  age,  derives  sacellum  from  sacra  cella,  Figulus  frafer  from  fere  alter 
and  so  forth.  This  practice,  which  appears  not  merely  in  isolated  instances 
but  as  a  main  element  of  the  philological  literature  of  this  age,  presents  a 
▼ery  great  resemblance  to  the  mode  in  which  till  recently  comparative 
philology  was  prosecuted,  before  insight  into  the  organism  of  language 
put  a  stop  to  the  occupation  of  the  empirics. 


CHAP.  XII  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  513 

on  the  Elements  of  Numbers  and  the  still  more  copious 
one  of  Figulus  concerning  the  Gods,  had  beyond  doubt 
neither  scientific  nor  formal  value. 

Even  the  professional  sciences  were  but  feebly  cultivated. 
Varro's  Books  on  Husbandry  written  in  the  form  of  dialogue 
are  no  doubt  more  methodical  than  those  of  his  predecessors 
Cato  and  Saserna — on  which  accordingly  he  drops  many  a 
side  glance  of  censure — but  have  on  the  whole  proceeded 
more  from  the  study  than,  like  those  earlier  works,  from 
living  experience.  Of  the  juristic  labours  of  Varro  and  of 
Servius  Sulpicius  Rufus  (consul  in  703)  hardly  aught  more  51 
can  be  said,  than  that  they  contributed  to  the  dialectic 
and  philosophical  embellishment  of  Roman  jurisprudence. 
And  there  is  nothing  farther  here  to  be  mentioned,  except 
perhaps  the  three  books  of  Gaius  Matius  on  cooking, 
pickling,  and  making  preserves — so  far  as  we  know,  the 
earliest  Roman  cookery-book,  and,  as  the  work  of  a  man  of 
rank,  certainly  a  phenomenon  deserving  of  notice.  That 
mathematics  and  physics  were  stimulated  by  the  increased 
Hellenistic  and  utilitarian  tendencies  of  the  monarchy,  is 
apparent  from  their  growing  importance  in  the  instruction 
of  youth  (p.  449)  and  from  various  practical  applications ; 
under  which,  besides  the  reform  of  the  calendar  (p.  438), 
may  perhaps  be  included  the  appearance  of  wall-maps  at 
this  period,  the  technical  improvements  in  shipbuilding  and 
in  musical  instruments,  designs  and  buildings  like  the  aviary 
specified  by  Varro,  the  bridge  of  piles  over  the  Rhine 
executed  by  the  engineers  of  Caesar,  and  even  two  semi- 
circular stages  of  boards  arranged  for  being  pushed 
together,  and  employed  first  separately  as  two  theatres  and 
then  jointly  as  an  amphitheatre.  The  public  exhibition  of 
foreign  natural  curiosities  at  the  popular  festivals  was  not 
unusual ;  and  the  descriptions  of  remarkable  animals,  which 
Caesar  has  embodied  in  the  reports  of  his  campaigns,  show 
that,  had  an  Aristotle  appeared,  he  would  have  again  found 

VOL.  V  166 


5i4  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

his  patron-prince.  But  such  literary  performances  as  are 
mentioned  in  this  department  are  essentially  associated  with 
Neopythagoreanism,  such  as  the  comparison  of  Greek  and 
Barbarian,  i.e.  Egyptian,  celestial  observations  by  Figulus, 
and  his  writings  concerning  animals,  winds,  and  generative 
organs.  After  Greek  physical  research  generally  had 
swerved  from  the  Aristotelian  effort  to  find  amidst  individual 
facts  the  law,  and  had  more  and  more  passed  into  an 
empiric  and  mostly  uncritical  observation  of  the  external 
and  surprising  in  nature,  natural  science  when  coming 
forward  as  a  mystical  philosophy  of  nature,  instead  of  en- 
lightening and  stimulating,  could  only  still  more  stupefy  and 
paralyze ;  and  in  presence  of  such  a  method  it  was  better 
to  rest  satisfied  with  the  platitude  which  Cicero  delivers  as 
Socratic  wisdom,  that  the  investigation  of  nature  either 
seeks  after  things  which  nobody  can  know,  or  after  such 
things  as  nobody  needs  to  know. 
Art  If,  in  fine,  we  cast  a  glance  at  art,  we  discover  here  the 

same  unpleasing  phenomena  which  pervade  the  whole 
Architect-  mental  life  of  this  period.  Building  on  the  part  of  the 
ure*  state  was  virtually  brought  to  a  total   stand  amidst  the 

scarcity  of  money  that  marked  the  last  age  of  the  republic. 
We  have  already  spoken  of  the  luxury  in  building  of  the 
Roman  grandees  ;  the  architects  learned  in  consequence  of 
this  to  be  lavish  of  marble — the  coloured  sorts  such  as  the 
yellow  Numidian  (Giallo  antico)  and  others  came  into 
vogue  at  this  time,  and  the  marble -quarries  of  Luna 
(Carrara)  were  now  employed  for  the  first  time  —  and 
began  to  inlay  the  floors  of  the  rooms  with  mosaic  work,  to 
panel  the  walls  with  slabs  of  marble,  or  to  paint  the  com- 
partments in  imitation  of  marble — the  first  steps  towards 
the  subsequent  fresco-painting.  But  art  was  not  a  gainer 
by  this  lavish  magnificence. 
Arts  of  In  the  arts  of  design   connoisseurship  and  collecting 

design.        were  aiwavs  on  the  increase.     It  was  a  mere  affectation  of 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  515 

Catonian  simplicity,  when  an  advocate  spoke  before  the 
jurymen  of  the  works  of  art  "  of  a  certain  Praxiteles "  ; 
every  one  travelled  and  inspected,  and  the  trade  of  the  art- 
ciceroni,  or,  as  they  were  then  called,  the  exegetae,  was 
none  of  the  worst.  Ancient  works  of  art  were  formally 
hunted  after — statues  and  pictures  less,  it  is  true,  than, 
in  accordance  with  the  rude  character  of  Roman  luxury, 
artistically  wrought  furniture  and  ornaments  of  all  sorts  for 
the  room  and  the  table.  As  early  as  that  age  the  old 
Greek  tombs  of  Capua  and  Corinth  were  ransacked  for  the 
sake  of  the  bronze  and  earthenware  vessels  which  had  been 
placed  in  the  tomb  along  with  the  dead.  For  a  small 
statuette  of  bronze  40,000  sesterces  (^400)  were  paid,  and 
200,000  (^2000)  for  a  pair  of  costly  carpets;  a  well- 
wrought  bronze  cooking  machine  came  to  cost  more  than  an 
estate.  In  this  barbaric  hunting  after  art  the  rich  amateur 
was,  as  might  be  expected,  frequently  cheated  by  those 
who  supplied  him ;  but  the  economic  ruin  of  Asia  Minor 
in  particular  so  exceedingly  rich  in  artistic  products  brought 
many  really  ancient  and  rare  ornaments  and  works  of  art 
into  the  market,  and  from  Athens,  Syracuse,  Cyzicus, 
Pergamus,  Chios,  Samos,  and  other  ancient  seats  of  art, 
everything  that  was  for  sale  and  very  much  that  was  not 
migrated  to  the  palaces  and  villas  of  the  Roman  grandees. 
We  have  already  mentioned  what  treasures  of  art  were  to 
be  found  within  the  house  of  Lucullus,  who  indeed  was 
accused,  perhaps  not  unjustly,  of  having  gratified  his 
interest  in  the  fine  arts  at  the  expense  of  his  duties  as  a 
general.  The  amateurs  of  art  crowded  thither  as  they 
crowd  at  present  to  the  Villa  Borghese,  and  complained 
even  then  of  such  treasures  being  confined  to  the  palaces 
and  country-houses  of  the  men  of  quality,  where  they  could 
be  seen  only  with  difficulty  and  after  special  permission 
from  the  possessor.  The  public  buildings  on  the  other 
hand  were  far  from  filled  in  like  proportion  with  famous 


516  RELIGION,  CULTURE,  book  v 

works  of  Greek  masters,  and  in  many  cases  there  still  stood 
in  the  temples  of  the  capital  nothing  but  the  old  images  of 
the  gods  carved  in  wood.  As  to  the  exercise  of  art  there 
is  virtually  nothing  to  report ;  there  is  hardly  mentioned  by 
name  from  this  period  any  Roman  sculptor  or  painter 
except  a  certain  Arellius,  whose  pictures  rapidly  went  off 
not  on  account  of  their  artistic  value,  but  because  the 
cunning  reprobate  furnished  in  his  pictures  of  the  goddesses 
faithful  portraits  of  his  mistresses  for  the  time  being. 
Dancing  The  importance  of  music  and  dancing  increased  in  public 

as  in  domestic  life.  We  have  already  set  forth  how  theatri- 
cal music  and  the  dancing-piece  attained  to  an  independent 
standing  in  the  development  of  the  stage  at  this  period 
(p.  472);  we  may  add  that  now  in  Rome  itself  representa- 
tions were  very  frequently  given  by  Greek  musicians,  dancers, 
and  declaimers  on  the  public  stage — such  as  were  usual  in 
Asia  Minor  and  generally  in  the  whole  Hellenic  and  Hel- 
lenizing  world.1     To  these  fell  to  be  added  the  musicians 

1  Such  ' '  Greek  entertainments  "  were  very  frequent  not  merely  in  the 
Greek  cities  of  Italy,  especially  in  Naples  (Cic.  pro  Arch.  5,  10  ;  Plut. 
Brut.  21),  but  even  now  also  in  Rome  (iv.  192  ;  Cic.  Ad  Fam.  vii.  1,  3  ; 
Ad  Att.  xvi.  5,  1 ;  Sueton.  Caes.  39  ;  Plut.  Brut.  21).  When  the  well- 
known  epitaph  of  Licinia  Eucharis  fourteen  years  of  age,  which  probably 
belongs  to  the  end  of  this  period,  makes  this  "girl  well  instructed  and 
taught  in  all  arts  by  the  Muses  themselves"  shine  as  a  dancer  in  the 
private  exhibitions  of  noble  houses  and  appear  first  in  public  on  the  Greek 
stage  (modo  nobilium  ludos  decoravi  choro,  et  Graeca  in  scaena  prima 
populo  apparui),  this  doubtless  can  only  mean  that  she  was  the  first  girl 
that  appeared  on  the  public  Greek  stage  in  Rome  ;  as  generally  indeed  it 
was  not  till  this  epoch  that  women  began  to  come  forward  publicly  in 
Rome  (p.  469). 

These  "Greek  entertainments"  in  Rome  seem  not  to  have  been 
properly  scenic,  but  rather  to  have  belonged  to  the  category  of  composite 
exhibitions — primarily  musical  and  declamatory — such  as  were  not  of  rare 
occurrence  in  subsequent  times  also  in  Greece  (Welcker,  Griech.  Traa., 
p.  1277).  This  view  is  supported  by  the  prominence  of  flute-playing  in 
Polybius  (xxx.  13)  and  of  dancing  in  the  account  of  Suetonius  regarding 
the  armed  dances  from  Asia  Minor  performed  at  Caesar's  games  and  in 
the  epitaph  of  Eucharis  ;  the  description  also  of  the  citharoedus  {Ad  Her. 
iv.  47,  60  ;  comp.  Vitruv.  v.  5,  7)  must  have  been  derived  from  such 
"Greek  entertainments."  The  combinations  of  these  representations  in 
Rome  with  Greek  athletic  combats  is  significant  (Polyb.  /.  c.  ;  Liv.  xxxix. 
22).     Dramatic  recitations  were  by  no  means  excluded  from  these  mixed 


chap,  xii  LITERATURE,  AND  ART  517 

and  dancing-girls  who  exhibited  their  arts  to  order  at  table 
and  elsewhere,  and  the  special  choirs  of  stringed  and  wind 
instruments  and  singers  which  were  no  longer  rare  in  noble 
houses.  But  that  even  the  world  of  quality  itself  played 
and  sang  with  diligence,  is  shown  by  the  very  adoption  of 
music  into  the  cycle  of  the  generally  recognized  subjects  of 
instruction  (p.  449) ;  as  to  dancing,  it  was,  to  say  nothing 
of  women,  made  matter  of  reproach  even  against  consulars 
that  they  exhibited  themselves  in  dancing  performances 
amidst  a  small  circle. 

Towards  the  end  of  this  period,  however,  there  appears  Incipient 
with  the  commencement  of  the  monarchy  the  beginning  of  ™j!  ^ce 
a  better  time  also  in  art.     We  have  already  mentioned  the  monarchy. 
mighty  stimulus  which  building  in  the  capital  received,  and 
building  throughout  the  empire  was   destined  to  receive, 
through  Caesar.     Even  in  the  cutting  of  the  dies  of  the 
coins  there  appears  about  700  a  remarkable  change;  the  64. 
stamping,  hitherto  for  the  most  part  rude  and  negligent,  is 
thenceforward  managed  with  more  delicacy  and  care. 

We  have  reached  the  end  of  the  Roman  republic.  We  Conclusion, 
have  seen  it  rule  for  five  hundred  years  in  Italy  and  in  the 
countries  on  the  Mediterranean ;  we  have  seen  it  brought 
to  ruin  in  politics  and  morals,  religion  and  literature,  not 
through  outward  violence  but  through  inward  decay,  and 
thereby  making  room  for  the  new  monarchy  of  Caesar. 
There  was  in  the  world,  as  Caesar  found  it,  much  of  the 

entertainments,  since  among  the  players  whom  Lucius  Anicius  caused  to 
appear  in  587  in  Rome,  tragedians  are  expressly  mentioned  ;  there  was  167. 
however  no  exhibition  of  plays  in  the  strict  sense,  but  either  whole  dramas, 
or  perhaps  still  more  frequently  pieces  taken  from  them,  were  declaimed 
or  sung  to  the  flute  by  single  artists.  This  must  accordingly  have  been 
done  also  in  Rome  ;  but  to  all  appearance  for  the  Roman  public  the  main 
matter  in  these  Greek  games  was  the  music  and  dancing,  and  the  text 
probably  had  little  more  significance  for  them  than  the  texts  of  the  Italian 
opera  for  the  Londoners  and  Parisians  of  the  present  day.  Those  composite 
entertainments  with  their  confused  medley  were  far  better  suited  for  the 
Ionian  public,  and  especially  for  exhibitions  in  private  houses,  than 
proper  scenic  performances  in  the  Greek  language  ;  the  view  that  the  latter 
also  took  place  in  Rome  cannot  be  refuted,  but  can  as  little  be  proved. 


518        RELIGION,  CULTURE,  LITERATURE,  ART     book  v 

noble  heritage  of  past  centuries  and  an  infinite  abundance 
of  pomp  and  glory,  but  little  spirit,  still  less  taste,  and  least 
of  all  true  delight  in  life.  It  was  indeed  an  old  world  j  and 
even  the  richly-gifted  patriotism  of  Caesar  could  not  make 
it  young  again.  The  dawn  does  not  return  till  after 
the  night  has  fully  set  in  and  run  its  course.  But  yet 
with  him  there  came  to  the  sorely  harassed  peoples  on  the 
Mediterranean  a  tolerable  evening  after  the  sultry  noon ; 
and  when  at  length  after  a  long  historical  night  the  new  day 
dawned  once  more  for  the  peoples,  and  fresh  nations  in  free 
self-movement  commenced  their  race  towards  new  and 
higher  goals,  there  were  found  among  them  not  a  few,  in 
which  the  seed  sown  by  Caesar  had  sprung  up,  and  which 
owed,  as  they  still  owe,  to  him  their  national  individuality. 


INDEX 


lln  thi«  Index  the  names  of  persons  are  given  under  the  gentile  nomen,  and  an 
arranged  in  the  alphabetic  order  of  the  praenomina,  and,  under  this,  in  the  chromv 
logical  order  of  holding  the  consulate  or  other  official  position.  Thus  Cicero  will  ba 
found  under  M.  Tullius  Cicero,  and  Caesar  under  C.  Julius  Caesar.  The  letter  f. 
as  in  102 yC,  denotes  that  the  subject  is  continued  in  the  following  page  ;  the  letter  *, 
as  in  10a  ».,  refers  to  the  note  either  by  itself,  or  in  addition  to  matter  in  the  texuj 


Abbreviations,  Roman,  i.  379 
Abdera,  ii.  503 ;  iv.  44 

Abella  burnt,  iv.  63 

Abgarus,  Arab  prince,  iv.  422.  Allied 
with  the  Parthians  against  Crassus,  v. 

153.  154.  155 

Aborigines,  ii.  106 ;  iii.  187 

Abrupolis,  ii.  493,  496 

Abruzzi,  i.  5,  6,  147,  434 ;  iii.  501.  5°8 

Abydus,  ii.  406,  417,  413,  447,  461 

Academy,  the  Newer,  iv.  197-200 

Acarnania  and  the  Acarnanians,  ii.  216, 
217,  3i8.  397.  4°3.  4i8,  421,  429,  432,  43s, 
438,  457.  476.  501,  517 

Acca  Larentia,  i.  209 

L.  Accius,  tragic  poet,  iv.  222,  223./C,  252 

Acco,  Carnutic  knight,  beheaded,  v.  74 

Accusers,  professional,  iv.  104 

Acerrae,  ii.  304.  Victory  over  the 
Italians,  iii.  510,  515;  iv.  66 

Achaeans,  ii.  215,  217,  318,  405,  431,  423, 
427,  430,  43s,  437,  439,  456,  476-480,  497, 
498/.,  517/;  »>•  234/,  261;  iv.  35. 
Waragainst  them,  iii.  264-270.  Achaean 
league  dissolved,  iii.  271.  Province  of 
Achaia,  iii.  270-272.  Taxation  of,  iv. 
158 

Achaeans  on  the  Caucasus,  iv.  416 

Achaean  colonies  in  Italy  and  Sicily,  i. 
165./C  Their  distinctive  character,  170^ 
League  of  the  cities,  i.  170-173  ;  recon- 
structed against  the  Lucanians,  i.  454. 
Agricultural  towns,  i.  173.  Coins,  i.  171. 
Alphabet,  i.  173.A     Decay,  i.  172 

Achaeus,  Syrian  satrap,  ii.  444 

Achaeus,  general  of  the  slaves  in  first 
Sicilian  war,  iii.  310 


Achaia,  province  of,  iii.  370-273 

Achillas,  general  of  Ptolemaeus  Dionysua, 
v.  271,  276 

Achilles,  ancestor  of  Pyrrhus,  ii.  3 

Achradina,  ii.  311./C 

Achulla,  iii.  244.  Exempt  from  taxea, 
iii.  259 

C.  Acilius,  chronicler,  iv.  248 

M'.  Acilius  Glabrio  [consul,  563],  ii.  457. 
Attempts  to  rectify  the  calendar,  iii.  194 

M'.  Acilius  Glabrio  [consul,  687],  iv.  349/! 
388,  395/ 

Acrae,  Syracusan,  ii.  304 

Acta  diurna,  iv.  379  n. 

Actus,  i.  265 

Adcensivelati,  i.  117 

Adherbal,  iii.  389-393 

Adiabene,  iv.  315,  343 

Adoption,  i.  73 

Adramytium,  ii.  462 ;  iii.  260^ ;  hr.  46 

Adriatic  Sea,  origin  of  the  name,  i.  4x8 

Adrogatio,  i.  95 

Adsidui,  i.  115 

Adsignatio  viritana,  L  340  n. 

Aduatuca,  v.  73 

Aduatuci,  origin  of,  iii.  445 ;  v.  33.  Con- 
flicts with  them,  v.  52,  54 

Aeacides,  father  of  Pyrrhus,  ii.  6 

Aeacus,  ancestor  of  Pyrrhus,  ii.  3 

Aeca,  ii.  280 

Aeclanum,  town  of  the  Hirpini,  iii.  50a, 

523 

Aedicula,  L  335 

Aediles  Ceriales,  v.  346,  374 

Aediles  curules,  their  institution,  !.  383. 
Original  functions :  market-supervision 
and  police,  and  celebration  of  the  city 


520 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


festival,  i.  383 ;  ii.  97  ;  iii.  41.  Plebeians 
eligible,  i.  383.  Police  duties  in  Rome, 
ii.  84.  Jurisdiction,  ii.  66 ;  iv.  128.  In- 
cluded among  curule  magistracies,  iii. 

6.7 

Aediles  plelis,  founded  on  model  of  the 
quaestors,  i.  354  n.  Original  functions : 
charge  of  the  archives,  i.  349,  354  ». ; 
support  of  the  tribunes  in  their  judicial 
functions,  i.  351 ;  decrees  of  the  senate 
deposited  in  their  charge,  i.  369.  Juris- 
diction, iv.  127 

Aediles  in  the  Municipia,  founded  on  the 
model  of  the  curule  aedileship  in  Rome, 
1.  451 

Aegates  Insulae,  Phoenician,  ii.  143. 
Battle  at  the,  ii.  195 

Aegina,  i.  308 ;  ii.  319,  402,  417,  423,  437, 
478.     Beetle-stone  found  there,  i.  307 

Aegium,  iii.  267 

Sex.  Aelius  Paetus  [consul,  556],  his  legal 
treatise  ("Tripartita"),  iii.  195 

L.  Aelius  Praeconinus  Stilo,  of  Lanuviurr., 
teacher  of  Roman  literature,  iv.  216,  252 

Aemilii,  clan-village,  i.  45.  Their  descent, 
ii.  107 

Aemilius  Lepidus,  a  Sullan,  iv.  90 

Aemilius  Macer,  poet,  v.  480 

L.  Aemilius  Papus  [consul,  529],  ii.  224/; 

L.  Aemilius  Paullus  [consul,  538],  ii.  220, 
286-290 

L.  Aemilius  Paullus  [consul,  572,  586],  ii. 
390  «.  Opposed  to  Perseus,  ii.  505  f. 
His  incorruptibility,  iii.  31.  His  de- 
meanour to  the  provincials,  iii.  33. 
Carries  Greek  art-treasures  to  Rome,  iii. 
208.  His  austerity,  iii.  18,  42.  His 
estate,  iii.  89.  Augur,  iii.  112.  His 
Hellenic  culture,  iii.  209 ;  iv.  212 

L.  Aemilius  Regillus  [praetor,  564],  ii.  462 

Mamercus  Aemilius,  Roman  commander 
in  the  Social  war,  iii.  526 

Mamercus  Aemilius  Lepidus  Livianus 
[consul,  677],  iv.  269 

M.  Aemilius  Lepidus  [consul,  567,  579], 
ii.  416,  418 

M.  Aemilius  Lepidus  Forcina  [consul, 
617],  defeated  by  the  Vaccaei,  iii.  229. 
Orator,  iv.  215 

M.  Aemilius  Lepidus  [consul,  676],  his 
party-position,  iv.  280./C  Preparations 
for  civil  war,  iv.  287-290.  Insurrection, 
iv.  2gof.     Defeat  and  death,  iv.  291 

M.  Aemilius  Lepidus,  Caesar's  city- 
prefect,  v.  218 

M.  Aemilius  Scaurus  [consul,  639  ;  censor, 
645],  leader  of  the  aristocracy,  iii.  376, 
393/.   47S.  484.   503-     His  character, 


iii,  379.  Sent  as  envoy  to  Jugurtha,  iii. 
392.  Commander  in  Jugurthine  war, 
iii.  393  f.  Against  the  Taurisci,  iii. 
428.  Tried  for  extortion,  iii.  482.  At- 
titude to  the  proposals  of  Drusus,  iii. 
483.  His  roads,  bridges,  and  drainage, 
iv.  167,  170 

M.  Aemilius  Scaurus,  adjutant  of  Pom- 
peius,  iv.  429/,  432 

Q.  Aemilius  Papus  [consul,  476],  ii.  30 

Aenaria,  i.  175,  178 ;  iii.  541.  Syracusan, 
i.  416.  Withdrawn  by  Sulla  from 
Neapolis,  iv.  107 

Aeneas  in  Homer,  ii.  108.  Legend  of 
Aeneas  in  Italy,  ii.  108-111.  Invented 
by  Stesichorus,  ii.  108.  First  occurs 
in  the  current  form  with  Timaeus,  ii. 
no.  In  the  Roman  chroniclers,  iv. 
249 

Aenus,  ii.  417,  465,  486,  51a 

Aeolus,  i.  117 

Aepulo,  ii.  372 

Aequi,  settlements  of,  L  444  n.  Their 
conflicts  with  Rome,  i.  135.  Subdued 
by  the  Romans,  i.  444  /.  The  league 
dissolved,  i.  484 

Aequiculi,  i.  47  ;  444  n. 

Aerarii,  settlers  paying  tribute  for  pro- 
tection, i.  121 

Aerarium,  i.  137.     After  the  abolition  of 
the  monarchy  legally  under  the  contro' 
of  the  quaestors  nominated  by,  and  re 
presenting,  the  consuls,  i.  323,  338 

Aeropus,  ii.  428 

Aeschylus,  iii.  167 

Aesculanus,  god  of  copper,  it.  70 

Aesculapius,  early  worshipped  in  Rome, 
i.  230  f.  Brought  thither  from  Epi- 
daurus,  ii.  71.  Temple  of,  in  Carthage, 
iii.  248,  257  ;  at  Epidautus,  iv.  40 ;  at 
Pergamus,  iv.  53 

Aesepus,  river,  iv.  328 

Aesernia,  colonized,  ii.  39.  lusof,  ii.  52  ». 
Remained  faithful  to  the  Romans  in  the 
Social  war,  iii.  502-509.  Conquered,  iii. 
510 ;  and  held  by  the  Samnites,  iii. 
524.  Conquered  by  Sulla  (?),  iv.  91  ». ; 
and  laid  desolate,  iv.  108 

Aesis,  iv.  85.  Boundary  of  Italy,  ii.  aao; 
iv.  122  ». 

Aesopus,  actor,  v.  384 

Aestimatio,  derived  from  aes,  i.  259 

Aes  uxorium,  ii.  66 

Aethalia,  occupied  by  the  Hellenes,  J.  178, 
416.  Wrested  from  them  by  the  Etrus- 
cans, i.  181.     Iron  of,  i.  182 

Aetna,  ii.  162 

Aetolians,  i.   169  n.  ;   ii.   215,   217,   397. 


INDEX 


5« 


Attitude  to  Rome  in  second  Punic  war, 
ii.  215-219.  Position  thereafter,  ii.  404. 
Share  in  the  war  with  Philip,  ii.  409, 
410,  420,  421,  426-430,  433,  435.  Treat- 
ment by  the  Romans,  ii.  437./C  Quar- 
rel with  Rome,  and  share  in  the  war 
with  Antiochus,  ii.  451,  452,  456,  457, 
764,  765.  Attitude  during  the  war 
with  Perseus,  ii.  495-498,  501  f.,  517. 
Aetolia,  a  recruiting-ground,  ii.  162 

L.  Afranius,  poet,  iv.  230. 

L.  Afranius,  lieutenant  of  Pompeius  in  the 
Sertorian  war,  iv.  296.  Subdues  the 
Arabs,  iv.  429.  Triumph,  as  governor 
of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  v.  103.  In  Spain, 
v.  219.  Slain  by  Caesar's  soldiers,  v. 
300 

T.  Afranius.     See  Lafrenius. 

A/ri,  j.  185  ft. 

Africa,  before  the  time  of  the  Gracchi, 
Hi.  237-260.  Made  a  province,  iii.  258./C 
Relations  after  the  battle  of  Pharsalus, 
v.  269.  In  the  hands  of  the  Pompeians, 
▼.  285-290.  Its  regulation  by  Caesar, 
v.  301 

Agatha,  iii.  415 

Agathocles,  of  Syracuse,  i.  418,  478,  491 ; 
ii.  18,  28,  145,  161.  Takes  the  Mamer- 
tines  into  his  pay,  ii.  18.  His  armies  of 
mercenaries,  ii.  163 

Agedincum,  v.  79,  86,  87 

Agelaus,  of  Naupactus,  ii.  315 

Agepolis,  Rhodian  envoy,  ii.  514 

Ager  Gallicus,  i.  434 ;  iii.  99 

Agtr  publicus.     See  Domains 

Agesipolis,  ii.  438 

Agis,  commander  in  Tarentum  before 
arrival  of  Pyrrhus,  ii.  16 

Agnati  and  Gentiles,  distinction  between, 
i.  78 

Agnone,  i.  146 

Agonalia,  L  207 

Agonia,  i.  209 

Agrarian  Laws.  See  Domains,  Leges 
Agrariae 

Agriculture,  its  original  home,  i.  81. 
More  recent  than  the  Indo-Germanic 
culture,  i.  19,  20.  Known  to  the  Graeco- 
Italians,  i.  23-27.  Basis  of  the  whole 
Italian  economy,  i.  61,  236.  Priestly 
supervision,  i.  226.  Kinds  of  produce, 
iii.  64  «.,  (Af.  (compare  Spelt ;  Wheat). 
Defective  management,  but  unwearied 
diligence,  i.  243.  Employment  of  slaves 
(see  Slaves).  Free  labourers,  iii.  70. 
Later  estate-farming,  iii.  65-82.  Hus- 
bandry of  the  petty  farmers,  iii.  74.  In- 
solvency of  the  landholders  and  diminu- 


tion of  the  farmer-class,  i.  245,  343-346. 
Improvement  in  the  relations  of  credit, 
i-  389-393.  Recurrence  of  the  old  evils, 
iii.  79,  82,  97-100.  Condition  of,  before 
and  at  the  time  of  the  Gracchi,  iii.  304./, 
312/;  ;  iv.  171./  Revival  by  the  Grac- 
chi, iii.  335./C  ;  iv.  172.  Condition  after 
the  Gracchan  revolution,  iii.  380  f. 
Colonizations  of  Sulla,  iv.  172.  In  the 
time  of  Caesar,  v.  377/,  382/.,  403. 
Differences  in  different  parts  of  Italy, 
iii.  490  f.,  501.  Differences  in  the 
provinces,  iii.  304-308  ;  iv.  172.  Esti- 
mated produce,  iii.  8r  n.  Carthaginian 
estate  -  farming,  ii.  138.  Writings  on 
agriculture,  iii.  194.  Compare  Soil, 
division  of;  Grain. 

Agrigentum  founded,  ii.  28,  145,  156.  Oc- 
cupied by  the  Carthaginians  in  second 
Punic  war,  ii.  311.  Colonized  afresh  by 
the  Romans,  ii.  314.  Occupied  by  Cleon, 
iii.  310.  Conquered  by  the  Carthagin- 
ians, i.  166,  183.  Besieged  and  occu- 
pied by  the  Romans  in  the  first  Punic 
war,  ii.  171./C 

Agrius,  son  of  Ulysses  and  Circe,  L  177 

Agron,  ii.  218. 

Agylla,  Phoenician  name  of  Caere,  i.  163 

Aiax,  name,  whence  derived,  i.  258 

Aiorix,  iii.  276  «. 

Akragas.     See  Agrigentum 

A  lae  sociorum,  i.  440  n. 

Alaesa,  ii.  171,  211  ».,  213 

Alalia,  Etruscan,  i.  187.  Battle  at,  J.  184  jC, 
413  ;^  ii.  134 

Alba,  i.  48.  Oldest  canton-community  in 
Latium,  i.  49.  President  of  the  Latin 
league,  i.  50,  51.  Subdued  by  Rome, 
i.  125  f.  Semblance  of  existence  after 
destruction,  i.  128.  Dictator  there,  i. 
442  n.  At  the  time  of  its  fall,  under 
annual  dictators,  i.  442  «.  Oppose* 
Rome,  iii   242 

Alba,  on  the  Fucine  Lake,  ii.  507  :  iii.  261 ; 
iv,  291.  Colonized,  i.  484.  Surprised 
by  the  Aequi,  i.  486.  Adheres  to  Rome 
in  Social  war,  iii.  502,  509. 

Alban  Lake,  i.  48.     Outfall  of,  i.  49,  30* 

Alban  Mount,  i.  48,  50 

Albanians,  i.  12  ».  ;  iii.  425 

Albanians  in  the  Caucasus,  iv.  4x3-416 

Albino  van  us,  iv.  87 

Albinus.     See  Postumius 

Statius  Albius  Oppianicus,  iv.  X04 

T.  Albucius,  Epicurean,  iv.  201 

Album,  i.  280. 

Alcamenes,  Achaean  general,  iii.  369 

Alchaudonius,  Arab  prince,  iv.  4*3 


522 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Alcibiades,  ii.  87,  92,  144 

Aleria  conquered,  ii.  177 

Alesia  besieged  by  Caesar,  v.  86-91 

Aletrium,  i.  485 

Alexamenus,  ii.  452 

Alexander  the  Great,  his  relations  to  the 
west,  ii.  if.,  43  ft.  Political  value  of 
his  enterprises  in  the  east,  ii.  45,  396, 
399;  v.  100/ 

Alexander  I.,  of  Egypt,  iv.  4 

Alexander  II.,  of  Egypt,  his  will,  iv.  316, 

Alexander  Jannaeus,  iv.  316 

Alexander  the  Molossian,  general  of 
Tarentum,  conquers  the  Lucanians, 
Samnites,  Daunians,  and  Messapians, 
L  465./T  Breaks  with  the  Tarentines,  i. 
4(56.  His  plan  to  unite  all  the  Italian 
Greeks,  i.  466.     Death,  i.  466 

Alexander,  the  pretended  son  of  Perseus, 
iii.  263. 

Alexander,  son  of  King  Aristobulus,  iv. 
448 

Alexander,  son  of  Pyrrhus,  ii.  31 

Alexander  Polyhistor,  v.  460 

Alexandria  in  Egypt,  ii.  400,  516;  iii.  121. 
Insurrection  against  Caesar,  v.  275-281 

Alexandria  Troas,  ii.  260,  446,  453 

Alexandrinism,  Greek,  v.  463/;,  479 

Alexandrinism,  Roman,  iv.  259 ;  v.  465- 

467,  479 

Sex.  Alfenus,  Roman  knight,  proscribed 
by  Sulla,  iv.  104  n. 

C.  Alfius  [praetor,  698],  v.  123 

Allia,  battle  on  the,  i.  428 

Allies,  Italian,  bound  to  furnish  naval  or 
military  contingents,  ii.  53,  54.  In  the 
Hannibalic  war,  ii.  345  f.  Diminution 
of  their  rights  thereafter,  iii.  24,  f.  And 
Increasing  oppression,  iii.  25.  Acquisi- 
tion of  Roman  franchise  made  more 
difficult,  iii.  27.  Relations  to  Rome  in 
time  of  Gracchi,  iii.  361./C  Later,  iii. 
485-489.  Their  war  with  Rome,  iii. 
490-520  ;  iv.  62.  Bestowal  of  franchise 
after  it,  set  Civitas.  Italians  abroad, 
iv.  177,  190;  v.  394 ,/C  Compare  Latin 
League 

Allobroges,  ii.  259/-;  Iii-  A*lf-,  443-  Be- 
tray the  Catilinarians,  iv.  480.  Insur- 
rection and  subjugation,  v.  8, 10.  Their 
towns,  v.  14 

Almonds,  iii.  65  n. 

Aloe,  iii.  65  «. 

Alphabet,  whether  a  Phoenician  invention, 
ii.  133.  Aramaean  consonantal  writing 
vocalized  in  the  west,  i.  273.  Phoenician, 
adopted    by    the    Libyans,   ii.    141   n. 


History  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  i.  274  n. 
Its  older  form  among  the  Italian 
Achaeans,  i.  170.  More  recent  in  the 
Iono-Doric  colonies,  i.  173  n.  Etruscan 
and  Latin  alphabets  both  derived  from 
the  Greek,  i.  258,  272-277.  Develop- 
ment of,  in  Italy,  i.  277-283.  Latin, 
regulated  with  the  progress  of  culture, 
ii.  114/.  Adjusted  by  Carvilius,  adopt- 
ing the  "g,"  and  rejecting  the  "z,"  iii. 
igi.  Ennins  introduces  the  double 
writing  of  double  consonants,  iii.  192. 
Carried  by  the  Etruscans  to  the  Celts 
and  Alpine  peoples,  i.  435.  Libyan,  ii. 
141  n.     Iberian,  ii.  235 

Alps,  passes  from  Gaul  to  Italy,  i.  423  n.  • 
ii.  257-259.  Passage  by  Hannibal,  ii. 
259-264.  Peoples  of  the,  before  Caesar's 
time,  iii.  425  /.  ;  attacked  by  the 
Romans,  v.  103 

Alsium,  i.  178.  Primitive  tombs  there,  i. 
252,  302 

Amanus,  v.  288 

Amasia,  iv.  332 

Amastris,  iv.  26,  333 

Ambacti,  derivation  of  the  word,  v.  90, 
21  ». 

Amber-route  from  Baltic  to  Mediterranean, 
i.  162 

Ambiatus,  king  of  the  Bituriges,  i.  423 

Ambiorix,  king  of  the  Eburones,  v.  68  /., 

73 

Ambitus,  law  against,  i.  377  ;  iii.  302 
Ambracia,   ii.    476,    501.     Captured    by 

Pyrrhus,  ii.  7 
Ambrani,  iv.  469  «. 
Ambrones,  iii.  445,  446 
Ameria,  city  chronicle  ot,  ti.  103 
Atnici,  iii.  91 
Amida,  iv.  338 
Aminean  wine,  iv.  17a 
Amisus,  iv.  12,  330,  331,  333.     Burnt  by 

the  inhabitants,  iv.  333.     Rebuilt  and 

enlarged  by  Lucullus,  iv.  440 
Amiternum,  Sabine  town,  obtains  ciziia-s 

sine  suffragio,  i.  492.     See  Sabines. 
Amnias,  tributary  of  the  Halys,  iv.  29 
Amphipolis,  ii.  493,  508,  509  ».,  517  ;  iv.  39 
Amynander,  ii.  421,  438,  456,  476 
Anagnia,  i.  481,  4847c  ;  ii.  23 
Anaitis,  temple  of,  in  Elymais,  iv.  343 
Anapus,  ii.  311 
Anares,  ii.  221,  226 
Anas,  iii.  224 ;  iv.  284 
Anaxilas  of  Rhegium  and  Zancle,  I.  415 
Ancestral  lays,  i.  288,  289 
Ancona,  i.  176,  417;  ii.  60,  220;  iv.  74 
Ancus  Marcius.     See  Marcius 


INDEX 


523 


Vndetrium,  Hi.  427 

indriscus.    See  Philippus,  pseudo- 

Indronicus.     See  Livius 

Indros,  ii.  417,  426,  460 

* je.-oestus,  ii.  223,  226 

S%-^eronalia,  i.  208 

L.  AbScws  [praetor,  587],  ii.  508 

Anio,  i.  .os.     Settlement  of  the  Claudii  on 

the,  i.  4S 
A  nnales,  i.  ms,  104.     Character  of  official 
Roman,  iv(  248  '     Compare  Historical 
Composition 
C.  Annius,  Sulla's  '**  utenant  in  Further 

Spain,  iv.  93 
M.  Annius  [quaestoi  in  ifacedonia,  636], 

iii.  428  n. 
T.  Annius  Milo,  v.  114,  144   ',  148,  316, 

3!7i  389 

Annus,  i.  268 

Anquisitio,  ii.  68 

Antemnae,  i.  58,  125  ;  iv.  89 

Anticyra,  ii.  319,  430 

Antigonus,  general  of  Alexander  ti<Gs,  it, 
ii.  6 

Antigonus  Doson,  ii.  220,  246 

Antigonus  Gonatas,  ii.  236 

Antioch  in  Syria,  iv.  316,  341,  427.  Be- 
comes a  residence  of  Tigranes,  iv.  317 

Antiochus  I.,  Soter,  ii.  402 

Antiochus  III.,  the  Great,  ii.  314.  War 
with  Egypt,  ii.  410,  444  f.  Conduct 
during  Roman  intervention  in  Mace- 
donia, ii.  416-418,  427.  Breach  with 
Rome,  ii.  443-450.  War,  ii.  450-468. 
Peace,  ii.  465-468.     Death,  ii.  468 

Antiochus  IV.,  Epiphanes,  of  Syria,  ii. 
499  ;  iii.  275,  282,  285,  286,  287.  War 
with  Egypt,  and  Roman  intervention, 
ii.  499,  515  f.  Introduces  Roman 
gladiatorial  games  into  Syria,  iii.  127. 
Levelling  policy,  iii.  285 

Antiochus  Eupator,  recognized  hy  the 
Romans  as  the  successor  of  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,  iii.  282 

Antiochus  the  Asiatic,  Syrian  prince,  iv. 

335.  34i.  437 
Antiochus  of  Commagene,  iv.  41,  427,  437 
Antiochus  of  Cyzicus,  iv.  4 
Antiochus  Grypus,  iv.  4 
Antiochus  of  Syracuse,  ii.  108 
Antiochus  of  Ascalon,  Stoic,  v.  444 
Antiochus,  king  of  the  slaves.  ■    See  Eunus 
Antipater  of  Idumaea,  iv.  432 
Antipatria,  ii.  422 
Antipolis,  iii.  415 
P.  Antistius,  murdered  hy  order  of  Marius, 

iv.  84 
Antium,i.459».,  460 n.  ;  ii.  42,  43  «.,  67  n.; 


iv.  64.  Legend  of  foundation,  ii.  in. 
Navigation  and  piracy,  i.  181,  416 ;  H. 
41.  Mentioned  in  treaty  of  Rome  with 
Carthage,  i.  452.  Temporarily  a  Latin 
colony ;  finally  subdued,  L  446,  447. 
Revolts,  i.  461.  Colonized  as  a  Roman 
burgess-community,  i.  462.  Orators' 
platform  in  Rome  adorned  with  beaks 
of  Antiate  galleys,  i.  462  f.  Antiate 
galleys  brought  to  Rome,  ii.  42.  Pro- 
hibited from  maritime  traffic,  ii.  43  n. 

C.  Antonius  [consul,  691],  iv.  373,  380, 
469-471,  479,  484  /. 

C.  Antonius,  Caesar's  lieutenant  in  Illyria, 
v.  235 

M.  Antonius,  the  orator  [praetor,  652 ; 
consul,  655],  iv.  66,  67,  102  «.,  215. 
Suppresses  piracy,  iii.  381 

M.  Antonius,  murderer  of  Sertorius,  iv. 
302 

M.  Antonius,  admiral  in  Mithradatic  war, 
>v.  324.  3Si  /,  386 

M.  Antonius,  Caesar's  lieutenant,  after- 
wards triumvir,  v.  188,  235,  249/,  335, 

36s,  389 
">.  Antonius  [Marian  governor  in  Sardinia, 
672],  iv.  92 

Q.  \ntullius,  lictor  of  L.  Opimius,  slain 
by  *he  Gracchans,  iii.  366^ 

Aou.%    he  river,  ii.  428 

Apamcia^  iii.  276  «.,  310;  iv.  30,  329 

Apennines   i.  5,  6,  41 

Aperantiu,  ii.  459 

Aphrodite,  temple  in  Rome,  ii.  71 ;  It. 
89.  Identified  with  the  old  Roman 
Venus,  ii.  71 

Apicius,  iii.  482 

Apollo  =  ApelIo  =  A  -».  la,  i.  230,  258.  God 
of  oracles,  i.  230.  Increasing  worship 
of,  in  Rome,  ii.  70 ;  iii.  <,x 

Apollonia,  i.  176 ;  ii.  218,  ^16,  422,  426, 
433.  497i  5°o  J  iv.  168.  Founded,  i.  176. 
Treaty  with  Rome,  ii.  46.  Becomes 
Roman,  ii.  2177C  United  w»  h  Mace- 
donia, iii.  262.    Mint  of,  Hi.  87  ;  iv.  181 

Apollonis  in  Lydia,  iii.  279 

Appeal  (provocatio),  pardon  of  tk«  «n- 
demned  criminal  on  an  appeal  U>  tke 
people  allowed  by  the  king,  i.  82,  gy 
192  ;  ii.  69.  In  capital  sentences,  after 
abolition  of  the  monarchy,  no  longer 
dependent  on  the  pleasure  of  the  magis- 
trates, i.  320 ;  iii.  348.  Except  the  dic- 
tator, i.  320,  325.  Allowed  even  against 
the  dictator,  i.  368 ;  also  in  fines,  i. 
320,  342 ;  ii.  63.  Transferred  to  the 
centuries,  i.  327^  After  appointment 
of  plebeian  tribune?,  might  be  addressed 


$24 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


to  the  plebeian  assembly,  i.  351  f. 
Procedure  in  cases  of,  ii.  69.  Prob- 
ably allowed  by  C  Gracchus  even 
against  the  general  in  camp,  iii.  347,  491; 
not  for  the  allies,  iii.  347,  491.  Right 
violated  in  the  case  of  the  Catilinarians, 
iv.  482.  The  symbolic  view  of  its 
origin,  ii.  105 

Appellate  jurisdiction  of  the  Imperator, 
introduced  by  Caesar,  v.  348./C 

Apple-tree,  iii.  67 

C  Appuleius  Decianus  [tribune  of  the 
people,  655],  iii.  478 

L.  Appuleius  Saturninus  [tribune  of  the 
people,  651,  654],  iii.  440,  441  «.,  466- 
476 

Apricots,  iii.  65  n. 

Apsus,  river,  ii.  423,  426 

Apuani,  ii.  374 ;  iii.  313 

Apulia,  Hellenized,  i.  12  ;  ii.  89  f.  ;  iii. 
109.  Position  during  Samnite  wars,  i. 
468,  474.  Colonists  sent  thither,  ii.  365. 
After  the  Hannibalic  war,  iii.  ioo,  102. 
In  the  Social  war,  iii.  521  /.  Depopu- 
lation of,  v.  394.     Coinage,  ii.  280 

L.  Apustius,  ii.  425 

Aquae,  town  in  Africa,  iii.  259 

Aquae  Sextiae,  foundation  of,  iii.  420 ;  iv. 
168.  Battle  of,  iii.  446 ;  v.  7.  Import- 
ance of,  v.  II 

Aqueducts,  Anio,  ii.  85 ;  iv.  168.  Aqua 
Appia,  iv.  168.  Marcia,.iv.  169,  173. 
Tepula  {not  Calida),  iv.  168 

Aquileia,  iii.  416,  421;  iv.  167.    Colonized, 

"•  372>  37S.  493 ',  "»•  27,  M9-  Ius  of> 
ii.  52  «.,  518 

M'.  Aquillius  the  elder  [consul,  625],  erects 
the  province  of  Asia,  iii.  279,  358  n. 
His  trafficking  laid  bare  by  C.  Gracchus, 
iii.  358  ;  iv.  6 

M'.  Aquillius  the  younger  [consul,  653], 
fights  in  the  Cimbrian  and  Sicilian 
war,  iii.  387  ;  iv.  24.  Envoy  to  Mithra- 
dates,  iv.  24-26.  Stirs  up  Nicomedes 
to  war,  iv.  26  f.  Defeated,  iv.  30. 
Death,  iv.  31,  101  «. 

Aquilonia,  battle  at,  i.  490 

Aquitania  subdued,  v.  59,  60 

Ara  maxima,  i.  230 

Arabs  in  the  army  of  Antiochus,  ii.  466. 
In  the  third  Mithradatic  war,  iv.  339, 
341.     Arab  princes  in  Syria,  iv.  422./C 

Aratus,  ii.  404,  421 

Aratus,  astronomical  didactic  poems,  v. 

449 
Arausio,  battle  at,  iii.  436 
Arcadia,  iii.  269 
Arcesilaus,  hr.  197 


Archaeanactidae,  rulers  in  Panticapaenm, 

iv.  15 
Archagathus,  first  physician  in  Rome,  iit. 

193 
Archelaus,  general  of  Mithradates,  iv.  28, 

3°.  34.  35.  37,  41-44.  5°.  5*.  95 
Archelaus,  high  priest  of   Comana,    t* 

439,  45_i 

Archers  in  earliest  Roman  army,  i.  91 

Arches,  building  of,  i.  309  ;  ii.  119 

Archestratus,  of  Gela,  iii.  179 

Archias,  the  poet,  iv.  193 

Archidamus  of  Sparta,  i.  465,  466  n. 

Archilochus,  i.  169  «. 

Archimedes,  ii.  310,  312 

Architecture,  Italian,  earliest  undet 
Greek  influence,  i.  301-306.  First  de- 
veloped in  Etruria,  i.  304  f.,  probably 
from  Attic  models,  i.  308,  309.  Its 
later  development,  ii.  1 18-120;  iii.  206^; 
iv.  256/:;  v.  514/ 

Archytas,  i.  172 

Arcobarzanes,   grandson  of  Syphax,   iii. 

239 

Ardea  founds  Saguntum,  i.  185.  In  the 
Aricine  league,  i.  451.  Dispute  with 
Aricia,  i.  447.  Assigned  as  a  Latin 
colony,  i.  378,  445  n.  Supports  Rome 
against  the  Celts,  i.  430.  About  370, 
member  of  the  Latin  league,  i.  448  «., 
450.  Mentioned  in  treaty  with  Car- 
thage, i.  452.  City-chronicle,  ii.  80,  103. 
Legend  of  foundation  linked  toOdyssean 
cycle,  ii.  111.    Frescoes  of,  ii.  124,  127 

Ardyaei,  in  Illyria,  ii.  218 ;  iii.  427  ;  iv. 
67 

Area  Capitolina,  L  137 

Arellius,  v.  516 

Aretas,  king  of  the  Nabataeans,  Jv.  316, 
426,  430,  432,  438 

Arethusa,  Arabian  fortress,  iv.  423 

Arevacae  defeat  the  Romans,  iii.  217. 
Peace  with,  iii.  i\%f.  Revolt  to  Viria- 
thus,  iii.  226,  231 

Argean  chapels,  i.  66,  118 

Argcntarius  (money-changer),  ii.  86;  iii. 

83 
Argentinus,  god  of  silver,  ii.  70 
Argentum  Oscense,  ii.  386 
Argonauts,  legend  of  the,  ii.  108 
Argos  in  Macedonia,  iii.  428 
Argos  in  the  Peloponnesus,  ii.  430,  431, 

438,  439  j  iii-  266.     Emporium  for  the 

Romans,  iii.  274 
Aria  cattiva,  i.  44 
Ariarathes  V.,  Philopator,  of  Cappadocia, 

ii.  450,  473,  499 ;  iii.  279,  280 
Ariarathes  VI.,  iii.  280.    Killed,  iv.  19 


INDEX 


525 


Ariarathes,  son  of  Ariarathes  VI.,  iv.  19 
Ariarathes,  son  of  Mithradates  Eupator, 

>v.  34.  4i 

Ariarathes,  the  pseudo-,  iv.  20,  24 

Aricia,  i.  48,  442  «. ;  iv.  64.  Aricine 
league,  i.  451.  Battle  at,  L  414.  Dis- 
pute with  Ardea,  i.  447.  About  370,  a 
member  of  the  Latin  league,  i.  448  n., 
450.  A  Roman  burgess-community,  i. 
462.     Dictator  there,  i.  442  «. 

Ariminum,  i.  180;  ii.  60,  215  «.,  229,  274, 
279  /. ;  iv.  63,  85,  87,  166  f.  King 
Arimnus  in  early  intercourse  with  the 
shrine  at  Olympia,  i.  180.  Occupied  by 
the  Umbrian  Sassinates,  ii.  39.  Latin 
colony,  ii.  39,  42,  220.  Bulwark  against 
the  Celts,  ii.  203,  222.  Seat  of  a  naval 
quaestor,  ii.  45.     <  us  of,  ii.  52  «. 

Ariobarzanes,  of  Cappadocia,  iv.   25,  26, 

54.  330.  35° 
Ariobarzanes,     son    of    Mithradates    the 

Great,  iv.  27 
Ariovistus,  v.  34-37,  4S-48 
Aristarchus,  prince  of  the  Colchians,  iv. 

438 
Aristion,  tyrant  of  Athens,  iv.  35,  37,  39 
Aristo,  of  Tyre,  ii.  380 
Aristobulus,  king  of  the  Jews,  iv.  425  f., 

43°.  448 

Aristodemus,  i.  149,  158 

Aristonicus,  pretender  to  the  Attalid 
kingdom,  iii.  278./!,  281,  309 

Aristonicus,  Pontic  admiral,  iv.  324 

Aristophanes,  iii.  143  ;  v.  141 

Aristotle,  i.  432;  ii.  109,  112,  147;  iv.  140, 
197 

Aristus,  ii.  a  n. 

Armenia,  ii.  401,  473 ;  iii.  279,  281,  285, 
287;  iv.  5,  344,  345  (compare  Arta- 
vasdes,  Tigranes).     Language,  iv.  n 

Armenia,  Lesser,  earlier  a  dependency  of 
Pontus,  iii.  281.  Acquired  by  Mithra- 
dates, iv.  12,  18 

Armenian  tradition  as  to  first  Mithra- 
datic  war,  iv.  51  n. 

Army,  its  earliest  organization  :  the 
burgesses  at  the  same  time  the  war- 
riors, i.  90.  Legion  of  3000  foot  and 
300  horse,  i.  <)of.  High  estimation  of 
the  cavalry,  i.  89.  After  the  accession 
of  the  Collini,  number  of  cavalry,  and 
probably  also  that  of  infantry,  doubled, 
i.  1077C  Servian  arrangement :  all  free- 
hold burgesses  and  non-burgesses,  from 
17  to  60,  liable  to  serve,  i.  \\Zf.  Two 
legions  of  the  first  levy  regularly 
called  out  for  service  in  the  field,  and 
two  legions  of   the    second    levy    for 


garrison  service,  each  legion  having 
3000  hoplites  and  1200  light  troops, 
i.  119.  Phalangite  arrangement  after 
Doric  model,  i.  118.  The  five  classes  of 
infantry,  L  116.  Levy  districts:  Pala- 
tine, Subura,  Esquiline,  Colline,  i.  117. 
Burgess  -  cavalry  amounting  to  1800 
men,  i.  119.  But  only  600  take  the 
field  with  the  legion,  i.  119.  Free 
places  in  the  cavalry,  i.  117.  Classes 
according  to  age,  instead  of  according 
to  property,  ii.  74.  Reduction  of  the 
qualification  for  army  and  fleet,  iii.  350. 
Advantages  of  the  Roman  military 
system,  ii.  75.  Traces  of  Greek  in- 
fluence, i.  255  k.  ;  ii.  75.  Commence- 
ment of  standing  army  in  Spain,  ii. 
388/1  Decay,  ii.  501/.  Falling  off  of 
the  legionary  cavalry  :  close  aristo- 
cratic corps,  iii.  9.  No  advancement 
from  the  place  of  a  subaltern  to  that  of 
tribune,  iii.  13.  Decay  of  martial 
spirit,  iii.  43.  Decline  of,  iii.  295  _/C, 
302.  Reforms  in  Cato's  time,  iii.  49^ 
Reorganized  by  Marius,  iii.  413,  456- 
460.  Relaxation  of  discipline  in  Sulla's 
time,  iii.  529 ;  iv.  135-137.  Reorgan- 
ized by  Caesar,  v.  353-356.  Burgess- 
cavalry  abolished,  iii.  457.  Mercenaries 
in  Caesar's  cavalry,  v.  353.  Difference 
between  Roman  and  Parthian  war- 
fare, v.  155-158.  Raising  of  costs  for 
the  army,  iv.  162,  165.  Burden  of 
quartering  in  the  provinces,  iv.  162./C, 
285,  298  ;  v.  408,  413 

Armilustrium,  i.  207 

Arnus,  i.  157 

Arpi,  ii.  90,  280.  Feuds  between  Sam- 
nites  and  Iapygians  about  Apri,  i.  164. 
Lends  help  to  the  Romans  in  the  second 
Samnite  war,  i.  473.  Its  conflicts  with 
the  Samnites,  i.  453.  Its  fate  in  the 
second  Punic  war,  ii.  293,  305,  333,  334, 

365 

Arpinum,  i.  481,  485.  Obtains  full  bur- 
gess-rights, iii.  23.  Gates  in  the  Greek 
style,  i.  302 

Arretium,  ii.  374  ;  iv.  167  ;  v.  207.  In- 
ternal troubles  ;  aid  of  Rome  in- 
voked, i.  437.  Peace  with  Rome,  L 
479,  490.  Highways  to  Arretium,  i, 
486  n.  Remains  faithful  to  the  Romans 
in  the  Pyrrhic  war,  ii.  10.  Attitude  in 
second  Punic  war,  ii.  346,  354.  Ar- 
retines  persecuted  by  Sulla,  iv.  108,  265, 
Sullan  colony,  iv.  108 

Arrest  can  only  take  place  out  of  doors, 
ii.  68 


526 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Q.  Arrius  [praetor,  682]  fights  against 
the  gladiatorial  slaves,  iv.  359./C 

Arsacidae,  iii.  287  ;  iv.  5 

Arsinoe,  daughter  of  Ptolemaeus  Auletes, 
v.  275,  281 

Art,  plastic  and  delineative,  in  the  earliest 
times,  i.  306-309.  Etruscan,  ii.  120./;, 
124-126.  Campanian  and  Sabellian,  ii. 
ratf.  Latin,  ii.  122^,  127^  In  the 
fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  iii.  207  f.  In 
the  seventh  century,  iv.  256-258.  In  the 
age  of  Caesar,  v.  514-516 

Artavasdes,  king  of  Armenia,  v.  151  «., 

153.  16* 

Artaxata,  ii.  482  n. ;  iv.  338,  345,  410 

Artaxiads,  iii.  285  ;  iv.  5 

Artaxias,  ii.  473,  482  11. 

Artemis,  Ephesi2.11,  i.  231 

Arthetaurus,  ii.  493 

Artichokes,  iii.  66  n. 

Artisans  concentrate  themselves  in  Rome, 
ii.  82.     Chiefly  slaves,  ii.  82 

Artoces,  king  of  the  Iberians,  iv.  414 

Arvales,  i.  215.     Arval  chant,  i.  287 

Arverni,  iii.  416 /.,  438;  iv.  469  ».;  v.  13, 
17,  24/.  34.  74-<3<> 

Arx,  i.  47i  137 

Ascanius,  iii.  186 

Asclepiades,  physician,  v.  460 

Asclepiades  {ap.  Arrian.),  ii.  2  ». 

Asculum,  iii.  507,  509  ».,  513,  521;  iv. 
78 ;  v.  209 

Asia  Minor,  nationalities  of,  iv.  11  f. 
Before  the  time  of  the  Gracchi,  iii.  275- 
281.  Made  a  province,  iii.  277  _/.  En- 
larged by  addition  of  Great  Phrygia,  iv. 
21  «.  Oppression  of  Roman  rule,  iv. 
6.  Administration  withdrawn  from 
Lucullus,  iv.  386-395.  Regulated  afresh 
by  Pompeius,  iv.  436-442.  Subdued 
and  regulated  by  Caesar,  v.  283  f. 
Roman  taxation,  iii.  280,  351  /.,  355, 
372;  iv.  6,  in  «.,  126,  158,  160,  162, 
165,  170^,  323,  380,  447;  v.  364.  A 
closed  customs  district,  iv.  160 

Asia  (Syria),  first  contact  with  Rome,  ii. 
216.  Position  in  second  Punic  war, 
ii.  315.  Extent  and  character  of  the 
kingdom :  claims  to  represent  the  uni- 
versal empire  of  Alexander,  ii.  397  /. 
Its  political  position  after  the  war 
with  Antiochus,  ii.  463-472.  In  seventh 
century,  iii.  235  /.,  276  -  280,  284 ; 
iv.  5  f.  Occupied  by  Tigranes,  iv. 
316  /.  Made  a  Roman  province  by 
Pompeius,  iv.  421,  428.  Slaves  chiefly 
drawn  from  Asia,  iii.  306 ;  iv.  174. 
Compare  Antiochus 


C.  Asinius  Pollio,  v.  139,  507 

Herius  Asinius,  Marrucinian  commander 
in  the  Social  war,  iii.  513 

Asnaus,  ii.  428 

Aspendus,  ii.  463 

Assd  voce  canere,  i.  288 

Assignations.  See  Domains,  Leges  agra- 
riae 

Association,  right  of,  ii.  65 

Associations,  iii.  92^ 

Astapa,  ii.  320 

Astolpa,  father-in-law  of  Viriathus,  iii. 
222 

Astrologers  in  Rome,  iv.  209^ 

Asturians,  ii.  389 

Asylum  in  Rome,  i.  137 

Atarbas,  ii.  188 

Atax,  river,  iii.  420 

Atella,  ii.  204,  340.  In  Roman  comedy, 
ii.  369 

A  tellanaefabulae,  Latin  character-masks, 
i.  291,  300  «. ;  iii.  165  n. ;  iv.  231  «.- 
234.  Supplanted  by  mime,  iv.  233  n. ; 
v.  468-470,  469  «. 

Athamanes,  ii.  318,  421,  423,  425,  426, 
4=9.  433,  456,  4S7.  458,  476,  477.  4?5 

Athenaeus,  brother  of  Attalus  of  Per- 
gamus,  iii.  276  n. 

Athenagoras,  ii.  426 

Athenians,  commercial  intercourse  with 
Etruria,  i.  257 ;  with  Lower  Italy  and 
Etruria,  ii.  79  f.  Seem  to  have  fur- 
nished the  models  for  Etruscan 
artists,  i.  308.  Resolve  to  found  a 
colony  in  the  Adriatic  against  the 
Etruscan  pirates,  i.  435.  Sicilian  ex- 
peditions of,  i.  416  f.  ;  ii.  144.  In 
second  Punic  war  side  with  Rome 
against  Macedonia,  ii.  317  f.  Attitude 
during  the  war  with  Philip,  ii.  404,  414 
/.,  418,  441.  During  the  war  against 
Antiochus,  ii.  456.  During  the  war 
with  Perseus,  ii.  495,  517.  Financial 
distress,  ii.  495  ;  iii.  265.  Plunder  the 
neighbouring  places,  iii.  265.  Share  in 
the  first  Mithradatic  war,  iv.  35,  38,  39. 
Siege  by  Sulla,  iv.  38  f.  Occupy 
Oropus,  iv.  199.  Athens,  place  of 
philosophic  training,  iv.  199.  Silver 
mines,  iii.  309,  383 

Athenion,  leader  in  Servile  war,  iii.  385- 

387 
Athenodorus,  pirate,  iv.  354 
Athletes,  Greek,  in  Rome,  iii.  126 
A.  Atilius  Serranus  [praetor,  562],  ii.  453 
C.  Atilius  Regulus  [consul,  529],  ii.  224, 

225 
L.  Atilius  [praeto'    536],  ii.  367 


INDEX 


527 


M.  AtUius  [consul,  460],  i.  490 

M.  Atilius  Regulus  [consul,  498],  ii.  178- 

183,  201 
M.  Atilius  Regulus,  [consul,  537],  «•  =87 
M.  Atilius  [praetor,  602],  iii.  218 
Atintanes,  ii.  218,  220,  319,  427 
Atis,  ii.  222 
Atrax,  ii.  429 
Atria  on  the  Po,  i.  143,  156,  186,  278;  ii. 

12 ;    iv.   167.     Commercial   connection 

with  Corcyra  and  Corinth,  i.  176,  257. 

Syracusan,  i.  417  ».     Etruscan  traces, 

»■  435 

Atria  in  the  Ahruzzi,  Latin  colony,  i.  493 

A  trium,  i.  27,  301 ;  iii.  207 

Atropatene,  ii.  401 

Attaiia  in  Pamphylia,  fortress  of  Zenicetes, 
iv.  313 

Attalidae,  iii.  234,  264.  Foundation  of 
the  dynasty,  ii.  469.  Their  policy,  iii. 
275,  277.     Become  extinct,  iii.  277 

Attalus,  of  Pergamus ;  his  kingdom 
and  government,  ii.  402  f.  In  second 
Punic  war  sides  with  Rome  against 
Macedonia,  ii.  318.  Share  in  the  war 
with  Philip,  ii.  411,  412,  413,  414,  416, 
417, 420, 423, 437.  Antiochus  violates  his 
territory,  ii.  446/.     Death,  ii.  450,  474 

Attalus,  brother  of  Eumenes,  ii.  511./C 

Attalus  II.,  Philadelphus,  iii.  275,  276  «., 
377 

Attalus  III.,  Philometor,  iii.  277 

Attalus,  of  Paphlagonia,  iv.  438 

Attis,  priest  of  Pessinus,  iii.  276  n. 

P.  Attius  Varus,  lieutenant  of  Pompeius, 
v.  209.  Pompeian  governor  in  Africa, 
v.  230 

Auctores  iuris,  ii.  112 

Auctoritas  scnatus,  i.  330 

Audas,  confidant  of  Viriathus,  iii.  225 

Cn.  Aufidius  [tribune  of  the  people,  584], 
reintroduces  the  import  of  wild  beasts 
from  Africa,  iv.  183 

Cn.  Aufidius,  historian  (about  66b),  ii. 
248  n. 

Aufidus,  iii.  522 

Augurs,  Latin,  i.  218  j.  A  college  of 
experts  for  interpreting  the  flight  of 
birds,  i.  219.  Their  number,  i.  219. 
Increased  to  nine,  i.  385.  Increased  to 
fifteen,  iv.  126.  Detect  flaws  in  the 
election  of  plebeian  magistrates,  i.  384. 
Plebeians  made  eligible,  i.  383.  Chosen 
by  the  burgesses,  iii.  463.  Co-optation 
reintroduced  by  Sulla,  iv.  115.  In  the 
municipia,  iv.  133.  Augural  discipline, 
iv.  205.  Lore  neglected,  iii.  112 
Aurelia,  Caesar's  mother,  v.  306 


C.  Aurelius  Cotta  [consul,  502],  iii.  10,  18 
C.  Aurelius  Cotta  [consul,  679],  friend  of 

Drusus,  iii.  503;  iv.  112,  278,  374/: 
L.  Aurelius  Cotta  [consul,  635],  iii.  427 
L.  Aurelius  Cotta  [praetor,  684],  iv.  380 
L.  Aurelius  Orestes  [consul,  597],  "'•  266 
M.  Aurelius  Cotta  [consul,  680],  iv.  325-389 
M.   Aurelius   Scaurus   [consul,  646],   iii. 

436,  466 
L.    Aurunculeius    Cotta,    Caesar's    lieu- 
tenant in  Gaul,  v.  68  «. 
Aurunci,  war  with  the,  i.  361 
Ausculum,  battle  of,  ii.  25-27 
Auson,  son  of  Ulysses  and  Calypso,  L  177 
Ausones,  the,  i.  475 
Auspicia  publico.,  i.  81 ;  iv.  206,  511 
P.   Autronius    Paetus,    Catilinarian,    iv. 

466,  477 
A  uxilium,  i.  403 
Auximum,  iv.  78 ;  v.  209 ;  colonized,  iii 

313 
Avaricum  besieged  by  Caesar,  v.  79,  80 
Aventine,  i.    136,  141,  216,  231,  250;   ii. 
84  ;   iii.   368.      Fortified,   i.   138.     As- 
signed to  the  Plebs,  i.  363.     Temple  of 
Diana  on,  see  Diana 
Avernus,  lake  of,  i.  168 
Aviaries,  v.  378 
Azizus,  Arab  prince,  iv.  423,  427 

Babylonia  severed  from  Syria,  iii.  288 
Bacchanalian  conspiracy,  iii.  115./I 
Bacchides,  commander  in  Sinope,  iv.  353 
Bachelors,  tax  on,  ii.  66 
Bactrians,  ii.  398 ;  iii.  284,  287,  289 
M.  Baebius  [praetor,  562],  ii.  454 
Baecula,  battles  at,  ii.  329./^ 
Baetis,  iii.  224,  226  ;  iv.  283 
Bagradas,  ii.  359,  383 ;  iii.  240,  258,  393, 

402 
Baiae,  iv.  175,  184 
Bakers  in  Rome,  of  late  introduction,  i. 

249;  iii.  123.     Pistor=  miller,  iii.  124  «. 
Ballad  singers,  ii.  98 
Balearic  isles,  Carthaginian,  ii.   143,  144, 

330.  Roman,  iii.  233,  291,  382  n.   Under 

a  praefectus   pro    legato,    ii.    219    ». 

Balearic  slingers  in  the  Roman  army, 

iii.  458 
Bankruptcy  ordinance  of  Caesar,  v.  400 
Banquets  in  Rome,  v.  387  n. 
Barbers  in  Latium,  ii.  280 
Barbosthenian  mountains,  battle  at  the, 

ii.  452 
Bar-Cochba,  iii.  286  n. 
Bargylia,  ii.  413 
Basilicas  in  Rome,  iii.  124  «.,  206.     Bat. 

Porcia,  iii.  207 


5a8 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Bastarnae,  ii.  492 ;  iv.  14,  20,  324,  416 

Bastulopboenicians,  iii.  215 

Baths,  warm,  in  Spain,  ii.  385.    In  Rome, 

improved  by  Caesar,  v.  375 
Bato,  ii.  422 

Battaces,  high  priest  of  Pessinus,  iv.  210 
Beer  (barley  wine),  ii.  385 
Belgae,  iii.  416,  444;  v.  24/,  34,  50,  54, 

84/ 
Belli,  Celtiberian  people,  iii.  216 ;  iv.  210 
Bellona,  temple  of,  ii.  91  ;  iv.  490 
Bellovaci,  v.  12  «.,  52,  85,  qif. 
Bellovesus,  i.  423  n. 
Beneventum,  ii.  333,  335,  336;   iv.   166. 

Colonized,   ii.   39.      Ins  of,   ii.   52   n. 

Beneventane    consuls,   ii.    51.      Battle 

near,  ii.  36 
Berenice,  ii.  7 
Berenice  (town),  iv.  4 
Bernard,  pass  of  the  Great  St.,  v.  59 ;  i. 

424 
Bernard,  road  over  the  Little  St.,  i.  423 

«.;  ii.  258./C 
Beroea,  iv.  316 
Bessi  made  subject  to  the  Romans,  iv. 

307 
Betrothal,    its    enforcement    by   action- 

at-law  early  abolished  at   Rome,   but 

retained  in  the   Latin  communities,  i. 

»3X.>  I05  . 

Betuitus,  king  of  the  Arverni,  iii.  417 

Bias,  i.  186 

Bibracte  (Autun),  battle  of,  v.  43./C 

Bilbilis  in  Spain,  iv.  301 

Bithyas,  Numidian  sheik,  iii.  252./C,  257 

Bithynia,  ii.  401,  455,  471,  473,  492 ;  ii. 
234,  276,  277,  306 ;  iv.  6,  19,  24,  25,  29, 
44.  54.  95,  322,  323.  326-  Pontic  satrapy, 
iv.  33.  Ceded  by  Mithradates,  iv.  49. 
Roman  province,  iv.  322,  436 

Bithynians  akin  to  the  Thracians,  iv.  11 

Bituriges,  i.  423  ;  iii.  416 

Blood-revenge,  traces  of,  i.  i9o_/I;  ii.  105 

C.  Blossius  of  Cumae,  rhetorician,  iii.  320 

Boarding-bridges,  ii.  174^ 

Bocchar,  ii.  382 

Bocchus,  king  of  Mauretania,  iv.  92,  94 

Boeotians,  ii.  402,  421,  429,  432,  441,  443, 
456,  459,  498,  498  n.  With  Critolaus 
against  Rome,  iii.  268.  With  Mithra- 
dates, iv.  35 

Bogud.    See  Mauretania 

Boii  on  the  Platten  See,  ii.  373  n. 

Boii,  Italian,  i.  423  «.,  424,  434;  ii.  11, 
221/.,  224,  226,  250,  268,  369,  370.  De- 
struction of,  ii.  372  ;  iii.  313 

Boii  in  Bavaria  and  Bohemia,  iii.  423, 
430.     Dislodged  by  the  Germans,  v.  32, 


39.  Settled  by  Caesar  in  the  territory 
of  the  Haedui,  v.  79 

Boiorix,  iii.  436,  449 

Bomilcar,  Carthaginian  admiral,  ii.  306, 
312 

Bomilcar,  the  confidant  of  Jugurtha,  iii. 
395.  400,  401/: 

Bona  Dea,  i.  231 

Bononia,  formerly  Felsina,  Celtic,  i.  424. 
A  Latin  colony,  ii.  374  ;  iii.  49.  lus  of, 
ii.  52  ft. 

Bookselling,  v.  562 

Booty  falls  to  the  state,  not  to  the 
soldier,  i.  iggf.  Given  in  largesses  to 
the  troops,  iii.  42.  Revenue  from, 
iii.  20 

Bosporan  kingdom,  iv.  15  f.  Taken  by 
Mithradates,  iv.  16-18.  Under  Phar- 
naces,  iv.  19  f. ;  v.  264.  Given  by 
Caesar  to  Mithradates  of  Pergamus,  v. 
283 

Bosporus,  ii.  405 

Bostar,  ii.  337 

Bovianum,  i.  146,  475,  481.  Sulla's  vic- 
tory at,  iii.  523.  Capitulation,  iii.  523. 
Temporarily  retaken,  iii.  526 

Bovillae  takes  the  place  of  Alba,  i.  129  n. 
About  370,  a  member  of  the  Latin 
league,  i.  448  «.,  450.  Shrine  of  the 
gev.s  of  the  Julii,  i.  128 

Boys  accompanying  their  fathers  to  the 
senate,  ii.  95 

Braccati,  ii.  59 ;  v.  10 

Brachyllas,  ii.  441 

Bradanus,  river  in  Lower  Italy,  i.  171 

Brennus  =  king  of  the  army,  i.  428 

Bridge-building,  i.  219,  309 ;  iv.  167,  169 

Brigands  in  Italy,  after  the  second  Punic 
war,  ii.  367.  In  the  seventh  century, 
iv.  169.  Aid  of,  invoked  by  Catilina, 
iv.  476.  Formed  from  the  remains  of 
the  armies  of  Catilina  and  Spartacus, 
iv.  486.  In  the  provinces,  iv.  169 ;  v. 
410/ 

Britain,  origin  of  the  name,  v.  n  «.  Tin 
trade,  iii.  420.     Caesar  in,  v.  62-66 

Britomaris,  ii.  10 

Brittany,  iv.  251,  252 

Brixia,  i.  423  ;  iii.  424 

Brundisium,  i.  176,  294,  29s,  308,  317, 
333 :  iv-  55.  i°7>  J<56,  177,  193 ;  v.  211. 
A  Latin  colony,  ii.  39,  42,  215.  Sur- 
renders to  Sulla,  iv.  77.  Surprised  by 
the  pirates,  iv.  355.     lus  of,  ii.  52  »• 

Bruttians,  origin,  i.  454.  Name  very 
ancient,  i.  434  n.  Bilingual,  i.  456. 
Under  Greek  influence,  i.  457 ./C  Art, 
ii.  122.     Attitude  during   the   Samnite 


INDEX 


529 


war,  i.  468.  Share  in  the  war  with 
Pyrrhus,  ii.  21,  25.  Submit  to  the 
Romans,  ii.  38.  Alliance  with  Hanni- 
bal, ii.  294,  334,  33s,  342,  349.  Treat- 
ment  after  second  Punic  war,  ii.  364^  ; 
iii.  24,  28.  Pastoral  husbandry,  iii.  100. 
Coins,  ii.  79 

Bruttius  Sura,  lieutenant  of  the  governor 
of  Macedonia,  defeats  the  fleet  of  Mith- 
radates,  iv.  35 

Brutulus  Papius,  i.  470 

Bubentani,  about  370,  member  of  Latin 
league,  i.  448  «. 

Building  in  Rome  :  impulse  given  to  it  in 
fifth  century,  ii.  86  /.  Stagnation  in 
the  sixth  century,  iii.  22  f.  In  the 
seventh  century,  iv.  166  - 168,  184. 
Under  Caesar,  v.  117, 375./C  Budget  for 
public  buildings,  iii.  22./C 

Bulla,  amulet-case,  iii.  5  «.,  16,  45 

Bulla,  Numidian,  iii.  259 

Burgess-body,  its  primitive  Latin  divisions 
and  normal  number,  i.  85  f.  This 
normal  number  tripled  in  the  earliest 
Roman  body  composed  of  three  com- 
munities, i.  86.  Practical  value  of  these 
normal  numbers,  i.  86  f.  Equality  of 
rights  in  the  earliest  times,  i.  S7-89. 
Equality  among  patricio-plebeian  bur- 
gesses, i.  392  f.  Division,  i.  86.  Rights, 
i.  93^  Burdens,  i.  89-92.  Extension, 
iii.  36  f.  Clients  and  city  rabble,  iii. 
38  f.  General  character,  iii.  35-40. 
Incipient  corruption,  iii.  39-42.  Num- 
bers, see  Census,  Population 

Burgess-cavalry.     See  Army 

Burgess -colony.  See  Ccloniae  civium 
Romanorum 

Burgess-rights.     See  Civitas 

Butchers'  booths  in  the  Forum,  ii.  86 

Byrsa,  citadel  of  Carthage,  iii.  247  «.,  248 

Byzantium,  ii.  318,  405,  410,  420,  450,455, 
493.  496  ;  »y-  47.  328 

Byzes,  Thracian  chieftain,  iii.  262 

Cabani  (Cabenses),  about  370,  member 

of  Latin  league,  i.  448  «. 
Cabira,  battle  of,  iv.  331./,  347.    Founded 

anew  by  Pompeius,  iv.  441 
Cacus,  i.  22,  231 

Caecilia  Metella.  wife  of  Sulla,  iv.  105 
C.  Caecilius  Metellus  Caprarius  [consul, 

641],  iii.  429 
L.  Caecilius  [praetor,  470],  ii.  10 
L.  Caecilius  Metellus    [consul,    503],    ii. 

186. 
L.  Caecilius  Dalmaticus  [consul,  635],  iii. 

427 

VOL.  V 


Q.  Caecilius  Metellus  Celer,  lieutenant  of 

Pompeius,  iv.  413,  429 

Q.  Caecilius  Metellus  Macedonicus  [con- 
sul, 611],  iii.  226,  233,  262,  268,  319,  324, 
338,  367.  Builds  the  colonnade  in  the 
Campus  Martius,  iv.  257 ;  and  the 
temple  of  Jupiter  Statoron  the  Capitol, 
iv.  257.     Private  life,  iv.  187 

Q.  Caecilius  Metellus  Nepos  [consul,  697], 
iv.  495,  497,  502 

Q.  Caecilius  Metellus  Numidicus  [consul, 
645],  character,  iii.  397./C  Commander 
against  Jugurtha,  iii.  397-405.  Censor- 
ship, iii.  466-468.  Opposed  to  Satur- 
ninus,  and  goes  into  exile,  iii.  471. 
Death,  iii.  479 ;  iv.  102  n. 

Q.  Caecilius  Metellus  Pius  [consul,  674J, 
lieutenant  of  Strabo  in  the  Social  war, 
iii.  522,  526,  547 ;  iv.  61,  63,  64,  65,  72, 
79,  81,  83,  847:,  87,  88,  138.  Related 
by  marriage  to  Sulla,  iv.  98.  His  char- 
acter, iv.  269  f.  Spanish  campaigns, 
iv.  283,  292-301.  Subdues  Crete,  iv. 
352  f.  Collision  with  Pompeius,  iv. 
37S>  453^  Leader  of  the  aristocracy, 
iv.  402-414 

Q.  Caecilius  Metellus  Scipio  [consul,  702], 
v.  166,  255,  2877,  300 

Caecilius  (Statius),  Roman  poet,  ii.  371 ; 
iii.  162 

A.  Caecina,  v.  321 

Caelian  Mount,  i.  136,  159 

Caelius  Vivenna,  i.  158^ 

L.  Caelius  Antipater,  historian,  iv.  250 

M.  Caelius  Rufus,  v.  189,  507.  Brings 
in  a  law  of  debt,  v.  317/^,  390 

Caenina,  i.  58,  125.  Semblance  of  exist- 
ence after  destruction,  i.  128. 

Caere,  the  first  Italian  town  mentioned  by 
the  Greeks,  i.  160.  Etruscan,  i.  158. 
Punic  factory,  i.  163.  Relations  with 
the  Greeks,  i.  179./C  Relations  with  the 
Phocaeans,  i.  184.  Stoning  of  Phocaean 
captives,  i.  185.  Embassy  sent  to  Del- 
phi, i.  185.  Treasury  at  Delphi,  i.  180. 
The  Tarquins  at,  i.  159,  316.  Primitive 
neighbourly  relations  with  Rome,  i.  144, 
158.  War  with  Rome,  i.  432  f.  Un- 
favourable terms  of  peace,  i.  398,  433  ; 
ii.  49,  55  n.  Ius  of,  i.  433.  Roman 
praefect  at,  ii.  49.  Frescoes  of,  ii.  124, 
126.  Art  at,  i.  258 ;  ii.  126.  Com- 
merce, i.  258,  262.     Tombs  of  Caere,  i. 

252.  277.  3°2 
Caesar.     See  Julius. 
Caiatia,  i.  476,  481  ;  ii.  304 
Caieta,  i.  177.     Surprised  by  the  pirates, 

»v.  355 

167 


53° 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Calagurris,  iv.  300,  301,  304 

Calatia,  i.  470 ;  ii.  294,  338,  340 
Calendar,  oldest  Roman  table  of  festivals, 
i.  207-210.  Based  at  first  solely  on  the 
synodic  lunar  month  and  its  multiplica- 
tion by  ten,  the  circle  or  year,  i.  267, 
268.  The  lunar  month  determined  by 
immediate  observation,  i.  267.  This 
mode  of  reckoning  time  subsequently 
long  retained,  i.  271.  Oldest  Italian 
solar  year,  i.  267  /.  Oldest  Roman 
year,  269  ./C  Publicly  promulgated  by 
Appius  Claudius,  ii.  113.  Reformed  by 
the  Decemvirs,  ii.  n6_/C  Confusion  of, 
ii.  278  n.  Reform  of,  by  Caesar,  v. 
438/ 

Cales,  i.  475 ;  ii.  79,  295,  304,  340 ;  iii. 
492.  A  Latin  colony,  i.  463,  472.  The 
colony  reinforced,  ii.  366.  Station  of  a 
naval  quaestor,  ii.  75.     Art,  ii.  122 

M.  Calidius,  v.  189 

Callaeci,  i.  389  ;  ii.  225,  23*.  Subdued  by 
Caesar,  v.  6 

Callatis,  iv.  307 

Callias,  ii.  106,  no 

Callicrates,  ii.  481,  517 

Callidromus,  ii.  458 

Callimachus,  v.  450 

Calpurnii,  ii.  107 

C.  Calpurnius  Piso  [praetor,  569 ;  con- 
sul, 574],  ii.  391 ;  iii.  i2i 

C.  Calpurnius  Piso  [consul,  687],  iv.  393- 

395 
Cn.  Calpurnius  Piso,  the  Catilinarian,  iv. 

465,  468,  471 
L.    Calpurnius    Bestia  [consul,  643],   iii. 

393.  396 
L.    Calpurnius    Piso    [consul,   621],   iii. 

252,  299,  310.    Chronicle  of,  iv.  248 
L.  (not  C.)  Calpurnius  Piso  [consul,  642], 

as  legate  against  the  Cimbri,  iii.  435 
L.    Calpurnius    Piso,   Caesar's   father-in- 
law,  iv.  513 
M.  Calpurnius  Bibulus  [consul,  695],  iv. 

508,  510./C ;  v.  129,  164 
M.  Calpurnius  Flamma,  i.  460  n. 
Q.  (not  C.)  Calpurnius  Piso  [consul,  619], 

iii.  229 
Calpus,  alleged  son  of  Numa,  and  ancestor 

of  the  Calpurnii,  ii.  X07 
Calycadnus,  ii.  472 
Calypso,  i.  177 
Camarina,  ii.  190 
Camars  =  Clusium,  i.  143 
Camenae,  i.  298 
Cameria,  i.  125 
Camerinum,  v.  209 
Camilii,  clan-village,  i.  45 


Camillus.     See  Furius 

Campanians  in  Sicily,  ii.  162.   See  Capua 

Camps,  entrenchment  of,  ii.  73 ;  watch- 
service  in  the  camp,  i.  255  n. 

Canaan,  ii.  131 

Canary  islands,  Etruscan  colonizing  pre- 
vented by  Carthage,  i.  187 

Cane,  ii.  461./C 

C.  Caninius  Rebilus,  lieutenant  of  Curio 
in  Sicily  and  Africa,  v.  230 

Cannae,  battle  of,  ii.  287-291 ;  taken  by 
the  Romans  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  521 

Cantabrians,  ii.  389  ;  iii.  228 

Cantonal  constitution  in  Gaul,  v.  19,  21, 
24 

Canusium,  i.  474 ;  ii.  287,  291,  298,  303, 
347.     In  the  Social  war,  iii.  513,  522 

Capacity,  measures  of,  i.  265  f. 

Capena  supports  Veii  against  Rome,  i. 
425,  426.  Makes  peace,  i.  426.  Colon- 
ized, i.  432 

Capital  punishment,  i.  192.  Limited,  ii.  68; 
by  Gaius  Gracchus,  iii.  348.  Abolished 
by  Sulla  for  political  offences,  iv.  130 

Capitolini,  guild  of  the,  i.  138  n. 

Capitolium,  i.  47,  66,  138.  Temple  of  the, 
ii.  100.     Capitoline  era,  ii.  102 

Cappadocia,  ii.  401,  455,  473 ;  iii.  234, 
f  75.  277,  279.  280,  285,  287,  288,  382  ». ; 
iv.  jj,  11,  19,  30,  46  «.,  49,  54,  330.  Ac- 
quired by  Mithradates,  iv.  19  f,,  32. 
Restored,  iv.  24,/,  49,  95.  Subdued 
by  Tigranes,  iv.  315  f.  Enlarged  by 
Pompeius,  iv.  446.  Exempt  from 
taxation,  iv.  157.     Language,  iv.  11 

Capsa,  iii.  406 

Capua,  i.  40,  256 ;  ii.  80 ;  iv.  166.  Men- 
tioned in  Hecataeus  as  a  Trojan  colony, 
ii.  109  «.  Wrested  from  the  Etrus- 
cans by  the  Samnites,  i.  419,  454.  Under 
Greek  influence,  i.  457 ;  ii.  90.  Wealth 
and  luxury  of  the  city,  i.  457  ;  ii.  80,  82, 
162.  Medix  tuticus  there,  i.  315.  Seeks 
aid  from  Rome  and  submits  to  her 
supremacy,  i.  458,  459  n.  Revolts,  i. 
459  ».,  461.  The  nobility  adhere  to 
Rome,  i.  461.  Their  cavalry  decide 
the  battle  of  Sentinum,  i.  4S9./C  Posi- 
tion in  Pyrrhic  war,  ii.  23.  Capuan 
nobility  favoured  by  the  Romans,  ii. 
567C  Becomes  a  dependent  community 
with  self-administration,  i.  463 ;  ii.  49  ; 
and  legions  of  its  own,  ii.  55  «.  A  re- 
cruiting field,  ii.  162.  Hannibal  at- 
tempts to  get  possession  of  it,  ii.  281. 
Passes  over  to  Hannibal,  ii.  294,  300, 
303.  Roman  party  at,  ii.  294.  Hanni- 
bal at,  ii.  303,  336  -  340.     Besieged  and 


INDEX 


S3i 


taken,  ii.  339  /.  Loses  its  municipal 
constitution,  ii.  340,  364 ;  iii.  23. 
Ruined  by  the  Hannibalic  war,  iii. 
108.  Campanian  domain,  iii.  20,  312 ; 
iv.  156 ;  occupied  by  private  per- 
sons, resumed  by  the  state,  iii.  328  f. 
Remains  unaffected  by  the  agrarian 
law  of  Ti.  Gracchus,  iii.  20.  Coloniza- 
tion by  C.  Gracchus,  iii.  346,  374.  In 
the  Social  war,  iii.  509/.,  521;  and  in  the 
following  Civil  war,  iv.  60,  80  f.,  91. 
Colonization  renewed  in  671,  iv.  70,  79, 
134.  Abolished  by  Sulla,  iv.  107,  126. 
Affected  by  Servilian  law,  iv.  472. 
.  Colonized  anew  by  Caesar,  508,  514. 
Revolt  of  slaves,  iii.  380.  Gladiatorial 
school  at,  iv.  357.  Mint,  ii.  87.  Art, 
ii.  122.  In  Roman  comedy,  ii.  366 ; 
iii.  148./C 

Caralis,  ii.  143 

Career,  Roman  and  Sicilian,  i.  201 

Caria,  ii.  434,  474 ;  iii.  279 ;  iv.  xi. 
Carian  city-league,  iv.  33 

Carinae,  i.  63,  117 

Carmen,  i.  286 

Carmentalia,  i.  209 

Carmentis,  i.  298 

Carneades,  iv.  193,  197-200 

Carni,  ii.  371 ;  iii.  424 

Carnutes,  v.  72,  74,  81,  92 

Carpenters,  i.  249 

Carpetania,  iii.  222 

Carrhae,  battle  of,  v.  158-163 

Carrinas,  lieutenant  of  Carbo  in  the 
Social  war,  iv.  79,  85,  88,  90 

Carsioli  colonized,  i.  484.  Attacked  by 
the  Marsi,  i.  486 

Carteia  in  Spain,  iii.  214./C,  222,  232 ;  iv. 
190 

Carthage,  name,  i.  185  «.  Situation,  ii. 
*35  /• !  'ii-  245-249.  Fortifications,  ii. 
159  ;  iii.  245,  249.  Rome  and  Carthage 
compared,  ii.  152, 160.  Constitution,  ii. 
146-149, 154.  Council,  ii.  146.  Magis- 
trates, ii.  147,  154.  Hundred-men  or 
judges,  147  f.,  154.  Citizens,  ii.  148 ./C 
Their  numbers,  ii.  157.  War  and  peace 
parties,  ii.  232-234,  306.A  357./C  Oppo- 
sition party,  ii.  150.  Democratic  reform 
of  constitution  by  Hannibal,  ii.  378. 
Rigour  of  its  government,  ii  154. 
Position  of  the  subjects,  ii  155./C  Army 
and  fleet,  ii.  157-160,  236  f.  Wealth 
and  its  sources,  ii.  150-154.  State- 
finances,  ii.  150/;,  156.  Token-money, 
ii.  153 ;  iv.  180.  Science  and  art,  ii. 
152.  Interweaving  of  the  foundation- 
legend  of  Carthage  with  that  of  Rome, 


ii.  no.  Leads  the  Phoenician  nation 
in  the  struggle  against  the  Hellenes  for 
the  dominion  of  the  sea,  i.  183  /.  ;  ii. 
*37 '/•  Changes  the  character  of  the 
Phoenician  occupation,  and  establishes 
its  dominion  over  North  Africa,  i.  183./! ; 
ii.  138  f.  Close  alliance  of  the  Phoe- 
nicians with  the  Siculi,  the  Latins,  and 
especially  the  Etruscans,  i.  184  f.  ;  ii. 
143./  Early  relations  to  Rome,  i.  185./C 
Western  Sicily  held  against  the  Hel- 
lenes, i.  186;  ii.  143/I  Sardinia  sub- 
dued, i.  186 ;  ii.  143.  Carthaginians  in 
Spain,  ii.  142.  Excludes  the  Hellenes 
from  the  Western  Mediterranean  and 
the  Atlantic,  i.  184  ;  ii.  138,  144.  Com- 
pelled by  its  relations  with  Persia  to  a 
decisive  attack  on  the  Sicilian  Greeks, 
i.  415.  Defeat  of  the  Carthaginians  at 
Himera,  i.  415 ;  ii.  135.  Subsequent 
conflicts  with  Syracuse,  ii.  144-146,  156. 
Maintains  naval  ascendency  in  the 
Tyrrhene  Sea :  breaking  up  of  the 
alliance  with  the  Etruscans,  i.  417/: 
Position  in  Sicily :  league  with  Rome 
against  Pyrrhus,  ii.  29-31.  Almost  ex- 
pelled by  Pyrrhus  from  Sicily,  ii.  32./C 
Designs  on  Rhegium,  ii.  12,  146.  On 
Tarentum,  ii.  38,  146.  Commands  the 
Italian  seas  in  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries,  ii.  39  f.  Navigation  of  the 
Romans  restricted :  commercial  treaties, 
i.  130,  452 ;  ii.  41  n.  [and  Appendix  to 
vol.  ii.],  44,  146.  Quarrels  with  Rome, 
partly  from  maritime  jealousy,  ii.  45. 
First  occupies  Messana,  then  dislodged 
from  it  by  the  Romans,  ii.  169,  170. 
First  Punic  war,  ii.  161-195.  Peace, 
ii.  195-200.  Mercenary  war,  ii.  205-208. 
Second  Punic  war,  causes  of,  ii.  230- 
234.  Carthaginian  preparations,  ii.  236- 
243.  Breach  with  Rome,  ii.  245.  War, 
ii.  247-361.  After  second  Punic  war, 
ii.  376  f.  Alliance  with  Macedonia,  ii. 
292  /.,  492.  Attitude  in  the  war  with 
Perseus,  ii.  499.  War  with  Massinissa, 
iii.  237-240.  Third  war  with  Rome,  iii. 
241-258.  Destroyed,  iii.  257./C  Colony 
sent  thither  by  Gracchus,  iii.  346,  366 ; 
cancelled  by  the  senate,  iii.  366,  374. 
Its  territory  distributed,  iii.  346,  366, 
374,  468 ;  iv.  157.  New  colony  sent  by 
Caesar,  v.  424  yC 

Carthage,  New  or  Spanish  (Cartagena), 
ii.  39,  251,  384;  iv.  93.  Taken  by 
Scipio,  ii.  327/ 

Carthalo,  Carthaginian  vice-admiral  in 
Sicily  in  the  first  Punic  war,  ii.  190 


532 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Carthalo,  with  Hasdrubal,  leader  of  the 

patriot  party  in  Carthage,  iii.  239,  241 
Cams,  general  of  the  Segedani,  iii.  217 
Carventani,  about  370,  member  of  Latin 

league,  i.  448  n. 
Sp.  Carvilius  [consul,  461],  i.  490 ;  ii.  124 
Sp.  Carvilius,  teacher  of  writing :  regulates 

the  Latin  alphabet,  iii.  191 
Carystus,  ii.  430,  452 ;  iii.  507  n. 
Casilinum,  ii.  282,  303,  304,  335,  337 
C.  Cassius  [consul,  681],  iv.  360 
C  Cassius,  lieutenant  of  Crassus,  v.  160- 

164 
L.  Cassius  [tribune  of  the  people,  617], 

iii.  300,  316 
L.   Cassius   Longinus  [consul,   647],  de- 
feated by  the  Helvetii,  iii.  435 
L.  Cassius,  governor  of  Asia  Minor,  iv. 

24.  29.  3°.  33 
L.  Cassius  [tribune  of  the  people,  665],  iii. 

53° 
L.   Cassius  Hemina,  chronicler,  iv.  248. 

"  On  the  Censors,"  iv.  252 
Q.    Cassius    Longinus    [tribune    of   the 

people,  705],  v.  188.    Governor  in  South- 
ern Spain,  v.  290 
Sp.  Cassius  [consul,  252,  261,  268],  i.  361, 

438  ;  ii.  85  ;  iii.  59 
Cassivellaunus,  v.  64^ 
Castor  and   Pollux  early  worshipped  by 

the  Romans,  i.  230.     Temple  of,  ii.  70 ; 

iii.  367 
Castra,  custom-house  at,  iii.  19 
Castrum  Amerinum,  i.  143 
Castrum  Novum,  a  burgess  colony,  ii.  39, 

42 
Castus,  leader  in  gladiatorial  war,  iv.  363 
Catana,  i.  166 
Cataonia,  iii.  382  n. 
Catilina.     See  Sergius 
Cato.     See  Porcius 
Cattle  and  sheep,  the  earliest  medium  of 

exchange,  i.  238.     Rearing  of,  in  Italy, 

i.  243,  248.     Dependent  on  agriculture, 

iii.  67.     Increase  of  cattle-rearing,  iii. 

68,  74,  80-82,  97  «.,  305 
Cauca,  iii.  219,  233 
Caucaenus,  chieftain  of  Lusitanians,  iii. 

216 
Caudine  Forks,  i.  471./C 
Caudium,  peace  of,  472./C 
Caulonia,  i.   170.      In  the    Pyrrhic  war 

pillaged  by  mutineers,  ii.  19 
Caunus,  ii.  446 
Cavalry.     See  Army 
Cavea,  iii.  138 

Cavutn  aedium,  i.  301  ;  iii.  207 
Celeres,  i.  90 


Celetrum,  ii.  426 

Cella,  i.  304 

Celtiberians,  ii.  322,   355,  356,  388,  391 
iii.  216,  219,  444,  479,  493 

Celtici,  iii.  216 

Celts,  character  of  the  nation,  i.  419. 
422.  Migrations,  i.  422  f.  Cross  the 
Alps  to  Italy,  i.  423^  Cross  the  Po, 
i.  424.  Attack  Etruria  and  capture 
Rome,  i.  424-430.  Subsequent  incur- 
sions into  Latium,  i.  431./I  End  of  their 
migrations,  and  results,  i.  432.  Take 
part  in  the  last  Samnite  war,  i.  488^ 
Effect  of  the  Celtic  wars  on  the  union 
of  Italy,  ii.  59.  Subdued  by  the 
Romans  in  the  course  of  the  sixth 
century,  ii.  222-228,  369-374.  Attitude 
in  second  Punic  war,  ii.  26S-273.  For- 
bidden to  acquire  Roman  citizenship, 
ii.  370  ;  iii.  24.  Gallia  Cisalpina  in  the 
sixth  century  not  yet  a  province,  ii. 
215  «.;  erected  as  such  only  by  Sulla, 
ii.  215  «.;  iv.  122  n.  Italian  Celts  in 
Roman  army  during  the  Social  war, 
iii.  507 

Celts  of  Asia  Minor,  ii.  398,  401^,512  ;  iii. 
280.  War  with,  ii.  469-471,  473.  War 
against  Eumenes  II.  of  Pergamus, 
iii.  276.     See  Galatia 

Celts,  Transalpine,  ii.  222,  223  ».,  2a6- 
228.  Their  tribes,  i.  423  ;  iv.  423  f. 
Their  advance  into  Italy  checked,  ii. 
370  f.  Conflicts  in  seventh  century, 
iii.  423-426 

Celts,  alleged,  in  Southern  Ru»sia,  iv.  16 

Cenchreae,  ii.  430 

Cenomani,  i.  423, 434 ;  ii.  221, 223, 224,  227, 
228,  270,  369^;  iii.  424 

Censorship  instituted,  i.  375.  Impor- 
tance of  the  office  for  the  governing 
aristocracy,  i.  375  ;  iii.  11.  Plebeians 
eligible,  i.  383.  Patricians  excluded 
from  one  censorship,  i.  383.  Moral 
jurisdiction  over  the  burgesses,  i.  397, 
406  n. ;  ii.  63.  Rendered  thereby  the 
first  of  the  magistracies,  ii.  64.  Superior 
in  rank  to  the  consulate,  i.  400.  Might 
not  be  held  twice,  i.  402.  Not  a  curule 
office,  iii.  6  ».  Limitations,  iii.  10  /. 
Set  aside  by  Sulla,  iv.  113.  Renewed, 
and  term  of  office  extended  to  five  years 
by  Pompeius,  iv.  380 ;  v.  147  /.  Re- 
stricted by  Clodius,  v.  in.  Remodelled 
by  C*esar,  v.  429,  430.     Insignia,  iii.  45 

Censors  in  the  Italian  towns  (quinquen- 
nales),  ii.  58  ».,  59 

Census  arose  out  of  the  Servian  military 
arrangements,  L  119  /.     Every  fourth 


INDEX 


533 


year,  i.  331.  Extended  to  Italy,  ii.  58 
n.  Extended  to  Sicily,  ii.  211.  But 
not  to  the  more  recently  added  pro- 
vinces, iii.  34.  Rating  originally  in 
land,  i.  115  f.  In  money,  i.  396  f. 
Later  modifications,  iii.  50  n.  Num- 
bers of,  when  introduced  into  the 
Annals,  ii.  102.  Those  of  the  first 
four  centuries  probably  all  fictitious, 
ii-  54>  55  "•     Compare  Population 

C.  Centenius,  ii.  279 

M.  Centenius,  ii.  337 

Centumviri,  a  Latin  senate,  i.  86 

Centumviral  court,  iv.  128,  255 ;  v.  348 

Centuripa,  ii.  171,  211  ft.,  213.  Exempt 
from  taxation,  iv.  158 

Cephallenia,  ii.  476,  477 

Cephaloedium,  ii.  185 

Cephissus,  iv.  44 

Cercina,  iii.  541 

Cereatae  Marianae,  iii.  452 

Ceres,  i.  207.  Festival  of,  iii.  40.  Temple 
of,  in  Rome,  i.  355  n.  ;  ii.  85,  118,  123, 
127 

Cerialia,  i.  207 

Cermalus,  i.  63,  64 

Cervesia,  v.  13 

Cestrus,  river  in  Pamphylia,  ii.  472 

Ceutrones,  ii.  260^ 

Chaeronea,  battles  at,  iii.  269  ;  iv.  35,  \\f. 

Chalcedon,  ii.  410  ;  iv.  47.  Siege  in 
Mithradatic  war,  iv.  326 

Chalcidian  colonies  in  Italy  and  Sicily, 
i.  166,  172,  175 

Chalcis,  ii.  396,  421,  422,  430,  431,  442, 
45*i  454.  456.  457»  459>  499.  5°3 '»  >V.  38, 
42.  Sides  with  Critolaus  against  Rome, 
iii.  268.     Punishment,  iii.  270,  272 

Chaldaeans  in  Rome,  iv.  210 

Chaonians  in  Pyrrhus'  army,  ii.  16. 

Chaplet,  as  prize  of  victory,  i.  294,  295  ; 
iii.  5 

Chariot  races,  i.  294,  295 ;  iii.  124,  133 

Charondas,  laws  of,  i.  175 

Charops,  the  Epirot,  ii.  429 ;  iii.  264 

Chatti,  v.  31  *.,  72,  73 

Chelidonian  islands,  ii.  446 

Cherry,  the  wild,  native  in  Italy,  iii.  65 
n.  From  Asia  Minor,  transplanted  to 
Italy  in  Caesar's  time,  iii.  65  «. 

Chersonese,  Tauric,  iv.  15,  334.  Free 
city,  iv.  15,  17.  Inscription,  iv.  13  »., 
17  n. 

Chersonese,  Thracian,  ii.  400,  474,  477, 
486;  iii.  423 

Chilo,  slave  of  Cato  the  elder,  iii.  132  ft. 

(/..ios,  ii.  318,  406,  411  /.,  417,  460,  473. 
Treatment  of,  by  Mithradates,  iv.  46. 


Occupied  by  Lucullus,  iv.  47 ;  and  in- 
demnified by  Sulla,  iv.  49,  54 

Chlorus,  iii.  276  n. 

Chrematas  the  Acarnanian,  iii.  264 

Cicero.     See  Tullius 

Cilicia,  ii.  398,  445,  472,  474  ;  iii.  275,  281, 
385;  iv.  11,  317,  324,  325.  Seat  of 
pirates,  iii.  292,  306;  iv.  2,  5,  311.  A 
Roman  province,  iii  382  ;  iv.  $/.,  313/. 
Taxation,  iv.  158,  r.59  ».  Province  en- 
larged by  Servilius,  iv.  314.  Partly 
occupied  by  Tigranes,  iv.  316.  Enlarged 
by  Pompeius,  iv.  436 

Cimbri,  iii.  386,  430-438,  444-449 

Ciminian  Forest,  i.  157,432;  ii.  79.  March 
of  Q.  Fabius  Rullianus  through  it,  L 

479 

Cincinnati^.     See  Quinctius 

L.  Cincius  Alimentus,  historical  work 
under  his  name,  iii.  185  n. 

Cineas,  ii.  15,  22,  30 

Cinna.    See  Cornelius 

Cinyras,  ruler  of  Byblus,  iv.  430 

Ciphers,  earliest  in  general  use  through- 
out Italy,  i.  252,  264.  Greek  aspirates 
afterwards  adopted  as  signs  for  50,  100, 
and  1000,  i.  267.     Etruscan,  i.  267,  282 

Circe,  i.  177 

Circeii,  Latin  colony,  i.  446.  Rises  against 
Rome,  i.  447.  About  370,  a  member  of 
Latin  league,  i.  448  ft.,  450,  451.  Men- 
tioned in  treaty  with  Carthage,  i.  452. 
Not  Roman  burgess-community,  ii.  49. 
Circeian  promontory,  i.  177 

Circus,  i.  141.     Flaminian,  iii.  40 

Cirta,  ii.  354,  384 :  iii.  391,  392,  402,  407 ; 
iv.  177.  And  surrounding  district,  given 
by  Caesar  to  P.  Sittius,  v.  301,  424 

Cispius,  L  63 

Cistophorus,  iv.  182  ;  v.  438  ft. 

Citrons,  iii.  65  ft. 

Cius,  ii.  407,  410,  411,  415,  421,  447 

Cives  sine  suffragio,  protected  burgesses, 
i.  121.  Burgesses  without  right  of 
electing  or  being  elected :  origin  of 
this  category,  i.  433.  Their  position : 
subject  to  Roman  civic  burdens  and 
Roman  tribunals,  but  with  administra- 
tion of  their  own,  ii.  49-54,  55  /.  Their 
number,  ii.  53  n.  Disappearance  of 
this  class,  iii.  23,  26,  54.  Right  pre- 
served, with  limited  self-administration : 
Tusculum,  i.  448 ;  ii.  248  n. ;  and  the 
Sabines,  i.  492.  Without  self-administra- 
tion :  Caere,  i.  433 ;  Capua  and  other 
places,  i.  463  ;  Anagnia,  i.  484./. 

Civitas  (citizenship),  originally  coinci- 
dent with  patriciate,  i.  80.     Could  not 


534 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


be  lost  within  the  state,  i.  ryif.,  198  f. 
Within  Latium,  i.  131  f.  Sparingly 
conferred  in  very  early  times,  i.  112. 
Given  to  the  Alban  clans,  i.  128.  Later 
civitas  of  plebeians,  i.  333.  Burgess- 
rights  formerly  forced  upon  the  holders, 
then  coveted  and  conferred  as  a  favour, 
ii.  52  f.  After  subjugation  of  Italy, 
less  frequently  bestowed,  iii.  26,  493  f. 
Its  assumption  forbidden,  iii.  496.  After 
the  Social  war,  bestowed,  with  limita- 
tions, on  the  Italians,  iii.  516./:,  527  f.  ; 
iv.  62  f.  The  Sulpician  law  equalizing 
old  and  new  burgesses,  iii.  531-535. 
The  same  confirmed  by  Cinna,  iv.  58, 
70  f.  By  Sulla,  iv.  106,  114  f.  Ex- 
tensively conferred  by  Caesar  on  non- 
Italians,  v.  425/ 

Civitates  foederatae,  iv.  157 

Civitates  immunes,  iv.  158 

Civic  community.    See  Urban 

Clanis,  iv.  86 

Clans  form  the  community,  i.  80.  Clan 
consists  often  households,  1.  85.  Clan- 
villages,  the  oldest  form  of  settlements 
in  Latium,  i.  44  f.  Without  political 
independence,  parts  of  the  canton,  L  46. 
Getites  maiorcs  et  minores,  i.  108. 
Significance  of  gentile  ties  even  at  the 
time  of  the  abolition  of  the  monarchy, 
i.  3*6' 

Classes,  L  lis/"-,  118 

C/assici,  i.  118 

Clastidium,  battle  of,  ii.  228,  270,  272  «. 

Claudia  [sister  to  the  consul  of  505],  iii. 
102 

Claudii,  the  patrician  (Appendix),  i.  495- 
508 

Claudius  [decemvir,  303,  304],  L  365,  498- 
500 

Ap.  Claudius  Caecus  [censor,  442  ;  consul, 
447,  458].  His  character,  L  395  ;  ii.  93. 
His  censorship,  i.  396 ;  iii.  50  «.  De- 
meanour in  reference  to  Pyrrhus,  ii.  22. 
Founds  the  system  of  useful  public 
works  and  buildings,  i.  476 ;  ii.  85.  94. 
And  of  honorary  memorials  of  private 
persons,  ii.  91.  His  poems,  ii.  94,  100. 
His  calendar  and  formulae  for  actions, 
ii.  113.    Introduces  r  instead  of  s,  ii. 

"5 

Ap.  Claudius  Caudex  [consul,  490],  ii.  170 

Ap.  Claudius  [consul,  495],  i.  347 

Ap.  Claudius  Pulcher  [mil.  tribune,  538  ; 

consul,  542],  ii.  298, 336, 337, 340.    Fights 

against  the  Salassi,  iii.  415 
Ap.   Claudius  [officer    in    the  war  with 

Antiochus,  562),  ii.  457 


Ap.   Claudius    [officer  in    the  war  with 

Perseus,  585],  ii.  502,  505 
Ap.  Claudius  [consul,  611  ;  censor,  618],  a 

friend  of  the  Gracchi,  iii.  319,  323 
Ap.  Claudius,  propraetor  before  Nola,  iii. 

547.     Outlawed,  iv.  72 
Ap.  Claudius  [consul,  675],  iv.  138,  306 
Ap.  Claudius,  lieutenant  in  third  Mithra- 

datic  war,  iv.  336,  338 
C.  Claudius  [mil.  tribune,  490],  ii.  168 /. 
C.  Claudius  Cento  [commands  the  fleet, 

554],  ii.  422,  423 
C.  Claudius  Nero   [censor,  550 ;  consul, 

547],  propraetor  in  Spain,  ii.  324,  330, 

337.  347-348/,  351/ 
C.  Claudius  Marcellus  [consul,  704],  v. 

185,  186 
C.  Claudius  Marcellus  [consul,  705],  v. 

188  n. 
C.   Claudius  Pulcher   [aedile,   655],   im- 
proves the  stage-decorations,  iv.  236 
Claudius  Unimanus  [governor  of  Spain, 

608],  iii.  223 
M.  Claudius  Marcellus  [consul,  532,  539, 

540,  544,  546],  his  character,  ii.  301  /. 

Defeats  the  Celts,  ii.  228.     Takes  the 

command  after  Cannae,  ii.  298,  303,  304, 

305,  310;  iii.  51/     War  in  Sicily,  ii. 

310-313.     Charges  against  him,  iii.  57/ 

His  Treatment  of  the  Syracusans,  iii.  33. 

The   first  to  bring   art-treasures   from 

conquered   Greek  cities   to  Rome,  iii. 

208.     His  death,  ii   343 
M.  Claudius  Marcellus  [consul,  588,  599, 

602],  iii.  217./C,  299  n. 
M.  Claudius  Marcellus  in  the  Social  war 

iii.  s°9 
M.  Claudius  Marcellus  [consul,  703],  v. 

173.  179.  32° 
P.  Claudius  Pulcher  [consul,  505],  defeated 

at  Drepana,  ii.  188/     Mocks  the  aus 

pices,  iii.  112 
Q.  Claudius  Quadrigarius,  chronicler,  v 

496 
Clauzus,  Attus,  migrates  to  Rome,  i.  55 
Clavus,  iii.  5  «.,  16,  45 
Clazomenae,  ii.  461,  473.     Supports  tht 

Romans  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  507  n. 

Pillaged  by  the  pirates,  iv.  308. 
Cleonymus  of  Sparta,  i.  482/ 
Cleopatra,  daughter  of  Antiochus   ii.  445, 

448  ».,  450,  515/ 
Cleopatra,  daughter  of  Mithradates,  iv 

406 
Cleopatra,      daughter     of     Ptolemaetu 

Auletes,  v.  272,  v]&f.,  281 
Cleopatra,  wife  of  Ptolemaeus  Euergetet 

II.,  iv.  4 


INDEX 


535 


Clientship,  meaning  of  the  word,  i.  109. 
A  state  of  protected  freedom,  i.  78  /. 
Earliest  position  in  the  community,  i. 
79.     A  curse  rests  on   its  violation,  i. 
226.     Based  on  assignation  of  land  by 
protector  to  protected,  i.  245^   Referred 
originally  to  the  clan,  not  to  the  indi- 
vidual patron,  i.  246.     Growth  and  sig- 
nificance of,   iii.   38  f.      Not  applied 
officially  to  relations  of  state  law,  ii. 
47  n.     Of  towns,  originating  out  of  hon- 
orary citizenship,  i.  88 ;  iii.  33 
Clitarchus,  ii.  2  «.,  112 
Clitomachus,  philosopher,  iv.  19a 
Cloaca  maxima,  i.  141 ;  ii.  119 
Cloacae,  construction  of,  iii.  22 
P.  Clodius,  iv.  345,  517 ;  ▼.  iii-ii6,  126, 

144/ 

Clodius  Glaber,  general  in  the  Gladiator- 
ial war,  iv.  358 

Cloelii,  from  Alba,  i.  128 

Cloelius,  iv.  79 

Clondicus,  Celtic  leader,  ii.  505 

A.  Cluentius,  v.  390 

L.  Cluentius,  Samnite  leader  in  Social 
war,  iii.  522 

Cluilia  fossa,  i.  58 

Clunia  in  Spain,  iv.  297,  304 

Clupea,  i.  180,  182,  183,  184 ;  iii  252 

Clupeus,  ii.  76  n. 

Clusium  =  Camars,  L  143,  414,  428;  ii. 
224 ;  iv.  167 

Cnidus,  iv.  47.  Pillaged  by  the  pirates, 
iv.  308 

Cnossus,  iv.  353 

Coelesyria,  conflict  between  Syria  and 
Egypt  about,  ii.  515,  517 

Coelius.     See  Caelius 

Cohors  amicorum,  iii.  460 

Cohorts.     See  Legion 

Coinage.     See  Money 

Colchis,  iv.  13,  20,  94,  41 4-4i6 

Collatia,  i.  123,  130 

Collegia  (clubs)  in  Rome,  v.  Ill,  370. 
First  forbidden  by  decree  of  senate  in 
690,  iv.  267  f.  Allowed  again  by 
Clodius,  v.  in.     Restricted  by  Caesar, 

v.  373./ 

Collini,  i.  68  «.,  6g 

Colline  Gate,  i.  68.     Battle  at  the,  iii.  89 

Collis,  i.  68 

Collis  agonalis,  i.  68  n. 

Colonnades  occur,  iii.  206 

Colonies,  Italian,  their  salutary  effect  on 
the  social  state  of  Rome,  i.  391.  Be- 
tween the  Apennines  and  the  Po,  iii. 
99  /.  Stoppage  of  colonization  in  Italy 
since  end  of  sixth  century,  iii.  312  /. 


Colonies  of  C.  Gracchus,  iii.  346,  374. 
Proposal  of  the  elder  Drusus,  iii,  364  f. 
Of  the  younger  Drusus,  iii.  485.  Of 
Sulla,  iii.  541  f. ;  iv.  109,  265.  Of  the 
Servilian  agrarian  law,  iv.  \]tf.  Com- 
pare  Capua 

Coloniae  civium  Romanorum,  i.  127  tu 
At  first  all  on  the  sea-coast,  i.  42,  48. 
Inland,  iii.  26.  All  established  in  Italy 
after  Aquileia,  burgess-colonies,  ii.  52  ». 
The  Transpadane  towns  designated  as 
such,  v.  131  /.  Rise  of  municipal 
system,  iv.  131-134 

Coloniae Latinae, oldest,!.  135.  Founded 
by  Romano-Latin  league,  and  received 
into  it  as  new  independent  members,  i. 
439.  Colonists  at  first  a  mixture  of 
Romans  and  Latins ;  subsequent  pre- 
dominance of  Romans,  i.  440,  441. 
Compare  Latin  league 

Colonies,  non  -  Italian,  projects  of  T. 
Gracchus,  iii.  312.  Of  C  Gracchus,  iii. 
346.  Founding  of  Narbo,  iii.  374,  419; 
iv.  191 ;  v.  422.  Proposals  of  Saturni- 
nus,  iii.  468,  476.  Of  the  younger 
Drusus,  iii.  485.  Colonies  of  Caesar  in 
Cisalpine  Gaul,  v.  131.  In  Transalpine 
Gaul,  v.  98,  422.     At  various  points,  r. 

423-43S 

Colophon,  ii.  473 ;  iii.  279 ;  iv.  47.  Pillaged 
by  the  pirates,  iv.  308 

Columns,  building  of,  iii.  207 

Comana,  iv.  95,  332.  High  priest  of,  rr. 
438 

Comedy,  newer  Attic,  iii.  141-146 

Comedy,  Roman  ;  Hellenism  and  political 
indifference,  iii.  147-151.  Dramatis 
personae  and  situations,  iii.  151  f. 
Composition  of,  iii.  153  f.  Roman 
barbarism,  iii.  154.  Metres,  iii.  155. 
Scenic  arrangements,  iii.  155  f. 

Comitia,  non-freehold  burgesses  admitted 
generally  by  Appius  Claudius,  i.  396  f. 
In  a  more  limited  sense  by  Fabius  Rul- 
lianus,  i.  396.  Gradual  extension  of 
their  functions,  i.  397  /.  First  step  to- 
wards consulting  them  on  administrative 
affairs,  i.  397  f.  Demagogic  enlarge- 
ment of  their  functions,  iii.  st/-  Vot- 
ing districts  disorganized,  iii.  37,  38. 
Decreasing  importance,  i.  398  /.  Nul- 
lity of  later  comitia,  iii.  59  f.  Intro- 
duction of  voting  by  ballot,  iii.  300, 
316,  340.  Better  control  aimed  at  by 
Marius,  iii.  454.  Condition  in  the  time 
of  the  Gracchi,  iii.  300  f.,  329-333.  In 
the  time  of  Sulla,  iii.  541-545  ;  iv.  ii6j/C 
In  the  time  of  Caesar,  v.  338.     Appoint 


536 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


directly  to  military  commands,  iv.  389/; 
Their  corruption,  iii.  302  ;  iv.  268  ;  v.  385 

Cotnitia  ctnturiaia,  earliest,  i.  120  f. 
On  the  abolition  of  the  monarchy,  ob- 
tain the  right  of  annually  designating  the 
consuls,  of  judging  in  appeals,  and  mak- 
ing new  laws  in  concert  with  presiding 
magistrates,  i.  327,  328.  Priority  in 
voting  of  equestrian  centuries,  i.  329. 
Assembly  of  the  centuries  in  the  camp, 
L  328.  Reform  of:  each  of  the  five 
classes  has  equal  number  of  votes ; 
equestrian  priority  of  vote  abolished, 
iii.  50-54.  Order  of  voting  fixed  by  lot 
by  C.  Gracchus,  iii.  345.  Servian  order 
of  voting  restored  by  Sulla,  iii.  542, 
compare  iv.  115.  Position  after  the 
Sullan  restoration,  iv.  114,  115 

Comitia  curiata,  summoned  by  the  king 
to  do  homage,  and  to  sanction  changes 
in,  or  exceptions  from,  the  existing 
legal  order,  i.  93-96.  Ordinary,  twice 
*  year  (March  24  and  May  24),  i.  93. 
Vote  taken  by  heads,  i.  360.  After 
admission  of  plebeians  restricted  to 
legislative  formal  acts  and  decrees  in 
matters  affecting  the  clans,  i.  327  f. 
Plebeian  curiate  assembly,  i.  328,  360. 
Compare  Burgess-body 

Comitia  triiuta,  originally  assembly  of 
plebeian  landholders,  i.  360.  Introduc- 
tion of,  i.  360.  Patricio  -  plebeian,  i. 
368.  Predominance  in  later  times,  iii. 
52./C  After  Sulla's  time,  nominate  new 
senators,  iv.  1137C  Nominate  quaestors, 
iv.  113 

Comitium,  i.  140 

Commagene.  See  Antiochus  and  Ptole- 
maeus 

Commerce,  oldest  Italian  inland,  its 
fairs,  i.  250.  Media  of  exchange  :  oxen 
and  sheep,  i.  251 ;  and  copper,  i.  252. 
Subsequent  development,  ii.  787^ 

Commerce,  earliest  Italian  transmarine, 
especially  on  the  west  coast  ;  import 
chiefly  of  Greek  and  Oriental  articles 
of  luxury,  i.  252  -  255.  Export  or 
Italian  raw  produce,  i.  255.  Etruscan, 
Attic,  and  Latino -Sicilian,  i.  257  /. 
Subsequent  development  of  transmarine 
commerce,  ii.  79-81;  iii.  84.  Latin 
commerce  passive,  Etruscan  active,  i. 
255.  Roman  wholesale,  i.  261 ;  iv. 
'73  /•  African,  centres  at  Utica,  iii. 
860.  Greek,  at  Argos  and  Delos,  iii. 
174.  Gallic  and  British,  at  Narbo,  iii. 
431.  Roman,  penetrates  to  Northern 
Gaul,  v.  30 


Commercial  i  terests,  their  influence  on 
Roman  politics,  iii.  238,  274,  295,  415, 
421 ;  iv.  175,  176 

Commercium  withdrawn  from  the  Ita- 
lian communities,  ii.  52.  From  the 
Sicilians,  ii.  210 

Commius,  king  of  the  Atrebates,  v,  85, 
92,  94 

Commodatum,  iii.  91 

Common  tillage  by  the  clanships,  i.  46, 
238  _ 

Compitum,  dictator  at,  i.  442  w. 

Complega,  ii.  386 

Compulteria,  ii.  305 

Comum,  ii.  228,  370 ;  iii.  305,  425  ;  v.  132 

Concilium  withdrawn  from  the  Italian 
communities,  ii.  53 

Concilium  plebis,  i.  360 

Concolitanus,  ii.  223,  226 

Concord,  temple  of,  in  the  Capitol,  i.  382. 
New  temple  erected  by  L.  Opimius, 
iii.  369 

Confarreatio,  relation  to  the  earliest  con- 
stitution of  ten  curies,  i.  85  «.  Sym- 
bolic act,  i.  202 

Confiscations  by  Sulla,  iv.  103^ 

Confiscations  by  Caesar,  v.  365 

Congonnetiacus,  iii.  418 

Conistorgis,  town  of  the  Celtici,  iii.  220 

Consensual  contracts,  actionable,  iii.  92  n. 

Consentia,  i.  466.  Attitude  in  second 
Punic  war,  ii.  294.  Stormed  by  the 
gladiators,  iv.  359 

Consilium,  i.  330 

Cousualia,  i.  208 

Consuls,  meaning  of  name,  i.  318  n. 
Their  earliest  appellations,  i.  318. 
Supreme  administrators,  judges,  and 
generals,  i.  318.  Each  of  them  pos- 
sessing the  whole  regal  power  :  in  case 
of  collision,  the  imperia  neutralize  each 
other,  i.  318  f.  Authority  dormant 
during  a  dictatorship,  i.  325.  Bound 
to  resign  office  after  the  expiry  of  a 
year,  i.  319.  No  fixed  day  for  entering 
on  their  year  of  office,  i.  319  n.  Power 
similar  to  the  royal,  i.  317^  But  differ- 
ing from  it,  by  the  introduction  of 
responsibility  :  consul  impeachable  after 
the  expiry  of  his  term  for  a  crime  per- 
petrated while  in  office,  i.  319 ;  by  the 
abolition  of  royal  taskwork  and  client- 
ship,  i.  319  f.\  by  the  legal  establish- 
ment of  the  right  of  the  community  to 
judge  on  appeal  in  capital  sentences 
other  than  those  of  martial  law,  i.  320 ; 
by  restrictions  on  right  to  delegate  hit 
powers,  i.  321,  or  to  nominate  his  sac- 


INDEX 


537 


cessor,  i.  324  ;  by  the  loss  of  the  nomina- 
tion of  priests,  and  by  the  abolition  of 
the  more  striking  insignia,  i.  324. 
Their  position  in  reference  to  senate,  i. 
336-338.  Choose  senators  at  pleasure, 
i.  331.  Conduct  quaestorial  elections, 
i.  368.  Restricted  by  the  intercessio 
and  jurisdiction  of  the  tribunes,  i.  350- 
354.  Their  power  weakened  in  conse- 
quence of  the  conflicts  between  the 
orders,  i.  400.  Limited  to  the  main- 
land, ii.  209.  Receive  a  quasi -dicta- 
torial power  by  decree  of  the  senate, 
iiL  56.  The  consul  conducting  a  con- 
sular election  might  propose  list  of,  and 
reject,  candidates,  i.  324.  One  consul 
must  be  a  plebeian,  i.  380.  Re-elec- 
tion restricted,  ii.  402 ;  iii.  14.  Ex- 
clusion of  the  poorer  citizens,  iii.  14. 
Right  of  proposal,  but  not  of  deposition, 
vested  in  the  community,  i.  323.  Re- 
election forbidden,  iii.  299;  iv.  72  n. 
This  repealed  by  Sulla,  iv.  116.  Con- 
sular spheres  of  duty  regulated  by  C. 
Gracchus,  iii.  355,  405.  By  Sulla,  iv. 
121  f.  Decline  of  consulate  under 
Caesar,  iv.  453 ;  v.  329,  343  f.  Consul 
suffectus  in  the  earlier  time,  i.  319  n,  ; 
in  Caesar's  time,  v.  344.  Consuls  in 
Beneventum,  ii.  51.  Opposition-consuls 
of  the  Italians,  iii.  505. 

Cflnsus,  i.  208 

Contio,  i.  93  ;  iii.  331 

Contracts  under  earliest  law  not  action- 
able, with  the  exception  of  betrothal, 
purchase,  and  loan,  i.  195.  Of  the 
state  with  a  burgess  need  no  form,  i. 
195.  Defaulter  and  his  property  could 
be  sold,  i.  196  ./C  Consensual  contracts 
and  obligatio  litteris,  iii.  91  n. 

Contrebia,  iii.  226  ;  iv.  293 

Conubium  between  Romans  and  Latins, 
i.  132 ;  ii.  52  ».,  210.  Withdrawn  from 
the  Italian  communities,  ii.  52,  and 
from  the  Sicilian  (?),  ii.  210 

Conventui  civiutn  Romanorum,  iv. 
190 

Cookery,  art  of,  iii.  123 

Co-optation.    See  Priestly  Colleges 

Copia.     See  Thurii 

Copper,  the  second  oldest  medium  of 
exchange,  i.  251  /.  Copper  money  in 
Rome,  iv.  179 

Coppersmiths,  guild  of,  i.  249,  307 

Cora,  originally  Latin,  i.  445  n.  In  the 
Aricine  league,  i.  445  «.,  450.  About 
370,  a  member  of  the  Latin  league,  i. 
448  «M  45° 


Corbio,  about  370,  a  member  of  Latin 
league,  i.  448  «.,  450 

Corcyra,  ii.  422,  425.  Commercial  con- 
nections with  Italy,  i.  176.  Occupied 
by  Agathocles,  Cleonymus,  Demetrius, 
and  Pyrrhus,  i.  4$-$/.,  491 ;  ii.  7.  Ro- 
man, under  a  praefect,  ii.  218  «.,  403 

Corduene,  iv.  317,  341 

Corfinium,  headquarters  of  the  insur- 
gents in  Social  war,  iii.  504,  522. 
Siege  and  capture  by  Caesar,  v.  2ogf. 

Corinth,  ii.  396,  430,  431,  432,  434,  437, 
438,  442;  iii.  266./C,  268.  Its  commer- 
cial connections  with  Italy,  i.  176. 
Colonies  from,  i.  166.  Occupied  by 
Mummius,  iii.  370.  Art  -  treasures 
carried  ofF,  iii.  270  f.  Destruction  of, 
iii.  272-274 ;  iv.  173,  175.  Roman 
domain,  iii.  271  ».;  iv.  157.  Restored 
by  Caesar,  v.  425.  "Copper"  of,  iiL 
274  n. 

Corioli,  about  370,  a  member  of  the  Latin 
league,  i.  448  ».,  450 

Cornelia,  mother  of  the  Gracchi,  iii.  318, 

333.  309/;  >v-  l84.  25° 

Cornelia,  wife  of  Caesar,  iv.  279 

Cornelians,  frcedmen  of  Sulla,  iv.  no 

Cornelii,  clan-village,  i.  45 

Cornelius  Nepos,  v.  498 

A.  Cornelius  Cossus  [consul,  326],  i.  425 

A.  Cornelius  Cossus  [consul,  411],  i.  459  «. 

C.  Cornelius  Cinna,  Strabo's  lieutenant  in 
the  Social  war,  iii.  522 

Cn.  Cornelius  Scipio  Asina  [consul,  494], 
ii.  177 

Cn.  Cornelius  Scipio  Calvus  [consul,  532], 
conquers  the  Celts,  ii.  228.  In  Spanish 
campaign,  ii.  291,  309,  321-323 

Cn.  Cornelius  Dolabella  [governor  in 
Cilicia,  674],  iii.  382  «. 

Cn.  Cornelius  Lentulus  Clodianus  [consul, 
682],  defeated  by  Spartacus,  iv.  360, 
380 

Cn.  (?)  Cornelius  Scipio.  See  L.  Cor- 
nelius Scipio 

L.  Cornelius  Balbus  maior,  iv.  89 

L.  Cornelius  Balbus  of  Gades,  Caesar's 
confidant,  v.  342 

L.  Cornelius  Scipio  [consul,  456],  epitaph 

on,  ii.  91,  93,  103  ».,  115  «•>  I23 
L.  Cornelius  Scipio  [consul,  495]  takes 
Aleria,  ii.  177.  Epitaph  on,  ii.  115  n., 
177 
L.  Cornelius  Scipio  Asiaticus  [consul, 
564],  general  in  war  with  Antiochus,  ii. 
464,  470.  Originator  of  special  collec- 
tions, iii.  39.  Erased  from  the  roll  of 
the  equites,  iii.  48  .    Takes  the  sur* 


53« 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


name  of  Asiagenus,    ii.    483    n. ;    iii. 

44 
L.  Cornelius  Cinna  [consul,  667-670],  iii. 

S4S  I  iv-  S7-6i,  64.  65,  68,  69-71,  73,  74, 

102  n. 
L.  Cornelius  Cinna,  son  of  the  preceding, 

iv.  288 
L.  Cornelius  Lentulus  Crus  [consul,  705], 

v.  188 
L.  Cornelius  Merula  [consul,  666],  iv.  59, 

66/: 
L.  (Cn.  ?)  Cornelius  Scipio  [praetor,  580], 

captive  with  Antiochus,  ii.  466 
L.    Cornelius    Scipio    Asiaticus    [consul, 

671],  iv.  74,  80/:,  101,  102  ».,  103 
L>     Cornelius     Sisenna     [praetor,     676], 

lieutenant  of  Pompeius,  iv.  403.     His- 
torian of  the  Social  and  Civil  wars,  v. 

493  /• 
L.  Cornelius  Sulla,  surnamed  Felix,  iv. 
142.  Character,  iii.  537/;  iv.  139-142. 
Superstition,  iv.  141,  209.  Political 
career,  iv.  142-145.  Serves  against 
Jugurtha,  iii.  407-409.  Against  the 
Teutones,  iii.  443.  Governor  of  Ciiicia, 
iv.  82.  General  in  Social  war,  iii.  504, 
SiOf  5i3»  520,  522,  524A  525i  5*9- 
Quarrels  with  Sulpicius,  iii.  535  f. 
Marches  on  and  occupies  Rome,  iii. 
538,  539-  First  legislation,  iii.  54I-S45- 
Mithradatic  campaign,  iii.  545,  547. 
Conquers  Greece,  iv.  36-42.  At  Athens, 
iv.  38,  39.  Victorious  at  Chaeronea,  iv. 
41-43.  At  Orchomenus,  iv.  44.  Crosses 
to  Asia,  iv.  $of.  Makes  peace  at  Dar- 
danus,  iv.  52.  Against  Fimbria,  iv. 
52  f.  Regulates  Asiatic  affairs,  iv. 
53./;  Returns  to  Italy,  iv.  55,  77.  In 
conflict  with  the  Marian  party,  iv.  79- 
92.  Dictator,  iv.  98-100.  His  execu- 
tions, iv.  100  /.,  106  f.  Proscriptions 
and  confiscations,  iv.  102-106.  Assig- 
nations to  the  soldiers,  iv.  108/  Treat- 
ment of  the  Italians,  iv.  107  -  no. 
Abolishes  the  Gracchan  institutions, 
iv.  no  f.  Reorganizes  the  senate,  iv. 
mf.  Regulations  as  to  the  burgesses, 
iv.  114./C  As  to  the  priestly  colleges,  iv. 
115.  Regulates  qualifications  for  office 
and  magistracies,  iv.  116-121.  Erects 
Cisalpine  Gaul  as  a  province,  ii.  215  n., 
iv.  122/;  His  finance,  iv.  126.  Judicial 
system,  iv.  127-130.  Quaestiones,  iv. 
128/  Police  laws,  iv.  130/  Resigns 
the  dictatorship,  iv.  138.  After  his  re- 
tirement, iv.  150.  Death  and  burial,  iv. 
X51  f.  His  opinion  of  Caesar,  iv.  279. 
Political  results  of  his  death,  iv.  287. 


Vengeance  of  democrats  on  Sullans  by 
legal  process,  iv.  458-460. 

P.  Cornelius  Dolabella  [consul,  471],  ii.  It 

P.  Cornelius  Lentulus  besieges  Haliartus, 
ii.  498 

P.  Cornelius  Rufinus  [consul,  464,  477],  i. 
395 ;  ii.  64,  86  «. 

P.  Cornelius  Scipio  [consul,  536],  com- 
mands against  Hannibal  in  Gaul  and 
Upper  Italy,  ii.  254-257,  268-272,  291. 
In  Spain,  ii.  308,  321-323 

P.  Cornelius  Scipio  Africanus,  his  charac- 
ter, ii.  324-327.  Saves  his  father's  life  at 
the  Ticino,  ii.  269.  His  conduct  after  the 
battle  of  Cannae,  ii.  298.  His  Spanish 
campaigns,  ii.  327331.  His  African 
expedition,  ii.  352-361.  Triumph,  ii. 
368.  Opposed  to  Antiochus,  ii.  464-468. 
Separates  the  orders  in  the  theatre,  iii. 
10.  At  enmity  with  Cato,  iii.  42,  47, 
76.  His  political  position,  iii.  61.  Ne- 
potism, iii.  17.  Early  rise  of,  iii.  17. 
Introduces  honorary  surnames,  ii.  483  «. ; 
iii.  44.  Largesses  of  foreign  grain  at 
nominal  prices,  iii.  76.  Ridiculed  by 
Naevius,  iii.  150.     His  trial  and  death, 

ii.  483/ 

P.  Cornelius  Scipio,  son  of  Africanus, 
writes  Roman  history  in  Greek,  iii. 
185 

P.  Cornelius  Scipio  Nasica  commands  at 
Pydna,  ii.  506 

P.  Cornelius  Cethegus,  a  Marian,  goes 
over  to  Sulla,  iv.  78.  His  influence,  iv. 
269,  351 

P.  Cornelius  Dolabella,  Caesar's  admiral 
in  Illyricum,  v.  235.  Tribune  of  the 
people,  v.  318 

P.  Cornelius  Lentulus  [praetor  urianus, 
c.  589],  iii.  329 

P.  Cornelius  Lentulus  Sura  [consul,  683], 
Catilinarian,  iv.  477,  479,  480 

P.  Cornelius  Lentulus  Spinther,  a  Pom- 
peian,  v.  209 

P.  Cornelius  Scipio  Aemilianus  Africanus, 
his  character,  iii.  314-317,  339.  Incor- 
ruptibility, iii.  295.  Military  tribune  in 
Spain,  iii.  219  /.,  241.  In  Africa,  iii. 
250  f.  In  Macedonia,  iii.  260.  De- 
stroys Carthage,  iii.  252-258.  Restores 
discipline  in  the  camp  before  Numan- 
tia,  iii.  230 ;  iv.  210.  Destroys  Nu- 
mantia,  iii.  231  /."  Mission  to  the  east, 
iii.  292.  Bearing  towards  the  populace, 
iii.  33t.  Attitude  in  reference  to  Sem- 
pronian  agrarian  law,  iii.  320,  331,  334, 
337.  Judgment  on  the  killing  of  Ti. 
Gracchus,    iii.    327.      Death,   iii.    338. 


INDEX 


539 


Scipionic  circle,  iv.  192,  203,  239,  243. 
Speeches,  iv.  251. 

P.  Cornelius  Sulla,  Catilinarian,  iv.  466 

Corniculum,  i.  125 

Q.  Cornuicius,  lieutenant  of  Caesar,  v. 
284 

Corona  chrica,  ii.  358  ;  iii.  315 

Coronea,  ii.  441,  498,  501,  503 

Correspondence  published,  v.  501 

Correus,  Bellovacian,  v.  92./I 

Corsica,  Phocaeans  settle  in,  i.  184.  Etrus- 
can, i.  186,  413,  416.  Carthaginian, 
ii.  40.  Roman  fleet  sent  thither  to  found 
colony,  ii.  44.  Roman,  ii.  177,  209. 
War  with,  ii.  376.  Marian  settlement 
in,  iii.  479 

Cortona,  ii.  ux.    Peace  with  Rome,  L  479 

C  Coruncanius,  ii.  217 

L.  Coruncanius,  ii.  217 

Tib.  Coruncanius,  ii.  23,  113 

Cos,  ii.  412;  iv.  32,  33 

Cosa  in  Etruria,  i.  304 ;  iv.  291.  In 
Lucania,  ii.  295.  A  Latin  colony,  ii. 
39,  42.     Reinforced,  ii.  366 

C.  Cosconius  [praetor,  664,  691],  in  the 
Social  war,  iii.  521.  Against  the  Dalma- 
tians, iv.  306 

Coses,  iv.  416 

Cossyra,  ii.  143 ;  iv.  92 

Cothon,  inner  harbour  of  Carthage,  iii. 
248,  256 

Cotta.    See  Aurelius,  Aurunculeius 

Cottian  Alps,  road  over  the,  iv.  293 

Cotys,  iv.  93,  500,  501,  510 

Crates  Mallotes,  grammarian,  iv.  214 

Crathis,  river  in  Bruttium,  i.  171 

Credit,  earliest  Roman  system  of:  no 
landed  security,  hut  guaranteed  right 
of  personal  arrest,  i.  204.  Effects  of,  i. 
346/;  Demand  of  legal  abatement  during 
the  Social  war,  iii.  53o_/I  Remission  of 
debt  by  the  law  of  L.  Valerius  Flaccus, 
iv.  70.  Projects  of  Catilina,  iv.  474. 
Position  of  debtors  in  Caesar's  time,  v. 
388-390.  Caesar's  measures,  v.  398-402. 
Laws  of  M.  Caelius  and  P.  Dolabella, 
v>  3*7  /•  Caesar's  bankruptcy  ordin- 
ance, v.  ifiof.     Compare  Agriculture 

Cremera,  battle  on  the,  i.  359 

Cremona,  ii.  267,  273  ;  iv.  167.  Battle  at, 
ii.  370.  Reorganized  as  fortress,  ii.  373. 
A  Latin  colony,  ii.  229  ;  iii.  49.  /us  of, 
ii.  52  «. ;  i»i.  518 

Crete,  ii.  405,  433,  439,  475,  514,  515 ;  iii. 
234,  442.  The  Phoenicians  dislodged 
thence  by  the  Hellenes,  i.  183.  Recruit- 
ing field,  ii.  162.  Seat  of  pirates,  iii.  291 
/,  306 ;  iv.  310,  314.    Made  by  Metellus 


and  Pompeius  a  Roman  province,  iv. 
3Sr-354,  402/;,  436.  League  of  Cretan 
towns,  iv.  27^ 

Cri/aen,  i.  32 

Criminal  procedure :  fundamental  ideas, 
i.  32.  Interference  of  the  king,  even 
without  appeal  of  the  injured  person, 
in  breaches  of  the  public  peace,  i.  191 
f.  Imprisonment  during  investigation 
the  rule,  i.  191./C  Capital  punishment, 
i.  192.  Pardon  by  the  community,  or 
by  the  gods,  i.  192.  Later  development, 
ii.  66-70.  Changes  by  C.  Gracchus,  iii. 
346^.  352./  Under  Sulla,  iv.  127-129. 
See  Jury-Courts 

Critolaus,  iii.  267,  268,  269 

Crixus,  leader  of  the  Celts  in  the  gladia- 
torial war,  iv.  357-360 

Croton,  i.  170/:,  173,  456;  ii.  29s,  358. 
Repulses  the  Bruttians  with  help  of  the 
Syracusans,  i.  466.  Occupied  by  the 
Romans,  ii.  12,  31.  Burgess-colony,  ii. 
365.  Pillaged  by  mutineers  in  Pyrrhic 
war,  ii.  18.  Surprised  by  the  pirates, 
iv.  354 

Crustumeria,  i.  125,  348.  Crustuminian 
tribe,  i.  360 

Culture,  in  Caesar's  time,  v.  449-453 

Cumae  or  "  Cyme,"  in  Asia  Minor,  ii.  461, 
473 ;  iii.  278 

Cumae  in  Campania,  ii.  303.  Oldest 
Greek  settlement  in  Italy,  i.  165,  166, 
167.  Transferred  to  mainland,  i.  175. 
Its  constitution,  i.  175.  Dorism  of 
language,  i.  174  n.  Attacked  by 
Tyrrhenians,  230  u.c,  i.  148,  158. 
Checks  the  Etruscans  in  Aricia,  i.  414. 
Helps  to  defeat  Tyrrhene  fleet,  i.  415  • 
ii.  134.  Conquered  by  Sabellians,  i.  419, 
454.  456.  Obtains  Caerite  rights,  i. 
463 ;  iii.  24.  Sibylline  oracles  brought 
thence  to  Rome,  i.  229.  Old  relation* 
with  Rome,  i.  260 ;  ii.  80 

Cumulation  of  offices,  i.  402 

Cures,  Sabine  town,  i.  69  n.  Obtains 
civitas  sine  suffragio,  i.  492.  Set 
Sabines 

Curia  consisted  of  10  gentes,  or  100 
households,  i.  85.  Fundamental  part  of 
the  community,  i.  86  /.  Compare 
Comitia  curiata 

Curia  Saliorum,  i.  62 

Curiae  ve  teres,  i.  62 

Curiatii,  from  Alba,  i.  128  ;  ii.  105 

Curicta,  v.  235 

Curio,  i.  87.  Curio  maxitnus  elected  by 
the  burgesses,  iii.  57.  AH  the  curiones 
elected  by  the  burgesses,  iii.  463;  iv. 


540 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


206  ./C  Election  by  the  college  reintro- 
duced by  Sulla,  iv.  zi$f.,  307 

Curio.     See  Scribonius 

M*.  Curius  Dentatus  [consul,  464,  479, 
480 ;  censor,  482],  i.  393,  395,  491 ;  ii. 
36,  85  ;  iii.  46 

Cursor.     See  Papirius 

Curule  magistracies,  iii.  4,  5  ».,  6f. 

Customs,  Sicilian,  ii.  212 ;  iv.  160.  Ex- 
tension of  Italian,  iii.  iqf.  In  the  seventh 
century,  iv.  159  ,/C  Customs -districts 
within  the  Roman  state,  iv.  160. 
Officers,  iv.  166 

Cybele,  worship  in  Rome,  iii.  117 

Cyclades,  the,  ii.  400,  410,  412 

Cycliades;  ii.  430 

Cyclopean  walls.     See  Walls 

Cydonia,  iv.  351/,  353 

Cynics,  v.  444 

Cynoscephalae,  battle  of,  ii.  433  /, 

Cyprus,  ii.  400,  410 ;  iv.  n,  47.  The 
Phoenicians  dislodged  thence  by  the 
Hellenes,  i.  183.  Separated  from 
Egypt,  iii.  235,  236.  Falls  to  Rome, 
»v-  3191/50,  3'7 

Cypsela,  iv.  52 

Cyrene,  ii.  137,  400,  410,  414 ;  iv.  40. 
Phoenicians  dislodged  thence  by  Hel- 
lenes, i.  183.  Separated  from  Egypt, 
iii.  234,  236,  283,  410  n.  ;  iv.  4.  Roman, 
iv.  4,  322.  Free  city,  iv.  4.  Roman 
domains  there,  iv.  157.  Taxation,  iv. 
158 

Cyssus,  battle,  ii.  460 

Cythnos,  ii.  417 

Cyzicus,  ii.  406,  430.  Free  city,  iii.  280. 
Treatment  by  Fimbria,  iv.  47.  Be- 
sieged by  Mithradates,  iv.  327/I  En- 
largement of  city-domain  by  Lucullus, 
iv.  440 

Dacian  kingdom  founded,  v.  105./C 

Dadasa,  iv.  348 

Dahae  in  army  of  Antiochus,  ii.  466 

Dalmatia.     See  Illyricum. 

Damareta,  i.  415 

Damascus,  iv.  316,  427 

Damasippus  at  Phacus,  iii.  260 

Damium,  i.  231 

Damocritus,  Achaean  strategus,  iii.  266 

Damophilus,  Sicilian  planter,  iii.  309 

Damophilus  of  Himera.    See  Demophilus 

Danala,  iv.  407 

Dancing,  its  early  religious  and  artistic 
significance,  i.  285  f.  Accompanying 
the  saturae,  ii.  98./C  Greek  influence, 
iv.  258.  On  the  stage,  v.  472^,  517. 
In  private  life,  v.  516./ 


Daorsi,  iii.  423 

Dardani,  ii.  42a,  423,  435,  49«,  493,  5°*  .' 
iii.  263,  429  ;  iv.  50.  Subdued  by 
Romans,  iv.  307 

Dardanus,  ii.  473.     Peace  at,  iv.  53,  54 

Darius,  king  of  the  Medes,  said  to  have 
been  defeated  by  Pompeius,  iv.  434  tu 

Dassaretae,  ii.  423,  426,  499 

Daunii,  i.  453  ;  ii.  ai,  89.  With  th» 
Etruscans  surprise  Cumae,  i.  148.  Sub- 
dued by  Alexander  the  Molossian,  i 
466 

Day  late  in  being  divided  into  hours,  i 
268.  Different  times  of  its  commence- 
ment among  Italian  races,  i.  269^ 

Dca  dia,  i.  215 

Debt,  procedure  for,  altered  by  the  Lex 
Poetelia,  i.  389/!     See  Credit 

Decemviri  consulari  imperio  legihus  scri- 
buttdis,  institution  and  overthrow,  i. 
361-367.  Introduction  of  money  by 
them,  ii.  -j%f.  Attempt  a  regulation  of 
the  calendar,  ii.  116,/! 

Decemviri  litibus  iitdicandis,  i.  352 ;  iv. 
128 

Decemviri  sacrisfaciundis.    See  Duovin 

Decietae,  iii.  415 

Decimal  system,  its  origin,  i.  263,/  Oldei 
than  the  duodecimal  system,  L  264,/ 
At  first  exclusively  prevalent  in  Italy, 
i.  264.  But  the  duodecimal  system 
early  acquired  preponderance,  i.  265 

Decius,  Campanian  captain,  ii.  18 

P.  Decius  Mus  [military  tribune,  411  ; 
consul,  414],  i.  459  n.  Self-sacrifice 
probably  false,  i.  460  n. 

P.  Decius  Mus  [consul,  457,  459],  i.  459 
«.,  489  ^ 

Declamations,  iv.  315-218 

Decurioues  turmarum,  i.  440  n. 

Dediticii,  communities  of,  iii.  24,  36-28. 
Definition  of,  iii.  528  «.  ;  iv.  107  n. 

Deiotarus,  iv.  325,  437 

Delian  bronze,  iii.  274  n. 

Delium,  ii.  457.  Peace-conferences  with 
Mithradates  at,  iv.  ^f. 

Delminium,  iii.  421 

Delos,  free  port,  ii.  515.  Emporium  of 
the  Romans,  iii.  274,  293,  306,  309 ;  iv. 
34,  175.  Occupied  by  Mithradates,  iv. 
34.  Given  to  Athens,  ii.  517;  iv.  39. 
Surprised  by  the  pirates,  iv.  354 

Delphic  oracle,  embassy  to,  from  the 
Romans,  i.  230 ;  ii.  46.  From  the 
Caerites,  i.  185.  Delphic  temple,  ii. 
495,  496.  Receives  gifts  from  Mum 
mius,  iii.  271.  Emptied  by  Sulla,  iv. 
40.    Celtic  expedition  to  Delphi,  iii.  425 


INDEX 


541 


Demeter,  secret  worship,  iii.  117 

Demetrias,  ii.  306,  423,  425,  431,  442,  452, 
459>  477i  504.  5°9  ;  jv.  35 

Demetrius  Nicator,  iii.  286 

Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  i.  491 ;  ii.  6,  7, 
43  n.     Changes  in  siege-warfare,  ii.  32 

Demetrius,  son  of  Philip  of  Macedonia, 
ii.  43s,  488 

Demetrius  of  Pharos,  ii.  218,  220,  250, 
285,  292  ;  iii.  421 

Demetrius  Soter,  of  Syria,  iii.  260,  282, 
283,  285 

Democrates,  ii.  412 

Democritns  regarded  as  inventor  of 
the  arch,  ii.  119.  Atomic  doctrine,  iv. 
197 

Demophilus  of  Himera,  ii.  123 

Denarius,  ii.  87 

Dentatus.     See  Curius 

Dentheletae,  Thracian  tribe,  iv.  34 

Depositum,  iii.  91 

Dertona,  iv.  167 

Desultor,  i.  294 

Deus  fidius,  i.  214,  230.  Sabine  and 
Latin  deity,  i.  69  «. 

Diaeus,  president  of  the  Achaean  league, 
iii.  265,  266,  269 

Dialogue  in  the  professional  sciences,  v. 
507-509 

Diana,  temple  of,  on  the  Aventine,  i.  133, 
216,  280  ;  ii.  84  ;  iii.  368.  Sanctuary  of 
the  league,  i.  142.  After  a  Greek 
model,  i.  231.  Festival  probably  com- 
bined with  a  fair,  i.  250.  Effigy  formed 
after  that  of  Ephesus,  and  the  oldest 
image  of  the  gods  in  Rome,  i.  306  /., 
308 

Diana's  temple  in  Aricia,  Federal  sanctu- 
ary, i.  445  «. 

Diana,  temple  of,  on  Mount  Tifata,  re- 
ceives gifts  from  Sulla,  iv.  108 

Dianium  promontorium,  pirate  station 
instituted  by  Sertorius,  iv.  286 

Dicaearchus,  ii.  408,  412 

Dicaearchia.     See  Puteoli 

Dice-playing  in  Rome,  iii.  123 

Dictator :  relation  of  his  power  to  the 
regal  and  consular,  i.  325 ,/C  Originally 
general,  i.  325.  Nomination  by  the 
consul,  1.  325.  Appeals  against  him,  i. 
358.  Plebeians  eligible,  i.  382.  Dicta- 
torship set  aside,  ii.  284,  297  ;  iii.  56. 
Latin  municipal  authority,  as  regards 
ritual,  throughout  not  collegiate,  i. 
442  f.,  442  n.  Sulla's  dictatorship,  iv. 
98_/C     Caesar's  dictatorship,  v.  327./C 

M.  Didius  [praetor,  640],  iii.  429 

T.  Didius  {consul,  656]  defeats  the  Lusi- 


tanians,  iii.   479,  508  ;  iv.  282.     In  th« 
Social  war,  iii.  508,  523 ;  iv.  102  n. 

Dido  (Elisa),  ii.  no 

Dies  fasti,  i.  189 

Digitus,  i.  266 

Dii  inferi,  i.  214 

Diodorus,  philosopher  and  lieutenant  of 
Mithradates,  iv.  46 

Diogenes,  Carthaginian  commander,  iii. 
_ZSS 

Diomedes,  fable  of,  ii.  108 

Dionysia,  dancer,  v.  472 

Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  i.  417,  418,  435; 
ii.  144.  Helps  the  Sabellians  to  ruin 
the  towns  of  Magna  Graecia,  i.  454 

Dionysius,  ruler  of  Tripolis,  iv.  430 

Diophanes,  lieutenant  of  Eumenes,  ii.  46* 

Diophanes  of  Mytilene,  rhetorician,  iii. 
320 

Diophantus,  general  of  Mithradates,  i» 
13  «.,  17  ».,  321,  331 

Diopos,  i.  307 

Dioscurias,  iv.  13,  413,  417 

Diphilus,  comic  poet,  iv.  221 

Disciplinae  septem  liberates,  v.  449  n, 

Dis  pater,  i.  231 

Ditalco,  confidant  of  Viriathus,  iii.  aaj 

Dium,  ii.  432 

Divalia,  i.  208 

Divico,  iii.  435 

Divisores  tribuum,  iv.  268 

Divitiacus,  v.  35 

Documents,  earliest  Roman,  i.  280 

Dolabella.     See  Cornelius 

Dolopia,  ii.  459,  477 

Domains,  property  of  the  state,  not  of  the 
king,  i.  92.  Still  vested  in  the  clans,  i. 
245-248.  Originally  perhaps  not  very 
extensive,  i.  248.  Use  of  them  regularly 
granted  only  to  the  burgess,  i.  248. 
Change  in  their  treatment  under  the 
rule  of  the  senate  :  reserved  substan- 
tially for  the  patricians,  and  possibly  for 
such  plebeians  as  sat  in  the  senate,  i. 
343/.  Assignations  of  land  restricted, 
i.  344.  Formation  of  the  system  of 
occupation :  usufruct  of  portions  of 
public  land,  until  further  notice,  for 
payment  of  a  proportion  of  the  produce, 
>•  344./  Vain  attempt  of  Cassius  to  set 
aside  the  system  of  occupation,  i.  361. 
Increasing  distress  of  the  farmers,  i. 
379  f.  New  regulation  by  the  Licinio- 
Sextian  laws ;  occupation  and  the  right 
of  pasturing  cattle  restricted  by  maxi- 
mum rates,  i.  381,  387  f.  Leasing  of 
the  domains  acquired  in  the  Hannibalic 
war,  iii.  20.     Extension  of  the  posses- 


542 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


sioas,  iii.  48  f.  Large  assignation  in 
the  sixth  century,  iii.  49.  Decision  as 
to  assignations  falls  to  the  burgesses,  iii. 
58  _/T  Occupation  of  Italian  domains, 
iii.  312,  319,  321,  373-376 ;  iv.  108  f. 
Distribution  attempted  by  C.  Laelius 
Sapiens,  iii.  317,  319.  Distribution  by 
Ti.  Gracchus,  iii.  320  /.,  327-33°>  332i 
485-488.  Suspended,  iii.  336.  Resumed 
by  C.  Gracchus,  iii.  345  f.  After  his 
death,  iii.  373  f.  Intended  by  Drusus, 
iii.  485-488.  To  Sulla's  soldiers,  iv. 
109  /.  To  Pompeius'  soldiers  after  the 
Spanish  war,  iv.  376,  378.  After  the 
Mithradatic  war,  iv.  502.  Attempted 
by  the  Servilian  law,  iv.  472  /.  Under 
Caesar,  v.  358,  403  f.  Produce  of  the 
extra-Italian  domains,  iv.  156.  Corn- 
fare  Capua 

Cn.  Domitius,  in  command  against  Antio- 
chus,  ii.  466 

Cn.  Domitius  Ahenobarbns  [consul,  632] 
fights  against  the  Allobroges,  iii.  417  /. 

Cn.  Domitius  Ahenobarbus,  son-in-law  of 
Cinna,  iv.  92 

Cn.  Domitius  Ahenobarbus  [tribune  of  the 
people,  650 ;  consul,  658],  iii.  463 

Cn.  Domitius  Calvinus  [dictator,  474],  ii. 

23 
Cn.  Domitius  Calvinus  [praetor,  698],  v. 

255 
L.  Domitius  Ahenobarbns  [consul,  660], 

iv.  84,  102  n. 
L.  Domitius  Ahenobarbus  [consul,  700], 

v.  123,  210,  214,  220,  229,  267,  384 
M.  Domitius  Calvinus,  against  Sertorius, 

iv.  283 
Doric  colonies  in  Italy  and  Sicily,  i.  166./C, 

168,  172 
Doris,  ii.  396 

Dorylaus,  general  of  Mithradates,  iv.  44 
Drachmae,  Attic,  v.  438  «.     Standard  of 

the,  iv.  182^ 
Drama.    See  Stage 
Drepana,  ii.  178, 187, 193,  194.     Battle  of, 

ii.  188/ 
Dress,  iv.  185 

Dromichaetes,  Pontic  general,  iv.  38,  41 
Druids,  v.  23 
Drunemetum,  ii.  40a 
Drusus.     See  Livius 
Duel    replaced    by    money  -  wager    and 

action   at  law,  iii.  91.     Celtic,  i.  421. 

In  Spain,  ii.  386 
C.  Duilius  [consul,  494],  ii.  176.     Demon- 
strations of  honour  to,  iii.  44 
M.  Duilius  [tribune  of  the  people,  283, 

305]»  i- 3*7 


Dumnorix,  v.  41  /.,  (7 

Duodecimal  system  in  Italy,  early  in  use 
as  well  for  the  measurement  of  time  as 
for  measures  of  length  and  surface  and 
for  weight,  i.  265^ 

Duoviri  iuri  dicundo  in  the  municipia, 
iv.  132./C 

Duoviri  navales,  ii.  44 

Duoviri  perduellionis,  t.  191 

Duoviri  sacris  faciundis,  custodiers  of 
oracles,  i.  230.  Increased  to  ten  and 
opened  up  toplebeians,  i.  381.  Increased 
to  fifteen,  iv.  126.  Chosen  by  the 
burgesses,  iii.  463 ;  iv.  106/.  Co-opta- 
tion reintroduced  by  Sulla,  iv.  115,  207 

Dyers,  guild  of,  i.  249,  253 

Dyme,  ii.  319,  430 

Dyrrhachium.     See  Epidamnus 

Eagle  introduced  as  a  standard,  iii.  460 

Ebur,  i.  260  ». 

Eburones,  v.  54,  68,  69,  70,  71,  73./; 

Ebusus,  ii.  143 

Echetla,  ii.  170 

Echinus,  ii.  421 

Ecnomus,  battle  of,  ii.  179^ 

Edessa.    See  Osrhoene 

E dictum  praetoris  urbani,  v.  433 

Education,  its  rise,  i.  296  f.,  299  f. ;  ii. 
115,/.  ;  iii.  130-132.  In  Latin  in  seventh 
and  eighth  centuries,  iv.  212,  214-218  ; 
v.  451-453.  In  Greek,  iv.  212 /.;  v. 
450.  In  Caesar's  time,  v.  449^  His 
germs  of  state-training  schools,  v.  452./C 

Egeria,  ii.  107 

Egesta.     See  Segesta 

Gellius  Egnatius,  i.  488,  490 

Marius  Egnatius,  Samnite,  leader  in 
Social  war,  iii.  511,  522 

Egypt,  character  of  the  kingdom,  ii.  399./C 
First  contact  with  Rome,  ii.  61.  Its 
relations  to  Rome,  ii.  215  ./C  Position 
in  the  second  Punic  war,  ii.  315,  318, 
344.  Before  the  time  of  the  Gracchi, 
iii.  236,  281-284,  286.  After  the  time  of 
the  Graoehi,  iv.  4,  27,  40.  Financial 
character  of  the  Ptolemaic  government, 
iv.  164.  Discussions  as  to  its  annexa- 
tion after  the  death  of  Alexander  II., 
iv.  318  f.  Ptolemaeus  XL  recognized 
by  the  Romans  and  conducted  back  by 
Gabinius,  iv.  $%of.  Intervention  given 
up,  v.  122/".  State  at  the  time  of  the 
battle  of  Pharsalus,  v.  268  /.  State 
under  Caesar,  v.  272-282,  343 

Egyptian  objects  of  luxury  in  Italian 
tombs,  i.  253 

Elaea,  ii.  462,  466 


INDEX 


543 


Elaeus,  ii.  417 

Elatea,  ii.  430 

Elea.     See  Velia 

Elephants,  use  of,  in  battle,  ii.  19,  35,  36, 

434.      Carthaginian,  ii.    159,   183,   185, 

i86y:,  251,  255,  258,  262,  422 
Elephants,  the  first  seen  in  Rome,  ii.  36 
Eleusinian   mysteries,   admission  of   the 

Romans  to,  ii.  219 
Eleusis,  ii.  423  ;  iv.  38 
Eleuthera,  iv.  353 
Eleuthero-Lacones,  ii.  439,  451 
Elis,  ii.  317,  403,  421,  456,  459,  478 
Elorus,  Syracusan,  ii.  204 
Elpenor,  his  tomb  shown  at   Terracina, 

i.  177  _ 
Elpius,  ii.  504,  506 
Elymaea,  ii.  426 
Elymais,  ii.  468.     Temple  of  Nanaea  at, 

iv.  343.     Elymaeans  in  army  of  Anti- 

ochus,  ii.  466 
Elymi,  ii.  143 
Emancipation    allowed,    ii.    65.       More 

recent  than  manumission,  i.  76,  198^ 
Emigrants,  Roman,  in  Spain,  iv.  281-285, 

300-303.     With  Mithradates,  iv.   270, 

318,  322,  329 
Emporiae  [or  Emporia]  in  Africa,  ii.  377  ; 

iii.  238,  258 
Emporiae  in  Spain,  ii.  241,  291,  375,  384, 

387 

Endowments,  religious,  iii.  no 

Engraving  on  stone  in  Etruria,  i.  306, 
307 ;  ii.  121.     On  metal,  ii.  121 

Enna,  ii.  311 ;  iii.  309,  310,  384 

Q.  Ennius,  Roman  poet,  iii.  27  «.,  173- 
177,  204 ;  iv.  214  f.  Introduces  the 
hexameter,  iii.  175.  His  Praetextatae, 
iii.  177.  His  Saturae,  iii.  179.  His 
Annates,  iii.  181-184.  His  translation 
of  Epicharmus  and  Euhemerus,  iii.  113. 
Changes  in  orthography,  iii.  192.  Re- 
ligious position,  iii.  111  f.  Influence 
on  Pacuvius,  iv.  220,  223 

Entella,  ii.  162 

Eordaea,  ii.  425 

Epetium,  iii.  422 

Ephesus,  ii.  453,  459,  461,  474;  iii.  278; 
iv.  46  ft.  Luxury,  iii.  122.  Massacre 
at,  iv.  31/. 

Ephorus,  i.  177  n.  ;  ii.  108 

Epicharmus  of  Megara,  iii.  113.  Edited 
by  Ennius,  iii.  179 

Epicurus  and  his  school,  iv.  197-200;  v. 

444 
Epicydes,  ii.  310,  311,  313 
Epidamnus    (Dyrrhachium),   founded,   i. 

176.      Roman,   ii.   318 ;   iii.   262.      At- 


tached to  Macedonia,  iii.  262,  272  n. 
Highway  to,  iv.  168.  Caesar's  conflicts 
at,  250-254.     Mint,  iii.  87 ;  iv.  181 

Epidaurus,  Aesculapius  brought  thence 
to  Rome,  ii.  71.  Temple  of  Aescula- 
pius emptied  by  Sulla,  iv.  40 

Epirots  (or  Epirus),  ii.  403,  421,  429,  456, 
459.  476.  499i  502,  518;  iii.  262,  421, 
422 ;  iv.  34,  36,  43  ;  v.  245 

Epitaphs,  imitation  of  a  Greek  custom, 
ii.  91 

Eporedia  (Ivrea),  colony  in  654  at,  iii. 
416.  518 

Epos,  Roman,  iv.  236  ./C ;  v.  465./C 

Epuiones.    See  Tres  viri  epulones 

Equestrian  centuries:  6  centuries  =  600 
horses,  18  centuries  =1800  horses,  iii. 
8  «.,  9.  Priority  in  voting  withdrawn, 
iii.  50./C  Proposed  increase  of,  by  Cato, 
iii.  9  n.  £guites  equo  publico,  equites 
equo  privato,  iii.  9  n.  The  nobility  in 
possession  of  the,  iii.  8-10.  Surrender 
of  the  state-horses,  iii.  9 

Equestrian  order,  beginning  of,  iii.  94  f. 
Elevated  by  Gracchus,  iii.  349  f.  In- 
signia of  the,  iii.  351.  Restriction  of, 
by  Sulla,  iv.  in,  i2gyC  Compare  Jury- 
courts 

Equirria,  i.  207 

Eratosthenes,  ii.  146 

Ercte,  ii.  193 

Eretria,  ii.  430,  452 

Ergastulum,  iii.  70  «.,  307  n. 

Erisane,  iii.  224 

Erythrae,  ii.  412,  461,  473 

Eryx,  ii.  187,  193 

Esquilzae =Kxqui\ia.e,  i.  63,  65 

Etruria,  boundaries,  i.  156  /.  In  the 
southern  portion  many  traces  of  Urn- 
brians  who  were  probably  only  dislodged 
at  a  late  period,  L  156.  Southern  part 
conquered  by  the  Romans,  i.  432. 
Husbandry  in,  iii.  99  ;  iv.  17.  Slavery 
in,  iii.  102,  308,  313 

Etruscans,  different  in  figure  and  language 
from  the  Italian  race,  i.  150.  Earlier 
period  of  the  language  with  complete 
vocalization,  i.  151.  Later  period  with 
rejection  of  vowels  and  blunting  of  the 
pronunciation,  i.  151  f.  Such  affinity 
as  subsists  between  Latin  and  Etruscan 
may  be  traced  to  borrowing,  i.  152. 
Not  otherwise  demonstrably  related  to 
any  known  race,  i.  152.  May  be  pre- 
sumed Indo-Germanic,  i.  153.  Came 
probably  from  Raetia  to  Italy,  i.  154. 
Not  from  Asia  Minor,  i.  155.  Settled 
up  to  the  Celtic  invasion  between  Alps 


544 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


and  Po,  i.  156.  Also,  south  of  the  Po, 
L  156.  Lastly,  and  more  especially,  in 
Etruria  named  after  them,  as  far  as  the 
Tiber,  i.  156/!  Conflicts  with  the  Celts, 
i.  160.  Urban  life  early  developed  in 
Etruria,  i.  160  f.  Constitution  of  the 
communities,  and  of  the  league,  i.  itof. 
Antagonism  to  the  Greek  navigators 
along  their  coasts  develops  among 
them  piracy  and  a  commerce  of  their 
own,  i.  181.  Establish  themselves  on 
the  Latin  and  Campanian  coasts,  i.  181. 
League  of  the  twelve  Campanian  towns, 
L  i8i_/C  Surprise  Cumae,  i.  148.  Active 
commerce,  i.  182,  257-260.  Wealth  and 
luxury,  i.  257;  ii.  8o_/C  Conduct  the 
carrying  trade  of  the  Sybarites,  L  171. 
Commercial  intercourse  with  Attica  and 
Carthage,  i.  237  /•  \  ii.  80.  Their 
fellowship  in  arms  with  the  Phoenicians, 
i.  184./C  Rule  in  consequence  of  it  the 
Italian  seas,  i.  1S6,  413.  Kept  aloof 
from  the  Atlantic  by  the  Phoenicians, 
i.  187.  Culmination  of  their  power,  i. 
413.  War  with  Rome  after  expulsion 
of  the  kings,  i.  317.  Attack  on  Latium ; 
victory  over  Rome,  i.  414.  Defeat  at 
Aricia,  i.  414.  Naval  supremacy  broken 
by  the  united  exertions  of  the  Italians, 
Greeks,  and  Syracusans,  i.  414-418. 
Their  naval  power  thenceforth  gone,  ii. 
40.  Destructive  conflicts  with  Dionysius 
of  Syracuse,  i.  417^  Changed  position 
towards  Carthage,  i.  418.  Dislodged 
by  the  Samnites  from  Campania,  i.  419, 
4537c  Dislodged  by  the  Celts  from 
northern  Italy,  i.  424./C  Contemporary 
wars  of  Veii  with  Rome,  i.  418,  425./^ 
Veii  conquered,  i.  426.  Sudden  collapse 
of  the  Etruscan  power  under  these 
united  attacks,  i.  427.  South  Etruria 
Roman,  i.  432  f.  Position  after  the 
conflicts  with  Celts  and  Romans,  i.  433- 
435.  Position  during  the  Samnite  wars, 
i.  468.  Support  the  Samnites,  i.  479. 
Lay  down  arms,  i.  479.  Rise  afresh 
against  Rome,  i.  487  f.  Peace,  i.  490. 
In  combination  with  the  Lucanians, 
Celts,  and  Pyrrhus  against  Rome,  ii. 
gf.,  16,  18.  Conclusion  of  peace  with 
Rome,  ii.  93.  Conduct  in  the  second 
Punic  war,  ii.  345.  Join  with  the  equites 
against  Drusus,  iii.  487.  Faithful  to 
Rome  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  501.  In- 
cipient rising  quieted,  iii.  513,  519  f. 
Obtain  burgess-rights  through  the  Julian 
law,  iii.  518./C  Struggles  against  Sulla, 
hr.  60,  877c    Punishment  for,  iv.  108. 


After  Sulla's  death,  iv.  264,  288-291 
Not  the  source  of  Latin  civilization,  i. 
281,/C  Etruscan  culture  of  the  Roman 
boys  a  fable,  i.  292  «.  Religion,  ii.  71. 
Lore  of  lightning,  i.  234.  National 
festival,  i.  234;  iii.  112  f.  Art,  i.  306- 
309;  ii.  n8,  120,  124  f.  Diversity  be- 
tween Northern  and  Southern  Etruscans, 
i.  126.  Relation  to  Latin  art,  ii.  127  f. 
Tragedy,  iii.  196.  Architecture,  i.  303, 
305.  Writing,  i.  275-282.  Hellenism, 
ii.  90 

Etymologies  of  the  Stoics,  iv.  203.  Of 
Varro,  v.  512  «. 

Euboea,  ii.  396,  422,  457;  iv.  34,  38. 
Roman  domains  there,  iii.  272  n. 

Eucheir,  i.  307 

Eudamus,  ii.  463 

Eudoxus,  ii.  117 

Euganei,  iii.  424 

Eugrammos,  i.  307 

Euhemerism,  iv.  197,  200^ 

Euhemerus  of  Messene,  iii.  113.  Edited 
by  Ennius,  iii.  179 

Eumenes  I.  of  Pergamus,  ii.  450,  455,  469, 
474.  475.  478,  482,  485,  486,  492,  494, 
497.  499,  510-512 

Eumenes  II.  of  Pergamus,  iii.  264,  275, 
276  «.,  281 

Eunus,  slave-king  in  first  Sicilian  war,  iii. 
310 ;  iv.  209 

Eupatoria,  town  in  Pontus,  iv.  330,  332 

Eupatorion,  town  in  the  Crimea,  iv.  17  n. 

Euphenes,  Thracian  pretender  to  Mace- 
donia, iv.  34 

Euphorion,  iv.  450,  479  ». 

Euporus,  slave  of  C.  Gracchus,  iii.  369 

Euripides,  iii.  166-171 

Euripus,  iv.  42-44 

Euromus,  ii.  413 

Euryalus,  ii.  311 

Eurylochus,  ii.  452 

Eurymedon,  battle  of,  ii.  463 

Evander  of  Crete,  ii.  507 

Exarare,  i.  280 

Exegetae,  v.  515 

Exile,  right  of,  ii.  68  /.  Refusal  of  it 
legally  possible,  iii.  348.  Is  sometimes 
actually  refused,  iii.  348.  Exile  intro- 
duced as  a  punishment,  probably  by  C. 
Gracchus,  iii.  348 

Exports,  Italian,  iv.  174.  Of  wine  and 
oil,  iii.  415  «.     Of  grain,  i.  171 

Exposure  of  children,  i.  75 

Exul,  i.  318  n. 

Fabii,  clan-village,  i.  45.  Celebrate  the 
Lupercalia,  L  67  ».,  315.   Ascendency  is 


INDEX 


545 


the  first  times  of  senatorial  rule,  i.  359. 

Destruction  at  the  Cremera,  i.  359,  418./C 

Prominence  of  their  family-tradition  in 

the  Roman  annals,  ii.  105 
C.  Fahius  Pictor,  the  painter,  ii.  124,  148 
C.   Fabius   Hadrianus,  Marian  governor 

in  Africa,  iv.  72,  92 
M.     Fabius     Hadrianus,    lieutenant    of 

Lucullus,    iv.    331.      Commandant    in 

Pontus,  iii.  347 
Q.   Fabius  Labeo  [consul,  571],  poet,  iii. 

178  n.  ;  iv.  229  ». 
Q.  Fabius  Maximus  [dictator,  537  ;  consul, 

521,  526,  539,  540,  545],  ii.  280-285,  297. 

298,  3°4i  333.  342.  35i>  358  ;_  iii.  56,  208. 

Pronounces  the  funeral  oration  over  his 

sen,  iii.  189.     His  knowledge  of  history, 

iii.  189 
Q.    Fabius    Pictor    first    writes    Roman 

history  in  the  Greek  language,  iii.  1847c, 

1 85.     Latin  annals  under  his  name,  iii. 

184  n. 
Q.    Fabius  Rullianus,    named  Maximus 

[censor,  450;  consul,  432,  444,  446,  457, 

459].  }■  396^,  403,  479.  480,  488,  489 
Q.  Fabius  Maximus  Aemilianus  [consul, 

609],  in  conflict  with  the  Lusitanians, 

iii.  223,  226,  230 
Q.  Fabius  Maximus  Allobrogicus  [consul, 

633],  iii.  418  ;  iv.  186 
Q.  Fabius  Maximus  Eburnus  [consul,  638], 

iii.  428  «. 
Q.  Fabius  Maximus  Servilianus  [consul, 

612],    iii.    185  «.     In  conflict  with  the 

Lusitanians,  iii.  224 
Fabrateria,  town  of  the  Volsci,  i.  464 
Fabrateria,icolony  of,  founded  on  Fregellan 

territory,  iii.  341 
C.  Fabricius  Luscinus  [consul,  472,  476 ; 

censor,  478],  i.  394./C ;  ii.  12,  30.     Em- 
bassy to  Pyrrhus,  ii.  24 
1  alula.  Atellana,  i.  291,  300 ».;  iii.  i6s».; 

iv.  231-234,  231  ».,  232  w.      Displaced 

by  the  mime,  iv.  233  «.  ;  v.  469  ».,  470 
Fabula  palliata,  iki.  147,  164  n. ;  iv.  229,/C 
Fabula  praetextata,  iii.  177;  iv.  222 
Fabula  togata,  iii.  164  «.,  165  ;  iv.  229/; 
Faesulae,  ii.  224.    Sullan  confiscations  and 

colony,  iv.   108.      Rising  after  Sulla's 

death,  iv.  289.    Rendezvous  of  the  Cati- 

linarians,  iv.  474,  476 
Fagutal,  i.  63 
Falernian  wine,  iv.  172 
Falerii,  i.  157,  256.    Supports  Veii  against 

Rome,  L  426.     Wars  with  Rome,  i.  425, 

432,   488 ;    ii.   20.      Colonized,   i.   433. 

Makes  peace  with  the  invading  Celts, 

L  436 

VOL.  V 


Falemus  ager,   in  Campania,  given    in 

allotments,  i.  463.     Full  franchise,  ii.  49 
Faliscan  alphabet,  i.  144,  282 
Familia  pecuniaque,  \.  193,  238 
Family    among    the    Romans,    i.   72-77. 

Relaxation   of  family  life,    iii.    121  f. 

Family  life  in  Caesar's  time,  v.  390-393 
C.    Fannius    [consul,    632]    opposes    C. 

Gracchus,  iii.  362 
L.  Fannius,  a  commander  in  the  Mithra- 

datic  war,  iv.  323,  328,  334,  347,  348 
Fanum,  ii.  229,  348 ;  iv.  166 
Fasti,  origin  of,  ii.  101 
Faunian    measure   (versus   Faum'us),    L 

2897c 
Faunus,  i.  208,  215,  286 
Faventia,  iv.  85,  87 
Felsina=Bononia,  i.  156,  4*4 
Fenerator,  iii.  83 
Fenus  nauticum,  iii.  92 
Fenus  unciarium.    See  Interest 
Feralia,  i.  209 
Ferentinum,  i.  50,  455,  492.    Not  a  Roman 

burgess-community,  iii.  36 
Feriae  Latinae,  i.  50,  51  ».,  298 
Feriae  publicae,  i.  207 
Feriae  sementivae,  i.  243  ;  iii.  72  «. 
Feronia,  Grove  of,  fair  at,  i.  250./C 
Fescennium,  village  in  Etruria,  iv.  232  n, 

Carmina  Fescennina,  i.  289,  300  n. ;  iv. 

231  n. 
Fetiales,  keepers  of  state-treaties  and  of 

state-law,  twenty  in  number,  i.  202,  220 
Ficoroni  casket,  i.  279  ». ;  ii.  82,  92, 124  n. 
Ficulnea,  i.  125 
Ficus  ruminalis,  ii.  106,  123 
Fidenae,  i.  58.    Conflicts  between  Romans 

and  Etruscans  for  its  possession,  i.  125, 

134,  158.     Formula  of  accursing  for,  i. 

125  n.     Roman,  i.  419.     Revolts  and  is 

reconquered,  i.  425.     Dictators  there, 

i.  442  n 
Fidentia,  town  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  iv.  87 
Fides= strings,  i.  292  ;  ii.  76  n. 
Fides,  temple  of,  iii.  326 
Fiducia,  no  mortgage,  but  transference 

of  property,  i.  194 
Fig-tree,  indigenous  in  Italy,  i.  242 ;  iii. 

.67 

Fimbria.     See  Flavius 

Financial  position  during  second  Punic 
war,  ii.  334,  343  /.  ;  iv.  170  f.  In  the 
sixth  century,  iii.  19-23.  In  seventh 
century,  iv.  82,  155-168.  Under  Sulla, 
iv.  126.     Under  Caesar,  v.  362-367 

Fine-processes,  i.  192,  342 ;  ii.  62  /.,  86. 
Chiefly  instituted  by  the  aediles,  ii.  66. 
Application  of  the  ntultae,  ii.  86.    At 

168 


546 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


what  time  introduced  into  the  Annals, 
ii.  102/.     Compare  Provocatio 

Finger-rings,  golden,  iii.  545 

Fire-kindling,  i.  28 

Firmum,  ii.  24.  Latin  colony,  ii.  39. 
In  the  Social  war,  iii.  513.  lut  of,  ii. 
52  n. 

Fish-ponds,  iii.  378 

Flaccus.     See  Fulvius 

Flamen  curialis,  i.  87,  217^ 

Flamen  Dialis,  i.  192,  216,  241 ;  iii.  Ill 

Flamen  Martialis,  i.  106,  108,  216 

Flamen  Quirinalis,  i.  87,  89,  175 

Flamines  maiores,  i.  217.  Always  patri- 
cian, i.  384 

Flamines  minores,  i.  v&f. 

Flamininus.    See  Quinctius 

C.  Flaminius  [consul,  531,  537 ;  censor, 
534]  makes  war  on  the  Celts,  ii.  226. 
Fights  with  Hannibal,  ii.  273-276,  297  ; 
iii.  19.  Suggests  the  Lex  Claudia,  iii. 
94.  Originator  of  the  Flaminian  circus 
and  of  the  plebeian  games,  iii.  41. 
Distributes  the  Picenian  possessions, 
iii.  48,  58  f.  Does  away  with  the 
equalization  of  the  freedmen  and  the 
freeborn,  iii.  53.  Founder  of  Roman 
demagogism,  iii.  61 

C.  Flavius  Fimbria,  active  in  the  Marian 
reign  of  terror,  iv.  69.  Conquers  at 
Miletopolis,  iv.  47  f.  Death  of,  iv.  53. 
Burial,  iv.  101 

Cn.  Flavius,  ii.  113 

M.  Flavius  draws  up  edict  for  Caesar's 
reform  of  the  calendar,  v.  439  n. 

Fleet.    See  Maritime  affairs 

Flexuntes,  i.  90 

wlora,  Sabine  and  Latin  goddess,  i.  69  «. ; 
iii.  41.     Flamen  of,  i.  216 

Flute,  i.  35.     Latin,  i.  288 

Flute-blowers,  guild  of,  i.  249,  286 

Fodder-plants,  iii.  66 

Foedus  and  deditio,  iii.  528  «. 

Folium,  i.  280 

Following,  personal,  among  Celts  and 
Germans,  iv.  285 

M.  Fonteius  subdues  the  Vocontii,  v.  8 

T.   Fonteius   [legate  in   Spain,   543],   ii. 

323.  5i7 
Fonteius  [legate,  663]  slain  at  Asculum, 

iii.  500 
Fontinalia,  i.  208 
Fora  et  conciliabula,  ii.  48 ;  iii.  36 
Fordicidia,  i.  207 
Foreigners  had  no  rights  in  Rome  except 

by   state  -  treaties,    i.    199  f.      These 

treaties  the  basis  of  the  Jus  gentium, 


Formiae,  i.  177,  461.  Obtains  Caerite 
rights,  i.  463.     Full  franchise,  iii.  23 

Formula,  v.  431 

Formula  togatorunt,  ii.  54  ;  iii.  164  ». 

Fors/ortuna,  i.  214 

Fortes  sanates,  i.  128  ft. 

Fortinei,  about  370,  member  of  Latin 
league,  i.  448  ». 

Forum  boarium,  i.  141 

Forum  cupedinis,  v.  379 

Forum  Flaminii,  ii.  229 

Forum  Julium,  v.  373 

Forum  Romanuvi,  i.  140.  Embellished, 
i.  480 ;  ii.  86 

Free  labourers  in  Sicily  placed  among 
the  slaves,  iii.  383 

Freedmen.    See  Manumission 

Fregellae,  Latin  colony,  i.  464,  468,  472  ; 
iii.  24.  Stormed  by  the  Samnites  after 
the  Caudine  victory,  i.  472,  474.  Re- 
occupied,  i.  475  f.  Conquered  by 
Pyrrhus,  ii.  23.  Attitude  of,  in  second 
Punic  war,  ii.  345.  Revolt,  iii.  341, 
362.  Destruction  of,  iii.  341  f.  Ac- 
cursing  of  the  soil,  i.  125  n. 

Frentani,  i.  146,  467,  482;  ii.  382;  iii. 
501 

Fruit,  v.  378./C 

Frusino,  i.  485 

Fucine  lake,  i.  146 

Fullers,  guild  of,  i.  249,  253  ;  iii.  85  «. 

Cn.  Fulvius  Centumalus  [consul,  543],  ii 

342 
Cn.   Fulvius   Flaccus  [praetor,  542),  ii. 

337 

M.  Fulvius  [consul,  449],  i.  481 

M.  .  Fulvius  Nobilior  [consul,  565]  con- 
quers the  Aetolians,  ii.  476^  Publicly 
exhibits  the  Roman  calendar,  iii.  194. 
Introduces  Greek  art  -  treasures  into 
Rome,  iii.  208 

M.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  a  friend  of  the 
Gracchi,  iii.  335,  338,  340,  342,  362,  365, 
367.  368,  374.  416/ 

Q.  Fulvius  Flaccus  [consul,  517,  530,  542, 

545],  »•  337.  34°.  342,  35i 
Q.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  son  of  the  Gracchan 

M.  Fulvius  Flaccus,  iii.  367,  369 
Q.  Fulvius  Flaccus  [governor  in  Spain, 

5731.  ii;  39i 
Q.    Fulvius   Nobilior  [triumvir  coloniat 

deducendae,  570]  gives  burgess-rights  to 

Ennius,  iii.  27  «. 
Q.    Fulvius    Nobilior   [consul,    6oi],   in 

Celtiberian  war,  iii.  215  f.,  228 
Functions    first    defined    in  the  case  of 

secondary  offices,  especially  the  quaes- 

torship,  i.  400  f>    Then  in  that  of  the 


INDEX 


547 


supreme  magistrates,  and  even  of  the 

dictator,  i.  400,  403 
Funda,  ii.  76  n. 
Fundi,  i.  461.     Obtains  Caerite  rights,  i. 

463.      Obtains  full   burgess -rights,  iii. 

23 
Funeral  rites,  i.  295 ;  iii.   104-106.     En- 
actments of  the  Twelve  Tables  thereon, 

ii.   63.     Gladiatorial    games,    iii.    126. 

Orations  at,  ii.  104.      Burning  of   the 

dead,  ii.  226 
A.  Furius,  epic  poet,  iv.  237 
L.  Furius  Camillus  [dictator,  404],  i.  432 
L.  Furius    Philus   [consul,   618],    against 

Numantia,  iii.  229.      In  the  Scipionic 

circle,  iv.  220 
M.  Furius  Bibaculus,  poet,  v.  140,  481 
M.   Furius  Camillus  [dictator,   358,  364, 

365,    386,   387],    his    party -position,   i. 

379.      Founds   Temple   of  Concord,   i. 

384.     Conquers  Veii,   i.   426.     Defeats 

the  Gauls  at  Alba,  i.  431.     A  military 

reformer,  ii.  76.     Taxes  bachelors,  ii. 

66 
Furrina,  i.  209.     Grove  of,  iii.  369 

Gabii,  i.  49,  58,  125,  130,  157.  Form  of 
accursing  for,  i.  125  n.  Treaty  with 
Rome,  i.  280.  About  370,  member  of 
Latin  league,  i.  448  n.,  450 

A.  Gabinius  [legate,  665]  falls  in  the 
Social  war,  iii.  526 

A.  Gabinius  [tribune  of  the  people,  687], 
iv.  392-395,  429,  430,  451,  456,  513 ;  v. 

143.  iSii  2g4  /■ 
Gades,   ii.    142,   239,  331,   332,   384,   393. 

Free  from  taxation,   iv.   157.     Obtains 

Italian  municipal  rights,  v.  424 
Gaditanum /return,  iii.  220 
Gaesatae,  ii.  223  n. 
Gaetulia,    iii.    404,    406,     410  ;     iv.  94. 

Roman  merchants  in,  iii.  260 
Gala,  ii.  322 
Galatas,  ii.  222 
Galba.     See  Sulpicius 
Galatia,  ii.  450,  512  ;  iii.   234,   276,   281 ; 

iv.  6,  25,  29,  46.    Ceded  by  Mithradates, 

iv.  49 
Galerii,  clan-village,  i.  45 
Gallaeci.     See  Callaeci 
Galleys  in  Gaul,  v.  15  n. 
Galli,  priests  of  Cybele,  iii.  115 
Gallia  braccata,  ii.  59  ;  v.  10 
Gallia  comata,  v.  10 
Gallia  togata,  iii.  164  «.  ;  v.  10 
Games.    See  Ludi 
Gannicus,  leader  in  Gladiatorial  war,  iv. 

30a 


Garganus,  I.  6 ;  ii.  333.  Battle  in  Gladia- 
torial war,  iv.  359./C 

Gauda,  king  of  Mauretania,  iii.  388  n~, 
410 

Gaul,  south  coast  (Province  of  Narbo), 
occupied  by  the  Romans,  iii.  415-420 ; 
iv.  191.  Close  customs-district,  iv.  160. 
Disturbances  during  Sertcrian  war,  iv. 
286,  293,  298.  Gaul  in  Caesar's  time, 
v.  7-31.  Its  boundaries,  v.  9  /.  Re- 
lations to  Rome,  v.  gf.,  29/".  To  the 
Germans,  v.  31-33.  Population,  v.  12/C 
Urban  life,  v.  14.  Agriculture  and 
cattle-breeding,  v.  13,  14.  Commerce 
and  manufactures,  v.  15,  16.  Mining, 
art,  and  science,  v.  17,  18.  Political 
organization,  v.  18-22.  Religion,  v. 
23  f.  Army,  v.  26  f.  Civilization,  v. 
27,  28.  External  relations,  v.  29-32. 
Struggles  against  Caesar,  v.  44-57,  67- 
95.  Subdued  by  the  Romans,  v.  94  yC 
Taxation  of,  v.  96,  364  /.  Latin  lan- 
guage and  coins  introduced,  v.  97. 
Colonies  in,  v.  422/;  Celtic  inscription 
found  in,  v.  10  n.  Co»tJ>are  Celts  and 
C.  Julius  Caesar 

Gaulos,  ii.  143 

Gaurus,  battle  at  Mount,  i.  459  n. 

Gaza.,  iv.  316 

Gaziura,  iv.  348 

Geganii,  from  Alba,  i.  128 

Gela,  i.  166 ;  ii.  145,  190 

L.  Gellius  [consul,  682]  defeated  by 
Spartacus,  iv.  359,  380 

Statius  Gellius,  i.  4S1 

Gelo,  king  of  Syracuse,  i.  415 

Genava,  v.  8 

Gens.    See  Clan 

Genthius,  ii.  493,  499,  501,  502,  508,  509  ; 
iii.  421 

Gentiles.    See  Agnati 

Genua,  iv.  167.  Culture  of  the  vine,  iii. 
81  n.,  415  n. 

Cn.  Genucius,  tribune  of  the  plebs,  L  359 

L.  Genucius  [consul,  392],  i.  448 

Gergovia,  v.  81-87 

Germans,  origin  of  the  word,  v.  20  ».,  21. 
First  emergence  in  Roman  history,  ii. 
223  «.  ;  iii.  430.  Relations  with  the 
Celts,  v.  31  /.  Relations  with  the 
Romans,  v.  33-36.  Movements  on  the 
Rhine,  v.  32-35.  Settlements  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  v.  33-36.  la 
conflict  with  Caesar,  v.  60-62 

Gerunium,  ii.  283,  285,  287 

Getae,  ii.  373  n. ;  iii.  424  n.  ;  iv.    14   v. 

103^ 
Glabrio.    See  Acilius 


548 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Gladiatorial  games  come  into  vogue  in 
Etruria,  i.  436.  Capuan,  i.  457.  In 
Rome,  iii.  42,  126 ;  iv.  184,  357  ;  v.  384 

Gladiatorial  war,  iv.  357.364 

Goat,  expiatory,  i.  203 

Gold  takes  the  first  place  in  dealings,  iii. 
88.  Its  relative  value  to  silver,  iv.  178 
/.  In  the  Roman  coinage,  ii.  343 ;  iii. 
88  ;  iv.  177./C  Depreciated  by  the  con- 
quest of  Gaul,  v.  96.  Seams  of,  at 
Noreia,  iii.  424 ;  iv.  179.  Washings  in 
Gaul,  v.  17 

Gold  ornaments  introduced  into  Italy,  i. 
253 

Goldsmiths,  guild  of,  i.  249,  253,  307 

Gordius,  Pontic  satrap,  iv.  20,  23,  95 

Gorgasus,  ii.  123 

Gortyna,  iv.  353 

Gracchus.     See  Sempronius 

Graccurris,  ii.  392 

Graeco- Italians,  state  of  culture,  hus- 
bandry, i.  22  -  25.  Field  -  measuring, 
L  26  f.  House,  i.  25  f.  Meals,  fire- 
kindling,  clothing,  weapons,  i.  28. 
Family,  i.  30.  State -organization,  i. 
30-32.     Religion,  i.  32-35.    Art,  i.  35 

Graeco  more  bibcre,pergraecari,  congrat- 
care,  iii.  123 

Graecostasis,  ii.  90.  Originally  intended 
for  the  Massiliots,  ii.  46 

Graecus,  Graicus,  Grains,  i.  15,  169  ». 

Grain,  kinds  of,  iii.  64  n.,  65,  66.  Prices 
of,  ii.  344  f.  ;  iii.  80-82.  Transmarine, 
ii.  367  ;  iii.  77  f.  Hence  bad  effect  on 
Italian  agriculture,  iii.  78-80.  Grain- 
revenues  of  the  state,  i.  342^  Requisi- 
tions on  the  provincials,  iii.  31.  In 
Spain,  ii.  393.  Distributions  of  grain, 
iiL  40.  Public  stores,  iii.  344.  Distribu- 
tion introduced  by  C.  Gracchus,  iii.  344. 
Continued  after  his  fall,  iii.  373,  375. 
Increased  by  Saturninus,  iii.  470.  By 
Drusus  the  younger,  iii.  485.  Restricted 
in  the  Social  war,  iii.  504.  Renewed 
by  Cinna,  iv.  70.  Abolished  by  Sulla, 
iv.  no.  Re-established  partially  in  681, 
iv.  371.  Completely  in  691 ;  iv.  490. 
Revived  by  Caesar,  v.  363  f.  Compare 
Agriculture 

Grammar,   Latin,  iii.   191  f, ;   iv.  214  f., 

252  ;  v.  457^.  510/ 
Grammatica,  ii.  116  n. 
Granicus,  river,  iv.  328 
Granius  Licinianus  explained,  iv.  288 
Grapnels,  Etruscan  invention,  i.  181 
Grassatores,  ii.  98 
Greece,    relations    with    Macedonia,    ii. 

396  /.      Declared   free,   ii.   436.      The 


patriot  party,  ii.  494  f.  In  the  first 
Mithradatic  war,  iv.  35-44.  When  did 
Greece  become  a  Roman  province?  iiL 
271.     See  Achaean  league 

Greek  legends  early  diffused  in  Latium, 
i.  293.  Foundation  of  Rome  inter- 
woven with  the  cycle  of  Greek  legend, 
ii.  107-111 

Greek  language,  knowledge  of,  in  Italy, 
i.  291/,  457;  ii.  90/,  116;  iiL  129, 

130/.  132 

Greeks  known  to  the  Italians,  before  the 
later  general  name  of  Hellenes  came 
into  vogue  and  replaced  the  older  one 
of  Graeci,  i.  169.  At  first  in  Italy  and 
Sicily  Ionians  and  Aeolians  from  Asia 
Minor,  L  165  f.  Then  colonists  of 
almost  all  Hellenic  stocks,  i.  165  /. 
Constantly  in  close  connection  with 
the  mother -country,  i.  170.  Achaean, 
Ionian,  Doric  settlements  in  Italy,  i. 
170-176.  Oldest  Greek  influence  :  in 
measures  and  weights,  i.  266  /.  In  the 
alphabet,  i.  272-278.  In  the  calendar, 
i.  269-272.  In  the  fine  arts,  i.  291-296 ; 
ii.  96.  In  architecture,  ii.  302-306.  In 
sculpture  and  design,  i.  306/;;  ii.  120- 
125.  In  forming  myths  and  writing 
history,  ii.  107-112.  Slight  intercourse 
with  the  Greeks  over  the  Adriatic,  i. 
x75  /•  Voyages  of  the  Greeks  to  the 
west  coast  of  Italy  north  of  Vesuvius, 
i.  177  f.  Colonies  not  tolerated  there 
by  the  natives,  i.  178  /.  Wars  of  the 
Greeks  with  the  Phoenicians  and  the 
natives  joining  the  latter  for  the  com- 
mand of  the  sea,  i.  182-186.  Excluded 
from  the  western  Mediterranean  and 
the  Atlantic,  i.  186.  In  Lower  Italy, 
struggles  with  the  Sabellian  stocks,  L 
419,  454  f.  Hellenizing  of  these,  i.  456 
f.  ;  ii.  91  f.  Adhere  to  Rome  in  the 
Hannibalic  war,  ii.  293^ 

Ground  and  water  rate,  iii.  31 

Grumentum,  ii.  347  ;  iii.  510 

Guardianship,  i.  78,  197./C 

Gulussa,  iii.  240,  251,  388 

Guras,  brother  of  Tigranes,  iv.  341 

Gutta,  Italian  commander  in  the  Social 
war,  iv.  86 

Gyaros,  amount  of  tribute  from,  iiL  271 
«.;  iv.  158 

Gythium,  ii.  451,  453 

Hadrumetum,  ii.  139,  359;  iii.  244.  Ex- 
empt from  tribute,  iii.  259. 

Haedui,  iii.  416 ;  v.  13,  16,  19,  35,  4*,  77, 
82,  83,  84,  85,  86,  92 


INDEX 


549 


Halaesa.     See  Alaesa 

Haliartus,  ii.  498,  501,  517 

H  alicarnassus,  ii.  406,  446 

Halicyae,  ii.  213 

Halycus,  ii.  145 

Halys,  ii.  471 ;  iii.  280,  281 ;  iv.  95,  330, 

33i 

Hamae,  ii.  304 

Hamilcar,  Carthaginian  general  in  Sicily, 
ii.  172,  177 

Hamilcar,  Carthaginian  officer,  ii.  369./C 

Hamilcar  Barcas,  war  in  Sicily,  ii.  192- 
196.  Mercenary  war,  ii.  205  _/".,  208, 
233  /•  War  in  Spain,  ii.  238  f.  Com- 
mander-in-chief, ii.  235.  His  plans,  ii. 
236^     Party-position,  ii.  237  f. 

Hannibal,  youth  of,  ii.  238.  Character, 
ii.  243-245.  Conquers  Saguntum,  ii. 
246  f.  Forces  and  plans  of  war,  ii. 
248  /.  System  of  warfare,  ii.  273  f. 
March  from  Spain  to  Italy,  ii.  251-264. 
Allies  himself  with  the  Italian  Celts,  ii. 
266.  Italian  war  :  first  campaign,  ii. 
267-274.  Conflict  on  the  Ticino,  ii. 
268./C  On  the  Trebia,  ii.  270./C  Second 
campaign,  ii.  273-284.  Crosses  the 
Apennines,  ii.  275.  Battle  at  the 
Trasimene  lake,  ii.  278.  Reorganization 
of  the  Carthaginian  infantry  after  the 
Roman  model,  ii.  279  f.  Marches  and 
conflicts  of  Fabius,  ii.  280-285.  Third 
campaign,  ii.  285-299.  Battle  at  Cannae, 
ii.  287-291.  Fourth  campaign,  ii.  300- 
304.  Alliance  with  Philip  of  Macedonia, 
ii.  315.  Following  years  of  the  war,  i:. 
333-35°'  Takes  Tarentum,  ii.  335. 
Marches  on  Rome,  ii.  338.  Returns  to 
Africa,  ii.  357^  Battle  at  Zama,  ii. 
359./C  Reforms  the  Carthaginian  con- 
stitution after  the  second  Punic  war,  ii. 
378.  Is  compelled  by  the  Romans  to 
become  an  exile,  ii.  379.  Residence 
with  Antiochus,  ii.  449,  451,  454/m  459- 
Death,  ii.  482/I 

Hannibal,  son  of  Gisgo,  ii.  171,  176 

Hannibal  Monomachus,  ii.  244 

Hanno  [Carthaginian  general,  490],  ii. 
169 

Hanno  [Carthaginian  general,  492],  ii.  170 

Hanno  [Carthaginian  general,  540],  i.  333, 

335 
Hanno   [Carthaginian    general,   542],   ii. 

313/ 

Hanno  [Carthaginian  general,  547],  ii.  330 
Hanno,  son  of  Bomilcar,  ii.  256 
Hanno  the  Great,  ii.  233,  235 
Hanno,  son  of  Hannibal,  ii.  176 
Harmozica,  iv.  414 


Harp-players,  Asiatic   female,  in   Rome, 

iii.  123 
Hasdrubal,  ii.  233,  243 
Hasdrubal,  son  of  Gisgo,  ii.  322,  327,  330, 

355i  356 
Hasdrubal,  brother  of  Hannibal,  ii.  238, 
248,    290,    308,    322  /.,   324,  327-331. 
Marches  to  Italy,  ii.  346,  347.     Death, 

«•  349 

Hasdrubal,  brother-in-law  of  Hannibal,  ii. 

239,  241,  243 
Hasdrubal,  son  of  Hanno,  ii.  185 
Hasdrubal,  leader  of  the  patriot-party  in 
Carthage,  iii.  240.    Under  the  influence 
of   the   Roman    party,   condemned    to 
death,  iii.  241./C     Escapes  by  flight,  iii. 

243.  Collects  an  army,  iii.  244.  Oc- 
cupies the  Carthaginian  territory,  iii. 
245.  Causes  Hasdrubal,  son-in-law  of 
Massinissa,  to  be  put  to  death,  iii.  252. 
Commander-in-chief  in  the  city,  iii. 
254,  256.  Surrenders,  iii.  257.  State- 
prisoner  in  Italy,  iii.  257 

Hasdrubal,     Massinissa's    grandson,    iii. 

244,  249,  252.     Put  to  death,  iii.  252 
Hasmonaei.     See  Jews 

Hasta.     See  Centumviral  court 

Hastati,  iii.  458 

Hatria.     See  Atria 

Hebrus,  river,  ii.  493 ;  iii.  263 

Hecataeus,  i.  108 

Hegesianax,  ii.  453 

Hegesias  of  Magnesia,  v.  453 

Heliopolites,  iii.  278  «. 

Hellanicus,  ii.  109 

Hellenism,  iii.  107-109;  iv.  191 -195;  ▼. 
419  f.  Compare  Alexandrinism, 
Comedy,  Culture,  Education,  Litera- 
ture 

Helvetii,  ii.  371 ;  iii.  423  «.,  435,  444,  447 ; 
v.  19.  State  of  population,  v.  47.  In- 
vade Gaul,  v.  yj/.,  41-43.  Defeated  by 
Caesar  at  Bibracte,  v.  43  f.  Driven 
back,  v.  44^ 

Helvii,  iv.  293  ;  v.  8 

C.  Helvius  Cinna,  epic  poet,  v.  481 

Heniochi,  iv.  417 

Hera,  Lacinian,  in  Croton,  iv.  355 

Heraea,  ii.  396 

Heraclea  in  Italy,  i.  167,  456 ;  ii.  336. 
Conquered  by  Alexander  the  Molossian, 
i.  466.  Battle  of,  ii.  19  /.  Makes 
peace  with  Rome,  ii.  31.  Attitude  in 
relation  to  Rome,  ii.  43,  53 ;  iii.  24 

Heraclea  Minoa,  ii.  145,  161,  311 

Heraclea  Pontica,  ii.  406.  Supports  the 
Romans  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  507  n. 
Besieged  in  the   Mithradatic  war,  iv. 


550 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


33°i  333i   44°-     Colony  of  Caesar,  v. 

4=5 
Heraclea  in   Trachinia  (near    Oeta),  ii. 

458,  510  ;  iii.  266,  268 
Heracleon,  piratic  chief,  iv.  354 
Heracles,  legend  of,  ii.  108 
Heraclides,  ii.  412,  425,  426 
Heraclides  of  Pontus,  ii.  112 
Heraclitus,  iv.  198 
Herba  pura,  i.  202 
Herculaneum,  ii.  510.    Position  of,  during 

the  Samnite  wars,  i.  469.     Taken  and 

destroyed  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  522 
Hercules,  i.  230.      Temple    of,  built  by 

Mummius,  iii.  270 
Hercynian  Forest,  iii.  423  «. 
Herdoneae,  ii.  342 
Ap.  Herdonius,  i.  358 
Heredium,  garden  land,  i.  239 
C.  Herennius,  lieutenant  of  Sertorius,  iv. 

294,  296 
Herennius,  Rhetorica.  ad  Herennium,  iv. 

253 

Hermaean  Promontory,  battle  at,  ii.  184 

Hermaeus,  Pontic  general,  iv.  328 

Hermes.     See  Mercurius 

Hermocrates,  Pontic  general,  iv.  324 

Hermodorus  of  Cyprus,  architect,  iv.  257 

Hermus,  river,  ii.  466 

Hernici  in  alliance  with  Rome  and 
Latium,  i.  135.  Join  the  Romano- 
Latin  league  and  help  to  subdue  the 
Aequi  and  Volsci,  i.  4457C  Rise  against 
Rome,  i.  447  f.  Abstain  from  taking 
part  in  the  Latin  insurrection,  i.  461. 
Share  in  the  Samnite  war,  i.  480  f. 
Position  towards  Rome,  ii.  53.  League 
of  the  Hernici  dissolved,  i.  484  f.  In- 
dividual communities  obtain  Latin 
rights,  ii.  25 

Herodes  Antipater,  v.  164 

Herodotus,  tales  of,  inserted  in  the  early 
history  of  Rome,  iii.  187  n. 

Hero-worship  un-Roman,  i.  214 

Hesiod,  his  knowledge  of  Italy,  1.  167. 
Graeci  mentioned  in  his  Eoai,  i.  169  ». 

Hexameter  introduced  by  Ennius,  iii.  175 

Hiarbas,  pretender  of  Numidia,  iv.  92,  93 

Hide  of  land,  size  of  the  Roman,  i.  1217C, 
239,  240  n. 

Hiempsal  I.,  son  of  King  Micipsa,  iii. 
388  *.,  389 

Hiempsal  II.,  king  of  Numidia,  iii.  388  «., 

54i 

Hiero  I.  of  Syracuse,  i.  415./. 

Hiero  II.  of  Syracuse,  war  against  the 
Mamertines,  ii.  38,  163  /.  War  with 
Room,  ii.   ijo  f.     Peace  and  alliance 


with  Rome,  ii.  171.  Position  after  th« 
first  Punic  war,  ii.  204.  Conduct  in  the 
second  Punic  war,  ii.  285,  293.  Death 
of,  ii.  293 

Hieroglyphs  on  a  jug  found  in  Italy,  L 
253  n. 

Hieronymus  of  Cardia,  ii.  112 

Hieronymus  of  Syracuse,  ii.  293,  3097C 

Himera,  river,  ii.  313 

Himera  (Thermae),  i.  168 ;  ii.  143,  161, 
186.     Battle  at,  i.  415  ;  ii.  155 

Himilco  [Carthaginian  general,   358],   ii. 

.I5q 
Himilco  [Carthaginian  general,  505],  "■ 

187 
Himilco  [Carthaginian  general,  542],  ii. 

3ii»  312 
Himilco    Phameas,     cavalry  -  general    at 

Carthage,  iii.  250.      Goes  over  to  the 

Romans,  iii.  231 
Hippo  Diarrhytus,  ii.  194  ;  iii.  251 
Hippo  Regius,  ii.  139  ;  iii.  388 
Hippocrates,  ii.  310,  311,  312 
Hipponium,  i.  166,  456 
Hirpini,  i.  146  ;  ii.  282,  294,  305,  342 ;  iiL 

5°2.  S23 

L.  Hirtuleius,  lieutenant  of  Sertorius,  iv. 
283,  2S6,  293,  2947c 

Historical  composition,  its  beginnings  in 
the  records  of  the  pontifical  college,  i. 
2197C  ;  ii.  102-108.  First  treated  metric- 
ally by  Naevius  and  Ennius,  iii.  184. 
In  prose,  but  in  the  Greek  language,  by 
Q.  Fabius  Pictor  and  P.  Scipio,  iii.  185. 
The  oldest  Latin  prose  written  by  Cato, 
iii.  186.  Character  of  the  earliest 
historical  compositions,  i.  281  f. ;  iii. 
186-190.  Conventional  primitive  history, 
origin  of  the  Roman  view  of  it,  ii.  104- 
107.  Of  the  Greek  view,  ii.  107-110. 
Mixture  of  the  two,  ii.  109  f.  ;  iii.  1877c 
In  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  iv. 
242-250;  v.  492-500.  Chronicles,  iv. 
2487c     Metrical,  v.  472 

Histri,  histriones,  i.  300 

Holidays  kept  sacred,  i.  225,  2417?. 

Holophernes,  brother  of  Ariarathes  V.  of 
Cappadocia,  iii.  280 

Homer,  his  knowledge  of  Italy,  i.  169. 
Data  for  determining  when  he  lived,  i 
169  «.,  280  ». 

Homicide,  involuntary,  i.  203 

Honorary  monuments  become  common, 
iii.  44 

Honorary  surnames,  iii.  44 

H onos  et  Virtus,  ii.  302 

Honour,  questions  of,  how  settled,  iii. 
9* 


INDEX 


SSi 


Horatii,  clan-village,  L  45.     Horatii  and 

Curiatii,  ii.  105 
Horatius  Codes,  ii.  105  n. 
M.  Horatius  [consul,  305],  i.  398 
L.  Hortensius  [admiral,  584],  ii.  501 
L.  Hortensius,  iii.  332 
L.    Hortensius,    lieutenant   of    Sulla    in 

Greece,  iv.  37 
Q.  Hortensius,  the  orator,  iv.  78,  207,  269 ; 

v.  454  /;  481,  5°3 
Q.  Hortensius,  son  of  the  orator  of  that 

name,  v.  234/; 
A.  Hostilius  Mancinus  [consul,  584],  ii. 

501 
C.  Hostilius  Mancinus  [consul,  617],  iii. 

228/?,  319.     Statue  of,  iii.  296 
L.  Hostilius  Mancinus  [consul,  609],  iii. 

252 
C.  Hostilius  Tubulus  [praetor,  547],  ii.  347 
L.  Hostilius  Tubulus  [praetor,  6x2],  iii.  348 
Tullus  Hostilius,  ii.  105 
Hostius,  epic  poet,  iv.  237 
House-architecture,  Graeco-Italian,  i.  27. 

Oldest  Italian,  i.  27,  301  f.     Revolution 

in,  iii.  207 
House-father  among  the  Romans,  i.  72-77. 

Power  of,  i.  73-76 
Household  tribunals,  i.  73./C,  76;  iii.  \i\j. 
Household  government  over  freedmen  and 

clients,  iii.  39 
House-searching  lance  et  licio,  i.  201  f. 
Human  sacrifices  in  Latium,  no  proof  of, 

i.  222.     In  Rome,  ii.  223  f.    Forbidden, 

iv.  210.     In  Gaul,  v.  28 
Hydrus,  L  176 
Hyele.     See  Velia 
Hyrcanus,  King  of  the  Jews,  iv.  425,  430, 

448 

Iapygians,  language  of,  and  affinity  with 
the  Greeks,  i.  11  /.  The  oldest  immi- 
grants into  Italy,  i.  13.  Maintained 
their  ground  in  Apulia  against  the 
Samnites,  i.  146.  Defeat  the  Tarentines, 
i.  416 

Iassus,  ii.  413.  Pillaged  by  the  pirates, 
iv.  308 

Iberians  in  Georgia,  iv.  20,  412-414 

Iberians  in  Spain,  ii.  385 

Ibycus,  i.  172 

L.  Icilius  Ruga  [tribune  of  the  people,  298, 
299],  i.  366 

Idus,  i.  207,  271 

Iguvium,  v.  207.     Tablets  of,  i.  145 

Ilerda,  iv.  283,  300;  v.  221-226 

I  Hans,  the  senate  intercedes  for  them  as 
of  kindred  lineage,  ii.  m.  Become 
free,   ii.   473.      Favours   bestowed   by 


Sulla,  iv.  54.  Exempt  from  taxation, 
v.  364,  382  n. 

Illiturgi,  ii.  308 

Illyrians,  piratical  expeditions  of  the 
rulers  of  Scodra,  ii.  216./C  Subdued  by 
the  Romans,  ii.  218,  286,  499,  508.  In 
the  Hannibalic  war  take  part  with  Rome 
against  Macedonia,  ii.  317.  Against 
the  Aetolians,  ii.  476.  Dalmatians 
subdued,  iii.  264,  290/.,  421  yC,  426^ ; 
iv.  307.  Wars  in  Caesar's  time,  v.  103, 
284./;  Roman  speculators  in  lllyria,  iii. 
307.  Taxation  by  Rome,  iii.  509  f. ;  v. 
364.     Compare  Genthius 

Ilva,  i.  143 

Images  of  the  gods  foreign  to  the  earliest 
Roman  worship,  i.  225,  306  f.  Van© 
places  their  introduction  after  176  u.c., 
i.  307  «. 

Imbros,  ii.  437 

Imperator,  meaning  of  word,  iii.  505 ;  ▼. 

330-335 

Imperium,  i.  82.  Only  divisible  territori- 
ally, not  functionally,  and  thus  essenti- 
ally always  at  once  military  and  juris- 
dictional, i.  371  ». 

Imports,  Italian,  iv.  174 

Incendiarism,  i.  19a 

India,  iii.  284 

Indigetes,  iv.  293 

Indigitare,  i.  213 

Indo-Germans,  original  seats  of,  t.  38^ 
Language,  i.  18 /.  Culture:  pastoral 
life,  house -building,  boats  with  oars, 
chariots,  clothing,  cooking  and  salting, 
working  in  metals,  political,  religious, 
and  scientific  fundamental  ideas,  i.  18- 
22.    Measuring  and  numbering,  i.  263^ 

Inheritance,  law  of;  all  equally  entitled 
received  equal  shares,  the  widow  taking 
a  child's  part,  i.  198.     Compare  Wills 

Inheritance,  tax  on,  iii.  90.  Abolished, 
iv.  156 

Iniuria,  damage  to  body  or  property,  L 

193 
Insubres,  i.  423,  434  ;  ii.  221,  226,  227, 

259,  263,  268,  357,  369,  370,  372 
Insula,  i.  318  n. 
Interamna  on  the  Liris,  Latin  colony,  L 

476,  490 
Interamna  on  the  Nar,  city-chronicle  of 

ii.  103 
Intercalary  system,  i.  270 
Intercatia,  ii.  386 ;  iii.  219 
Interest,  originally  10  per  cent  for  a  year 

of  ten  months,  i.   196  *.,  364.     Lawt 

regulating,  iii.  389,  530,  541 ;  iv.   xao, 

176 ;  v.  401./: 


552 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Interrex,  i.  99.     After  abolition  of  the 

monarchy,  i.  319 
Intibili,  ii.  308 
Ionian  gulf,  older  name  of  the  Adriatic 

sea,  i.  165 
Ionian   islands,    Roman,  ii.    218  f.,   477. 

Joined  to  province  of  Macedonia,  iii. 

262 
Ionian  sea,  origin  of  the  name,  i.  165 
Ipsus,  battle  of,  ii.  6 
Iron  mines  at  Noreia,  iii.  424 
Iron,  workers  in,  not  known  at  Rome  till 

late,   i.    249.      Taken    over    from    the 

Greeks,  i.  304 
Isara,  battle  on  the,  iii.  448 
Isaurians,  subdued,  iv.  313^     Revolt,  iv. 

325 

Isidorus,  Pontic  admiral,  iv.  329 

Isis,  worship  of,  iv.  210 ;  v.  446 

Issa,  i.  417  ;  ii.  217,  218  «.,  493 ;  iii.  422. 
Standing  commandant  there,  ii.  218  n. 

Isthmian  games,  admission  of  Romans  to, 
ii.  219.     Entrusted  to  Sicyon,  iii.  273 

Isthmian  temple  receives  gifts  from 
Mummius,  iii.  271 

Isthmus,  iii.  269 

Istrians,  ii.  229,  372,  425 ;  iii.  43,  431 

Istropolis,  iv.  307 

Italia  (Corfinium),  iii.  504,  522 

Italica,  iii.  214,  271  n. ;  iv.  295 

Italy,  its  physical  conformation  and 
character,  i.  5-7.  Primitive  races,  i. 
g/.  Union  under  the  leading  of  Rome, 
ii.  46-58.  Original  restricted  import  of 
the  name,  i.  169.  Transference  of  the 
name  to  the  territory  from  the  Sicilian 
Straits  to  the  Arnus  and  Aesis,  ii.  59. 
Denoted  after  the  acquisition  of  Sicily 
the  continental  territory  administered 
by  the  consuls,  from  the  Sicilian  Straits 
to  the  Alps,  ii.  213  _/.,  215  «.,  219  n. 
How  far  this  geographical  distinction 
becomes  a  political  one,  ii.  213  f. 
Northern  Italy  separated  and  first  con- 
stituted by  Sulla  a  special  province, 
Gallia  Cisalpina,  ii.  215  n.  ;  iv.  121  f. 
The  possessions  on  the  east  coast  of  the 
Adriatic  included,  ii.  218  «.  Italian 
communities  beyond  Italy :  Ariminum, 
ii-  205,  220.  Messana,  ii.  203'.  Ravenna, 
ii.  sai.  Sena  Gallica,  ii.  12,  220. 
Practically  bounded  by  the  Po,  iii. 
518.  Legal  boundary  of,  changed  by 
Sulla  to  the  Rubico;  and  all  Italians 
mac  Roman  citizens,  iv.  122  /.,  132. 
Nortii  Italy  united  with  Italy,  v.  421./! 
See  Celts,  Transpadane 

Italians  nutated  into  the  peninsula  from 


the  north,   i.    13,  39.      Indo-Germani : 

stock,  i.   14  f.     Language  of,  L  14  /. 

Their  near  affinity  with  the  Greeks,  i. 

15.     Contrast  to  the  Greeks  in  family, 

state,  religion,  and  art,  i.  28-36.   Artistic 

endowments  of,  i.  283^ 
Italus,  laws  of,  i.  26,  31 
Ityraeans,  iv.  430 
C.  Iudacilius  from  Asculum,  commander 

in  the  Social  war,  iii.  513,  520 
Indices  =  consules,  i.  318 
Indices  decemviri,  i.  352 
Indicium  legitimum  and  quod  imperii 

continetur,  i.  335  n. 
Iugerum,  i.  265  n. 
lus,  i.  189.     lus  and  indicium  separated, 

i.  322  ;  ii.  68 
lus  gentium,  i.  200 ;  v.  432 
/us    imaginum,    hereditary    distinction 

connected    with    the    obtaining    of  a 

curule  office,  i.  373 ;  iii.  4,  103 

Janiculum,  i.  59,  134,  137 ;  iv.  169 

Jannaeu«,  iv.  423,  425,  426 

Janus,  i.  209,  2ia.     Effigy  of,  ii.  123 

Jzpydes,  iii.  425,  437 

Jazyges,  iv.  14 

Jews  under  the  Maccabees,  iii.  285./C  ;  it. 
5,  316, 423-426.  Treasures  in  Cos  carried 
offby  Mithradates,  iv.  33.  Send  envoys 
to  Lucullus,  iv.  341.  Subdued  by 
Pompeius,  iv.  430  f.  Placed  under 
high  priests,  iv.  439.  Revolts  under 
Aristobulus,  and  breaking  up  of  the 
land,  iv.  448  /.  Taxation,  iv.  158  «., 
162  n.  Their  position  in  Caesar's  state, 
v.  417-419.  Jews  in  Alexandria,  v.  281, 
418.     In  Rome,  iv.  210;  v.  yjif,,  418 

Juba,  king  of  Numidia,  v.  203,  230,  331, 
264,  269,  288,  300,/C 

Judges,  Carthaginian,  ii.  147./C 

Jugurtha  at  Numantia,  iii.  230,  389. 
Jugurthine  war,  iii.  388-408.  Put  to 
death  in  Rome,  iii.  409 

Julia,  Caesar's  daughter,  iv.  514.  Death 
of,  v.  166 

Julia,  wife  of  Marius,  iii.  453 

Julii  from  Alba,  i.  128.  Family  shrine  at 
Bovillae,  i.  128 

C.  Julius  Caesar,  candidate  for  the  consul- 
ship in  667,  iii.  532  ;  iv.  66,  67 

C.  Julius  Caesar,  his  character,  iv.  vjlf', 
v.  305-314.  Year  of  his  birth,  iv.  278  ft. 
His  conduct  after  Sulla's  death  and 
during  Lepidus'  revolt,  iv.  288.  Sup- 
ports the  Plotian  law,  iv.  303.  Serves 
in  Mithradatic  war,  iv.  325.  Brings 
Sullan  partisans  to  trial,  iv.  373.     Sup- 


INDEX 


553 


ports  the  Lex  Gabinia,  iv.  393.  His 
gladiatorial  games,  iv.  399,  456.  Ponti- 
fex  Maximus,  iv.  460,  491.  Conspires 
with  Catilina,  iv.  466,  467,  482,  486,  487, 
488.  An  opponent  of  Pompeius,  iv.  493. 
Praetor,  iv.  497,  498.  Governor  in 
Spain,  iv.  503 ;  v.  6,  7.  Allied  with 
Pompeius  and  Crassus,  iv.  504^  Con- 
sul, iv.  508.  Governor  of  the  two  Gauls, 
iv.  512  f.  ;  v.  200  f.  Conflicts  with  the 
Gauls,  v.  38-94.  Crosses  the  Rhine,  v. 
67  /•>  73-  Invades  Britain,  v.  63-66. 
Makes  Gaul  a  Roman  province,  v.  94- 
98.  At  Luca,  v.  124  f.  Asks  for  the 
hand  of  Pompeius'  daughter,  v.  166. 
Differences  between  him  and  Pompeius, 
v.  175.A  178./C,  180./C  Recalled,  v.  184. 
His  ultimatum,  v.  186./C  Marches  into 
Italy,  v.  190-192.  His  army,  v.  195-199. 
Conquers  Italy,  v.  206-212.  Pacifies 
and  regulates  Italy,  v.  212-218.  Spanish 
campaign,  v.  219-227.  Takes  Massilia, 
v.  227  f.  Plan  of  his  campaign  against 
Pompeius,  v.  244.  Crosses  to  Greece,  v. 
247.  Operations  round  Dyrrhachium, 
v.  250-254.  In  Thessaly,  v.  256  f. 
Battle  of  Pharsalus,  v.  258-264.  Pursues 
Pompeius  to  Egypt,  v.  271./C  Regulates 
Egypt,  v.  274.  Conflicts  at  Alexandria, 
v.  275-282.  Conquers  Pharnaces,  v. 
282  f.  Goes  to  Africa,  v.  293.  Battle  of 
Thapsus,  v.  298./C  His  attitude  towards 
the  old  parties,  v.  315-324.  The  new 
monarchy  takes  legal  shape,  v.  326-336. 
Regulates  the  state,  v.  336-350.  Re- 
organizes the  army,  v.  351-359.  Regu- 
lates the  finances,  v.  361-367.  Regulates 
economic  relations,  v.  367-374,  397-406. 
Arranges  the  provinces,  v.  406,  412  ./C 
Position  towards  the  Jews,  v.  417  f. 
Towards  Hellenism,  v.  418,/C  Latinizes 
the  provinces,  v.  421-428.  Census  of 
the  Empire,  v.  429  f.  Religion  of  the 
Empire,  v.  430./C  Law  of  the  Empire, 
v.  43I"435-  Coinage,  v.  435-438.  Re- 
forms the  calendar,  v.  438  /.  His 
Memoirs,  v.  499  f.    As  grammarian,  v. 

437/ 
L.   Julius  Caesar  [consul,   664],   in    the 

Social  war,  iii.  508,  509,  510,  515,  517, 

532  ;  iv.  66,  102  «.,  222 
Sex.  Julius  Caesar,  Roman  envoy  to  the 

Achaeans,  iii.  267 
Dec  Junius  Brutus  [consul,  616],  iii.  232, 

367,  437.     Builds  the  temple  of  Mars  in 

the  Flaminian  circus,  iv.  257 
Dec.    Junius    Brutus    [consul,    677J,   iv. 

369 


Dec.  Junius  Brutus,  Caesar's  lieutenant, 

v.  55.  217/ 
L.  Junius  Pullus  [consul,  505],  ii.  190 
L.   Junius   Brutus  Damasippus,  Marian 

praetor  in  the  Social  war,  iv.  79,  83,  88, 

90 
M.  Junius  Pera  [dictator,  538],  ii.  303 
M.  Junius  Silanus  [propraetor,  544],  ii. 

327.  33i 

M.  Junius  Brutus  [plebeian  tribune,  671^ 
iv.  70,  79 

M.  Junius  Brutus,  orator,  v.  507 

M.  Junius  Brutus,  Lepidus'  lieutenant, 
iv.  291 

M.  Junius  Pennus  [praetor,  628],  iii.  340 

M.  Junius  Silanus  [consul,  645]  defeated 
by  the  Cimbri,  iii.  434 

M.  Junius  Brutus,  collection  of  juristic 
opinions  by,  iv.  251,  255 

M.  Junius  Gracchanus,  treatise  on  Magis- 
tracies, iv.  252 

Juno  Moneta,  i.  281 

Junonia,  iii.  346,  366.    See  Carthage 

Jupiter  Capitolinus,  i.  141,  208,  293.  His 
statue  on  the  Capitol,  i.  306 ;  ii.  124. 
Temple  of,  i.  100 ;  iv.  97 

Jupiter  Latiaris,  i.  50 

Jupiter  Stator,  temple  on  the  Capitol,  iv. 
257 

Jurisprudence,  rudiments  of,  i.  219/  ;  ii. 
112;  iii.  195.  In  the  seventh  century, 
iv.  254  f.  Position  of  jurists  towards 
Sulla's  laws,  iv.  263 

Jury-courts  transferred  by  C.  Gracchus 
from  the  senate  to  the  Equites,  iii.  52  /., 
373>  377>  48l.A  484/-  Proposition  to 
restore  the  right  to  the  senate,  iii.  485^ 
Plautian  law,  iii.  516.  Restored  by 
Sulla  to  the  senate,  iv.  m,  129  /. 
Attempt  to  repeal  this  alteration,  iv. 
372  f.  Mixed  courts  under  Aurelian 
law,  iv.  379  J.  New  enactments  of 
Pompeius,   v.    146  f.      Of  Caesar,  v. 

347/ 
Juturna,  i.  40.     Fountain  of,  ii.  70 
Juventius,   praetor,   against  the  pseudo- 
Philip,  iii.  261 

Kalendae,  i.  271 

King,  modelled  on  the  father  of  the 
household,  i.  8i  f.  Represents  the 
community  before  the  gods  and  foreign 
countries,  i.  81  f.  His  command  un- 
limited, i.  82.  His  jurisdiction,  i.  82/ 
King  is  irresponsible,  inasmuch  as  the 
supreme  judge  cannot  be  accused  at  his 
own  bar,  i.  319.  Leader  of  the  army, 
i.  82,  91.    Delegation  of  his  authority, 


554 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


L  82 /.  Insignia,  i.  83,  99.  Limitation 
of  the  regal  power,  i.  84.  Manages 
the  finances,  i.  92.  Judge,  i.  1S9  /. 
Change  of  the  existing  legal  order 
possible  only  by  co-operation  of  the 
king  and  the  burgesses,  i.  94/  Aboli- 
tion of  the  tenure  for  life,  and  intro- 
duction of  the  consulate,  i.  315-319. 
Vow  of  the  burgesses  never  to  endure  a 
king,  i.  316.  Similar  changes  of  con- 
stitution in  the  Italian  and  Greek 
communities,  i.  375 

Labeo.    See  Fabius 

Laberius,  composer  of  mimes,  v.  312  «., 
470  «., 471 

Labici,  i.  49,  130.  Assignations  at,  i. 
378.  About  370,  a  member  of  Latin 
league,  i.  448  ».,  450.  Not  a  colony, 
i.  450  ». 

T.  Labienus,  v.  39,  53,  55.  194/ 

Labourers  from  without  employed  in 
agriculture,  iii.  70 

Lacedaemonians,  ii.  405,  421,  452,  $of. 

Lacinian  promontory,  i.  177 

Laconia,  recruiting  ground,  ii.  162 

Lacus,  iii.  206 

Lade,  island  of,  ii.  412 

C.  Laelius  [consul,  564],  ii.  327.  A  novus 
homo,  iii.  15 

C.  Laelius  Sapiens  [consul,  614],  iii.  253, 
2561  3J7>  3X9>  327>  329-  In  tce  Scipionic 
circle,  iv.  220.     Speeches,  iv.  251 

Laestrygones,  i.  177,  181 

P.  Laetorius,  friend  of  C.  Gracchus,  iii. 
368 

Laevinus.     See  Valerius 

T.  Lafrenius  (Afranius),  Italian  com- 
mander in  the  Social  war,  iii.  513 

Laletani,  iv.  293 

Lamia,  ii.  459 

M.  Lamponius,  Lucanian  leader  in  Social 
war,  iii.  510,  526 ;  iv.  86,  88 

Lampoons,  i.  288  ;  and  incantations  for- 
bidden, ii.  98 

Lampsacus,  ii.  406,  411,  447  «.,  453, 
469*.,  495;  iv.  326,  328 

Lance.i,  i.  28  n. 

Land,  division  of,  at  the  time  of  the 
Servian  reform  :  one -half  of  land- 
holders having  an  entire  hide,  the  other 
half  J,  J,  J,  and  J  respectively,  i.  116. 
The  greater  landholders,  i.  116,  245-248 

Land-distribution.    See  Domains 

Landholders  in  Latium  also  merchants, 
i.  261  n. 

Land-measuring,  iii.  335.  Graeco-Italian, 
Lao/. 


Language,  Latin,  already  substantially 
formed  at  the  time  of  the  Twelve 
Tables,  ii.  113.  Its  extension,  iv.  189/; 
v.  4x6/,  421-428,  453/  In  Gaul,  v 
9  /•>  3°>  48  f.  In  Spain,  iv.  190.  By 
Sertorius,  iv.  285/ 

Lanuvium,  i.  40 ;  iv.  64.  In  the  Aricine 
league,  i.  445  «.,  447.  Revolts  against 
Rome,  i.  450.  About  370,  member  of 
Latin  league,  i.  448  ».,  450.  Roman 
burgess-community,  i.  462.  Conquered 
by  Marius,  iv.  64.  Frescoes  of,  ii.  124, 
127.  Dictator  there,  i.  442  «.  Lanuvini 
ridiculed  by  Naevius,  iii.  149  «. 

Laodice,  alleged  mother  of  the  pseudo- 
Philip,  iii.  260 

Laodicea,  iii.  28 ;  iv.  30,  31 

Lapathus,  pass  at  Tempe,  ii.  503 

Larentalia,  i.  209 

Lares,  number  of,  i.  107.  Character  of 
this  worship,  I.  213  f.  Their  worship 
connected  with  sanitary  police,  i.  225. 
Lares  Permarini,  their  temple,  ii.  463. 
Lases  =  Lares,  borrowed  by  the  Etrus- 
cans from  Latium,  i.  229 

Larinum,  town  of  the  Frentani,  Sullan 
government  there,  iv.  104 

Larisa  on  the  Peneius,  ii.  434,  457,  499, 
500 

Larisa  Cremaste,  ii.  421 

Lasthenes,  Cretan  general,  iv.  351,  352 

Latins,  a  branch  of  the  Italians,  i.  Z3/ 
Language,  i.  14,  281  ;  ii.  113.  Relation 
to  the  Umbrians  and  Samnites,  i.  14, 
16.  Direction  of  their  migration,  i. 
39/  Oldest  inhabitants  of  Campania, 
Lucania,  the  Bruttian  country,  i.  40; 
and  East  Sicily,  i.  40  /.  Settlements 
of  the,  i.  42  /.,  44  f.  Passive  traffic,  i. 
256.     With  Sicily,  i.  258/ 

Latini prisci  cives  Romani,  i.  128  n. 

Latin  communities,  their  position  in  refer- 
ence to  the  domain-question,  iii.  336/ 
Their  right  of  migration  curtailed,  iii. 
493.  Faithful  to  Rome  in  the  Social 
war,  iii.  502.  Acquire  burgess -rights 
in  consequence,  iii.  516/.  Lowest  form 
of  Latin  rights  given  by  Sulla  to  the 
insurgent  communities,  iv.  107.  lus 
Latinunt  granted  to  towns  in  Cisalpine 
Gaul,  iii.  517  f.  Latin  urban  com- 
munities in  Transalpine  Gaul,  iv.  422, 
423  «.     In  Sicily,  v.  364 

Latin  league,  of  30  cantons  under  the 
presidency  of  Alba,  i.  50.  Federal 
festival,  i.  50.  Place  of  assembly  for 
the  league,  i.  50.  Community  of  rights 
and  of  marriage  among  the  members  of 


INDEX 


555 


the  cantons,  t.  $of.  Military  constitu- 
tion of  the  league,  i.  51.  Sacred  truce, 
i.  51.  After  the  fall  of  Alba,  Rome  pre- 
sides in  its  room,  i.  129.  Original 
constitution  of  the  Romano  -  Latin 
league  ;  Rome  not  a  member  of  the 
league,  like  Alba,  but  occupying  an 
independent  position  with  reference  to 
the  independent  league  of  the  30  com- 
munities, i.  130./C  ;  and  prohibited  from 
separate  alliance  with  any  single  Latin 
community,  i.  133.  Double  army  fur- 
nished in  equal  proportions  by  the  two 
parties,  with  a  single  command  alternat- 
ing between  them,  i.  133 /.,  439.  Equal 
partition  of  the  spoil,  i.  439  ./•  Repre- 
sentation before  other  nations,  if  not 
de  jure,  at  least  practically  in  the 
hands  of  Rome,  i.  440.  Equal  alliance 
and  equality  of  rights  in  private  inter- 
course between  Rome  and  Latium,  i. 
131.  In  consequence  of  this,  a  general 
right  of  settlement  on  the  part  of  any 
burgess  of  a  Latin  community  anywhere 
in  Latium,  i.  132.  Document  of  treaty, 
i.  280.  War  between  Rome  and  Latium, 
and  renewal  of  the  league,  i.  438. 
Later  constitution  of  the  league  ;  the 
Latins  lose  the  right  of  making  war 
and  treaties  with  foreign  nations,  i. 
439./C  Commandership-in-chief  reserved 
to  the  Romans,  and  the  staff-officers  of 
the  Latin  and  Roman  contingents 
nominated  accordingly  by  the  Roman 
commander,  i.  440.  Does  not  furnish 
more  troops  than  the  Romans,  i.  440. 
The  contingents  of  the  communities 
remain  together  under  their  own  leader, 
L  440.  The  right  to  share  in  the  spoil 
continued  at  least  formally  to  subsist,  i. 
440.  Position  of  the  Latins  as  to 
private  rights  not  changed,  i.  441. 
Revolt  against  Rome,  i.  446  f.  The 
league  remained  open  till  370,  so  that 
every  community  newly  invested  with 
Latin  rights  was  admitted ;  thereafter 
closed,  i.  448  /.  At  that  time  47  com- 
munities, of  which,  however,  only  30 
entitled  to  vote,  i.  450.  List  of  the 
towns  belonging  to  it,  i.  448  n.  Isola- 
tion of  the  communities  furnished  with 
Latin  rights  after  370  by  the  withdrawal 
of  the  commerciutn  et  conubium  with 
the  other  Latin  communities,  i.  451. 
Separate  leagues  of  particular  groups 
forbidden,  i.  451.  Remodelling  of  the 
municipal  constitution  after  the  pattern 
of  that  of  Rome,  i.  441  A,  452-     Ex- 


asperation against  Rome,  i.  452.  Re- 
volt after  subjugation  of  Capua,  i.  460./C 
The  league  politically  dissolved  and 
converted  into  a  religious  festal  associa- 
tion, i.  461.  In  lieu  of  it,  treaties 
between  Rome  and  the  several  com- 
munities ;  their  isolation  carried  out,  i. 
461  f.  Position  during  the  war  with 
Pyrrhus,  ii.  21,  23.  Position  after  the 
Pyrrhic  war ;  inferior  rights  of  Ari- 
minum  and  the  other  Latin  communities 
founded  thereafter,  ii.  50,  52.  Admission 
of  the  Latins  to  the  senate  during  the 
Hannibalic  war  refused,  ii.  298.  In- 
creased oppression  after  the  Hannibalic 
war,  iii.  24-26.  Restriction  of  freedom 
of  movement  also  as  to  the  older  Latin 
communities,  iii.  25  /.  Compart 
Coloniae  Latinae 

Latinizing  of  Italy,  ii.  60 /.,  %&f.  Of  the 
country  between  the  Alps  and  the  Po, 
ii.  371 ;  iv.  189  f. ;  v.  415  ./C  See  Lan- 
guage, Latin 

Latinus,  name  occurs  even  in  the  Theo- 
gony  of  Hesiod,  i.  177  «. 

Latinus,  king  of  the  Aborigines,  ii.  no  n. 
As  son  of  Odysseus  and  Circe,  i.  177 

Latium,  physical  character  and  earliest 
boundaries,  i.  6,  41-44.  Extended  ori- 
ginally by  the  founding  of  new  Latin 
communities ;  afterwards  geographically 
fixed,  i.  451./C 

Laurentum,  i.  49,  459  n.  In  the  Aricine 
league,  i.  445  «. ,  447.  About  370,  mem- 
ber of  Latin  league,  i.  448  «.,  450.  Ad- 
heres to  Rome,  i.  461.  Later  federal 
relation,  i.  462 

Lauro  in  Spain,  iv.  295 

Laus,  i.  40,  170,  171.  Occupied  by  the 
Lucanians,  i.  454,  456 

Lautumiae,  origin  of  the  word,  i.  201 

Lavema,  i.  212 

Lavinium,  i.  49.  About  370,  member  of 
Latin  league,  i.  448  ».  Trojan  Penates 
there,  ii.  no 

Law,  Roman,  same  as  in  Latium,  i.  131. 
Even  in  its  oldest  form  known  to  us,  of 
comparatively  modern  character,  i.  189. 
No  symbols  therein,  i.  201./C  Ultimate 
basis  of,  in  the  state,  i.  203.  Its  subse- 
quent development  under  Greek  influ- 
ence, ii.  62-70.  Codified,  ii.  66.  Be- 
ginnings of  a  regular  administratinn  of 
law  in  the  municipia  and  colonies,  ii. 
49,  (&f.  ;  iii.  38^  Its  regulation  >n  the 
time  of  Sulla,  iv.  132^  Scipio  Aemilia- 
nus  attempts  improvement  of;1':  ,J«'un- 
istration,  iii.  316.     Military  !-w,  ,'j.  7^ 


55« 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Law,  its  codification  projected  by  Caesar, 
v.  434.  Re-establishment  of  the  regal 
jurisdiction  by  Caesar,  v.  347./  Ap- 
peals, v.  348.  Municipal  jurisdiction, 
iv.  131  / ;  v.  425  f.  Compare  Jury- 
courts;  Quaestiones 
Lad,  iv.  334 

Leases  in  Italy  not  usual,  iii.  657^ 
Legal  style,  technical,  ii.  114 
Legati  legionis  pro  praetore,  v.  354 
Legatio  libera,  v.  410  tu 
Leges— 
Acilia  de  repetundis,  iii.  353  n. 
Aemilia    [M.    Scauri]    de    suffragiis 

libertinorum,  iii.  379 
Appuleia  agraria,  iii.  468  ».,  469,  471, 

480 
Appuleia  de  maiestate,  iii.  440,  441  »., 

468  ».,  476 
Appuleia  frument aria,  iii.  468  ».,  470, 

480 
Aufidia    allows    the    import  of    wild 

beasts  from  Africa,  iv.  183 
Aurelia,   on    the  composition    of  the 

jury-courts,  iv.  379 
Baebia,  ii.  392 

Caecilia,  abolition  of  Italian  tolls,  iv.  502 
Canuleia,  i.  371 
Cassia  agraria,  i.  361 
Cassia  tabellaria,  iii.  300,  316 
Claudia,  iii.  81./C,  94,  349 
Cornelia  de  edict  is  praetoriis,  v.  434 
Comeliae.    See  L.  Cornelius  Sulla 
Domitia  de  sacerdotiis,  iii.  463.     Set 

aside  by  Sulla,  iv.  115 
Fabia  de  plagiariis,  iv.  356 
Flaminia  agraria,  iii.  58,  99,  332 
Fulvia  de  civitate  sociis  danda,  iii.  362 
Gabinia,  iv.  388-395 
HorUnsia,  i.  385,  390,  396,  398 
/cilia  as  to  the  right  of  the  tribunes 

to  assemble  the  people,  i.  353 
/cilia  as  to  the  Aventine,  i.  362 
Julia,  giving  Latin  rights  to  the  Ital- 
ians, iii.  517 
Julia  agraria  of  Caesar,  iv.  508  /.,  510 

f. ;  v.  124 
Junia  de  peregrinis,  iii.  340 
Labiena,  on  the  election  of  priests,  iv. 

457 
Licinia  Mucia,  against  usurpation  of 

burgess-rights,  iii.  496 
Liciniae Sextiae,  i.  3807C,  387,  393;  ii. 

77  tu;  iii.  312/ 
Liviat  (of  the  elder  Drusus),  iii.  3637C, 

372.  374/ 
Livuu  (of  the  younger    Drusus),   iii. 
,8^.489 


Maecilia  agraria,  i.  378 

Maenia,  i.  384 

Mamilia,  iii.  396,  441  tu 

Manilia,  iv,  396-400 

Mucia  de  civitate,  iv.  496 

Mucia  [of  613]  on  bribery,  iii.  441  «. 

Octaviafrumentaria,  iv.  289  n. 

Ogulnia,  i.  385 

Ovinia,  i.  406  ».,  407;  iii.  7;  iv.  112 

Peducaea,  iii.  441  «.;  iv.  209 

Plautia  iudiciaria  (?),  iii.  516,  528  n. 

Plautia  Papiria  de  civitate,  iii.  517, 
524 ;  iv.  62  «. 

Poetelia,  i.  389^ 

Plotia,  as  to  the  proscribed,  iv.  303 

Pompeia  de  iudiciis,  v.  138 

Pompeia  as  to  bestowing  Latin  rights 
on  the  Transpadanes,  iii.  518 

Publilia  [of  383],  i.  359,  360 

Publilia  [of  415],  i.  384,  396 

regiae,  i.  112 

Roscia,  theatre-law  [687],  iv.  in  n. 

sacratae,  as  to  appointment  of  the 
plebeian  tribunes  and  aediles,  i.  349 

Semproniafrumentaria,  iii.  345./C 

Semproniae,  iii.  320  f.t  329-333 

Servilia,  iv.  472 

Sulpiciae,  iii.  531-536 

sumpluariae,  iv.  172,  185.  Aemilia 
[M.  Scauri],  iii.  379.  Of  Caesar,  v. 
397.     Compare  ii.  63  f. 

tabellariae  (Gabinia,  Cassia,  Papiria), 

iii.  300,  3167C,  340 
Terentia  Cassia  frttmentaria,  iv.  289*. 
Terentilia,  i.  362 
Thoria  agraria,  iii.  375  tu 
Titia  agraria,  iii.  480 
Valeria  de  provocatione,  i.  320 
Valeria,  on  Sulla's  dictatorship,  iv.  99, 

109 
Valeriae  Horatiae,  i.  354  ».,  366./C,  396 
Villia  annalis,  iii.  14 
Voconia,  iii.  50  n. 
Legion,  phalangitis  i.  90 ;  ii.  7a.     Origin 
of   the    manipular    legion,    ii.    72-76. 
Manipular    arrangement    imitated    by 
Pyrrhus,  ii.  25.     Divided  into  cohorts, 
iii.   459.      Of  half  its  former  number 
after  the  Social  war,  iv.  36  tu 
Legis  actio  Sacramento,  i.  92,   196.     Sa- 
cramentum  raised,  ii.  68.     Per  manus 
inuctionem,    i.    197.      Actiones    pub- 
licly promulgated  by  Ap.  Claudius,  ii. 

113 

Legislation  by  decree  of  the  community, 

i.    95.      Acquired    practically  by   tha 
senate,  i.  408 
Lemnos,  ii.  438,  477,  517;  iv.  329 


INDEX 


557 


Lemonii,  clan-village,  i.  45 

Lemures,  i.  312 

Lemuria,  i.  209 

Lending  money,  business  of,  iii.  83.  Public 

opinion  thereon,  iii.  96 
Length,   measures  of,   origin   of,   i.    263. 
Early  introduction  of  the  duodecimal 
system,  i.    265  /.      Afterwards,   under 
Greek  influence,  the  foot  divided  into 
four  handbreadths  and  sixteen  finger- 
breadths,  i.  265,  266 
Lentulus.    See  Cornelius 
Leontini,  i.  166;  ii.  310;  iii.  384.     Syra- 
cusan,  ii.  204.     Domain  of,  ii.  313  ;  iii. 
20,  308 ;  iv.  157,  158  it. 
Lepidus.    See  Aemilius 
Leptis  magna,  ii.  140,  384 
Leptis   minor,  ii.   139;    iii.  244;   v.   364. 

Exempt  from  taxation,  iii.  259 
Lesbians,   treatment   of,   after   war  with 

Perseus,  ii.  517 
Lete,  town  in  Macedonia,  iii.  428  n. 
Leucae,  iii.  278,/C 
Leucas,  ii.  432,  435i  5*7 
Leuci,  v.  48,  85 
Leucopetra,  iii.  269 
Levy  remodelled,  iii.  295./C,  303. 
Lex,  primarily  contract,  i.  94.     Lex  and 
edictum,  i.  334.     Interval  between  the 
introduction  and  passing  of  a,  iii.  480 
Liber,  i.  280 
Liberalia,  i.  209 
Liber  pater,  i.  231 
Liberti  Latini  Iuniani,  iii.  527  n. 
Libra,  etymology,  i.   263.     Division  of, 
i.    265.      Relation    to    Sicilian    mina, 
L259 
Libumae,  ii.  217 
Libyans,  agriculture  of  the,   ii.    138  f. 

Position  towards  Carthage,  ii.  1407^ 
Libyphoenicians,  ii.  139,  140  n. 
C.  Licinius  Stolo,  i.  380,  388 
C  Licinius  Calvus,  v.  139,  140,  481,  507 
C.  Licinius  Macer  seeks  to  restore  the 
tribunician  power,  iv.  372.     Chronicler, 
ii.  67  n. ;  v.  496 
L.   Licinius    Crassus    [consul,   659],    the 
orator,  iii.  426,  441  «.,  465,  484,  488, 
497 ;  iv.  184,  186,  215,  218,  257 
L.   Licinius  Lucullus   [consul,   603],   iii. 

219 
L.   Licinius   Lucullus  [praetor,  651],  iii. 

386 
L.  Licinius  Lucullus,  his  character,  iv. 
337,  444.447.  Sulla's  lieutenant,  iv. 
40,  46,  48,  54,  94,  269,  271.  Commands 
against  Mithradates,  iv.  324-335.  War 
with  Tigranes,  iv.  334-340.     Advances 


into  Armenia,  iv.  345  f.  Retreats  to 
Mesopotamia,  iv.  346.  Retreats  to 
Pontus,  iv.  348.  Character  of  bis 
operations  in  Asia,  iv.  443-448.  Super- 
seded in  the  chief  command  by 
Pompeius,  iv.  407.  Opponent  of  Pom- 
peius,  iv.  501.  Humbles  himself  before 
Caesar,  and  retires  from  public  life,  iv. 
454,  516.  His  improvements  in  stage- 
decorations,  iv.  236.  His  library  and 
art-collections,  v.  460,  515 
L.   Licinius  Murena,  iv.  38,  53,  94,  95, 

3°5.  3i3i  320 
M.  Licinius  Crassus,  his  character,  iv. 
275-278.  Takes  part  in  the  Social  war, 
iv.  72,  77,  88,  89,  91.  In  Sulla's  con- 
fiscations, iv.  105.  Finishes  the  Servile 
war,  iv.  362,  363.  Allied  with  Pom- 
peius and  the  democrats,  ii.  378^,  382^ 
Joins  the  democrats  against  Pompeius, 
iv.  4617C  In  the  conspiracy  of  Catilina, 
iv.  485-488.  At  Luca,  v.  124  /.  Goes 
to  Syria,  v.  150.  Conflicts  with  the 
Parthians,  v.  151-160.  Put  to  death, 
v.  161.  His  wealth,  v.  384.  Influence 
thence  arising,  v.  389 

M.  Licinius  Lucullus,  quaestor,  and 
lieutenant  to  Sulla,  iv.  85,  87,  269,  270. 
Fights  in  the  east,  iv.  307.  Suggests 
the  sharper  punishment  of  outrages  on 
property  perpetrated  by  armed  bands, 
iv.  356.  His  improvements  in  stage- 
decorations,  iv.  236 

P.  Licinius  Crassus  [consul,  583],  ii.  500/^ 

P.  Licinius  Crassus  Mucianus  [consul, 
623],  Pontifex  maximus,  iii.  279,  293, 
319,  334 ;  iv.  192.     His  estate,  iv.  176 

P.  Licinius  Crassus  [consul,  657],  iii.  479, 
508,  509 ;  iv.  67,  102  n. 

P.  Licinius  Crassus,  lieutenant  under 
Caesar,  v.  39,  48,  55,  63,  154,  158,  159 

P.  Licinius  Nerva,  governor  of  Sicily  in 
650,  iii.  383 

Lictores,  i.  82,  94,  190.  Lay  aside  their 
axes  in  appeal  cases,  i.  320 

Ligurians,  i.  156,  157,  434;  ii.  221,  228, 
35i.  3691  374-375;  »i-  214.  2911  313. 
382  «.,  414,  415,  417,  443>_446.  458 

Ligurians  of  Lower  Italy,  ii.  374 

Lilybaeum,  ii.  143,  185,  187,  205,  249,  266 ; 
iii.  243.  Greek  settlement  there  frus- 
trated, i.  184.  Held  by  the  Cartha- 
ginians against  Pyrrhus,  ii.  32.  Be- 
sieged by  the  Romans,  ii.  18 7  /.,  190, 
191,  195 

Lhnitatio,  Graeco-Italian,  i.  27 

Linen  comes  from  Egypt  to  Italy,  iii.  85 

Linerc,  i.  280 


558 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Lingones,  Italian,  ii.  221,  226 

Lingones,  Gallic,  v.  85 

Lipara,  i.  177  ;  ii.  176 ;  iv.  354.     A  Greek 

colony,  i.  1S6.     Roman,  ii.  186,  198 
Liris,  i.  444 
Lissus,  i.  417  ;  ii.  218 
Liternum,  ii.  304 

Literati,  Greek,  in  Rome,  v.  459^ 
Literature,   origin  of  Roman,   iii.   134  f. 

Its  desructtive   influences  on  religion, 

iii.   wif.      Tn  the  seventh  century,  iv. 

22Q-254.     In  Caesar's  time,  v.  453-510 
Littera,  i.  280 
Litterat',  iv.  215 
Litteris  ouligatio,  iii.  90  n. 
Litteratores,  ii.  116 
Livius  Andronicus,  iii.   X35  /.,  156 ;  iv. 

214,    232   n.      Publicly   read    his   own 

poems,  iii.  178 
C.  Livius  [admiral,  563,  564],  ii.  457,  460, 

462 
M.   Livius  Salinator   [consul,    535,    547 ; 

censor,  550],  ii.  347,  3487C,  352  ;  iii.  136 
M.  Livius  Drusus,  the  elder,  iii.  363,  364, 

365.  429 

M.  Livius  Drusus,  the  younger,  iii.  483- 
489,  497./  ;  iv.  180,  186 

Livy  corrected,  iii.  444  n.  ;  iv.  91  n. 

Locri  occupied  by  the  Romans,  ii.  12. 
Its  fortunes  in  the  Pyrrhic  war,  ii.  21, 
30,  31,  35.  In  the  Hannibalic  war,  ii. 
295,  350.  Exempted  from  land-service, 
ii.  43.  Remains  unaffected  by  the 
general  Latinizing,  iv.  191./C 

Locris,  ii.  396 

Locupletes,  i.  115 

M.  Lollius  Palicanus  [tribune  of  the 
people,  683],  iv.  379  ^ 

Longobriga,  iv.  284  ;  iii.  499 

Lorum,  iii.  5  n. 

Luca,  a  Volscian  town,  i.  464 

Luca,  conference  at,  v.  124/. 

Lucanians,  constitution,  i.  315.  First 
appearance,  i.  454  f.  Under  Greek 
influence,  i.  456,  465  /.  ;  ii.  79,  90. 
Fight  against  Archidamus  and  Alex- 
ander the  Molossian,  i.  463.  Their 
attitude  during  the  Samnite  wars,  i. 
466,  468.  In  the  third  Samnite  war,  i. 
486./I  The  Romans  abandon  the  Greek 
towns  in  Lucania  to  them,  ii.  gf.  In- 
tervention of  the  Romans  contrary  to 
treaty  during  the  Lucanian  siege  of 
Thurii,  ii.  10.  War  with  Rome,  ii.  io, 
12.  Take  part  in  the  Pyrrhic  war,  ii. 
19,  21,  22.  Left  in  the  lurch  by 
Pyrrhus,  ii.  30  f.  Submit  to  the 
Romans,   ii.   38.      Dissolution    of   the 


confederacy,  or  its  subsistence  without 
political  significance,  ii.  53.  Their 
conduct  in  the  Hannibalic  war,  ii.  294, 
300,  305,  342,  365.  State  after  it,  iii, 
100,  101.  In  the  Social  war,  iii.  510, 
524 

Luc  aria,  i.  208 

Luceres,  i.  $■$/.,  56 

'.uceria,  i.  472 ;  ii.  280,  282,  283,  287,  294, 
3°5>  333  >  v-  2°8,  211.  Conflicts  be- 
tween Iapygians  and  Samnites  about,  i. 
146.  Occupied  by  the  Samnites  after 
the  Claudine  victory,  i.  471.  Taken  by 
the  Romans,  i.  474.     Latin  colony,  i. 

493 
C.  Lucilius,  poet,  iv.  193,  194,  215,  237- 

241,  252.     In  the  Scipionic  circle,  iv.  220 
C.  Lucilius  Hirrus,  v.  209 
C.  Lucretius  [admiral,  583],  ii.  500,  501, 

5°3 

Q.  Lucretius  Ofella  goes  over  to  Sulla, 
iv.  78,  84,  87,  89,  137,  140 

T.  Lucretius  Carus,  v.  444,  473-478 

Lucullus.     See  Licinius 

Ludi,  increase  oi,  iii.  340^,  124-127,  133^ 
Provincials  burdened  for  their  cost,  iii. 
31  f.  Distinction  of  the  senatorial 
places,  iii.  10.  In  Sulla's  time,  iv.  i83_/C 
In  Caesar's  time,  v.  471.  Greek,  iv.  192 ; 
v.  516  «. 

Lui';  Apollinares,  iii.  41,  125 

Lua    Atellani,  ii.  231.     Compare  Fabula 

Ludi  Cereales,  iii.  40,  125 

Ludi  Floralss,  iii.  40,  125 

Ludi  maximi,  ii.  96  n. 

Ludi  Mcgalenses,  iii.  41,  135 

Ludi  Osci,  iv.  231 

Ludi  phbeii,  iii.  40  «.,  125 

Ludi  RoDiani,  original  nature  of,  i.  293. 
Probably  modelled  after  the  Olympic 
festival,  i.  295.  Changed  from  com- 
petitions of  the  burgesses  to  competi- 
tions of  professional  riders  and  prize- 
fighters, i.  297.  A  day  added  after  the 
expulsion  of  the  kings,  i.  342.  Last  for 
four  days,  ii.  97.  For  six  days,  ii.  124. 
Provided  by  the  curule  aediles,  i.  383 ; 
iii.  41.  "Sale of  Veientes,"  i.  426.  In- 
troduction of  dramatic  representations, 
ii.  98.  Cost  of  the  festival,  ii.  97.  Palm 
branches  distributed  at,  ii.  91 

Ludii,  ludiones,  i.  286 

Luerius,  king  of  Arverni,  iii.  416,  417 

Lugudunum  Convenarum,  iv.  304 ;  v.  8 

Luna,  ii.  377  ;  iv.  167.  Burgess-colony, 
ii.  375 ;  iii.  26,  49,  312 

Lupercal,  i.  62.  Luperci,  Lupercalia,  L 
54.  56.  67  «•.  106,  108,  208,  215 


INDEX 


559 


Lupus.    See  Rutilios 

Lusitanians,  ii.  389,  391 

Lusitanian  war,  iii.  216.     Banditti  in,  iii. 

233  f.     Revolt,  iii.  479.     Subdued  by 

Caesar,  v.  7 
Lusones,  iii.  227 
Lustrum  up  to  474  could  not  be  presented 

by  the  plebeian  censor,  i.  384.     Usual 

prayeron  presenting  it,  iii.  317.  Changed 

by  Scipio  Aemilianus,  iii.  317 
C.    Lutatius    Catulus   [consul,    512],    ii. 

194  f. 
Q.    Lutatius    Catulus    [consul,   652],   iii. 

447-459,  508  ;  iv.  67,  102  «.,  103.     Poet, 

iv.  236  ».,  242.     Memoirs,  iv.  250 
Q.  Lutatius  Catulus  [consul,  676],  iv.  269, 

288,  289  «.,  290,  291,  394  /.,  453,  460, 

483.  493.  497 
Lutetia,  v.  84 

Lutia,  town  of  the  Arevacae,  iii.  231 
Lyaeus,  i.  231 
Lycaonia,  ii.  474  ;  iii.  281 
Lycia,  ii.  474,  513 ;  iii.  280 ;  iv.  54,  313. 

Language,  iv.  nyC 
Lycian  cities,  league  of,  iv.  33,  311 
Lyciscus,  ii.  498,  517,  518  ;  iii.  264 
Lycophron,  v.  450 
Lycortas,  ii.  479 
Lyctus,  iv.  353 
Lycus,  river,  iv.  331 
Lydia,  ii.   398,  474 ;  iv.  11.     Language, 

iv.  11  f. 
Lyncestis,  ii.  424,  425 
Lyra,  i.  292  «. 
Lysimachia,  ii.  410,  421,  435,  448,  465,  474 

Ma,  Cappadocian  goddess  (  =  Bellona),  iv. 
210 

Maccabees.    See  Jews 

T.  Maccius  Plautus,  Roman  poet,  iii. 
142,  145,  152,  160  f.\  iv.  220.  Com- 
pared with  Terence,  iv.  224-229 

Macedonia,  land  and  people,  ii.  395-397. 
Claims  to  continue  the  universal  empire 
of  Alexander,  ii.  399.  Its  relation  to 
Rome,  ii.  215,  250,  252.  Description 
of  the  country  before  the  beginning  of 
the  third  war  with  Rome,  ii.  490  /. 
Broken  up  into  four  confederacies,  ii. 
508  f.  Becomes  a  province,  iii.  262  /. 
In  the  Sertorian  times,  iv.  299.  Greece 
placed  under  the  Macedonian  governor, 
iii.  271.  Struggles  in  the  mountains, 
iii.  414.  Overrun  by  the  Thracians,  iv. 
34.  Occupied  by  Mithradates,  iv.  34. 
In  the  Mithradatic  war,  iv.  38,  50.  In 
Caesar's  time,  v.  xo^f.  Roman  domain- 
land  in  Macedonia,  iv.  156, 157.    Mines, 


tv.  156.     Taxation,  ii.  509  n. ;  iii.  263, 

Compare  Perseus,  Philip 
Machanidas  of  Sparta  ii.  317,405 
Machares,   son   of  Mithradates,   iv.   318, 

334.  4"i  42° 
Madytus,  ii.  448 
Maeander,  ii.  474 ;  iv.  38 
Maecenas,  i.  302 
Maedi,  iii.  428,  429 ;  iv.  50 
Sp.  Maelius,  i.  376 
C.  Maenius  [consul,  416],  L  462 
Magaba,  mountain  in  Asia  Minor,  ii.  471 
Magadates,    Armenian    satrap,   iv.    317, 

34i 

Magalia,  iii.  247  ».,  249,  253,  257 

Magi  among  the  Parthians,  iii.  288 

Magic,  i.  191.     Incantations,  i.  286./! 

Magister  equitum,  i.  317  «.,  325.  Not 
originating  out  of  the  tribuni  celerum, 
i.  91  n.     Plebeians  ehgiLL,  ".  383 

Magister  populi,  i.  325.  Compare  Dic- 
tator 

Magistrates,  not  paid,  iii.  91,  94.  Cannot 
be  impeached  during  tenure  of  office, 
iii.  32.  Edicts  of,  while  in  office, 
equivalent  to  law,  i.  335.  Military 
authority  distinguished  from  the  civil, 
after  expulsion  of  the  kings,  i.  335  f. 
General  and  army  as  such  might  not 
enter  the  city,  i.  335.  Deputy-magis- 
trates (pro  magistrate,  pro  consule, 
pro  praetore,  pro  quaestor  e)  admissible 
only  in  military,  not  in  civil  government, 
i.  323.  Deputies  appointed  by  senate, 
i.  409.  Order  of  succession,  limits  of 
age,  intervals  prescribed  by  law,  i.  375  ; 
iii.  13  f.  Division  into  curule  and 
lower,  iii.  6.  Decline  of  the  magistracy, 
iii.  18.  Sulla's  regulations  as  to  quali- 
fication, iv.  116.  Caesar's  regulations, 
v.  412  f.  Filling  up  of  the  governor- 
ships in  the  provinces,  iv.  390  n. ;  v. 
147,  178./,  343/ 

Decius  Magius,  ii.  294 

L.  Magius,  commander  in  Mithradatic 
war,  iv.  323,  334 

Minatus  Magius  of  Aeclanum  forms  in 
the  Social  war  a  loyalist  corps  of  Hir- 
pini,  iii.  502 

Magnesia  on  the  Maeander,  ii.  413,  474 ; 
iv.  54 

Magnesia  near  Mount  Sipylus,  battle  at, 
ii.  466/  ;  iii.  285  ;  iv.  33 

Magnesia,  Thessalian  peninsula,  ii.  396, 
452.  453,  454,  477,  485 

Magnopolis,  iv.  441 

Mago,  Carthaginian  admiral  in  476,  ii.  39 

Mago  conquers  at  Kronion,  ii.  145.     Hb 


56o 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


book  on  agriculture,  ii.  151 ;   ill.  312  ; 
iv.  172  n.     His  clan,  i.  413 ;  ii.  147 

Mago  the  Samnite,  ii.  244 

Mago,  Hannibal's  brother,  ii.  238,  271, 
376.  Fights  in  Spain  against  the 
Scipios,  ii.  322,  327,  328,  330^  331. 
Landing  and  struggle  in  Italy,  ii.  350, 
351,  357.     Called  to  Africa,  ii.  357 

Maiestatem  popui '  Rontani  comiter  con- 
servare,  ii.  47  n. 

Maize,  iii.  64  n. 

Malaca,  ii.  384 

Maichus  [Carthaginian  general  about  200], 
i.  186 

Malea,  ii.  405 

Cn.  Mallius  Maximus  [consul,  649],  de- 
feated by  the  Helvotii,  iii.  436 

Mamercus,  alleged  son  of  Numa  and 
ancestor  of  the  Aemilii,  ii.  107 

Mamercus  Haemylus,  alleged  son  of 
Pythagoras  and  ancestor  of  the  Aemilii, 
ii.  107 

Mamers,  ii.  249 

Mamertines.     See  Messana 

C.   Mamilius    Limetanus   [pleb.    tribune, 

64s].  «»•  396 
Mamuralia,  i.  207 
Mamurius,  the  armourer,  i.  249 
Mamurra  of  Formiae,  Caesar's  favourite, 

v.  142  n. 
Mancaeus,  commandant  of  Tigranocerta, 

»v.  339 
Mancinus.  See  Hostilius. 
Mancipatio  belongs  not  merely  to  Ro- 
man, but  generally  to  Latin  law,  i. 
200.  Is  purchase  with  immediate  and 
simultaneous  delivery  and  payment,  i. 
195.  Thus  originally  not  a  formal  act, 
L  200.  Refers  originally  to  moveables, 
L  195  ».,  238/;  Rearranged  for  agri- 
cultural property  in  consequence  of  the 
Servian  regulation  of  freehold-relations, 
i.  195  n.  The  other  objects  of  property 
excluded  from  mancipatio  by  a  sub- 
sequent misunderstanding,  i.  195  «. 
Obligatory  consequences  of,  i.  196 
Manes,  i.  214 

C.  Manilius  [pleb.  tribune,  688],  iv.  396 
M'.  Manilius  conducts  siege  of  Carthage 

by  land,  iii.  249./C 
Manipular  organization.     See  Legion 
C.  Manlius,  a  Catilinarian,  iv.  474 
Cn.  Manlius  Volso  [consul,  565],  ii.  470 ; 

iii.  32 
Cn.  Manlius  [praetor,  682]  fights  against 

ihe  gladiators,  iv.  360 
L.  Manlius  Volso  [consul,  498],  ii.  178 
L.  Manlius  fights  against  Sertorius,  iv.  283 


L.  Manlius,  poet,  iv.  242 

M.  Manlius  Capitolinus  saves  the  Capi- 
tol, ii.  430.     Condemned,  i.  379 

T.  Manlius  Imperiosus  Torquatus  [consul, 
414],  i.  459  «.,  461 

T.  Manlius  Torquatus  [praetor,  539],  ii. 
308 

Mantua,  i.  156.     Etruscan,  i.  434 

Manumission,  foreign  to  the  old  law,  i. 
198.  Yindicta  censu  testamento,  i.  199. 
Freedmen  among  the  clients,  i.  79  f. 
Tax  on  manumissions,  i.  389 ;  ii.  83  ;  iv. 
156.  Freedmen  in  the  comitia  tributa 
restricted  to  the  four  urban  tribes,  i. 
396 /.;  ii.  82;  iii.  53.  Deprived  of  the 
suffrage  in  the  comitia  centuriata,  i. 
396.  Iheir  economic  relation  to  the 
manumitter,  K.  82.  Social  and  political 
position  in  general,  v.  369.  Increasing 
importance  of,  iii.  39.  Share  in  military 
service,  i.  488 ;  iii.  50 ;  and  in  the  suf- 
frage, iii.  52  f.  In  the  reform  of  the 
centuries,  equalized  with  the  freeborn, 
iii.  52  f.  This  equalization  cancelled 
again  by  C.  Flaminius,  iii.  53.  Be- 
stowal of  unrestricted  suffrage  in- 
tended by  Sulpicius,  iii.  531,  534.  By 
Cinna,  iv.  58,  6g_/C  Cancelled  by  Sulla, 
iv.  106.  Striving  after  equalization  of 
political  rights,  iv.  264,  458.  Freedmen 
with  the  rights  of  Latins  and  Dediticii, 
iii.  527  ».;  iv.  107  «. 

Manus  iniectio.     See  Legis  actiones 

Marble  begins  to  be  used  for  building,  iv. 
257.  From  Luna,  v.  514.  Numidian, 
v.  514 

Marcellus.    See  Claudius 

Marcius,  prophecies  of,  iii.  41 

Marcius,  Ancus,  i.  104.  Fortification  of 
Janiculum  and  foundation  of  Ostia 
referred  to  him,  i.  58^ 

C.  Marcius  [officer  in  Spain,  544],  ii.  323, 
33° 

C.  Marcius  Censorinus,  lieutenant  of 
Carbo  in  the  first  civil  war,  iv.  86 

C.  Marcius  Rutilus  [dictator,  398],  i.  398 

C.  Marcius  Rutilus  [consul,  444],  i.  480 

C.  Marcius  Figulus  [consul,  598],  iii.  422 

Cn.  Marcius  Coriolanus,  i.  358 

L.  Marcius  Censorinus  [consul,  605] 
besieges  Carthage,  iii.  243,  249 

L.  Marcius  Philippus  [consul,  663],  iii. 
380,  484,  487,  498  «.;  iv.  70,  78,  92,  98 ; 
iv.  269,  289  «.,  2g6y. 

Q.  Marcius  Philippus  [consul,  568,  585], 
ii.  497,  503,  514 

Q.  Marcius  Rex  [consul,  686],  iv.  34s, 
349.  350 


INDEX 


561 


Marcomani,  ill.  422  ».;  v.  31  n. 

Mariana,  colony  in  Corsica,  iii.  479 

Maritime  affairs,  Rome's  original  mari- 
time importance,  i.  59  /.  Plundering 
of  the  Latin  coasts  by  pirates,  ii.  40  /. 
Their  commerce  limited  by  unfavourable 
treaties  with  Carthage  and  Tarentum, 
ii.  41,  42.  Roman  fortification  and 
securing  of  the  Italian  coast-towns,  ii. 
42.  Gradual  decline  of  the  Roman 
fleet,  ii.  40.  Efforts  to  revive  it,  ii.  43 
f.  Fleets  in  first  Punic  war,  ii.  173- 
'75>  'Ss,  186,  194  /.,  199,  200.  Fleet 
neglected  by  the  Romans,  iv.  169 ;  v. 
361.  In  the  Social  war,  formed  with 
the  help  of  the  maritime  cities  of  Asia 
Minor,  iii.  507.  Sailing  ships,  i.  254  «. ; 
v.  15,  16.     Compare  Piracy. 

C.  Marius,  his  character  and  career,  iii. 
452-454-  Superstition,  iii.  47S  ;  iv. 
208  f.  Political  position,  iii.  454  f. 
Compared  with  Pompeius,  iv.  204.  His 
relationship  with  Caesar,  iv.  279.  Tri- 
bune of  the  people  [635],  iii.  375.  In 
the  Jugurthine  war,  iii.  39S,  400  /.  404- 
409.  Consul,  iii.  404  f.  In  Teutonic 
war,  iii.  441-446.  In  Cimbric  war,  iii. 
448-450.  His  military  reforms,  iii.  413, 
443)  456-462.  Political  projects,  iii. 
462  /.  For  the  sixth  time  consul,  iii. 
467  -  476.  Politically  annihilated,  iii. 
477.  Goes  to  the  east,  iii.  477 ;  iv. 
19  «.  Returns,  iii.  477.  In  Social  war, 
iii.  504,  508,  511,  512,  520.  Discon- 
tented, iii.  529.  Nominated  commander- 
in-chief  against  Mithradates,  iii.  536. 
Driven  from  Rome  by  Sulla,  iii.  539. 
Flight,  iii.  539.  Returns,  iv.  60  /. 
His  reign  of  terror,  iv.  66  /.  Seventh 
time  consul,  iv.  68.  Death,  iv.  69, 
102  n.  His  ashes  scattered,  iv.  103. 
Rehabilitation  of  his  memory,  iv.  460^ 

C.  Marius  the  younger  [consul,  672],  iii. 
530 ;  iv.  81,  83,  84,  90,  102  n. 

M.  Marius,  lieutenant  of  Sertorius,  iv. 
324,  329.     Death,  iv.  329 

M.  Marius  Gratidianus,  adopted  nephew 
of  Marius,  iv.  103 

Marius  Egnatius.    See  Egnatius 

Marl  used  in  Gaul,  v.  13 

Maronea,  ii.  417,  465,  486,  488,  511,/ 

Marriage,  religious  and  civil  marriage,  i. 
73  «.,  in.  Marital  power,  i.  30.  The 
connection  without  manus  admitted  in 
lieu  of  marriage,  ii.  65.  Between  patri- 
cians and  plebeians  null,  i.  334,  364. 
Between  patricians  and  plebeians  de- 
clared valid  by  the  Canuleian  law,  i. 

VOL.  V 


371.  Between  patricians  and  plebeians, 
how  regarded  in  aristocratic  circles,  i. 
386.  Relaxation  of,  iii.  121.  Celibacy 
and  divorces  increase,  iii.  121  /.  Mar- 
riage in  Sulla's  time,  iv.  186  /.  Id 
Caesar's  time,  v.  392 

Marrucini,  t.  146,  467,  482 ;  iii.  501,  521 

Mars,  oldest  chief  god  of  the  Italian 
burgess -community,  i.  67,  207,  210  /. 
Temple  in  the  Flaminian  circus,  iv. 
257.     Dance-chant  in  honour  of,  i.  287 

Mars  quirinus,  i.  68  ».  Sabine  and  Latin 
deity,  i.  69  n. 

Marshes,  draining  of,  iv.  168 

Marsians,  i.  146 ;  iii.  100.  Offshoots  of 
the  Umbrians,  i.  n.  Take  part  in  the 
Samnite  war,  i.  468,  480  f.  Organiza- 
tion in  later  times,  iii.  501.  In  the 
Social  war,  iii.  501,  511,  521 

Martha,  Cimbrian  prophetess  in  the 
Cimbrian  war,  iii.  454  ;  iv.  208 

Masks  on  the  stage,  iii.  156.  Masks  in 
the  Atellana,  i.  191 

Massaesylians,  ii.  354,  382 

Massilia,  ii.  375  ;  iv.  174 ;  v.  16.  Founded, 
i.  183,  185  ;  ii.  137.  Naval  power,  ii. 
40.  Maritime  stations  on  Mediter- 
ranean coast,  iii.  415,  419.  Rela- 
tions to  Rome,  i.  260 ;  ii.  45,  384 ; 
iii.  415  /.,  419,  443;  iv.  293,  509, 
511.  To  Lampsacus,  ii.  447  ».,  469  n. 
How  far  belonging  to  the  province  of 
Narbo,  iii.  272  «.  Competition  of 
Roman  merchants  after  Narbo  was 
founded,  iv.  175.  Its  conflicts  with 
Carthage,  ii.  143.  Its  position  in  second 
Punic  war,  ii.  255,  292.  Conquered 
by  Caesar,  v.  227,  228.  Its  mint,  ii. 
387 ;  iv.  181.  Exempt  from  taxation, 
iv.  158.  Remains  unaffected  by  the 
general  Latinizing,  iv.  192 ;  v.  10 

Massinissa,  character  of,  ii.  382./.  Takes 
part  in  second  Punic  war,  ii.  322,  330, 
33i,  3S4>  355,  356,  360.  His  conduct 
after  second  Punic  war,  ii.  356,  360,  457, 
492,  518  /. ;  iii.  237  f.  Death,  iii.  251. 
Table  of  his  descendants,  iii.  388  n. 

Massiva,  iii.  388  ».,  395,  402 

Massylians,  ii.  354,  382 

Mastanabal,  iii.  251,  388 

Mastarna,  i.  159 

Materis,  Cimbric  weapon,  iii.  43a 

Mater  magna  in  Rome,  iii.  41,  115;  it. 
209./ ;  v.  445 

Mater  matuta,  i.  209  ft. 

C.    Matius,  author  of  a  cookery  book,  v. 

513 
Matralia,  i.  aoo 

I69 


562 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Mauretania  (Mauri),  ii.  3S2  ;  iii.  393,  404- 
408 ;  iv.  92 ;  v.  291  n.  Haunt  of  the 
pirates,  iv.  3ioyC 

Maxitani,  or  Maxyes,  ii.  137 

Mazaca,  iv.  316 

Medama,  i.  166 

Medes  in  the  army  of  Mithradates,  iv.  28 

Media,  ii.  444.  Independent,  iii.  287, 
288.  Falsely  said  to  be  conquered  by 
Pompeius,  iv.  437  n. 

Media  Atropatene,  iv.  313 

Medicine  in  Rome,  iii.  193 ;  iv.  254 

Mediolanum,  i.  423  ;  ii.  228 

Mediterranean,  its  significance  in  ancient 
history,  i.  ■$/. 

Mcditrinalia,  i.  208 

Medix  tuticus,  i.  315 

Medullia,  i.  125 

Megacles,  i.  19 

Megalopolis,  ii.  430,  480;  iv.  242.  In 
Pontus,  iv.  441 

Megara  in  Greece,  iii.  269  ;  iv.  38.  Sends 
out  colonies,  i.  166 

Megara  in  Sicily,  Syracusan,  ii.  206 

Megaravicus  defends  Numantia,  iii.  226 

Melita,  ii.  143 

Melitaea,  iv.  43 

Melitene,  iv.  315,  338 

Melpum,  i.  423,  427 

C  Memmius,  iii.  393,  394,  465,  475  _ 

L.  Memmius,  quaestor  of  Pompeius  in 
Spain,  iv.  296 

Memoir-literature,  iv.  250 

Menagenes,  iii.  276  n. 

Menander  of  Athens,  Attic  comedian,  iii. 
141-147 

Menapii,  v.  37,  54,  58,  7a 

Mende,  ii.  426 

Menenii,  clan-village,  i.  45 

Menippus,  ii.  453 

Mercantile  dealings,  extent  of  the  Roman, 
iii.  86 

Mercatus,  i.  250 

Mercedonius,  L  370 

Mercenaries,  ii.  138. 

Merchants,  proper,  why  none  in  Rome,  i. 
261.  Strive  to  acquire  a  freehold  settle- 
ment, ii.  82./C  Mercantile  spirit  of  the 
Romans,  iii.  89-93 

Mercuriales,  i.  138  ». 

Mercurius,  i.  214,  230,  255 

Merula.    See  Cornelius 

Mesembria,  iv.  307 

Mesopotamia,  iii.  289 ;  iv.  5,  315.  Con- 
firmed to  the  Parthians,  iv.  406 

Messana,  i.  167 ;  ii.  145,  203,  205,  213 ; 
iii.  386.  Campanians  or  Mamertines 
there,  ii.  18,  162,  163  /. ;  iii.  309.     Al- 


liance with  Rome  and  Carthage  against 
P5'rrhus,  ii.  29.  Maintain  themselves 
against  him,  ii.  32.  War  with  Hiero  of 
Syracuse,  ii.  38,  164  f.  Surrender  to 
the  Romans,  ii.  165.  Received  into  the 
Italian  confederacy,  ii.  165  /.,  167  n. 
The  city  occupied  by  the  Carthaginians, 
ii.  169.  These  dislodged  by  the  Romans, 
ii.  169  f.  Exempted  from  taxation,  iv. 
157.  Mint  of  the  Mamertines  restricted 
to  copper,  ii.  211  n. 

Messapians,  i.  455,  465,  466 

Messene,  ii.  317,  403,  439,  456,  459,  478 

C.  Messius  [pleb.  tribune,  697],  v.  121 

Metapontum,  i.  170,  171,  173,  456,  465, 
482;  ii.  294,  336,  349.  Stormed  by  the 
gladiators,  iv.  359 

Metaurus,  ii.  348 

Metellus.     See  Caecilius 

Metilii,  from  Alba,  i.  128 

Sp.  Metilius  [tribune  of  the  people,  337], 

i-  378 
Metrodorus  of  Athens,  painter  and  philo- 
sopher, iv.  258 
Metrophanes,  Pontic  general,  iv.  338 
Mezentius,  i.  158 
Micipsa,  iii.  251,  258,   388  «.,  389.      His 

son  Micipsa,  iii.  388  n. 
Miles,  foot-soldier,  i.  91 
Milestones,  iv.  167 

Miletopolis,  victory  of  Fimbria  at,  iv.  47 
Miletus,  i.  174  ;  ii.  412,  473;  iii.  260,  507 

n.  ;  iv.   15.     Carrier  for  the  commerce 

of  the  Sybarites,  i.  171 
Milev,  colonia  Samensis,  v.  303  n. 
Milo,  general  of  Pyrrhus,  ii.  16,  17,  31,  37 
Military  service,  length  of,  iii.  346./C 
Milyas,  district  of,  ii.  474 
Mimus,  v.  468-471 
Mincius,  battle  on  the,  ii.  370 
Minerva  borrowed  by  the  Etruscans  from 

Latium,  i.  229.     Temple  of,  at  Rome, 

iii.  136,  368 
Mines,  Spanish,  iii.  20,  307.    Macedonian, 

iii.  21 
Minturnae,  naval  colony,  i.  493  ;   ii.  4?, 

49.      Slave  -  rising,    iii.    309.      Marh;s 

there,  iii.  540_/C 
C.  Minucius  \_praefectus  annonae,  315],  i. 

376  _ 
M.   Minucius  Rufus  [magister  equitum, 

537],  ii-  283,  284/ 
M.  (Q.  ?)  Minucius   Rufus  [consul,  644) 

fights  in  Macedonia,  iii.  429 
Q.  Minucius  [praetor  in  Spain,  558],  ii. 

59° 
Q.  Minucius  Thermus  [piaetor,  705],  v 
207 


INDEX 


563 


Minucius,  confidant  of  Viriathus,  iii.  225 
Mirror -designing,  Etruscan,  i.  308;    ii. 

124 
Misenum    surprised  by    the   pirates,    iv. 

355.     Misenian  Cape,  i.  177 
Mithra,  worship  of,  v.  445.X 
Mithradates    of    Media,    son-in-law   of 
Tigranes,  in  the  Armenian  war,  iv.  349 
Mithradates  I.,  the  Arsacid,  iii.  287 
Mithradates  II.,  the  Arsacid,  iv.  5 
Mithradates  of  Pergamus,  v.  279/!,  283 
Mithradates  V.,  Euergetes,  iii.  281;  iv. 

6,  19,  20 
Mithradates  VI.,  Eupator,  king  of  Pontus, 
his  character,  iv.  6-10.  Extends  his 
kingdom,  iv.  12  /.,  16-20.  Allied  with 
Tigranes,  iv.  18.  Difficulties  with  the 
Romans,  iv.  21  f.  First  war  with  Rome, 
iii.  523,  536 ;  iv.  26-52.  Orders  a  mas- 
sacre of  all  Italians,  iv.  31  f.  Occupies 
Asia  Minor,  iv.  29./C  Occupies  Thrace, 
Macedonia,  Greece,  iv.  34-37.  Loses 
them  again,  iv.  42-49.  Sues  for  peace, 
iv.  48^  Peace  with  Sulla  at  Dardanus, 
iv.  52,  305.  Chronology  of  first  Mithra- 
datic  war,  iv.  19  «.,  45  n.  Armenian 
tradition  about  it,  iv.  $if.  Vanquishes 
Murena,  iv.  94  ./C  Extends  his  empire 
on  the  Black  Sea,  iv.  318.  Alliance 
with  the  pirates  and  with  Sertorius,  iv. 
300,  314,  322  f.  Organizes  his  army 
after  Roman  model,  iv.  318.  Second 
war  with  Rome,  iv.  320  f.  Victorious 
near  Chalcedon,  iv.  326.  Besieges 
Cyzicus  in  vain,  iv.  327./C  Driven  back 
to  Pontus,  iv.  330.  Defeated  near 
Cabira,  iv.  331./  Flight  to  Armenia,  iv. 
332  f.  Induces  Tigranes  to  continue 
the  war,  iv.  343.  Forms  a  new  army, 
iy-  343  /•  Defeats  the  Romans  at  Ziela 
and  regains  Pontus,  iv.  349^  Variance 
with  Tigranes,  iv.  406.  War  with 
Pompeius,  iv.  407 ./C  Defeated  at  Nico- 
polis,  iv.  409.  Breach  with  Tigranes, 
iv.  410  f.  Crosses  the  Phasis,  iv.  411. 
Goes  to  Panticapaeum,  iv.  417.  Revolt 
against  him,  iv.  418./C  Death,  iv.  420. 
His  gold  coinage,  iv.  181 
Mithradates,    son   of    Mithradates    VI., 

Eupator,  iv.  32,  47,  95 
Mithradates,  king  of  Parthia,  v.  151 
Mithrobarzanes,    Armenian    general,    iv. 

339 
Mnasippus  the  Boeotian,  iii.  264 
Moenici,  meaning  of  the  word,  i.  91 
Molochath,  ii.  282  ;  iii.  387,  406,  410 
Molottians,  ii.  502,  517 
Money  of  the   Greek  colonies  in    Italy 


and  Sicily,  i.  166.  Cast  copper  money 
appears  in  Rome  at  the  time  of  the 
Decemvirs,  and  spreads  thence  over 
Italy,  ii.  78,  79.  Etrusco-Umbrian  and 
East-Italian  cast  copper  money,  ii.  79. 
Etruscan  silver  money  of  the  oldest 
times,  i.  306.  Proportional  ratio  of 
copper  to  silver,  ii.  79.  Silver  money 
of  Lower  Italy,  ii.  79.  Artistic  value  of 
the  cast  copper  coinage,  ii.  124.  Mone- 
tary unity  of  Italy,  ii.  87.  System  of 
the  denarius,  ii.  87.  Debasing  of  the 
coin  during  second  Punic  war,  ii.  343. 
Later  coinage,  iii.  87  f.\  iv.  178-183. 
Copper  money  restricted  to  small  change, 
iv.  179.  Diffusion  of  the  Roman  money, 
iii.  88  f.  In  Sicily,  ii.  ■zio/.  ;  iii.  87./C 
In  Spain,  ii.  385^,  393  ;  iii.  87.  In  the 
territory  of  the  Po,  iii.  87.  Local,  v. 
436,/C  Traffic  in  gold  bars,  iv.  179 ;  ▼. 
435.  Coinage  of  gold  not  permitted  in 
the  provinces,  iv.  i8»  f.  Caesar  intro- 
duces a  gold  currency,  v.  437.  Token 
money  (plated  denarii),  iii.  485  ;  iv.  180. 
Denarii  of  Scaurus,  iv.  432.  Of  Pom- 
peius, iv.  444.  Money  dealings  mono- 
polized by  the  capital,  iv.  173  /.  ;  y. 
380,  409,/C  Coins  of  the  Italians  in  the 
Social  war,  iii.  505,  524  n. 

Money-changers.     See  Argentarius 

Moneyed  aristocracy,  iii.  93  f. 

Mons  sacer,  i.  348 

Montani,  i.  68,  139 

Months,  names  of,  everywhere  come  into 
use  only  after  the  introduction  of  the 
solar  year,  and  thence  recent  in  Italy,  L 
269  f.     Roman,  i.  269,  270 

Morgantia,  iii.  384 

Morges,  i.  40 

Morimene,  iv.  439 

Morini,  v.  54,  58 

Mortgage,  unknown  in  early  times,  L  204 

Motya,  ii.  143.     Punic,  i.  186 

Mourning,  time  of,  abridged  after  the 
battle  of  Cannae,  ii.  298.  After  the 
battle  of  Arausio,  iii.  438 

P.  Mucius  Scaevola  [consul,  621],  iii.  319, 
320,  325,  327,  334,  338.  Private  life,  iv. 
258.     Historian,  iv.  248 

Q.  Mucius  Scaevola  [consul,  659],  iii. 
481,  497 ;  iv.  69,  84,  102  ».,  205.  Juri- 
dical writer,  iv.  205,  251,  256 

Mu/ta,  origin  of  the  designation,  i,  19a 

Muivius/cns,  iv.  167 

L.  Mummius  [consul,  608],  iii.  215  f,,  268 
/.,  270,  271  «.,  274;  iv.  257.     His  plays, 

»v-  235  /-,  236  "• 
Sp.  Mummius,  brother  of  Lucius,  in  the 


$64 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Scipionic  circle,  iv.  420.     His  Epistles, 
iv.  337 

Mundus,  i,  63 

Munatius,  legate  of  Sulla,  iv.  38 

Municeps,  passive  burgess,  i.  121,  441. 
Active  right  of  election  in  the  comitia 
tributa,  i.  441  n. 

Municipal  constitution,  Latin,  remodelled 
after  the  pattern  of  the  Roman  consular 
constitution,  i.  442  f.,  452 

Municipal  system,  originally  no  closer 
municipal  union  allowed  within  the 
Roman  burgess  -  body  ;  such  a  system 
initiated  when  the  Roman  franchise  was 
forced  on  whole  communities,  as  on 
Tusculum,  i.  448 ;  ii.  48  n.  •  iii.  36. 
Developed  in  Italy,  iv,  130-135.  Re- 
gulated by  Caesar,  v.  405.  Extended 
to  the  provinces,  v.  427^    Compare  lus 

Murder,  i.  191 

Music,  Etruscan  predominates  in  Rome, 
i.  99.  In  later  times,  Greek,  iv.  258.  On 
the  stage,  v.  472,  516  f.  In  domestic 
life,  v.  516  f.  As  a  subject  of  instruc- 
tion, v.  449,  517 

Muthul,  battle  on  the,  iii.  399  f. 

Mutina,  burgess-colony,  ii.  230,  267,  373 ; 
iii.  26,  49,  291.     Battle  of,  ii.  373 

Muttines,  ii.  313 

Mutuum,  i.  200 

Mycenae,  i.  302 

Mylae,  battle  of,  ii.  175.A 

Mylasa,  ii.  412,  413 

Myndus,  ii.  412,  446 ;  iii.  279 

Myonnesus,  ii.  463 

Myrina,  ii.  413,  447 

Mysia,  ii.  473.  Language  of,  iv.  11. 
Mysians  in  army  of  Antiochus,  ii.  466 

Mysteries,  systematic  dealings  in,  iv.  208- 
211 

Mytilene,  ii.  318,  406,  462 ;  iv.  31,  48,  93, 
94 

N ABATAEAN  State,  IV.   316,    422,    426,    432 

«.     Petra,  capital  of  the,  iv.  426 
Nabis,  ii.  405,  431,  433.  ^/-  45*.  480 
Cn.  Naevius,  his  comedies,  iii.  150 /.,  157- 
160;   iv.  219,  222.     His  fraetextatae, 
iii.  177.     His  saturae,  iii.  178  f.     His 
"Punic  War,"  iii.  179./C,  184,  186;  iv. 

215 

Nails  fastened  in  the  Capitoline  temple, 

ii.  100 
Names,  proper,   Roman,  i.  31,   78,   210. 

fttruscan,  i.  151  /.     Greek  cognomina 

come  into  use,  ii.  91 
Nanaea,  temple  of,  in  Elymais,  iv.  343 
Naraggara,  ii.  359 


Narbo,  iii.  374,  419 ;  iv.  168,  176,  191 ;  v 
11,  16,  422.     Exempt  from  taxation,  iv. 

158.    See  Gaul 

Narnia,  ii.  348.  A  Latin  colony,  i.  485. 
Reinforced,  ii.  366 

Nasica.     See  Cornelius 

Natural  philosophy,  influence  on  the 
Roman  religion,  iii.  112  /. 

Naupactus,  ii.  459 

Nautical  loan  =  bottomry,  iii.  92.  Not  a 
branch  of  usury  legally  forbidden,  iii. 
97  «. 

Naval  warfare,  ancient,  ii.  173  f. 

Navigation,  oar-boats  already  known  in 
Indo-Germanic  period,  i.  20,  27.  Sailing 
ships  probably  derived  by  the  Italians 
from  the  Greeks,  i.  179.  Developed 
earliest  among  the  Gauls,  v.  15.  Earli- 
est nautical  terms  of  Latin,  later  ones 
of  Greek  origin,  i.  254  «. 

Naxos,  i.  165,  166 

Neae,  iv.  329 

Neapolis,  i.  175 ;  ii.  173,  294,  303/  Old 
relations  with  Rome,  i.  260.  Holds 
out  against  the  Samnites,  i.  419,  455 
456.  Palaeopolis  and  Neapolis  threat- 
ened by  the  Romans,  and  therefore 
occupied  by  the  Samnites,  i.  469.  Siege 
of  the  city  by  the  Romans,  and  treaty 
of  the  Campanian  Greeks  with  Rome 
i.  469.  Attitude  towards  Rome,  ii.  43, 
53  ;  iii.  24.  In  the  Social  war,  iii.  502. 
In  the  first  Civil  war,  iv.  80,  91.  De- 
prived of  Aenaria  (Ischia),  iv.  107,  126. 
Rights  of,  in  later  times,  iii.  519.  Re- 
mains unaffected  by  the  general  Latin- 
izing, iii.  519;  iv.  191  /. 

Neapolis,  the  Carthaginian,  iii.  25a 

Neetum,  ii.  313.     Syracusan,  i.  204 

C.  Negidius  defeated  by  Viriathus,  iii. 
223 

Nemausus,  v.  423 

Nemetum,  iii.  416  n. 

Neniae,  i.  288,  293  n. 

Neoptolemus,  general  of  Mithradates,  iv. 

i7i  a8i  3°,  38 
Nepete,  Etruscan,  i.  157.     Latin  colony, 

i-  432 
Nepheris,  fortress  at  Carthage,  iii.  249, 

251,  254,  255 
Neptunalia,  i.  208 

Neptunia,  colony  at  Tarentum,  iii.  374 
Nequinum,  i.  485 
Nervii,   v.   14,   27,  30,  32.     Contest  of, 

with  Caesar,  v.  51-54 
Nestus,  river,  iii.  263 
Nexum,  loan,  i.  195,  196.     Originally  not 

a  formal  act,  i.  200 


INDEX 


56S 


Nicaea  in  Bithynia,  iv.  329 

Nicaea  in  Corsica,  Etruscan,  i.  186 

Nicaea  in  Liguria,  iii.  415 

Nicaea  on  the  Maliac  gulf,  ii.  431 

Nicanor,  ii.  418,  433  /. 

Nicomedes  II.,  of  Bithynia,  allied  with 
Mithradates,  iv.  19,  21,  22.  Death  of, 
iv.  24 

Nicomedes  III.,  Philopator,  of  Bithynia, 
in  the  Mithradatic  war,  iv.  24,  25,  26/!, 
29,  53.  Dies,  iv.  322.  Scymnus  dedi- 
cates his  book  to  him,  v.  459  n. 

Nicomedia,  near  Chalcedon,  iv.  47,  329, 

33' 

Nicopolis,  battles  near,  iv.  409/!  ;  v.  282. 
Established  as  a  city  by  Pompeius,  iv. 

441 

Nicostratus,  ii.  435 

Night,  fourfold  division  of,  among  Greeks 
and  Romans,  i.  255  ». 

P.  Nigidius  Figulus,  v.  321,  448 

Nile,  iii.  213,  282.     Battle  at  the,  v.  280 

Nisibis,  iv.  315,  341,  348 

Nitiobroges,  iii.  435 

Nobility  developed  from  the  equalization 
of  the  patricians  and  plebeians,  and  the 
successive  admission  of  plebeian  gentes 
among  the  consular  houses,  i.  339  _/"., 
393  /•  '•  i'i-  4"8-  In  possession  of  the 
senate,  iii.  7.  In  possession  of  the 
equestrian  centuries,  iii.  8-10.  Closing 
of  the  circle,  novi  homines,  iii.  14  /., 
298,  299.  Hereditary  character  of,  iii. 
16.  At  the  same  time  an  aristocracy  of 
wealth,  iii.  41  f. 

Nola,  i.  40 ;  ii.  304,  305.  Attitude  during 
the  Samnite  wars,  i.  469,  475.  Alliance 
with  Rome,  i.  475.  Attitude  towards 
Rome,  i.  475  ;  ii.  53  ;  iii.  241.  Under 
Greek  influence,  i.  436 ;  ii.  79,  90.  Re- 
mains faithful  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  502. 
Compelled  to  surrender,  iii.  510.  Be- 
sieged by  the  Romans,  iii.  522,  523, 
536,  547  '»  iv-  6°.  6l>  63-  Taken,  iv.  91. 
Stormed  by  the  gladiators,  iii.  359 

Nomentum,  i.  49.  Long  time  independent, 
i.  125.  About  370,  member  of  Latin 
league,  i.  448  «.,  450.  Roman  burgess- 
community,  i.  462.  Dictator  there,  i. 
442  ft. 

Nonae,  i.  243,  271 

Norba,  Latin  colony,  i.  445  ;  ii.  49  ;  iii. 
36.  About  370,  member  of  Latin  league, 
i.  448  n.,  450.  Not  a  Roman  burgess- 
community,  ii.  49.  In  the  first  Civil 
war,  iv.  84,  90  f.  Treatment  by  Sulla, 
iv.  107 
C.  Norbanus  [pleb,  tribune,  651],  iii.  440, 


441  «.,  442.  478.  526.  S3*  ;  >v.  74,  79i 

80,  81,  87,  102  ».,  340 

Noreia,  iii.  424.     Battle  near,  iii.  434 

Norici,  iii.  424 

Novi  homines,  iii.  15,  299 

Noviodunum  (Nyon),  v.  45 

Novius,  composer  of  Atellan  plays,  hr. 
231  «.,  233,  234  n. 

Nuceria,  ii.  303.  Position  during  the 
Samnite  wars,  i.  469,  475.  Peace  with 
Rome,  i.  492.  Under  Greek  influence, 
i.  456.  Slave  rising,  iii.  380.  Remains 
faithful  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  502,  510. 
Obtains  burgess-rights,  iii.  519.  Stormed 
by  the  gladiators,  iv.  359 

Numana,  Syracusan,  i.  417 

Numantia,  iii.  217,  219,  216-232,  396 

Numa  Pompilius,  ii.  104,  107.  Discovery 
of  his  pretended  writings,  iii.  114 

Numbers,  odd,  i.  271 

Numidians,  people  and  kingdom,  ii.  381- 
384.  War  with  Rome  under  Jugurtha, 
iii.  389-409.  Internal  feuds,  iv.  93  f. 
Numidians  in  the  Roman  army  during 
the  Social  war,  iii.  507,  510.  In  the 
first  Civil  war,  iv.  93  f.  Roman 
merchants  in  Numidia,  iii.  260.  Exempt 
from  taxation,  iv.  157.  Numidian 
marble,  v.  514.     Compare  Massinissa 

Q.  Numitorius  Pullus  betrays  Fregellae, 
iii.  341 

Nundinae,  i.  250 

Q.  Nunnius  [candidate  for  the  tribuneship 
of  the  people,  653]  slain,  iii.  467 

Nursia,  Sabine  town,  obtains  civitas  sine 
suffragio,  i.  492.  Birthplace  of  Ser- 
torius,  iv.  281.    See  Sahines 

Oats,  iii.  64  n, 

Ocilis,  iii.  218 

Ocriculum,  i.  485 

Cn.    Octavius,    guardian    of    Antiochus 

Eupator,  iii.  282  ./C     Put  to  death,  iii. 

283,  296.     Monument,  iii.  284 
Cn.     Octavius    [consul,    589,    not    626], 

builder  of  the  porticus  Octavia,  iv.  257 
Cn.  Octavius  [consul,  667],  iii.  545 ;  iv. 

58./C,  62,  64,  65,  66,  T02  «. 
L.  Octavius,  legate  of  Pompeius,  iv.  403 
M.  Octavius  [pleb.  tribune],  colleague  of 

Tib.  Gracchus,  iii.  322,  356.     Supersti- 
tion of,  iv.  209 
M.   Octavius,   admiral  of  Pompeius,   t. 

235,  284,  285,  286,  289 
October  horse,  the,  i.  647C,  tie 
Octolophus,  ii.  434 
Odessus,  iv.  307 
Odomantice,  iii.  361 


566 


HISTORY  01  ROME 


Odrysians,    ii.    493.      Subdued    by    the 

Romans,  iv.  307 
Odysseus,    legend    of,    localized    on    the 

west  coast  of  Italy,  i.  177  ;  ii.  107-m 
Odyssey,  oldest  Roman  school-book,  iii. 

136 
Oenia  (Oeniadae),  ii.  476 
Oenomaus,  leader  in  Gladiatorial  war,  iv. 

357.  360 

Oenotria,  i.  24,  171 

Ofella.     See  Lucretius 

Officers,  emergence  of  marked  distinc- 
tion between  subaltern  and  staff- 
officers,  ii.  73  f.  Part  of  the  officers 
chosen,  after  392,  by  the  people,  i.  397 ; 
ii.  74 

Oil,  supply  of,  for  the  baths  of  the  capital, 
introduced  by  Caesar,  v.  365 

Olbia  in  Narbonese  Gaul,  iii.  415 

Olbia  on  the  Black  Sea,  iv.  16 

Olive,  culture  of,  first  brought  by  the 
Greeks  to  Italy,  i.  242.  Its  increase, 
iii.  67,  80,  305,  307.  Prohibited  for  the 
Transalpine  territory  dependent  on 
Massilia,  iii.  415  ».;  iv.  171./C 

Olympia,  King  Arimnus  in  primitive  inter- 
course with  the  Olympian  Zeus,  i.  180. 
Temple  presented  with  gifts  by  Mum- 
mius,  iii.  271.    Emptied  by  Sulla,  iv.  40 

Olympus  in  Greece,  ii.  396 

Olympus  in  Lycia,  stronghold  of  pirates, 
iv.  313 

Olympus,  mountain  in  Asia  Minor,   ii. 

471 
Opalia,  i.  208 
Opici,  earliest  name  given  to  the  Italians 

by  the  Greeks,  i.  15,  27,  40,  168 
Opiconsiva,  i.  208 
Opimian  wine,  iv.  17a 
L.  Opimius  [consul,  633]  takes  Fregellae, 

iii.  341.     Opposes  C.  Gracchus,  iii.  366, 

3°9i  37*i  39°.  396^ 

Oppius,  i.  63 

Q.  Oppius,  against  Mithradates  in  Cap- 
padocia,  iv.  29,  31 

Sp.  Oppius  Cornicen,  decemvir,  i.  367 

Ops,  i.  2o3,  213 

Optimatesand  Populares,  iii.  303./C  After 
Sulla's  death,  iv.  263  -  280.  Under 
Caesar,  v.  315-324 

Oracles,  i.  222;  iii.  41,  114.  See  Sibyl- 
line oracles 

Oranges,  iii.  65  n. 

Orchomenus,  i.  303 ;  ii.  396 ;  iii.  266. 
Battle  of,  iv.  44 

Orestis,  ii.  426,  436,  499 

Oreus,  |i,  3IQl  426,  430 

Oticom,  ii.  316 


Oriental  objects  of  luxury  found  in 
Italian  tombs,  i.  253./C,  255^. 

Oriental  religions  in  Italy,  iv.  208 /. 

Oringis,  ii.  331 

Oroanda,  stronghold  of  pirates,'iv.  314 

Orodes,  brother  of  Mithradates  II.  the 
Arsacid,  iv.  5 

Oroizes,  prince  of  the  Albanians,  iv.  413, 
416 

Orontes,  iii.  213 

Oropus  occupied  by  the  Athenians,  it. 
495 ;  iv.  199 

Orthography,  long  fluctuation  of  Roman, 
ii.  114,  us  "•  Development  of  a  more 
settled  orthography  by  Sp.  Carvilius 
and  Ennius,  ii.  191  /.  By  Accius  and 
Lucilius,  iv.  252.    See  Alphabet 

Osaces,  Parthian  prince,  v.  163,  164 

Osca,  iv.  300,  302,  304.  Training  institute 
erected  there  by  Sertorius,  iv.  285  ;  v. 
416.     So-called  "  silver  of  Osca,"  ii.  386 

Osiris,  iv.  210  ;  v.  446 

Osrhoene,  iii.  287  ;  iv.  315 

Ostia,  i.  60,  173.  Not  an  urban  com- 
munity, but  a  burgess -colony,  i.  124. 
Seat  of  a  naval  quaestor,  ii.  45.  Em- 
porium of  transmarine  traffic,  iv.  174^, 
177,  193,  209.  Surprised  by  the  pirates, 
iv-  355-    Roadstead  sanded  up,  iv.  169^ 

Oxus,  iii.  284,  288 

Oxybii,  iii.  415 

Oxyntas,  son  of  Jugurtha,  iii.  510 

Pacciaecus,  iv.  282 

Pacorus,  son  of  the  Parthian  king  Orodes, 
v.  162 

M.  Pacuvius,  Roman  painter  and  poet, 
iii.  2077C    Tragedian,  iv.  222,  223 

Paelignians,  i.  146  ;  ii.  282  ;  iii.  24.  Take 
part  in  Samnite  wars,  i.  480-482.  Or- 
ganization in  later  times,  iii.  499.  Share 
in  Social  war,  iii.  501,  504,  512,  522 

Paerisadae,  ruling  family  in  Panti- 
capaeum,  iv.  15 

Paestum,  i.  455 ;  ii.  295.  Latin  colony, 
ii.  39,  42.     Battle  at,  i.  46S 

Pagani  Aventinenses,  L  138  n. ;  fagi 
laniculensis,  i.  138  n. 

Pagus,  i.  45 

Painting,  ii.  121,  12a,  207  f.\  iv.  357;  ». 

515/ 
Palaeopolis.     See  Neapolis 
Palaestina,  conflict    between    Syria  and 

Egypt    about,  ii.    515.     Assailed   by 

Antiochus,  ii.  445.     See  Jews 
Palatine,  i.   62-65,  68  /.,   137,  139.     R#- 

mains  of  the  citadel-wall,  i.  303  a. 
Pales,  i.  307^ 


INDEX 


5«7 


Pallantia,  iii.  220,  229,  294,  301 
Palliata.     See  Fabula 
Palma  in  the  Baleares,  iii.  233  ;  iv.  191 
Palms  in  Italy,  iii.  65.      Frenches  of,  in 

the  games,  ii.  91 
Palmiis,  i.  266 
Pamphylia,  ii.  471,  472,513;  iii.  275,  280; 

iv.  3C»  47,  3".  3T4,  323 
Panaetius  of  Rhodes,  iv.  203,   204,  214. 

In  the  Scipionic  circle,  iv.  192,  220 
Panares,  Cretan  general,  iv.  351,  352 
Pandataria,  governor  of,  ii.  219  ». 
Pandosia,  i.  170,  466  ;  ii.  19 
Panium,  Mount,  battle  of,  ii.  445 
Panormus,  ii.  143,   i78>   lg6,  205,  211  n., 

213.      Punic,  i.  186.     Battle  of,  ii.  186, 

194.     Mint  restricted  to  copper,  ii.  211 

n.      Exempt    from    taxation,    ii.    213. 

Capital  of  Roman  Sicily,  ii.  213 
Panticapaeum,  iv.  15,  17,  420 
Paphlagonia,  ii.   401,  471  '■>   »'•  279,  280; 

iv.  6,  24,  29,  33.     Acquired  by  Mithra- 

dates,  iv.  19/,  21.     Evacuated  by  him, 

iv.  22,  49. 
Papirii,  clan -village,  i.   45.     Substituted 

this  form  of  the  name  for  "Papisii" 

after  the  consul  of  418,  ii.  115 
C.  Papirius  Carbo,  friend  of  the  Gracchi, 

>»•  335,  338,  34o,  34'.  342,  372 
C.  Papirius  Carbo  Arvina  [praetor,  669], 

proscribed  by  Marius  the  younger  and 

put  to  death,  iv.  84 
C.  Papirius  Carbo,  brother  of  the  demo- 
cratic consul,  a  Sullan,  besieges  Vola- 

terrae,  iv.  91 
C.  Papirius  Carbo  [tribune  of  the  people, 

665],  iii.  517,  524 
Cn.  Papirius  Carbo  [consul,  641],  iii.  434./ 
Cn.  Papirius  Carbo  [consul,  669, 670,  672], 

iv.  58,  61,  74,  76,  81,  83,  85,  86,  87,  92, 

102  n. 
L.  Papirius  Cursor  [consul,  438],  i.  474, 

480 
L.  Papirius  Cursor  [consul,  461],  i.  490 
Papius  Brutulus.     See  Brutulus 
C  Papius  Mutilus,  leader  in  the  Social 

war,  iii.  508,  509,  510,  523,  524 ;  iv.  91 
Partita,  i.  208 
Parma,    Celtic    population    of,    ii.    221. 

Burgess-colony,  ii.  374 ;  iii.  26,  49,  271 

».;  iv.  168 
Paros,  ii.  417,  437 
Parricida,  i.  191 
Parthenius,  poet,  v.  460,  465 
Parthians,  ii.  398.      Foundation   of  the 

kingdom,  iii.  286  f.      In  the  seventh 

century  of  Rome,  iii.  288./C  ;  iv.  5,  314 

/■<  343*    First  contact  with  Romans,  iv. 


23.  Allied  with  Pompeins  against 
Mithradates  and  Tigranes,  rv.  405. 
Differences  with  Pompeius,  iv.  433, 
435,  445  /•  Expedition  of  Crassus 
against,  v.  151-160.  Further  conflicts 
with,  v.  160  f.  Allied  with  the  Pom- 
peian  party,  v.  270.  Their  mode  of 
warfare,  v.  155-158.  Slave-recruiting, 
iii.  316 

Parthini,  ii.  218 

Parthyene,  ii.  444 

Pasiteles,  iv.  iyif. 

Pastoral  husbandry,  iii.  74./,  307^ }  V. 

379/  _ 

Patara,  ii.  462 

Paternal  authority,  L  30.  Restricted, 
ii.  65 

Pater  patriae,  iv.  483 

Patrae,  iii.  269 ;  iv.  55 

Patres  conscrijiti,  i.  281,  330 

Patricians,  the  Roman  burgesses,  i.  8a. 
Disappearing  of  the  old  burgesses,  i. 
112./C  After  abolition  of  the  monarchy, 
a  privileged  clan-nobility,  i.  333./  Ac- 
quire the  government  upon  the  abolition 
of  the  monarchy,  i.  336-338.  Their 
privileges  as  an  order  set  aside,  i.  370- 
384.  Their  subsequent  continuance  as 
an  aristocratic  class,  i.  381-385.  De- 
prived by  law  of  a  number  of  political 
rights,  i.  385.  Stability  of  the  patri- 
ciate, ii.  14,  15  «.  Patriciate  conferred 
by  Caesar,  v.  337 

Patronus,  i.  79 ;  iii.  38./:    See  Clientship 

Paullus.     See  Aemilius 

Pausistratus,  ii.  461 

Pay,  paid  first  from  the  districts  after- 
wards from  the  state  -  chest,  L  380. 
Raised  by  Caesar,  v.  366 

Peaches,  iii.  65  n. 

Pear  trees,  iii.  67 

Peculium,  i.  75,  238 

Pecunia,  i.  238 

Pedarii  in  the  senate,  i.  330 

Pedasa,  ii.  413 

Pedigrees,  family,  ii.  104,  107 

Sex.  Peducaeus  [tribune  of  the  people, 
641].    See  Lex  Peducaea 

Pedum,  about  370,  member  of  Latin 
league,  i.  448  ».,  450.  A  Roman  bur- 
gess-community, i.  462 

Pelagonia,  ii.  425,  508 

Pelasgi,  iii.  187 

Pelium,  ii.  426 

Pella,  ii.  508 

Pelops,  king  of  Sparta,  it  317 

Pelorus,  river  in  the  country  of  the  Asiatic 
Iberians,  iv.  414 


568 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Penates,  i.  81,  209,  213,  216  ;  iii.  186. 
Their  names  kept  secret,  i.  an,  212. 
Temple  of,  i.  140.  Inventions  of 
Timaeus  as  to  the  Penates,  ii.  no 

Peneius,  ii.  426,  427 

Pentri,  ii.  294 

Peparethus,  ii.  425 

Perdueltio,  i.  191 

Peregrini.    See  Foreigners 

Peregrini  dediticii,  iii.  24 

Pergamus,  town  of,  ii.  411,  462.  Pontic 
residency,  iv.  30  _/C,  32,  47.  Perga- 
mene  art-monuments,  ii.  469 

Pergamus,  kingdom  of,  ii.  411-413,  461.X, 
4691  474  /.,  510-512;  iii.  261,274-279, 
288,  324.     Roman  domains,  iv.  157 

Perinthus,  ii.  410;  iv.  328 

Peristylium,  iii.  207 

C.  Perpenna,  commander  in  Social  war, 
iii.  511 

M.  Perpenna,  his  conflict  with  the  Thra- 
cians,  iii.  279 

M.  Perpenna,  governor  of  Sicily  in 
Cinna's  time,  iv.  86,  92,  93,  287.  Goes 
to  Spain  to  join  the  Sertorians,  iv.  291, 
294,   296.      Assassinates    Sertorius,   iv. 

302.  Takes  command  of  the  army,  iv. 

303.  Is  taken  prisoner  and  executed, 
iv.  303 

Perrhaebians,  ii.  456,  486,  495 

Persepolis,  iii.  289 

Perseus,  king  of  Macedonia,  ii.  488,  489, 

490,  492-507.     His  library,  iv.  213 
Persians,  relation   to  Carthage  and  the 

state    of   things    in    the  west,  i.   415. 

Persia  severed  from  Syria,  iii.  iZZ_f. 
Persius,  i.  301 
Perusia,    one    of   the    twelve    towns    of 

Etruria,  i.  161.     Peace  with  Rome,  i. 

479i  49°. 
Pesongi,  iii.  276  n. 
Pessinus,  the  high -priest  of,  iii.  276  «.; 

iv.  438.     Worship  of  Cybele  at,  iii.  115 
Petelia,  ii.  294,  300 ;  iv.  363 
Petra,  capital  of  the  Nabataeans,  iv.  426 
Cn.  Petreius,  centurion   in  the  army  of 

Catulus,  iii.  447 
M.  Petreius  defeats  Catilina  at  Pistoria, 

iv.  485.     Pompeian  leader  in  Spain,  v. 

219,  220,  226.     Goes  to  Africa,  v.  286. 

His  death,  v.  301 
Peucini,  iv.  14 
fhacus,  iii.  260 

Phalanna,  town  in  Thessaly,  ii.  501 
Phalaris,  bull  of,  iii.  257 
Phanagoria,  iv.  15  ;  iv.  419  ;  v.  264 
Pharisees,  iv.  424y. 
Pharnacea,  iv.  332 


Pharnaces  I.,  of  Pontus,  iii.  277,  281 

Pharnaces,  son  of  Mithradates,  iv.  31  «., 
419  ;  v.  264,  282,  283 

Pharos,  ii.  217 

Pharsalus,  ii.  421.  Position  of,  v.  258  *., 
259.     Battle  of,  v.  261-263 

Phaselis,  stronghold  of  pirates,  iv.  313 

Phasis,  iv.  13,  411,  414,  415 

Pherae,  ii.  429,  457 

Philemon  of  Soli,  Attic  comic  poet,  iii. 
T4T.  i43  5  iv.  221 

Philinus,  ii.  156 

Philippi,  iv.  34,  44 

Philippus  V.  of  Macedonia  :  character  of, 
ii.  407-409,  487  /.  Commencement  of 
reign,  ii.  220.  Alliance  with  Hannibal, 
ii.  285,  292  /.,  308,  316,  319.  Aetolian 
war,  ii.  315.  First  war  with  Rome,  and 
peace,  ii.  316-319.  Carthaginian  in- 
trigues with,  ii.  350,  354.  His  plan  for 
invading  Italy,  ii.  372.  Expedition  to 
Asia  Minor;  war  with  Rhodes  and 
Pergamus,  ii.  411 -413,  417/:  Roman 
intervention,  ii.  413-419.  Second  war 
with  Rome  ;  landing  of  the  Romans,  ii. 
417,  422./C  Naval  war,  ii.  422/;  Cam- 
paigns of  Galba,  ii.  422-426  ;  and  Flami- 
ninus,  ii.  428-435.  Peace,  ii.  435.  His 
attitude  during  and  after  the  war  with 
Antiochus,  ii.  455/,  457 j^.  464.  477/-. 
His  fresh  preparations  against  Rome, 
ii.  485-487.     Death,  ii.  488 

Philippus,  the  pseudo-,  iii.  i(>of. 

Philistus,  canal  of,  i.  417 

Philocles,  ii.  418,  430 

Philodemus,  the  Epicurean,  v.  459 

Philology,  germs  of,  ii.  114./C  Developed 
into  grammar,  iii.  191./I 

Philopoemen,  ii.  421,  452,  479,  482;  iii. 
270 

Philosophy  at  Rome,  iii.  192  f. ;  iv.  254 

Philosophy,  Greek,  iv.  196-204 

Phocaea,  ii.  461,  473  ;  iii.  278 

Phocaeans  discover  Italy,  i.  165.  Found 
Massilia.  i.  183.  Are  driven  from  Cor- 
sica, i.  184.  Settle  in  Lucania,  i.  i84_/C 
Relations  of,  with  Rome,  i.  185,  260 

Phocis,  ii.  396,  430,  431,  437 ;  iii.  269 

Phoenice,  ii.  217 

Phoenicians,  home  of,  ii.  131.  National 
character,  ii.  131-134.  Commerce,  ii. 
134  /.  Contest  command  of  the  sea 
with  the  Greeks,  i.  183  f.  In  Italy,  i. 
163./C    See  Carthage 

Phoenix,  officer  of  Mithradates,  iv.  419 

Phraates,  king  of  the  Parthians,  iv.  343, 
406,  433-435  ;  v.  151 

Phrygia,  ii.   398,  401,  471,  474;    iv.  25. 


INDEX 


5*9 


Given  to  Mithradates,  iii.  281,  358  «. 
Pontic  satrapy,  iv.  32./  Great  Phrygia 
united  to  the  province  of  Asia,  iv.  21. 
Language  of,  iv.  16 

Phthiriasis,  iv.  151 

Physicians  in  Rome,  unknown  till  a  late 
period,  i.  249.  At  first  only  Greeks,  iii. 
193.  Low  state  of  medical  knowledge 
in  Rome,  iv.  254 

Picentes,  Picenum,  i.  146,  482;  iii.  24, 
36,  48,  58  /,  99 ;  v.  207  /  War  with 
Rene,  ii.  39.  Share  in  the  Social  war, 
Hi  514,  521/  ;  iv.  78/,  81,  85.  Coin- 
age, ii.  80 

Picentes,  Campanian,  ii.  294,  365 

Picentia,  iv.  358 

Pictones,  v.  15 

PiZum,  ii.  72 

Pilumnus  poplus,  L  90 

Pinarii,  ii.  107 

Pinna,  town  of  the  Vestini,  remains  faith- 
ful in  the  Social  war,  iii.  501/; 

Pinnes,  ii.  218 

Pinus,  said  to  be  son  of  Numa,  and  ances- 
tor of  the  Pinarii,  ii.  107 

Pipers,  guild  of,  i.  286 

Piracy,  ii.  216-218.  In  the  first  half  of 
the  seventh  century  of  Rome,  iii.  233, 
290-292,  381/,  421  /;  iv.  3,  4,  169. 
Supported  by  Mithradates  against  the 
Romans,  iv.  28.  In  concert  with  Ser- 
torius,  iv.  282,  286,  298,  299.  Increase 
of,  iv.  306,  307-309.  Organization,  iv. 
309-312.  Conflicts  of  Servilius  with 
the  pirates,  iv.  313/.,  351  f.  Share  in 
second  Mithradatic  war,  iv.  322  /.,  351 
f.  Campaign  of  Metellus  against,  iv. 
353/  Pompeius  sent  under  the  Gabin- 
ian  law  to  suppress  it,  iv.  388-395.  Suc- 
cesses of  Pompeius,  iv.  395-399.  Pom- 
peius settles  the  pirates  in  towns,  iv. 
440.  Subsequent  regulations  against 
piracy,  iv.  400-402.  Revival  after  the 
battle  of  Pharsalus,  v.  2697C 
Piraeeus,  ii.  422,  427.     Siege  by  Sulla,  iv. 

38,  39.  4i 
Pirustae,  iii.  422  «. 
Pisae,  ii.  374.     Road  from,  to  the  mouth 

of  the  Po,  i.  162,  182.     Road  to  Rome, 
iv.  167 
Pisaurum,  a  burgess-colony,  ii.  374 ;   iii. 

25.49 
Pisidians,  ii.  450  ;  iii.  275^  ;  iv.  325 
Piso.    See  Calpurnius 
Pistoria,  iv.  484,  486 
Pitane,  iv.  48 
Placentia,  ii.  267,  268,  269,  270,  272,  273, 

347.  369.  37°.  372,  373  ;  »v.  87,  167,  j68. 


Latin  colony,  ii.  230;  iii.  49.     Its  Ius, 

ii.  52  n. 
Plastic  art,   its  rise  in   Italy,   i.   306  f. 
Etruscan,  ii.   120  f.      Campanian  and 
Sabellian,  L  121  /.     Latin,  ii.  122-124; 
iii.  207./C 
Plato,  iv.  197 

Plautius,  legate,  in  Social  war,  iv.  63 
C.  Plautius  Decianus  [consul,  425],  i.  460  «. 
C.  Plautius  [praetor,  608  ?],  iii.  222 
L.  Plautius  Hypsaeus  [praetor],  iii.  310 
M.    Plautius    Silvanus    [tribune    of  the 

people,  665],  iii.  516,  517  ».,  524 
M.  Plautius  Lyco,  Roman  painter,  iii. 

208 
Novius  Plautius,  ii.  82  n.,  124  *. 
Plautus.    See  Maccius 
Plebeians,  Plebes,   meaning  of  word,  i. 
109.     Arose  out  of  the  body  of  clients, 
i.  109/1     Rapid  growth  in  number  and 
importance,  i.  in,  113/1,  132.    Weaken- 
ing of  the  tie  of  clientship,  and  forma- 
tion of  a  plebs,  dependent  only  on  the 
king,  as  a  second  Roman  community, 
i.  114.     Made  eligible  for  military  com* 
mands,   i.    121.     Relation  of  clientship 
to  the   kings    not    transferred   to   the 
consuls,  i.  319/     Position  towards  the 
old  burgesses  after   expulsion    of  the 
kings,  i.  327  /.    Admitted  to  the  curiae 
thereafter,  i.  328  /.,  333.    Also  to  the 
senate,  i.  329  f.     Position  in  senate,  L 
330/1,  339.     Acquire  burgess-rights,  i. 
333.     Importance  of  rights  so  acquired, 
*•  339-/-    Archives  and  treasury,  i.  354  m. 
Compare  Patricii  and  Tribuni  plebis 
Plebiscitum,  originally  without  legal  force, 
i.  353.     Equal  to  law  by  Lex  Pttblilia, 
if  previously  assented  to  by  the  senate, 
i-  360,  361.     Unconditionally  equal  by 
Lex  Hortensia,  i.  385 
C.  Pleminius,  ii.  352 
Pleraei  or  Paralii,  iii.  427 
Pleuron  in  Aetolia,  ii.  478 
Pleuratus  of  Scodra,  ii.  422,  437 
A.  Plotius  fights  the  Umbrians  in  Social 

war,  iii.  514 
L.  Plotius  Gallus,  teacher  of  Latin  rhetoric, 

iv.  216 
Poediculi,  i.  465 ;  ii.  89 
Poena,  i.  32,  193 
Poeni.     See  Phoenicians 
Poeta,  iii.  197  «. 

Poetry,  Latin,  beginnings  of,  i.  284/     It* 
slight  success,  i.  296-298.    Oldest  poems, 
ii.  100 
Police,  urban,  ii.  84 
Pollentia  in  the  Baleares,  iii.  233 ;  iv.  190 


57o 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Pollii,  clan-village,  L  45 

Pollux,  i.  258 

Polybius  in  the  Scipionic  circle,  iv.  192, 
220.  His  views,  iv.  204^,  212.  Char- 
acter, iv.  242-247 

Polyxenidas,  ii.  460,  461,  462 

Pomerium,  its  advance,  i.  128.  Its  legal 
significance,  iv.  122.  Extended  by 
Sulla,  iv.  122  n. 

Pomona,  Flamen  of,  i.  216 

Q.  Pompaedius  Silo,  leader  in  Social  war, 
iii.  500,  501,  508,  509,  512,  524,  526 

Pompeii,  i.  469.  Medix  tuticus  there,  i. 
315.  During  Social  war,  iii.  510,  522, 
529.     A  Sullan  colony,  iv.  108,  109,  265 

Pompeiopolis,  iv.  441 

Cn.  Pompeius,  his  character,  iv.  271-275, 
384/,  444-44S  ;  v.  166/  Vainglory  of, 
434  «.,  441  f.  Surname  of  "  Magnus," 
iv.  94.  In  Sulla's  army,  iv.  79  /.,  85. 
Propraetor  in  Sicily  and  Africa,  iv.  95 
y.  He  opposes  Sulla,  iv.  136  f.  Yet 
honoured  by  him,  iv.  94,  137,  150.  His 
attitude  after  Sulla's  death,  iv.  287. 
Conflict  with  Brutus  and  Lepidus,  iv. 
291.  Compels  the  senate  to  send  him 
to  Spain,  iv.  292.  Lays  out  a  road  over 
the  Alps,  iv.  293.  Contest  in  Spain,  iv. 
293-304.  Returns  from  Spain,  iv.  375. 
Coalesces  with  the  democrats  and  with 
Crassus,  iv.  377,  378.  In  Piratic  war, 
*v>  395-/-  In  Mithradatic  war,  iv.  404- 
412.  Makes  peace  with  Tigranes,  iv. 
411.  Defeats  the  Caucasian  tribes,  iv. 
412-416.  Makes  Syria  a  Roman  pro- 
vince, iv.  428  f.  Regulates  Asiatic 
affairs,  iv.  436-441.  His  triumph,  iv. 
444.  Attitude  to  the  parties  after  his 
Asiatic  expedition,  iv.  490-502.  Coa- 
lesces with  Caesar  and  Crassus,  iv.  504 
f.\  v.  107-110.  Marries  Julia,  daughter 
of  Caesar,  iv.  514.  Relations  with 
Caesar,  v.  114./C  Quarrels  with  Clodius, 
v.  112  f.  Administration  of  corn  sup- 
plies, v.  via  f.  At  Luca,  v.  124-126. 
Sole  consul,  v.  146.  His  second  mar- 
riage, v.  166.  Dictatorship,  v.  167. 
Difference  with  Caesar,  v.  167 /.,  173- 
190.  Power  and  army  of,  v.  201-205. 
Embarks  for  Greece,  v.  211.  Plan  of 
his  campaign,  v.  234  f.  Organizes  his 
army  in  Macedonia,  v.  237-244.  Con- 
flicts around  Dyrrhachium,  v.  250-254. 
Battle  of  Pharsalus,  v.  258-262.  Flight 
to  Egypt,  v.  262./C,  271.  His  death,  v. 
272 /.     His  wealth,  v.  365 

Cn.  Pompeius,  son  of  Pompeius  the  Great, 
V.  266,  274 


Cn.  Pompeius  Strabo  [consul,  665],  iii. 
5",  5*3>  5i6,  520,  521,  522,  526,  535, 
546  ;  iv.  36,  61,  62,  64 

M.  Pompeius,  lieutenant  in  third  Mithra- 
datic war,  iv.  332 

Q.  Pompeius  [consul,  613],  against  Nu- 
mantia,  iii.  227 

Q.  Pompeius,  son  of  the  consul  of  the 
same  name,  of  613  [tribune  of  the  people, 
620],   opponent    of  Ti.   Gracchus,    iii. 

323/ 
Q.  Pompeius  Rufus  [consul,  666],  iii.  535, 

546 ;  iv.  102  «. 
Q.  Pompeius,  son  of  Q.  Pompeius  Rufus, 

»"•  535 
Sex.  Pompeius  [praetor,  636],  iii.  428 
Sex.    Pompeius,   son    of   Cn.    Pompeius 

Magnus,  v.  271,  274 
Pompo,   said  to   be   son   of   Numa  and 

ancestor  of  the  Pompilii,  ii.  107 
Pomponii,  ii.  107 
L.  Pomponius,  Atellan  poet,  iv.  231  n.  ; 

233 
M.  Pomponius,  friend  of  the  Gracchi,  iii. 

368 
T.  Pomponius  Atticus,  v.  382 
Pomptine    marshes,   drying    of,   iv.    169. 

Canal  planned  by  Caesar,  v.  376 
Pons  sublicius,  i.  65,  137  ;  ii.  105 
Pontiae,  a  Latin  colony,  i.  476 ;  ii.  42 
Pontifex     Maximus     instituted,     i.    324. 
Chosen  by  the  burgesses,  iii.  57.     The 
choice  re-committed   to    the    pontifical 
colleges  by  Sulla,  iv.  115,  206^ 
Pontifices,   a  Latin  institution,  i.  218  ft. 
A  college  of  experts  for  making  roads 
and  the  Tiber  -  bridge  ;  entrusted  also 
with  all  public  measurements  and  cal- 
culations, especially  the  calendar,  and 
the  relative  superintendence  of  admin- 
istration of  justice  and  worship  ;  origin- 
ally  five    in    number,    i.    218   «.,   219. 
Their     number     increased     to    eight ; 
plebeians  eligible,  i.  385.    Increased  to 
fifteen,    iv.     126.       Keep    the    roll    of 
magistrates  and  public  records,  ii.  ioo- 
102.     Their  edicts  or  so-called  Leges 
rcgiae,   ii.    112.      Chosen  by   the  bur- 
gesses,  iii.    463.      Co-optation   reintro- 
duced by  Sulla,  iv.  45,  206  f.     In  the 
Municipia,  iv.  133 
Gavius  Pontius,  i.  470,  472,  491 
Pontius  of  Telesia,  iv.  86,  88,  90.      His 

son  kills  himself  in  Praeneste,  iv.  90 
Pontus,  earlier  history  of,  ii.  401  ;  iii.  279  ; 
iv.  6.     Its  condition  under  Mithradates, 
iv.  12.     Conquered  by  the  Romans,  iv. 
332  /■>   347  /•      *    province,   iv.    436. 


INDEX 


571 


Anchovies  from  Pontus  come  to  Rome, 
iii.  123 

C.  Popillius,  made  to  pass  under  the  yoke 
by  the  Helvetii,  iii.  435 

C.  Popillius  Laenas  [consul,  582,  5S6J,  ii. 
5i6 

M.  Popillius  Laenas  [consul,  581,  582,  596], 
a  poet,  iii.  178  n.  ;  iv.  229  «. 

M.  Popillius  Laenas  [consul,  615],  iii.  227, 
338 

P.  Popillius  Laenas  [consul,  622],  iii.  326, 
335.  356,  372  ;  iv.  166  /. 

Poplicola,  ii.  105 

Poplifugia,  i.  209 

Populares.    See  Optimates. 

Population  of  the  oldest  Roman  territory, 
i.  61.  At  the  time  of  Servius  Tullius' 
reforms,  i.  122  /.  Decrease  of,  caused 
by  the  war  with  Pyrrhus,  ii.  31,  55  «. 
And  by  second  Punic  war,  ii.  191. 
Falling  off  in  sixth  century,  iii.  101  f. 
In  the  seventh  century,  iii.  314,  393-395. 
In  consequence  of  the  Civil  wars,  iv.  177; 
v.  392  f.  Increase  after  the  Gracchan 
distribution  of  land,  iii.  335,  345. 
Numbers  of  burgesses  and  allies,  iii. 
493  /•>  495  *■  In  Caesar's  time,  v.  368 
f.     Compare  Census 

Populonia,  i.  154,  181,  357.  Coins  of,  i. 
182,  257,  306 ;  ii.  78.  The  Greeks  dis- 
lodged thence,  i.  181.  Battle  near,  ii. 
71.     In  first  Civil  war,  iv.  91 

Populus,  originally  the  burgess-army,  i. 
90 

Populus  Romanus  guirites,  or  quiritium, 
i.  90  n. 

C.  Porcius  Cato  Censorius  [consul,  640], 
iii.  429 

L.  Porcius  Cato  [consul,  665],  iii.  514, 
520,  530 ;  iv.  103  «. 

M.  Porcius  Cato  [consul,  559 ;  censor, 
570],  character,  iii.  45-47.  Political 
tendencies,  iii.  48-55.  A  novus  homo, 
iii.  18.  In  Spanish  war,  ii.  390.  Share 
in  war  with  Antiochus,  ii.  457  f.  As 
consular  military  tribune,  iii.  43,  43. 
As  governor,  iii.  30.  His  strict  admin- 
istration of  justice,  iii.  30,  31.  Protects 
the  Spaniards,  iii.  33.  Censorship,  iii. 
zx,  19,  206.  Taxes  luxury-slaves  and 
other  articles  of  luxury,  iii.  122.  Builds 
the  first  Roman  Basilica,  iii.  207.  Pro- 
poses an  increase  of  the  horses  of  the 
equites,  iii.  9  «.,  49.  Reprimands  the 
equites,  iii.  10.  Breach  with  Scipio, 
iii.  43.  Opposes  distribution  of  corn  in 
Rome,  iii.  76.  Impeaches  Galba,  iii. 
320.      Commissioner   to  Carthage,   iii. 


238.  His  death,  iii.  251.  His  estimate 
of  Hamilcar,  ii.  237./! ;  of  Scipio  Aemi- 
lianus,  iii.  251.  Opinior-s  respecting 
farmers  and  the  mercantile  classes,  iii. 
97.  On  woman,  iii.  118.  On  Socrates, 
iii.  114,  192.  On  the  Istrian  war,  iii. 
43.  As  to  the  Rhodians,  ii.  515.  Re- 
specting the  Celts,  i.  420.  On  the 
acquisition  of  wealth,  iii.  89.  On  wills, 
iii.  90.  On  money-lending,  iii.  96. 
Other  sayings  of,  ii.  200  ;  iii.  21,  40,  55, 
93,  124,  398.  His  private  life,  iii.  117. 
120,  152.  Reads  Thucydides  and  other 
Greek  historians,  iii.  189.  A  poet,  iii. 
179.  The  first  Latin  prose  historian, 
iii.  185,  186,  187;  iv.  250.  Collects  his 
speeches  and  letters,  iii.  250,  315. 
Manuals  by,  iii.  37  n.,  192  ./C,  194,  195 ; 
iv.  3ii.  Cato  and  Hellenism,  iii.  213, 
218.  Cato  and  new  worships,  iii.  116. 
Judgment  on  the  Greek  philosophers,  i. 
192  /.,  199.  On  Greek  rhetoric,  iii. 
199,  218.  Upon  medicine,  iii.  193. 
On  Greek  literature,  iii.  196.  On  the 
Roman  poets,  ii.  98 
M.  Porcius  Cato  Licinianus  [t  about 
600],  author  of  juristic  works,  iv.  255 

M.  Porcius  Cato  Uticensis,  his  character, 
iv.  454  f.  Opponent  of  Pompeius,  iv. 
493)  497,  498>  511)  5l6 /■  Leader  of 
the  aristocracy,  v.  134  f.  Attitude  in 
reference  to  Catilina's  conspiracy,  iv. 
482.  Re  -  establishment  of  the  Sem- 
pronian  corn-largesses  on  his  proposal, 
iv.  490;  v.  361.  Mission  to  Cyprus,  iv. 
45°>  5*7  ./•  Return  to  Rome,  v.  129  «., 
134.  Fights  against  the  Caesarians, 
v.  230,  240  /.  After  the  battle  of  Phar- 
salus,  v.  266,  267.  In  Africa,  v.  287, 
288,  289,  296.     Death,  v.  299,  300 

Porsena,  king  of  Clusium,  i.  414,  424 

Port  dues,  i.  60,  92.  Lowered,  i.  343. 
Abolished  by  Metellus  Nepos,  iv.  502. 
Re-established  by  Caesar,  iv.  503 

Portunalia,  i.  208 

Posidonia,  i.  170,  171,  173,  456 

Possession  only  protected  by  law  at  a 
later  period,  ii.  68 

Possessiones.    See  Domains 

A.  Postumius  [dictator  or  consul,  255  (?), 
258  (?)  ],  victor  at  Lake  Regillus,  i.  438 

A.  Postumius  Albinus  [consul,  603],  iii. 
204 ;  iv.  193,  248 

A.  Postumius  Albinus  [consul,  655J 
defeated  by  Jugurtha,  iii.  395,  399,  412. 
Put  to  death  at  Pompeii  by  his  soldiers, 
who  believed  themselves  betrayed,  iii. 
529  ;  iv.  102  n. 


572 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Sp.   Postumius   Albinus  [consul,   433],   i. 

47° 
Sp.  Postumius  Albinus  [consul,  644],  iii. 

395.  I96f- 

Postumius,  Tyrrhene  corsair,  ii.  41 

Potatoes,  iii.  64  n. 

Potentia,  burgess -colony,  ii.  yj%f.%  iii. 
26,  49 

Potters,  guild  of,  i.  249,  253,  307 

Pottery,  early  Etruscan,  L  306.  Articles 
of,  in  Italian  tombs,  i.  253,  256  f. 
Apulian,  iii.  109.  Clay  vase  from  the 
Quirinal,  L  277  ».,  287  n.  From  the 
Esquiline,  ii.  123.  In  Cales,  ii.  123. 
Imported  from  Greece  to  Italy,  ii.  Zof. 

Praecia,  iv.  269 

Prae/ecti  of  the  Roman  isles,  ii.  219  n. 

Praefecti  annonae,  i.  377 

Praefecti  cokortium ',  i.  440  «. 

Praefecti  inri  dicundo  in  subject  com- 
munities, ii.  49,  67,  210 ;  iv.  131 

Praefecti  sociorum,  i.  440  n. 

Praefecti  urii,  i.  83,  108,  321.  Under 
Caesar,  v.  342 

Praeficae,  i.  299 

Praeneste,  L  49,  126.  Legends  as  to  its 
foundation,  i.  no  «.,  in.  Rebels 
against  Rome,  i.  447.  About  370,  a 
member  of  the  Latin  league,  i.  448  «., 
450.  Must  cede  part  of  territory,  but 
remains  in  federal  relation  to  Rome,  i. 
462.  Execution  of  senators  in  Pyrrhic 
war,  ii.  18.  Not  a  Roman  burgess- 
community,  ii.  49,  50  ;  iii.  25,  36.  Art 
at,  i.  257  ;  ii.  124,  127.  Bracelet  of,  i. 
277  «.,  279  n.  Sepulchral  chambers,  i. 
253  "•>  3°2»  "•  81.  Obtains  burgess- 
rights  though  the  Lex  fulia,  iii.  519. 
Besieged  by  Sulla,  iv.  84,  90.  Terri- 
tory confiscated,  iv.  107,  126.  Sullan 
colony,  iv.  108.  Lot-oracle  of,  iii.  114. 
Forbidden  to  be  consulted,  iii.  117. 
Strained  relations  with  Rome ;  men- 
tioned in  Roman  comedy,  iii.  149 

Praes,  i.  195 

Praesu/,  i.  318  n. 

Praetexta,  iii.  5,  16,  45.     Comp.  Fabula 

Praetores,  older  name  of  the  consuls,  i. 
318.  Afterwards  as  auxiliaries  to  the 
consuls,  with  definite  functions  for 
jurisdiction,  i.  383 ;  ii.  49,  66.  Praetor 
peregrinus,  iii.  12.  For  administration 
of  the  transmarine  districts,  Sicily,  Sar- 
dinia, and  Corsica,  ii.  209  f. ;  iii.  12. 
Two  for  Spain,  ii.  392 ;  iii.  12.  Plebeians 
eligible  for  the  office,  i.  383.  Proposal 
to  extend  their  tenure  of  office  to  two 
years,   ii.    392.     The   increase   in   their 


number  insufficient,  iii.  12.  Functions 
regulated  by  Sulla,  iv.  118./C,  126  ;  and 
by  Caesar,  v.  343  f. 

Praetors  of  the  Latin  towns,  i.  440  «.,  442 
«-.  452 

Praetors  of  the  Italians  in  the  Social  war, 
iii.  5°5 

Praetoriani,  their  origin,  iii.  460 

Praetorium,  iii.  460 

Praetuttii,  i.  146 

Prandium,  iii.  123 

Precarium,  i.  245.  Applied  to  the  state 
domains,  i.  345 

Priapus,  iv.  328 

Priests  nominated  by  the  king,  i.  81. 
But  not  by  the  consuls,  i.  324.  Ex- 
tension of  their  right  to  cancel  state 
acts  on  the  ground  of  religious  infor- 
malities, i.  377 ;  ii.  71 ;  iv.  206.  Colleges 
of,  partly  for  officiating  in  acts  of  wor- 
ship, i.  21$  f. ;  partly  as  skilled  advisers 
of  the  magistrates,  i.  217,  ■ziZf.  Chosen 
by  the  community,  iii.  56  f  Again 
filled  up  by  co-optation  after  Sulla,  iv. 
115,  206,  381.     Special :  see  Flamines. 

Primitive  races  in  Italy,  no  trace  of,  i.  9 

Princeps  senatus,  i.  331: 

Principes,  iii.  458 

Prisci  Latini,  i.  42 

Private  life  of  the  Romans,  iii.  1 17-127 

Private  process.  King  interferes  only  on 
appeal  of  injured  party,  i.  192.  Settled 
regularly  by  compromise,  which  the 
magistrate  interfered  supplementarily 
to  enforce,  i.  192  f,  as  in  the  case  of 
theft  and  iniuria,  i.  193.  In  the  form 
of  wager,  i.  196,  197.  Procedure  in 
execution,  i.  197 

Privernum,  i.  453,  459  «.,  463 

Pro  consule,  pro  praetore,  pro  quaestor*. 
See  Magistrate 

Procuratio,  iii.  91 

Prodigality,  declaration  of,  L  194 

Proditio,  i.  191 

Proletarii,  i.  115,  247.  Admitted  by 
Marius  to  enlistment,  iii.  459 

Promercale,  i.  60 

Property  is  that  which  the  state  assigns 
to  the  individual  burgess,  i.  I93./C  Idea 
developed  primarily  as  to  moveables,  L 
193,  194.  Free  transferability,  i.  194. 
Of  restrictions  on  property,  servitudes 
alone  known  to  the  earlier  law,  L  194 

Propontis,  ii.  405  f. 

Proscaeniii7ii  or  fiulpitum,  iii.  138 

Proscriptions,  Sullan,  the  first,  iii.  540^, 
543 ;  the  second,  iv.  102  f.  The  de- 
mocrats attempt   the  rehabilitation   of 


INDEX 


573 


the  proscribed  and  of  their  children,  iv. 
4607: 

Proserpina,  i.  231 

Provincial,  at  first  the  consular  depart- 
ments of  duty,  i.  401 ;  ii.  215  «.  ;  iii. 
271  «.,  382  n.  ;  iv.  122  ».,  289  «.  ;  v. 
426./C  Originally  settled  by  free  agree- 
ment between  the  consuls  themselves, 
later  by  the  senate,  more  rarely  by  the 
community,  i.  400./;  Distribution  of 
the  provinces  by  the  senate,  iv.  119  f. 
Number  of,  in  Sulla's  time,  iv.  120. 
Number  of,  in  Caesar's  time,  v.  406. 
Provincial  constitution,  originally  the 
arrangement  established  for  the  trans- 
marine possessions,  ii.  209  ./C;  iii.  30  f. 
Provincial  diets,  ii.  210  n.  Provincial 
territory  not  regarded  as  domain,  ii. 
211.  No  commerchim  and  conubiuin 
between  provincial  communities,  ii.  210. 
Autonomous  communities  in,  ii.  211. 
General  census,  ii.  211.  Tenths  and 
customs,  ii.  211,/C  Spanish,  government 
of  the,  ii.  392-304.  Position  of  the 
governors,  iii.  30-35.  Jurisdiction,  iv. 
131.  Presents  and  requisitions,  iii.  ^\f. 
Controlled  by  the  courts  of  law,  iii.  32 
f.  By  the  senate,  iii.  34.  Provincial 
quaestors,  iii.  35.  Relation  of  the  pro- 
vinces to  Rome,  iii.  361.  State  in  time 
of  the  Gracchi,  iii.  381  /.  Management 
of  the  soil,  iv.  172.  Impoverishment 
and  depopulation,  iv.  1767C  Provincial 
coinage,  iv.  181./C;  mostly  copper  small 
money,  iv.  181 

Provocatio.     See  Appeal 

Prusias,  of  Bithynia,  ii.  318,  410,  455,  464, 
473,  482  /,  486 

Prusias  II.,  of  Bithynia,  the  "Hunter," 
ii.  499,  519  ;  iii.  276,  277 

Prusias  on  Olympus,  iv.  329 

Prusias  on  the  sea,  iv.  329 

Pteleum,  ii.  454,  458 

Ptolemaeus  Apion,  iv.  4 

Ptolemaeus  XL,  Auletes,  iv.  319,  322, 
452 

Ptolemaeus  Epiphanes,  ii.  410.  War  with 
Macedonia,  ii.  410,  414-420.  With 
Syria  and  Macedonia,  ii.  444^  Peace, 
ii.  444,  445,  448.  Betrothal  with  the 
Syrian  Cleopatra,  ii.  445,  448  n.  Mar- 
riage, ii.  448  «.,  450.  Attitude  during 
the  war  with  Antiochus,  ii.  455 

Ptolemaeus  Euergetes,  ii.  215,  399 

Ptolemaeus  Euergetes  II.,  the  Fat,  ii. 
516  ;  iii.  234,  282  ;  iv.  4 

Ptolemaeus,  the  Cyprian,  iv.  319,  322 

Ptolemaeus,  son  of  Lagus,  ii.  6,  399 


Ptolemaeus  Mennaeus,  ruler  of  Chalcis  on 
the  Libanus,  iv.  438 

Ptolemaeus  VI.,  Philometor,  ii.  450  n. 
War  with  Syria,  and  Roman  interven- 
tion, ii.  515,  516.  Dispute  with  Ptole- 
maeus Euergetes,  the  Fat,  ii.  516 ;  iii. 
282.  Roman  intervention,  iii.  234. 
Death,  iii.  284 

Ptolemaeus  Philopator,  ii.  315,  318,  444 

Ptolemaeus  Soter  II.,  Lathyrus,  iv.  4,  313 

Ptolemaeus  of  Commagene,  iii.  287 

Ptolemais,  iv.  4,  316,  317 

Pubiicani,  origin  of,  i.  343.  Favoured  by 
C.  Gracchus,  iii.  351,/C 

Pudicitia  patricia,  plebeia,  i.  386 

Pulpitum.     See  Proscaenium 

Punians.     See  Phoenicians 

Punicum,  near  Caere,  i.  163 

Punicus,  chieftain  of  the  Lusitani,  Hi.  215 

Punic  war,  first,  ii.  170-202.  Second, 
causes  of,  ii.  231-235.  Carthaginian 
preparations,  ii.  232-245.  Rupture  be- 
tween Rome  and  Carthage,  ii.  245  f. 
Carthaginian  forces  and  plans,  ii.  247- 
251.  Hannibal's  march  from  Spain  to 
Italy,  ii.  257-264.  Italian  war,  ii.  266- 
350.  Conflict  on  the  Ticino,  ii.  268  /. 
Battle  on  the  Trebia,  ii.  270-273.  At 
the  Trasimene  lake,  ii.  277  ./C  Marches 
and  conflicts  of  Fabius,  ii.  281  -  286. 
Battle  of  Cannae,  ii.  287-291.  War  in 
Sicily,  ii.  310-314.  War  in  Macedonia, 
ii.  315-320.  War  in  Spain,  ii.  320-331. 
War  in  Italy,  ii.  333-351.  Tarentum 
taken  by  Hannibal,  ii.  335^  His  march 
on  Rome,  ii.  338  /.  Capua  taken  by 
the  Romans,  ii.  339.  Tarentum  taken 
by  the  Romans,  ii.  342.  Hasdrubal's 
approach,  ii.  346.  Battle  of  Sena,  ii. 
348.  Hannibal  retires,  ii.  349.  African 
expedition  of  Scipio,  ii.  351-361.  Battle 
of  Zama,  ii.  359./  Peace,  ii.  360./C,  362. 
Results  of  the  war,  ii.  363-368 

Punic  war,  third,  iii.  241-245 

Pupinii,  clan-village,  i.  45 

M.  Pupius  Piso  [consul,  693]  unsuccessful 
in  Thrace,  v.  104  /. 

Purple  brought  from  Tyre  to  Italy;  iii.  85 

Puteal,  ii.  120  n. 

Puteoli,  i.  175  ;  ii.  337.  A  burgess-colony, 
ii.  365.  Its  custom-house,  iii.  19.  Em- 
porium of  transmarine  commerce,  iv. 
174/.  177,  193.  209 

Pydna,  battle  of,  ii.  506 ;  iii.  262.  Its 
historical  significance,  ii.  519./C 

Pylaemenes,  the  pseudo-,  iv.  19,  21,  22 

Pylaemenids,  royal  family  of  Paphls* 
gonia,  die  out,  iv.  igf. 


574 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Pyrganion,  piratic  captain,  iv.  354 

Pyrgi,  i.  178,  179.  Its  walls,  L  304. 
Stormed  by  Dionysius,  i.  418.  Burgess- 
colony,  ii.  42 

Pyrrhus,  king  of  Epirus,  historical  position 
of,  ii.  3-6.  Character  and  early  history 
of,  ii.  6-9.  Seizes  Corcyra,  i.  401. 
Tarentum  submits  to,  ii.  15.  His  re- 
iources  for  war,  ii.  16  /.  Difficulties 
with  Tarentum,  ii.  17.  War  with  Rome, 
ii.  18  /.  Battle  near  Heraclea,  ii.  19  f. 
Attempts  at  peace,  ii.  21  /.  March  to 
Campania  and  Latium,  ii.  23.  Second 
Italian  campaign,  ii.  24-28.  Battle  near 
Ausculum,  ii.  2S_/C  Sicilian  expedition, 
ii.  28-34.  Renewal  of  the  war  in  Italy, 
ii.  35.  Battle  near  Beneventum,  ii.  36- 
Returns  to  Greece,  ii.  36.     Death,  ii.  37 

Pythagoras,  ii.  87,  91,  100,  107.  Is 
reckoned  as  friend  of  Numa,  iii.  190. 
Pythagorean  league  of  friends,  i.  172. 
Influence  of  his  doctrines  on  the  Roman 
calendar,  i.  271 

Pythagoreanism,  New,  v.  447./C 

Pytheas  the  Boeotian,  iii.  270 

Pytheas,  geographer,  iii.  430 

Pyt hium,  pass  of,  ii.  506 

Pyx  us,  i.  170 

Quadrats,  iv.  1 80 

Qnaertio,  ii.  68 

Quaestiottes  perpetvae,  repetundarutn, 
iii.  300.  Organized  in  general  by 
Gracchus,  iii.  348,  353.  Reorganized 
by  Sulla,  iv.  128-130.  Under  Caesar,  v. 
347^     Compare  Jury-courts 

Quaestors,  oldest  (pam'cidit),  i.  191. 
After  abolition  of  monarchy,  became 
standing  annual  office,  i.  321.  Have 
charge  [as  urbani]  of  state  treasure  and 
archives,  i.  322.  Two  new  ones,  to 
manage  the  military  chest,  chosen  from 
the  nobility,  but  nominated  by  the  tribes 
under  the  presidency  of  the  consuls,  i. 
368.  After  333,  all  the  four  nominated 
by  the  comitia  tributa,  i.  375.  In  333, 
the  plebeians  eligible  for  all  the  quaes- 
torships,  i.  37s.  Increased  to  eight,  iv, 
112  ft.  By  Sulla  to  twenty,  iv.  112,  123. 
Their  functions,  iv.  123  «.  Raised  by 
Caesar  to  forty,  v.  339.  Quaestores 
ciassici,  four ;  their  appointment  and 
functions,  ii.  45,  58,  207 ;  iv.  112  «., 
123  ft.    Provincial,  iii.  34  ;  iv.  123  ». 

Quaestors  in  the  Municipia,.iv.  133 

Quaestus,  iii.  94 

Querquetulani,  about  370,  member  of  the 
Latin  league,  i.  448  tu 


Quinctii  celebrate  the  Lupercalia,  67  «., 

215/ 
Quinctilii  from  Alba,  i.  128 
Quinctius  [praetor,  611],  iii.  223 
L.  Quinctius  Cincinnatus  [dictator,  315], 

i-  376 
L.  Quinctius  Flamininus  [consul,  562],  iii. 

L.  Quinctius  [pleb.  tribune,  680],  iv.  371, 

393  _ 
T.  Quinctius,  leader  of  the  military  revolt 

of  412  (?),  i.  460  n. 
T.  Quinctius  Capitolinus  [consul,  315],  i. 

376 

T.  Quinctius  Flamininus  [consul,  556: 
censor,  565],  character,  ii.  428.  Com- 
mands against  Philip,  ii.  428-435.  Re- 
gulates Macedonia  and  Greece,  ii.  436- 
443;  iii.  271.  Negotiates  with  Antiochus, 
ii.  449/;,  451,  453/  Visits  Greece,  ii. 
453  /•<  459  /1  478,  480,  481.  His  share 
in  Hannibal's  death,  ii.  482.  Conduct 
towards  Philip,  ii.  488.  Nepotism,  iii. 
17,  19.  Early  rise,  iii.  17.  Hellenism, 
iii.  130./;  Brings  Greek  art  treasures 
to  Rome,  iii.  10%  f. 

T.  Quinctius  Pennus  [dictator,  393],  i.  431 

T.  Quinctius  Pennus  Capitolinus  Cris- 
pinus  [consul,  546],  ii.  343 

Quinquatrus,  i.  207 

Quindeceftiviri  sacris  faciuttdis.  See 
Duoviri 

Qtiinquennalitas  in  Italian  communities, 
ii.  58/  58  n. ;  iv.  133 

Quirinal  city,  i.  66-71.     Vase,  i.  277,  287  ft. 

Quirinalia,  i.  207 

Quirinus,  i.  207 

Quirites,  i.  68  ft.,  69  n.  Meaning  of  the 
word,  i.  90  rt.,  93 

C.  Rabirius,  iv.  458^ 

Racing,  i.  294 

Raeti,  iii.  424.     Etruscan,  i.  154,  434 

Ragae,  iii.  289 

Raia,  mother  of  Sertorius,  iv.  281 

Ramnes,  i.  53,  55,  56 

Raphia,  ii.  444 

Ras-ennae,  i.  150  rt. 

Raudine  Plain,  battle  of  the,  iii.  448  /. 
Site  of,  iii.  448  «. 

Ravenna,  i.  156  ;  ii.  220 ;  iii.  517 ;  v.  207 

Readministration  of  the  same  office  re- 
stricted, i.  402 

Reate,  Sabine  town,  receives  civitas  sin* 
suffragio,  i.  492.     See  Sabines 

Reatini  penetrate  into  Latium,  i.  14s 

Rcciperatores,  mixed  Romano-Latin  court 
for  commercial  cases,  i.  200 


INDEX 


575 


Recruiting  in  Campania,  i.  457 

Recruiting  system  of  Marius,  iii.  457,  458 

Rediculus  Tutanus,  ii.  339 

Regia,  i.  140,  141  n. 

Regi/ugium,  i.  209 

Regillus,  lake,  battle  at,  i.  438  ;  ii.  50,  70 

Regulus.    See  Atilius 

Ret,  i.  190 

Religion  of  the  Etruscans  gloomy  and 
tiresome  mysticism,  i.  232-235.  Pre- 
dominance of  malignant  and  cruel  gods, 
i.  233.  Interpretation  of  signs  and  por- 
tents, i.  233^   Rudiments  of  speculation, 

t-  234/ 

Religion  of  the  Italians,  its  fundamental 
principles,  i.  32-33 

Religion,  Roman,  abstraction  and  per- 
sonification, i.  206,  2ii -214.  At  first 
unaffected  by  the  influence  of  Greek 
ideas,  i.  212,  214.  Systematic  classifi- 
cation and  ranking  of  the  gods  essential, 
i.  212  f.  Practical  tendency  of  Roman 
worship,  i.  214,  225.  Its  character  of 
festal  joy,  i.  221 ;  modified  by  the 
frugality  and  sobriety  of  the  people,  i. 
221./C  Tendency  to  insipid  ceremonial, 
i.  222  f.  Opposed  to  all  artistic  effort 
and  speculative  apprehension  of  the 
religious  idea,  i.  224^  But  intelligible 
to  all,  and  preserving  the  simplicity  of 
faith,  i.  227.  From  the  practical  ten- 
dency of  worship  the  priests  develop 
the  moral  law,  i.  225  f.,  227.  Foreign 
worships,  i.  228-231  ;  ii.  ^o/.  Oriental 
■  'igions  in  Italy,  iv.  408  f.  ;  v.  445  /. 
Faith  becomes  torpid  owing  to  Hellen- 
ism, iii.  109,  \\\  f.\  iv.  195.  Public 
worship  becomes  more  costly,  ii.  71  ; 
iii.  109  /.  Superstitions,  iii.  114  /. 
Later  state-religion,  iv.  204-206.  Under 
Caesar,  v.  346^,  430/:,  443"445 

Religion,  Sabellian  and  Umbrian,  essen- 
tially agreeing  with  the  Latin,  i.  23i_/C 

Religious  chants,  i.  286/; 

Remi,  v.  50,  54,  85 

Remus,  ii.  105 

Rents  in  Rome,  iv.  184  «.;  v.  385./C 

Representative  institutions  unknown  to 
antiquity,  iii.  330,  332,  506  ;  iv.  135  ;  v. 
yitf. 

Responsa,  literature  of  juristic  opinions, 
iv.  255 

Retogenes,  Numantine,  iii.  231 

Reuxinales.     See  Roxolani 

Rex,  i.  81 

Rex  sacrorum,  i.  316,  324.  Always 
patrician,  i.  385 

Rhegium,  i.  6,  266,  456 ;  ii.  294,  333,  350, 


365 ;  iv.  362.  Occupied  by  Romans, 
ii.  12.  Mutiny  of  garrison,  ii.  18.  Its 
attitude  towards  Pyrrhus,  ii.  18,  21. 
Captured  by  the  Romans,  ii.  38.  Ex- 
empted from  land  service,  ii.  43.  Re- 
mained faithful  in  Social  war,  iii.  502. 
Retained,  even  after  admission  to 
Roman  citizenship,  its  communal  con- 
stitution, iii.  24,  519.  Remained  un- 
affected by  the  general  Latinizing,  iii. 
519  ;  iv.  191/ 
Rhetoric  in  Rome,  iii.  192  f.\  iv.  216^, 

253/;  v-  451./: 

Rhine,  the,  German  frontier  of  Rome, 
v.  49  _ 

Rhoda  in  Spain  founded,  i.  186.  Mas- 
silian  maritime  station,  iii.  415 

Rhodes,  ii.  319 ;  iii.  234,  280,  292 ;  iv. 
16,  103.  Its  treaty  with  Rome,  ii.  3, 
46.  Its  position  after  the  second  Punic 
war,  ii.  406^  War  with  Philip,  ii.  411, 
412,  414,  416,  418,  420,  422,  438.  Joins 
in  the  war  with  Antiochus,  ii.  446  f., 
45°>  435i  474-  Its  attitude  during  the 
war  with  Perseus,  ii.  494,  499.  Hu- 
miliated, ii.  513-515 ;  iii.  274.  Its  wars 
against  the  pirates,  iii.  292.  Resists 
Mithradates,  iv.  33,  40,  47.  Rewarded 
by  Sulla,  iv.  54.  Exempt  from  taxation, 
iv.  157.  Seat  of  philosophic  training, 
iv.  199,  325.  Rhodian  school  of  rhetori- 
cians, v.  455 

Rhone,  passage  of,  by  Hannibal,  ii.  255./C 

Rhyndacus,  battle  on  the  river,  iv.  328 

Rice,  iii.  64  n. 

Road  from  Arretium  to  Bononia,  ii.  374. 
From  Italy,  through  Gaul,  to  Spain,  ii. 
375.  From  Rome  to  Luna,  ii.  375. 
From  Luca  to  Arretium,  ii.  375.  Com- 
pare Via 

Roads,  construction  of,  ii.  85,  120.  Pav- 
ing of  streets  under  Caesar,  v.  374 

Robber  bands.    See  Brigands 

Robigalia,  i.  208 

Robigus,  i.  208 

Rogatio,  i.  94 

Roma  quadrata,  L  69 

Romances,  v.  483 

Rome,  legends  as  to  its  foundation,  i.  107- 
iii.  Attempts  to  fix  the  year  of  its 
foundation,  iii.  190.  Site  of,  i.  53,  57^ 
Originally  centre  of  an  agricultural 
community,  i.  261.  At  the  same  time 
emporium  of  Latium,  i.  56-60.  Gradual 
rise  of  the  city,  i.  60  f.  The  Seven 
ring  -  walls  cr  septimontium,  i.  63  f. 
Amalgamation  of  the  Palatine  and 
Quirinal    regions,     i.     106  •  109.      The 


576 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


united  city  walled  in  by  Servius,  i.  71, 
136^  The  seven  hills,  i.  139  n.  Taken 
and  burnt  by  the  Gauls,  i.  429  f. 
Threatened  by  Pyrrhus,  ii.  23.  Threat- 
ened by  Hannibal,  ii.  338./  Occupied 
by  Sulla,  iii.  539.  Regained  by  the 
Marians,  iv.  65  f.  Occupied  by  Sulla, 
iv.  84  ;  and  maintained  in  the  battle  at 
the  Colline  gate,  iv.  89 

Rome,  ii.  no  «. 

Romilii,  clan-village,  i.  45,  62 

Romulus,  the  acquisition  of  the  septem 
pagi  referred  to  him,  i.  59 

Romus  and  Romylus,  ii.  no  n, 

Rorarii,  ii.  74 

Q.  Roscius,  the  actor,  iv.  140,  236 ;  v.  472 

Sex.  Roscius,  v.  38s 

Rostra,  Roman  orators'  platform,  i.  140. 
So  called  as  decorated  with  the  beaks  of 
the  Antiate  galleys,  i.  462./C 

Round  temple,  ii.  120  «. 

Roxolani  (Reuxinales),  iv.  14,  17,  18  n. 

Rubi,  iii.  522 

Rubicon.    See  Italy 

Ruiinus.    See  Cornelius 

Rufus.  See  Caecilius,  Minucius,  Pom- 
peius,  Rutilius 

P.  Rupilius  [consul,  621],  iii.  310,  311 

Rusicade,  harbour  of  Cirta,  iii.  391 

Ruspina,  battle  at,  v.  294  /. 

P.  Rutilius  Nudus,  lieutenant  in  the 
Mithradatic  war,  iv.  326 

P.  Rutilius  Lupus  [consul,  664],  iii.  503, 
508,  511,  512  ;  iv.  102  «. 

P.  Rutilius  Rufus  [consul,  649],  iii.  398, 
400,  401,  459,  481,  482,  483;  iv.  112. 
Memoirs,  iv.  250 

Rutuli,  abodes,  i.  444.  Conflicts  with 
Rome,  i.  135.  Subdued,  i.  445.  Dis- 
pute with  Aricia,  i.  447 

Rye,  iii.  64  n. 

Sabellians,  iii.  100.  Have  little  inter- 
course with  foreign  nations,  i.  252,  283. 
Position  during  the  Samnite  wars,  i. 
468.     Art,  i.  300;  ii.  121./C 

Sabine  and  Latin  goddess,  i.  69  «. 

Sabines,  ii.  224.  Influence  upon  Rome, 
i.  54  yC  Penetrate  into  Latium,  i.  143, 
145.  Fight  with  Rome,  i.  134.  Subse- 
quently in  but  slight  intercourse  with 
Rome,  i.  444.  Subdued  by  Rome,  and 
become  civet  tine  suffmgio,  i.  492. 
Acquire  full  burgess-rights,  ii.  48,  89. 
Writing,  i.  281 

Saburra,  general  of  King  Juba,  v.  232 

Sacer,  meaning  of,  i.  226 

Sacramentum.    Ste  Actions  at  law 


Sacrificial  animals,  how  procured,  i.  92 

Sacriportus  in  Latium,  battle  at,  iv.  83 

Sadalas;  king  of  the  Odrysians,  iv.  307 

Sadducees,  iv.  244  f. 

Saecular  games,  iii.  125 

Saepta  Julia,  v.  375 

Saeturnus,  i.  208,  213,  290  «. 

M.  Saevius  Nicanor  Postumus,  teacher  of 
Roman  literature,  iv.  216 

Sagaei,  ii.  493 

Sagras,  battle  on  the  river,  ii.  70 

Saguntum,  iii.  226 ;  iv.  294, 296.  Founded, 
i.  185.  Allied  with  Rome,  ii.  241.  At 
war  with  Hannibal,  and  is  stormed,  ii. 
246,  247.  Regained  by  Rome,  ii.  320, 
321,  384,  393.  Lusitanians  settled  at 
Saguntum,  iii.  232 

Salapia,  ii.  341  ;  iii.  521 

Salassi,  ii.  253,  258 ;  iii.  416 

Saldae,  iii.  410 

Salernum,  a  burgess -colony,  ii.  39,  365. 
Share  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  514 

Salii,  Collini  and  Palatini,  i.  68,  106  /., 
108,  217,  286,  287  ./C  Always  patrician, 
i.  384^  __ 

Sallentini,  ii.  89.  Join  Tarentum  against 
the  Lucanians,  i.  483.  War  with  Rome, 
ii-  39 

C.  Sallustius  Crispus,  iv.  489  n. ;  v.  145. 
His  erroneous  chronology  of  the  Jugur- 
thine  war,  iii.  398  n.  Character  of  this 
book,  iii.  410  n.  Fragment  of  the  His- 
tories, its  date  determined,  iv.  297  n. 

Salona,  iii.  427 ;  iv.  168,  306 

Salt  known  to  the  primeval  Indo-Germans, 
i.  21.  State  monopoly  of,  i.  342  ;  iii.  20; 
iv.  156 

Saltus,  iii.  74 

Salus,  temple  on  the  Capitol,  ii.  122 

Saluvians.     See  Salyes 

Salvius,  king  of  the  slaves  in  the  second 
Sicilian  slave-war  (Tryphon),  iii.  384 

Salyes,  iii.  417 ;  v.  7 

Same,  ii.  476 

Samnites,  ii.  80,  280,  36s ;  iii.  24.  A 
branch  of  the  Umbrians,  i.  14.  Lan- 
guage of,  i.  14  f.  Writing,  i.  278, 
282.  Settle  in  the  mountains  of  Central 
Italy,  i.  146.  Legend  of  their  wander- 
ings, i.  146.  Seclusion,  i.  147.  Absence 
of  sepulchral  decorations,  ii.  81.  Federal 
constitution  without  centralization,  i. 
148.  Without  effort  after  conquest,  i. 
148./C  First  treaty  with  Rome,  i.  453. 
Unaffected  by  Greek  influences,  i.  458. 
Contrast  with  the  Hellenizing  Sabellian 
stocks,  i.  457  f.  Samnite  wars,  i.  465- 
481,  486-493.      Share  in  the  war  with 


INDEX 


577 


Pyrrhus,  ii.  21,  25,  30.  Submit  to 
Rome,  ii.  ■&/.  Their  league  dissolved, 
it.  53.  Remain  still  associated,  though 
politically  insignificant,  iii.  499.  Alli- 
ance with  Hannibal,  ii.  29s,  300  f. 
Their  country  desolate  after  the  second 
Punic  war,  iii.  24,  100.  Acquainted 
with  Greek  literature,  iii.  196.  Share 
in  Social  war,  iii.  501,  522,  523,  524. 
Coins  from  that  period,  iii.  524  «.  Their 
demands  after  it,  iv.  63,  64.  Fight  with 
Sulla,  iv.  63/.,  82,  &&f.  Their  punish- 
ment, iv.  91,  108./; 

Samos,  ii.  406,  411,  446,  461, 462,  463  ;  iii. 
279;  iv.  47.  Pillaged  by  the  pirates, 
iv.  308 

Samosata,  iv.  341,  437 

Samothrace,  ii.  495,  507.  Pillaged  by  the 
pirates,  iv.  308 

Sampsiceramus,  emir  in  Hemesa,  iv.  438 

Sancus.    See  Semo 

Sangarius,  river  in  Bithynia,  iv.  30,  327 

Sanigae,  iv.  334 

Santones,  v.  15 

Sarama,  i.  23 

Sarapis,  iv.  446 

Sardinia,  Carthaginian,  i.  186,  413 ;  ii. 
143.  Assailed  by  the  Romans,  ii.  177. 
Roman,  ii.  205,  207.  Carthage  endea- 
vours to  regain  it,  ii.  308.  Wars  in,  ii. 
376 ;  iii.  214.  Lepidus'  expedition  to, 
iv.  291.  Occupied  by  Caesar,  v.  230. 
Taxation,  iv.  158 

Sardis,  ii.  446,  474 ;  iv.  45 

Sarmatae,  iv.  14 

Sarnus,  Nucerian  river-god,  v.  302  n. 

Sarranus,  i.  185  ». 

Sassinates,  war  with  Rome,  ii.  39 

Saticula,  Latin  colony,  i.  475,  476 

Satricum  near  Antium,  Latin  colony,  i. 
446.  About  370,  member  of  the  Latin 
league,  i.  448  «.,  450 

Satricum  near  Arpinum,  Roman  burgess- 
community  sine  suffiragio,  different 
from  Satricum  near  Antium,  i.  474  «. 
Passes  over  to  the  Samnites,  i.  474. 
Punished,  i.  474  /. 

Saturn,  i.  35  ;  ii.  98.  Led  to  alternative 
chants,  and  thereby,  in  some  measure, 
to  comedy,  i.  288^  ;  iii.  178./.  After 
Naevius'  time  =  miscellaneous  poems, 
iii.  179.  In  the  seventh  century,  iv. 
237-242.  Development  independent  of 
the  Atellanae,  iv.  231  n. 

P.  Satureius,  murderer  of  Ti.  Gracchus, 
iii.  326 

Saturnalia,  i.  208,  389  «. ;  ii.  24 ;  iii. 
135 

VOL.  ▼ 


Saturnia,  town  in  Etruria,  i.  304.     Battle 

at,  iv.  85/ 
Saturnian   metre  {versus  Satumius),  L 

289,  290 
Saturnus,  i.  208,  290  «. 
Saumacus,  Scythian  prince,  iv.  17  ft. 
Sauromatae,  iv.  14,  20 
Savage  state,  no  trace  of,  in  Italy,  i.  9,  10 
Scaena,  ii.  97  ;  iii.  138 
Scaevola.     See  Mucius 
Scaptia,  about  370,  a  member  of  the  Latin 

league,  i.  448  ».,  450 
Scaraiaez,  Etruscan,  i.  307 
Scarpheia  in  Locris,  iii.  269 
Scaurus.     See  Aemilius,  Aurelitu 
Sceptics,  iv.  197  /.,  199 
Sciathus,  ii.  425,  426 ;  iv.  35 
Scilurus,  Scythian  king,  iv.  17,  18  m. 
Scipio.     See  Cornelius 
Scodra,  kingdom  of,  its  war  with  Rome, 

ii.   217  /.,   508.      Made    tributary    to 

Rome,  ii.  218 ;   iii.  422.     Annexed  to 

province  of  Macedonia,  iii.  262 
Scolacium,  colony,  iii.  375 
Scopas,  ii.  445 
Scordisci,  iii.  427,  428,  439 
Scotussa,  ii.  433 
Scribere,  i.  280 
C.  Scribonius  Curio  [consul,  678],  iv.  307, 

371.     Lieutenant  of  Sulla  in  Asia,  iv.  54 
C.  Scribonius  Curio,  partisan  of  Caesar,  v. 

183,  184,  187,  188,  230-233,  389,  507 
L.  Scribonius  Libo,  admiral  under  Pom- 

peius,  v.  235 
Scriptura,  i.  92,  248,  281.     Subsequently 

not  demanded,  i.  344.     In  the  provinces, 

iv.  158 
Scutum,  ii.  76  «.     A  Greek  word,  i.  254 
Scylax,  i.  435  ;  ii.  108.     Description  of 

the  coast  under  his  name,  i.   177  <*., 

435.  455 }  i>-  109  »• 
Scymnus,  i.  177  n. ;  v.  459  n. 
Scyros,  ii.  437  ;  iv.  329 
Scythians,  in  what  is  now  Southern  Russia, 

iv.  13  ft.,  14,  17,  18.     In  the  army  of 

Mithradates,  iv.  20 
Secession  to  the  Sacred  Mount,  first,  L 

347  ;  second,  i.  366 
Segeda,  iii.  216 
Segesta,  ii.  145,  211  ft.,  313 
Segestica,  or  Siscia,  iii.  427 
Segobriga,  iv.  301 
Segusiavi,  Roman  estates  in  their  territory, 

v.  30 
Seleucia  on  the  Orontes,  iv.  317 
Seleucia  on  the  Tigris,  iii.  287 
Seleucus,  son  of  Antiochus  the  Great,  1L 

448/,  463 

I70 


578 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Seleucus  II.,  Callinicus,  ii.  215 

Seleucus,  piratic  captain,  iv.  333 

Selgians,  iii.  275 

Selinus,  i.  183 ;  ii.  145 

Sella  curulis,  chariot-seat,  i.  83,  189 

Sellasia,  battle  of,  ii.  220 

Serao  Sanctis,  Sabine  and  Latin  deity,  i. 

69  n.     Temple  on  the  Quirinal,  i.  280 
Sempronia,  the  sister  of  the  Gracchi,  iii. 

463 

A.  Sempronius  Asellio  [praetor,  665]  mur- 
dered, iii.  530  /. 

C.  Sempronius  Gracchus,  iii.  326,  338. 
Character,  iii.  342-344.  Member  of  the 
land  commission,  iii.  323,  335.  Quaes- 
tor, iii.  341.  Plebeian  tribune,  iii.  342- 
370.  Speeches  of,  iv.  251.  Improves 
the  Italian  roads,  iv.  167.  His  fall  and 
death,  iii.  366-370.  Contrast  between 
the  Sullan  and  Gracchan  legislation,  iv. 
noyC 

C.  Sempronius  Tuditanus  [consul,  625], 
chronicler,  iv.  24S.  "  On  the  Magis- 
trates," iv.  252 

P.  Sempronius  Sophus  [consul,  450],  ii. 
113.     Subdues  the  Aequi,  i.  484 

P.  Sempronius  Sophus  [consul,  486],  iii. 
126 

.P.  Sempronius  Asellio,  historian,  iv.  250 

Ti.  Sempronius  Gracchus  [consul,  539, 
541],  ii.  304,  305,  333,  33s,  339/ 

Ti.  Sempronius  Gracchus  [consul,  577, 
591 ;  censor,  585],  iii.  31, 130.  Sardinian 
wars,  ii.  376.  In  Spanish  war,  ii.  391 
f.  ;  iii.  215,  318.  Interference  against 
the  freedmen,  iii.  53 

Ti.  Sempronius  Gracchus,  character,  iii. 
317  -  320,  333.  Quaestor,  iii.  228. 
Plebeian  tribune,  iii.  320-325.  Agrarian 
law,  iii.  320  /.     Death,  iii.  325-327 

Ti.  Sempronius  Gracchus,  the  spurious, 

463,473/ 
Ti.  Sempronius  Longus  [consul,  536],  ii. 

266,  270,  273 
Ti.  Sempronius  Longus  [consul,  560],  iii. 

44 

Sena  Gallica,  maritime  colony,  ii.  12,  42, 
49,  220.  Battle  of,  ii.  348  /.  In  the 
first  Civil  war,  iv.  85 

Senate  originates  in  the  clan-constitution, 
and  represents  it,  i.  96,  97/  Number 
of  members  fixed,  i.  97  f.  Membership 
for  life,  i.  98.  Chosen  by  the  king,  i. 
98.  Its  prerogatives  :  office  of  interrex, 
i.  98  f. ;  confirmation  of  the  resolutions 
of  the  community,  i.  100  f.  ;  as  state 
council,  i.  101  f.  Had  originally  no 
share  in  election  of   the  king,   i.   83. 


Not  legislating,  but  guardian  of  the 
law,  i.  101.  Increase  of  its  functions 
on  abolition  of  the  monarchy,  i.  329^ 
Of  its  political  power,  i.  337,  33E.  Dis- 
tinction, after  abolition  of  the  monarchy, 
between  the  narrower  patrician  senate 
(/aires),  for  the  exercise  of  the  aucto- 
ritas,  and  the  wider  patricio  -  plebeian 
body  (patres  conscripti)  for  giving  their 
consilium,  i.  330.  Right  of  consulars 
to  vote  first,  i.  330  f.  The  reference  to 
the  clan-organization  falls  into  abeyance, 
i.  331.  Number  of  senators,  i.  331. 
Chosen  by  consul,  i.  331.  Right  of 
former  magistrates  to  be  admitted  to 
the  senate,  i.  331.  Acting  magistrates 
have  a  seat,  but  no  vott,  ',  331.  Re- 
vision of  roll  every  fourth  year,  i.  331. 
Plebeian  senators  excluded  from  debate, 
i.  374.  Their  admission,  i.  3S0-382. 
Conducts  the  government  after  equal- 
ization of  the  orders,  i.  406.  Right  of 
the  magistrate  to  reject  senators  from 
the  list  limited,  i.  406  /.  Establish- 
ment of  the  right  of  past  curule  magis- 
trates to  a  provisional  seat  and  vote, 
and  to  enrolment  at  next  census,  i.  407  ; 
iii.  7.  Exclusion  of  non-curule  senators 
from  debating,  i.  381,  407  ;  iii.  7.  Later 
de  facto  powers  of  the  senate  :  initiative 
in  legislation,  i.  408  ;  right  of  dispensing 
from  the  laws,  i.  408  ;  nomination  of 
dictator,  i.  402,  409;  right  of  prolonging 
tenure  of  office  of  magistrates,  i.  409. 
Its  absolute  control  of  the  administra- 
tion, especially  of  finance,  i.  409  f. ;  iii. 
•jf.  Political  value  of  this  institution, 
i.  410/I  Gradations  of  rank  in,  iii.  7  f. 
Preponderance  of  the  nobility  in  the 
senate,  iii.  8.  Special  seats  in  the 
theatre,  iii.  10.  Insignia  of  senators, 
i.  99 ;  iii.  4,  5  ft.  Its  numbers  accord- 
ing to  Sulla's  arrangements,  iv.  112; 
and  according  to  Caesar's  arrangements, 
v-  349/  Extraordinary  supplement  to, 
by  Sulla,  iii.  541 ;  iv.  112,  113  n. ;  and 
by  Caesar,  v.  339.  Admission  to,  con- 
nected by  Sulla  with  the  quaestorship, 
and  not  with  the  aedileship,  iv.  112. 
Number  before  and  after  Sulla,  iv.  113  ». 
Censorial  lectio  abolished  by  Sulla,  iv. 
112,  125.  But  restored,  iv.  380.  Sena- 
tors excluded  from  the  equestrian  cen- 
turies, iii.  300,  350.  Powers  of ;  its  ini- 
tiative in  legislation  formally  confirmed 
by  Sulla,  iii.  542;  iv.  114.  But  again 
abolished,  iv.  380.  Its  right  to  give 
dispensation   from   laws   restricted,   iv. 


INDEX 


579 


456.  Its  supremacy  limited  by  C. 
Gracchus,  iii.  352.  Senatorial  courts. 
See  Jury-courts.  Decline  and  corrup- 
tion of  the  senate,  iii.  293,  294  f. 
Legal  enactments  against  the  graver 
abuses,  iv.  456.  Coteries  or  "cliques" 
in,  iii.293_/C,  298,  533-  Arrangements  of 
Caesar,  v.  339,  340.  Opposition -senate 
of  the  Italians,  iii.  505,  506  «. ;  as  also  of 
Sertorius,  iv.  284 ;  and  of  Pompeius,  v. 
238  «.,  289 

Senones,  i.  424,  427,  434.  War  with 
Rome,  ii.  10.  Conquered  by  the 
Romans  and  expelled  from  Italy,  ii. 
10,  11,  220 

Sentinum,  battle  of,  i.  489  ./C 

C  Sentius  [praetor,  665?],  iv.  34 

Septem  pagi,  i.  58 

Septetnviri  epulones.     See  Tres  viri 

L.  Septimius.  assassin  of  Pompeius,  v.  272 

Septimontium,  i.  63,  209 

L.  Septumuleius,  iii.  369 

Sequani,  iii.  434,  443  ;  v.  19,  25,  34 

Sergii,  clan-village,  i.  45 

L.  Sergius  Catilina,  character,  iv.  465  f. 
Conspiracy  of,  iv.  466-482.     Death,  iv. 

48s 

Q.  Sertorius,  character  of,  iv.  281  f.  In 
the  Marian  revolution,  iv.  58,  60,  61, 
62,  67,  69.  In  the  war  against  Sulla, 
iv.  80,  81.  In  Spain,  iv.  91  f.  In 
Mauretania,  iv.  93,  103,  282.  Becomes 
general  of  the  Lusitanians,  iv.  282.  His 
struggle  in  Spain,  iv.  283./C,  285/;  His 
organizations  there,  iv.  284  /.  His 
treaty  with  Mithradates,  iv.  299,  324. 
His  contest  with  Pompeius,  iv.  294-301. 
His  death,  iv.  302 

Servian  constitution,  a  military  reform  by 
equalizing  the  burgesses  and  meioeci  as 
to  army-service  and  tributum,  and  trans- 
ferring these  obligations  to  all  the  free- 
holders in  the  state  who  were  capable 
of  bearing  arms,  i.  114-122.  The  work 
of  a  reforming  legislator,  probably  after 
the  model  of  the  Greeks  of  Lower 
Italy,  i.  123 

Servian  wall,  remains  of,  i.  303  n. 

Servilii,  from  Alba,  i.  128 

C.  Servilius  Ahala  [magister  equitum, 
315],  i.  376 

C.  Servilius,  commander  in  second  Sicilian 
Servile  war,  iii.  386 

C.  Servilius  [praetor,  663]  murdered  at 
Asculum,  iii.  500 

C.  Servilius  Glaucia,  associate  of  Satur- 
ninus,  iii.  465,  466,  467,  472,  474,  475, 
476 


Cn.  Servilius  Geminus  [consul,   537],  ii. 

273.  274.  279.  287,  289,  290 
P.  Servilius  Priscus  Structus  [consul,  259, 

278],  i.  347 
P.  Servilius  Vatia  Isauricus  [consul,  675], 

iii.  382  n.\  iv.  138,  313 
P.   Servilius  Rullus  [pleb.  tribune,  690], 

iv.  472 
Q.  Servilius  Ahala  [dictator,  394],  i.  431 
Q.    Servilius    Caepio    [consul,    614],   iii. 

224 
Q.  Servilius  Caepio  [consul,  648],  iii.  376, 

436,  437.  439.  440  «.,  466,  471  n. 
Q.  Servilius  Caepio  [quaestor,  651  or  654], 

iii.  471  «.,  484.      Falls  in  the  Social 

war,  iii.  512 
Servius  Tullius.     See  Mastarna 
Sestus,  ii.  417,  448,  461 
Setia,  a  Latin  colony,  i.  446.     About  370, 

a  member  of  the  Latin  league,  i.  448  »., 

45° 

Settlement,  right  of,  unrestricted  in 
Rome,  i.  in 

Seusamora,  iv.  414 

Sextilius,  lieutenant  of  Lucullus  in  third 
Mithradatic  war,  iv.  339 

C.  Sextius  Calvinus  [consul,  630],  iii.  417 

L.  Sextius  Lateranus  [plebeian  tribune, 
377.  378 ;  consul,  387],  i.  380,  383 

Shingle  roofs  in  Rome,  ii.  86 

Shoemakers,  guild  of,  i.  249 

Shofetes,  ii.  147 

Sibylline  oracles,  i.  229^,  291  ;  iii.  41  f.\ 
v.  122./C 

Sicani,  ii.  143 

L.  Siccius  Dentatus  murdered,  i.  366  f. 

Siceli,  ii.  143 

Sicily,  position  of,  i.  6.  Its  early  trade 
with  Rome,  i.  200./C,  258 /.;  ii.  80,  210. 
Its  condition  after  the  death  of  Aga- 
thocles,  ii.  28.  Pyrrhus  in,  ii.  28-35. 
Carthaginian  rule  in,  ii.  137,  143. 
Phoenician  party  in,  ii.  156.  Condition 
of,  before  first  Punic  war,  ii.  161.  Sur- 
rendered to  Rome  by  Carthage,  ii.  196, 
204.  Completely  Roman,  ii.  314.  Sends 
grain  to  Rome,  ii.  344  ;  iii.  77.  Slavery 
in,  iii.  307-310.  Occupied  by  Caesar, 
v.  230.  Communities  of,  obtain  lus 
Latinum,  v.  364.  Forms  a  closed 
customs-district,  iv.  160.  Taxation  of, 
iv.  158,  161  «.,  164  /.  Two  quaestors, 
iv.  123  n.  Privilege  in  judicial  pro- 
cedure, iv.  132.  Coining,  iv.  181. 
Compare  Slaves 

Cn.  Sicinius  [praetor,  582],  ii.  497,  499 

L.  Sicinius  [pleb.  tribune,  678],  iv.  371 

Siculi  or  Sicani,  Latin,  i.  26 


58o 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Sicyon  undertakes  the  Isthmian  games, 
iii.  273 

Side  in  Pamphylia,  iv.  311 

Sidicini  in  Teanum,  i.  458 

Stdon,  its  decline,  ii.  142 

Siga,  ii.  354 

Signia,  a  Latin  colony,  i.  445 ;  ii.  49  ;  iii. 
36.  Perhaps  about  370,  a  member  of 
the  Latin  league,  i.  448  «.,  450.  Not 
Roman  burgess-community,  ii.  49 

Sigovesus,  i.  423 

Sila,  forest  of,  ii.  38 

Silarus,  ii.  365 

Silas,  ruler  of  Lysias,  iv.  430 

Silo.    See  Pompaedius 

Silvani,  t.  208,  213 

Silver  supplanted  in  commerce  by  gold, 
iii.  88.  Etruscan  silver  coins  of  earliest 
period,  i.  306.  Mines,  Spanish,  ii.  239, 
393.  Silver  in  the  Roman  coinage,  ii. 
87 f.\  iv.  178./C  Its  export  to  the  Celtic 
territory  prohibited,  iii.  95.  Articles  of, 
in  Roman  households,  i.  392 ;  ii.  85, 
153/ ;  >v.  185./: 

Simon  Maccabaeus,  iii.  286.  Coins  of, 
iii.  286  «. 

Sindi  on  the  Caucasus,  dependent  on 
Panticapaeum,  iv.  15 

Sinnaca,  surprise  at,  v.  160^ 

Sinope,  town,  ii.  407,  408 ;  iv.  6,  12,  16, 
ao»  333.  334.  44°,  447-  Pontic  resi- 
dency, iii  281.    Colonized  by  Caesar,  v. 

425 

Sinope,  Pontic  governorship,  iv.  32 

Sinti,  iv.  50 

Sinuessa,  maritime  colony,  i.  492 ;  ii.  42, 
49.     Slave-rising,  iii.  309 

Siphnus  pillaged  by  the  pirates,  iii.  292 

Sipontum,  burgess-colony,  ii.  365 

Sirens,  i.  177 

Siris,  i.  170 

Siscia  or  Segestica,  iii.  425,  427 

P.  Sittius,  iv.  488  ;  v.  295,  301,  424 

Slaves,  i.  30.  At  first  not  numerous,  i. 
247.  Their  increase ;  Licinio-Sextian 
laws  enact  that  a  certain  proportion  of 
free  labourers  be  employed  by  land- 
lords, i.  381,  387  ;  ii.  77  ;  iii.  312.  Stern 
domestic  discipline  among,  iii.  118. 
Employed  in  rural  labour,  i.  345  ;  ii. 
77  ;  iii.  68-71.  Management  of  business 
by,  iii.  85  /.  Increase  of,  iii.  313;  iv. 
177 /■'•  v-  368/,  393./  Trade  in,  iii. 
292,  306  /. ;  iv.  174.  Result  of  the 
system,  iii.  3°S  /'.  »v.  174  ;  v.  341  /., 
394.  Conspiracies  and  insurrections  of, 
in  Italy,  ii.  83;  iii.  102,  309-311,  380/., 
36a  /.     Gladiatorial  war,  iv.  357-364. 


In  Sicily,  first,  iii.  309-311 ;  second,  iii 

383-387 

Slings,  ii.  76  «. ;  iii.  458 

Smyrna,  ii.  406,  446,  4S3,  461,  473 ;  iv.  4s 

Soani,  iv.  416 

Socii  navahs,  ii.  174 

Socrates,  Bithynian  pretender,  iv.  34 

Sodalicia,     See  Collegia 

Sodomy,  i.  igi 

Sol,  Sabine  and  Latin  deity,  i.  69  n. 

Soli,  in  Cilicia,  ii.  475 

Solon,  laws  of,  ii.  86.  Their  influence  on 
the  Laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  i.  362 
f. ;  ii.  65.  Roman  coinage  from  Solonian 
pattern,  ii.  79 

Soluntum,  i.  186 ;  ii.  143,  185 

Sopater,  ii.  182,  422 

Sophene,  iii.  281,  285 ;  iv.  5,  316 

Sophocles,  iii.  167 

Sora,  in  the  Samnite  wars  sometimes 
Roman,  sometimes  Samnite,  i.  453,  463, 
475.  476.     A  Latin  colony,  i.  485 

Soracte,  i.  250 

Sors,  i.  229  «. 

Sosander,  iii.  276  «. 

Sosigenes,  Greek  mathematician,  aids 
Caesar  in  his  reform  of  the  calendar, 
v.  438 

Sosilus  of  Sparta,  ii.  244 

Spain,  Phoenicians  in,  ii.  142,  144.  Under 
Hamilcar,  ii.  238,  239.  Silver  mines  of, 
ii.  239 ;  iii.  214  ;  iv.  157.  A  Roman 
province,  ii.  331.  Culture  after  second 
Punic  war,  ii.  384-387.  Constant  war- 
fare in,  ii.  387-391.  Divided  into  two 
provinces,  Further  and  Hither  Spain, 
ii.  389.  Conflicts  there  in  the  first  half 
of  seventh  century,  iii.  215-232 ;  in  the 
second  half,  iii.  415  /.,  479.  In  the 
first  Civil  war,  iv.  92/.  In  the  Sertorian 
war,  iv.  281-286,  293-302.  Caesar  as 
praetor  there,  v.  6.  Caesar  and  the 
Pompeians  in  Spain,  v.  219-227.  Taxa- 
tion, iv.  158./C  Urban  rights  in,  iii.  214, 
232,  233 ;  iv.  190.     Coinage,  iv.  181 

Sparta,  ii.  3,  318,  438-440,  451/.  480,  481 ; 
iii.  265  f.,  267,  268;  iv.  38.  Compare 
Lacedaemonians 

Spartacus,  iv.  357-364 

Spartocidae,  ruling  family  in  Pantica- 
paeum, iv.  15 

Spatium,  i.  296 

Speeches,  literature  of,  its  beginnings,  iii. 
189.  In  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries, 
iv.  250 ;  v.  501-506 
Spelt  (far),  chiefly  cultivated  in  Italy, 

i.  240 
Spercheius,  ii.  396 


INDEX 


58l 


Spina,  i.  143,  156,  278.  Its  traffic  with 
Corcyra  and  Corinth,  i.  176,  179.  Its 
intercourse  wirh  Delphi,  i.  180 

Spoletium,  a  Latin  colony,  ii.  129,  279. 
Jus  of,  ii.  52  n.  Treatment  by  Sulla, 
iv.  107  /. 

Staberius  Eros,  teacher  of  literature,  iv. 
265  «. 

Stnbiae  shares  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  510. 
Taken  and  destroyed  by  Sulla,  iii.  522 

Standards,  military,  iii.  460 

Stage,  origin  of  the  Roman,  ii.  97^  ;  iii. 
138  f.  At  first  for  musicians,  etc.,  of 
all  sorts,  ii.  97  f.  Censured,  ii.  98  f. 
Livius  Andronicus  substitutes  Greek 
drama  for  the  old  lyrical  stage  poem, 
iii.  135  f.  Comedy  predominates,  iii. 
141.  Under  Greek  influence,  iii.  1417^, 
147/?,  170,  i76_/C  Stage  in  the  seventh  and 
eighth  centuries,  iv.  22i_/";  v.  471./C  Dra- 
matic literature,  iii.  220-242  ;  v.  471  f. 
Tragedy,  iii.  171-177.  Graeco-Roman 
comedy,  iv.  222  f.  National  Roman 
comedy,  iv.  224  ,/C,  229  ./C  The  mime, 
v.  4087C     Compare  Fabula 

State  loans,  ii.  153 

State  treasure,  iii.  20,  23,  88 

State  treaties  at  later  period  considered 
invalid  unless  ratified  by  the  people, 
iii.  58 

Statius  Caecilius,  ii.  371  ;  iii.  162 

Statues  in  the  Forum,  ii.  Zdf. 

Stenius  Statilius,  general  of  Lucanians, 
ii.  9 

Stesichorus,  ii.  108  f.,  109  «. 

Stilo.     See  Aelius 

Stipem  cogere,  iii.  m 

Stifendiinit  in  the  provinces,  iii.  259 

Stoeni,  iii.  426 

Stoics,  etymologies  of  the,  iv.  203.  Sto- 
icism, iv.  1977C,  201-204  >  iv-  442-/^ 

Stratonicea,  ii.  434 

Straton's  Tower,  iv.  316 

Subulones,  i.  300 

Subura,  i.  63,  64,  66,  68 

Sucro,  battle  on  the  river,  iv.  295., . 

Suebi,  v.  31 

Suessa  Aurunca,  a  Latin  colony,  i.  476 

Suessa  Pometia,  i.  135,  445.  In  the 
Aricine  league,  i.  445  «.,  451.  A  Latin 
colony,  i.  445.  Destroyed  before  372, 
i.  449  n. 

Suessiones,  iii.  416  ;  v.  14,  24,  50,  51,  85 

Suessula,  i.  459  n.  ;  ii.  304 

Suetonius,  emendation  of,  iv.  469  h. 

Sugambri,  v.  31,  62 

Sulci,  v.  364 

Sulla.     See  Cornelius 


Sulmo,  town  of  the  Paeligni,  v.  an. 
Razed  under  Sulla,  iv.  108 

C.  Sulpicius  Gallus  [consul,  588]  con- 
versant with  astronomy,  iii.  194 

C.  Sulpicius  Peticus  [dictator,  396],  i.  432 

P.  Sulpicius  Galba  [consul,  543,  554] ;  ii. 
3r8,  339.  4'9>  422,  423,  424,  425,  432,  453 

P.  Sulpicius  Rufus,  his  political  position 
and  character,  iii.  531  f.  First  political 
activity,  iii.  442  «.,  531.  In  the  Social 
war,  iii.  504.  His  laws,  iii.  531-534. 
His  death,  iii.  540 

Servius  Sulpicius,  general  in  the  Social 
war,  iii.  512,  513,  521 

Servius  Sulpicius  Galba  [praetor]  defeated 
by  the  Lusitanians,  iii.  220 

Sun-dial,  first  in  Rome,  iii.  194 

Sun,  eclipses  of,  when  recorded  from 
observation  in  the  city  annals,  ii.  102 

Sunium,  ii.  396 ;  iii.  383 

Surface,  measures  of,  i.  265 

Surrentum,  i.  181 

Suthul,  iii.  395 

Sutrium,  iv.  167.  Etruscan,  i.  157.  A 
Latin  colony,  i.  432,  479,  486 

Swinging,  i.  296 

Sybaris,  i.  166,  168,  170,  173,  416 

Syphax,  ii.  321,  331,  354,  355,  356,  382 

Syracuse,  i.  166 ;  iii.  383.  Heads  the 
Sicilian  Greeks  in  the  struggle  with 
Carthage,  i.  416  /.  Aspires  to  sove- 
reignty over  Sicily  and  Lower  Italy ; 
conflicts  with  Carthage,  i.  417^  Seeks 
the  aid  of  Pyrrhus  against  Carthage,  ii. 
28.  Besieged  by  Carthaginians,  ii.  30./C 
Relieved  by  Pyrrhus,  ii.  32.  Results 
of  these  wars,  ii.  yjf-  Its  first  relations 
with  Rome,  ii.  40  f.,  46.  Its  position 
between  Rome  and  Carthage,  ii.  mf. 
Its  territory  after  first  Punic  war,  ii. 
204.  Siege  by  Marcellus,  ii.  309-313. 
Port  dominated  by  the  pirates,  iv.  354, 
362.     See  Asia. 

Syrtis  major,  iii.  387 

Table,  Greek  customs  at,  ii.  91.  Luxury 
at,  iii.  122-124;  iv.  185  /.,  271;  v.  378 

/,  387/  , 
Tablinum,  iii.  90,  207 
Tabula,  i.  28,  280 
Tactics,    Roman    and    modern,    v.    198 

Celtic,  v.  26,  27,  65,  77y     Parthian,  v. 

i55-i58_ 
Talaura,  iv.  332,  349 
Talio,  i.  32 
Tanners,  i.  253 
Tarentum  or  Taras,  i.  166,  168  ;  iv.  166. 

Its  rapid  rise,  i.  416.     First  aristocratic, 


J82 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


then  democratic,  i.  477.  The  most 
flourishing  seat  of  commerce  and  manu- 
factures in  Magna  Graecia,  i.  174.  Its 
commerce  with  Eastern  Italy,  i.  176./I, 
252  ;  ii.  80.  By  treaty  closes  the  Adri- 
atic to  Rome,  ii.  12,  42.  Its  resources 
for  war,  ii.  17.  Its  mercenaries,  i.  465 
f.\  ii.  3.  Its  burgess-army,  ii.  31. 
Makes  head  against  the  Samnites,  i. 
455,  460,  466.  Attitude  during  the 
Samnite  war,  i.  468,  491.  Supports  (in- 
directly) the  Samnites  against  Rome,  i. 
478.  Peace  with  Rome,  i.  482/;  Hesi- 
tates to  join  the  Lucanians,  ii.  10,  12. 
Attack  of  its  mob  on  the  Roman  fleet, 
ii.  xif.  Attack  on  Thurii,  ii.  i3_/C  At- 
tempts at  peace  of  the  Romans,  ii.  14. 
Submits  itself  to  Pyrrhus,  ii.  15.  Re- 
mains occupied  during  Pyrrhus'  Sicilian 
expedition,  ii.  30  f.  After  Pyrrhus' 
death  handed  over  to  the  Romans,  ii. 
37  f.  Its  fate,  ii.  38.  Its  relation  to 
Rome,  ii.  53.  Faithful  to  Rome  in 
second  Punic  war,  ii.  294,  333.  Taken 
by  Hannibal,  ii.  317,  335.  Retaken  by 
Rome,  ii.  342.  Ruined  by  the  war,  iii. 
100.  As  the  colony  of  Neptunia,  iii. 
374.  Remains  unaffected  by  the  general 
Latinizing,  iv.  191^ 

Tarcondimotus,  Cilician  tetrarch,  iv.  438 

Tarpeian  Hill,  the,  i.  137  «. 

Tarquinii,  home  of  the,  i.  159.  Banish- 
ment of  the  whole  clan,  i.  316 ;  ii.  105 

Tarquinii,  one  of  the  twelve  Etruscan 
towns,  i.  \b\f.  Aids  Veii  against 
Rome,  i.  426.  War  with  Rome,  i.  432 
y.  Treaties  of  peace  with  Rome,  i. 
433,  479-     Art  at,  ii.  126 

Tarracina  (Terracina),  v.  211.  Tempor- 
arily Latin  colony,  i.  446.  Mentioned 
in  treaty  of  Rome  with  Carthage,  i. 
346  ».,  450  /.  Revolts  from  Rome,  i. 
461.  Roman  burgess-colony,  i.  462  ;  ii. 
42.  The  tomb  of  Elpenor  shown  there, 
i.  177 

Tarraco,  ii.  321,  329,  393 

L.  Tarutius,  astrologer,  v.  446 

Task-work,  i.  91,  316  ;  iii.  22 

Tatius,  story  of  his  death,  i.  190  ».  ;  ii.  105 

Taulantii,  ii.  6 

Taurians  in  the  Crimea,  iv.  17,  2a 

Taurini,  ii.  259,  268 

Taurisci,  ii.  226 ;  iii.  424-428 

Tauroentium  (Tauroeis),  iii.  415.  Battle 
off",  v.  228 

Tauromenium,  ii.  161,  313  ;  iii.  310. 
Syracusan,  ii.  204.  Exempt  from  taxa- 
tion, iv.  157 


Taurus,  ii.  472 ;  iii.  275,  28a  ;  iv.  23 

Tautamus,  successor  of  Viriathus,  iii.  226 

Taxation,  direct,  unknown,  i.  91.     Priests 

compelled  to  pay  taxes,  iii.  no.     Laid 

on  the  provinces,  iii.  295  ;  iv.  1ST  J.  >  v- 

560  f.     System  of,  iv.  164-170;  v.  360 

f.     Employment  of  slaves  in,  iii.  307  /. 

Compare  Asia,  Gaul,  Africa,  Macedonia, 

tributum 

Taxiles,  Mithradatic  general,  iv.  41,  324, 

33i.  339 
Teanum  Apulum,  i.  474 
Teanum  Sidicinum,  ii.  303,  340 ;  iii.  492  ; 

iv.  91  ;  v.  208.     Under  Greek  influence, 

i.  456.     Seeks  aid  from  Rome,  i.  458. 

Left  by  Rome  to  the  Samnites,  i.  459  n. 

Occupied  by  the  latter,  i.  464.    Passive 

burgess-rights,  iii.  23  /. 
Teate,  town  of  the  Marrucini,  battle  in 

Social  war  at,  iii.  521 
Technical  style,  Roman,  ii.  114 
Tectosages  in  Asia  Minor,  ii.  401,  471 
Tectosages  in  Gaul,  iii.  443 
Tegea,  iii.  267 

Telamon,  battle  of,  ii.  225  f. 
Telegonus,  ii.  won. 
Telesia,  ii.  281 
Tellenii,   about    370,    member   of  Latin 

league,  i.  448  «. 
Tellus,  i.  207,  213 
Telmissus,  ii.  474 ;  iii.  280 
Temesa,  i.  170 
Tempe,  pass  of,  ii.  429,  503 
Temple,  none  in  earliest  Roman  religion, 

i.  224  f.,  305.      Tuscanic,   originating 

under    Greek    influence,    i.    304,    305. 

Wooden,  not  stone,  i.  234.     Relation  to 

Doric  and  Ionic  forms,  i.  308 
Templum,  i.  27,  225 
Tempsa  seized  by  robbers,  iv.  364 
Tencteri,  v.  31,  37,  60 
Tenedos,  ii.  417 ;  iv.  48,  329,  334 
Tenths,  Sicilian,  ii.  212  ;  iv.  158.     In  Sar- 
dinia and  elsewhere,  iv.  158.    Distinction 

between  tax -tenth  and  the  proprietor's 

tenth,  iv.  158  «, 
Terebra,  i.  28 
Tergeste,  v.  103 
C.  Terentius  Varro  [consul,  538],  ii.  284, 

287-291,  296,  297,  298 
M.  Terentius  Varro   Lucullus  regulates 

as  Sullan  officer  the  northern  boundary 

of  Italy,  iv.  122  ». 
M.  Terentius  Varro,  v.  219,  227,  444,  483 

492,  492  «.-494,  510-513 
P.  Terentius  Afer,  the  poet,  iv.  221,  324 

229.     In  the  Scipionic  circle,  iv.  220 
P.  Terentius  Varro  Atacinus,  v.  416,  480 


INDEX 


583 


Terina,  i.  170,  454 

Termantia,  iii.  226,  227 

Terminalia,  i.  208 

Termini  Gracchani,  iii.  33s ;  iv.  167 

Terminus,  i.  127,  213 

Territory  of  Rome,  original  limits,  i.  58, 
125.  Boundary  of  the  Tiber,  i.  131  f. 
Subjection  of  the  towns  between  the 
Tiber  and  the  Anio,  i.  125  f.  Exten- 
sion after  the  fall  of  Alba,  i.  125  f.,  134 
f.  Possessions  on  right  bank  of  Tiber 
lost,  i.  414.  Recovered,  i.  419.  Veii 
conquered,  i.  418,  425^  South  Etruria 
conquered,  i.  432.  Extension  of  terri- 
tory east  and  southwards,  i.  443-446. 
Extent  of,  at  end  of  Samnite  wars,  i. 
492  f.  After  the  Pyrrhic  war,  ii.  39, 
46-49.     Practically  extended  to  the  Po, 

>«•  372/ 

Tesserae,  tokens  at  first  for  the  four 
"night-watches,"  i.  255  n. 

Testament.    See  Will 

Teucer,  son  of  Ajax,  iv.  439 

Teuta,  ii.  218  ;  iii.  421 

Teutobod,  iii.  444,  446 

Teutones,  iii.  430,  444-447 

Thaenae,  iii.  258 

Thala,  iii.  402 

Thapsus,  ii.  39,/C  ;  iii.  244.  Exempt  from 
taxation,  iii.  259.     Battle  of,  v.  298. 

Thasos.ii.  411,  415,  425,  438,  478.  Thasian 
wine,  iv.  172 

Thaumaci,  ii.  427 

Theatre,  no  permanent,  in  Rome,  iii.  138. 
Free  admission  to,  iii.  139.  In  the 
seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  iv.  235./T  ; 
v.  471./C  Seats  in,  separate  for  the  sena- 
tors, iii.  10,  138 ;  for  the  equites,  iii. 
351 ;  iv.  in,  386 ;  v.  117.  Building  of 
a  stone  theatre  by  Pompeius,  v.  117,  471 

Thebes,  the  Boeotian,  ii.  432.  Financial 
distress  of,  iii.  265.  Pillages  the  neigh- 
bouring communities,  iii.  265.  Joins 
with  Critolaus  against  Rome,  iii.  268. 
Punishment,  iii.  272 

Thebes,  Phthiotic,  ii.  421 

Theft,  i.  192,  193.  Its  punishment  miti- 
gated, ii.  65.  Of  field  produce,  i. 
191/ 

Themiscyra,  iv.  33* 

Theodosia,  iv.  15 

Theodotus,  Roman  painter,  iii.  207 

Theophanes  of  Mkylene,  confidant  of 
Pompeius,  v.  420 

Theophiliscus  of  Rhodes,  ii.  411 

Theophrastus,  ii.  44,  112 

Theopompus,  i.  436  ;  ii.  ua 

Thermae.     See  Himera 


Thermopylae,  ii.   457 ;   iii.   268 ;  iv.   41. 

Battle  at,  ii.  458 

Thesaurus,  i.  230,  260  n, 

Thespiae,  art-treasures  carried  off  by 
Mummius,  iii.  270.  In  the  first  Mithra- 
datic  war,  iv.  35 

Thessalonica,  ii.  500,  508 ;  iii.  263.  In- 
scription of,  iii.  428 

Thessaly,  ii.  396,  429,  438,  436,  457,   438, 

476,  477i  48s.  498.  5°°i  5°2|  5°4.  5*7  i 
iii.  261,  266;  iv.  35,  41 

Theudalis  in  Africa,  tax-free,  iii.  259 

Theveste,  ii.  139,  236 

Thisbae,  town  in  Boeotia,  ii.  498,  501, 
503  «. 

C.  Thoranius  [quaestor,  681],  lieutenant  in 
the  Gladiatorial  war,  iv.  359 

Thorius  fights  against  Sertorius,  iv.  284 

Thracians,  ii.  317,  43s,  448,  453,  475,  477. 
Invade  Macedonia  and  Epirus,  iii.  426 ; 
iv.  34.  Invade  Asia,  iii.  423.  In  the 
army  of  Mithradates,  iv.  20.  In  the 
Roman  army,  iii.  458.  Thrace,  iii.  260, 
261,  262,  279,  414.  Subdued  by  the 
Romans,  iv.  307 

Three,  the  number,  in  oldest  priestly 
colleges,  i.  54 

Thurii  (Copia),  at  war  with  the  Lucanians 
i.  454,  455,  466.  Assailed  by  the  Lucan- 
ians,  applies  to  Rome  for  aid,  ii.  9,  10, 
11.  Captured  by  the  Tarentines,  ii.  13. 
Fate  of,  in  second  Punic  war,  ii.  294, 
336,  350.  Exempted  from  land-service, 
ii.  43.  A  Latin  colony,  ii.  52  «.,  365. 
Slave-rising,  iii.  380.  Stormed  by  the 
gladiators,  iv.  359.  Chariot-races  thence 
derived,  i.  296 

Thyatira  in  Lydia,  iii.  279  ;  iv.  52 

Tiber,  i.  42,  56,  59  f.  Its  regulation 
neglected,  iv.  169.  Caesar's  project 
for  altering  its  course,  v.  376 

Tibur,  i.  49,  126.  In  the  Aricine  league, 
i.  445  «.,  451.  Revolts  from  Rome,  i. 
447.  About  370,  a  member  of  the  Latin 
league,  i.  448  ».,  450.  Obliged  to  cede 
part  of  its  territory,  but  remains  in 
federal  relation  with  Rome,  i.  462.  Not 
a  Roman  burgess -community,  ii.  49; 
iii.  25,  36.  Obtains  burgess-rights  by 
the  Julian  law,  iii.  519 

Ticinus,  fight  on  the,  ii.  268^ 

Tifata,  Mount,  ii.  338.  Battle  on,  iv.  79 
f.    Temple  of  Diana  at,  iv.  308 

Tigorini,  iii.  435  ».,  445,  449 

Tigranes  of  Armenia,  iv.  5,  23,  24,  49. 
Alliance  with  Mithradates,  iv.  18.  Joins 
him  against  Rome,  iv.  27.  His  relations 
with  Rome,  iv.  305./C    Conquers  several 


5«4 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Parthian  satrapies,  Cappadocia,  Syria, 
and  Cilicia,  iv.  311,  315-318.  His  part 
as  "  great-king,"  iv.  318.  His  complica- 
tions with  Rome,  iv.  320  /.,  323,  334- 
338.  His  contest  with  Lucullus  and 
Pompeius,  iv.  338-347,  404/  Variance 
with  Mithradates,  iv.  406^  Open  rup- 
ture, iv.  410./C  Suppliant  to  Pompeius, 
iv.  411/ 

Tigranes,  son  of  foregoing,  iv.  406,  433 

Tigranocerta,  iv.  338  «.  Founded,  iv. 
317.     Battle  of,  iv.  339/ 

Tilphossian  Mount,  battle  at,  iv.  37 

Timaeus,  i.  435;  ii.  1107C  ;  iii.  186,  189 

Timarchus,  satrap  of  Media,  makes  him- 
self independent,  iii.  287 

Timarchus,  Syrian  envoy,  bribes  the  sen- 
ate, iii.  294 

Time,  basis  for  measurement  of,  i.  263 

Timoleon,  ii.  41,  161 

Tin,  trade  in  British,  iii.  420 ;  v.  17 

Tingis,  Greek,  i.  187.  Besieged  by  Ser- 
torius,  iv.  282 

Tipas,  king  of  the  Maedi,  iii.  428 

Tisaean  promontory,  iv.  41 

Tities  (sodales  Titii),  i.  53,  53,  S6>  2IS 

Titinius,  writer  of  comedies,  iii.  164  /.  ; 
iv.  230 

C.  Titius,  orator  about  593,  iv.  251.  Ex- 
cites in  665  mutiny  against  Cato,  iii. 
530.  Drastic  description  taken  from 
his  speeches,  iv.  187  f. 

Sex.  Titius  [tribune  of  the  people,  655],  iii. 
480 

Title -hunting  in  republican   Rome,   iii. 

43 
Titthi,  Celtiberian  tribe,  iii.  216 
Q.  Titurius  Sabinus,  Caesar's  lieutenant, 

v.  55,  68,  69,  70 
Tius,  iii.  281 ;  iv.  333 
Toga,  i.  89 
Togata.    See  Fabula 
Togati,   oldest   legal   designation  of  the 

Italians  as  opposed  to  the  Celtic  brae- 

cati,  ii.  59 ;  iii.  164  «.  ;  v.  10 
Tolenus,  river  in  Latium,  iii.  511 
Tolerini,  about  370,  member  of  the  Latin 

league,  i.  448  n. 
Tolistobogi  (or  Tolistoagii),  ii.  401,  469*1., 

471;  iv.  325 
Tolosa,  iii.  409,  436 ;  v.  8.     Spoil  of,  iii. 

436,  439.  44°  «• 
Tolummius,  king  of  Veii,  i.  425 
Tomatoes,  iii.  64  n. 
Tombs,    Etruscan    painting    of,    L    308. 

Ornaments  of,  ii.  81 
Tomi,  iv.  307 
Torboletes,  ii.  346 


Torrhebi  in  Lydia  confounded  with  the 
Italian  Etruscans,  i.  155 

Torture  only  applied  to  slaves,  L  192,  aos , 

Tota  =  community,  i.  85 

Tougeni,  iii.  435  «.,  444 

Town-life  in  Asia  Minor  stimulated  by 
Pompeius,  iv.  439-442 

Trades  in  Rome,  at  first  important  and 
honoured,  i.  248.  Guilds,  i.  249.  Ex- 
clusion of  artisans  from  serving  in  the 
army  by  the  Servian  reform,  i.  249  ,/C 
Subsequent  position  of,  iii.  84.  Decay 
of,  in  later  times,  iv.  173 

Tragyrium,  iii.  422 

Trajan,  the  Emperor,  treatment  of  the 
Greeks,  iii.  273  /. 

Tralles,  ii.  474 ;  iv.  45 

Transpadani    claim    burgess  •  rights,    iv. 

264,  457./,  469.  474.  512/;  v«  131  »•. 

421 
Trapezus,  iv.  12,  332 
Trasimene  Lake,  battle  at  the,  ii.  278  f. 
Travels,  scientific,  iv.  245  n. 
Trebia,  battle  on  the,  ii.  270  f. 
L.  Trebellius  [pleb.  tribune,  687],  iv.  394, 

398 
C.  Trebonius,  Caesar's  lieutenant,  v.  228 
L.  Tremellius  [quaestor,  612],  iii.  263 
Tres  viri  epulones,  iii.  no,     Increased  to 

seven,  iv.  126 
Tres  mensarii,  ii.  343 
Tres  noctumi  or  capitales,  ii.  66 
Treveri,  v.  32,  37,  72./C 
C.  Triarius,   lieutenant  of  Lucullus,  hr. 

347.  348  _ 

Triarii,  iii.  458 

Triballi,  iii.  425 

Tribes  of  the  clans  (Ramnians,  Tities, 
Luceres),  i.  53-56.  Formerly  communi- 
ties, i.  85.  Of  little  practical  signi- 
ficance, i.  $6f. 

Tribes,  Servian,  levy  districts,  i.  117. 
Three  of  the  Palatine,  one  (collind)  of 
the  Quirinal  city,  i.  64  f.,  106,  107. 
Their  order  of  precedence,  i.  108  /. 
Number  increased  to  twenty-one  :  their 
voting,  i.  359  f.  These  new  districts 
(tribus  rusticae)  arose  out  of  the  clan- 
villages,  i.  45.  Four  new  ones  added 
in  the  year  367,  i.  432.  Two  others  in 
the  year  422,  i.  462.  Two  more  in  the 
year  436,  i.  463.  Two  more  in  the 
year  455,  i.  485.  Increased  to  thirty- 
five  :  the  four  urban  ranking  last,  i. 
396/  Intimate  union  of  the  respective 
rural   tribes,   i.   399.      Disorganization, 

»»•  37-39 
Tribunal,  i.  140,  189 


INDEX 


585 


Tribuni cehrum,  i.  83,  90  ft.,  317 n.  Prob- 
ably increased  to  six,  i.  107^ 

Tribuni  militum,  i.  83,  90,  439,  440  n. 
Why  six  in  number,  i.  107  f.  Part 
chosen  by  the  community,  i.  397. 
Twenty-four  nominated  by  the  comitia, 
iii.  13,  57.  Qualification  for  the  office 
by  proof  of  many  years'  service,  iii.  13 

Tribuni  jnilitum  consulari  potestate  ap- 
pointed, eligible  from  both  orders,  i.  371- 
374.  Their  authority  equal,  whether 
patrician  or  plebeian,  i.  371  n.  Honour 
of  a  triumph  and  ius  imaginum  refused 
to  them,  i.  373./C    Abolished,  i.  380 

Tribuni  plebis,  their  institution,  i.  349. 
Arise  out  of  the  military  tribunes,  and 
named  after  them,  i.  354.  Comparison 
between  consular  and  tribunician  power, 
*•  354  /•  Not  magistrates,  and  without 
a  seat  in  the  senate,  i.  355.  Political 
value  of  the  office,  i.  355  /.  At  first 
two,  i.  349.  Subsequently  four,  i.  361. 
Then  ten,  i.  362.  Their  right  of  inter- 
cessio,  i.  350  f.  Criminal  jurisdiction, 
i.  350-352 ;  iv.  127.  Acquire  the  right 
of  consulting  the  people  and  procuring 
"resolves,"  i.  353.  Inviolable,  i.  353^ 
Suspension  of  the  office  during  the  de- 
cemvirate,  and  its  abolition  aimed  at,  i. 
362.  Restored,  i.  368.  Share  in  the 
discussions  of  the  senate :  seated  on  a 
bench  near  the  door,  i.  369.  Obtain,  after 
equalization  of  the  orders,  the  distinc- 
tive prerogative  of  supreme  magistracy — 
the  right  of  convoking  the  senate  and 
transacting  business  with  it — and  be- 
come the  usual  organ  of  the  senate,  i. 
403-405.  Political  value  of  this  measure, 
L  405./.  Their  re-election  permitted  by 
C.  Papirius  Carbo,  iii.  340  «.,  344.  Their 
initiative  in  legislation  restricted  by 
Sulla,  iii.  542 ;  iv.  116-118,  264.  Restora- 
tion of  the  tribunician  power,  iv.  371,  381 

Tribuni  at  Venusia,  ii.  51 

Tributum,  i.  92,  380 ;  iii.  21.  Laid  upon 
the  freeholders,  i.  115.  Ceases  to  be 
levied  in  Italy,  iii.  303;  iv.  156.  In  the 
provinces,  iv.  157  ./C 

Trifanum,  battle  of,  459  «.,  461 

Trigemina  porta,  iii.  368 

Triocala,  iii.  386 

Triphylia,  ii.  396 

Triumph,  meaning  of,  i.  35,  296.  Refused 
by  senate,  granted  by  burgesses,  i.  398. 
Becomes  common,  iii,  43  f.  On  the 
Alban  Mount,  iii.  43 

Triumvirate,  first,  of  Pompeius,  Crassus, 
and  Caesar,  iv.  378.     Second,  iv.  504^ 


Trocmi,  ii.  401,  471 

Troia,  game  of,  i.  294  *. 

Tryphon,  king  of  Syria,  iii.  286,  292 

Tryphon,  leader  in  the  Sicilian  slave- 
rising,  iii.  384,  385,  386 

Tubilustrium,  i.  209 

Tuder,  town  in  Umbria,  iv.  91 

Tullianum,  i.  137,  302 ;  ii.  119 ;  iii.  409 

M.  Tullius  Cicero,  father  of  the  orator, 
iv.  194 

M.  Tullius  Cicero,  his  character,  iv.  470, 
$16/. ;  v.  132./C,  504/I  His  birthplace, 
iv.  266.  Opposes  Sulla,  iv.  266.  Im- 
peaches Verres,  iv.  373.  Defends  the 
Manilian  law,  iv.  397  f.  Consul,  iv. 
470.  Opposes  the  Servilian  agrarian 
law,  iv.  474.  Conduct  during  Catilina's 
conspiracy,  iv.  475,  478  /.,  481-484. 
Banished  for  his  conduct  therein,  iv. 
516-518.  Recalled,  v.  112,  118.  Sup- 
ports the  corn-distribution  of  Pompeius, 
v.  121.  Opposes  Caesar's  agrarian  law, 
v.  124.  Goes  to  the  camp  of  Pompeius, 
v.  237.  After  the  battle  of  Pharsalus, 
v.  265,  288.  Submits  to  Caesar,  v.  129, 
132  f.  Creator  of  classical  Latin, 
v-  455  /  Asa  forensic  orator,  v.  503- 
506.  Writes  dialogues,  v.  507-510. 
Literary  opposition  to,  v.  50(1  f. 

Q.  Tullius  Cicero,  v.  70./C 

Tunes,  iii.  249.     Battle  of,  ii.  182,/T,  201 

Tunes,  Lake  of,  iii.  248,  254 

Turdetani,  ii.  385  ;  iii.  220,  221 ;  iv.  174 

S.  Turpilius,  comic  poet,  iv.  229 

T.  Turpilius  Silanus  commands  the 
garrison  of  Vaga,  iii.  402.  Executed 
by  court  martial,  iii.  403 

Turia,  river,  iv.  296 

Turs-ennae,  i.  155 

Tusca,  river,  iii.  258 

Tusca,  town,  iii.  238 

Tuscan  Sea,  i.  181 

Tusculum,  i.  48,  58.  Legends  as  to  its 
foundation,  i.  no  ».,  in.  In  the  Ari- 
cine  league,  i.  445  ».,  451.  Helps  the 
Roman  government  amidst  internal 
troubles,  i.  358.  Revolts,  i.  447./,  460. 
About  370,  a  member  of  Latin  league, 
i.  448  «.,  450.  Forced  to  enter  the 
Roman  burgess-union,  i.  451.  Obtains 
full  burgess-rights,  ii.  48  n.  Dictator 
there,  i.  442  n.    Architecture,  i.  302. 

Tutela,  i.  78 

Tutomotulus,  king  of  the  Salyes,  iii.  417 

Twelve  Tables,  laws  of  the  :  their  origin, 
i.  361  f.  Essentially  a  written  em- 
bodiment of  the  existing  public  and 
private  law,  i.  363, 364.    Restrict  luxury, 


586 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


ii.  63,  81  f.     Literal/  significance,  ii. 

112,  116 
Tyndaris,  ii.  184 
Tyndaris,  promontory  of,  battle  off  the, 

ii.  178 
Tyre,  ii.  142 
Tyrrheno-Pelasgians,  their  relation  to  the 

Etruscans,  i.  155 

Ubii,  v.  31,  61 
Ulbia,  ii.  177 

Ulixes,  whence  derived,  i.  258 

Umbrians,  ii.  224.  A  branch  of  the 
Italians,  i.  13  f.  Language  of,  i.  12  f., 
16  /.,  282;  ii.  115.  Writing,  i.  278, 
282.  Migration,  i.  39  /.,  143  /.  Their 
original  district,  i  143-147,  158,  434. 
Join  Etruscans  in  surprising  Cumae,  i. 
158.  Share  in  the  Samnite  war,  i.  480 
f.  Their  attitude  in  the  second  Punic 
war,  ii.  347.  Their  agriculture,  iii. 
99.  Position  towards  proposals  of  the 
younger  Drusus,  iii.  486.  Remain 
faithful  in  the  Social  war,  iii.  501. 
Incipient  insurrection,  iii.  513  _/C,  519. 
Repressed  by  Sulla,  iv.  91 

Vrban  community  contrasted  with  a 
state,  iii.  330 /C,  505./C  ;  iv.  132-134 

Vrbanitas,  v.  452 

Uris,  i.  47 

TJrso,  iii.  223 

Usalis  in  Africa,  tax-free,  iii.  259 

Uscudama  (Adrianople),  town  of  the 
Bessi,  iv.  307 

Usipetes,  v.  31,  37,  60 

Usuarium,  i.  60 

Usury,  i.  364,  389,  390.     See  Interest 

l/sus  in  marriage,  i.  113  n. 

Utica,  iii.  249,  392.  Its  relations  with 
Carthage,  ii.  136,  140  /.,  155.  Offers 
itself  to  Rome,  ii.  207.  Scipio's  con- 
flicts at,  ii.  354,  355.  Holds  firm  to 
Rome,  iii.  242,  243,  244,  245,  253,  259 ; 
v.  287.  Curio's  victory  at,  v.  231. 
Seat  of  the  governor  of  Africa,  iii.  259./C 

Uxama,  iv.  304 

Uxentum,  ii.  293 

Vacca.     See  Vaga 

Vaccaei,  iii.  219,  220,  228,  229,  230,  232  ; 

iv.  190,  297 
Vadimonian  Lake,  battle  at  the,  i.  479 
Vaga  (Vacca),  ii.  383  ;  iii.  402  ;  v.  286 
Valentia  in  Bruttium.    See  Vibo 
Valentia  in  Spain,  iv.  295,  296.     Obtains 

Italian  municipal  constitution,  iii.  232  ; 

Iv.  190 


Valerius  Antias,  historian,  v.  496^ 
Valerius  Cato,  teacher  of  Latin  literature, 

v.  480 
C.  Valerius  Flaccus,  Sullan  governor  in 

Spain,  iv.  93  ;  v.  7 
C.  Valerius  Triarius,  Lucullus'  lieutenant, 

iv.  329,  334,  348 
L.  Valerius  Poplicola  [consul,  305],  i.  398 
L.  Valerius  Flaccus  [consul,  559 ;  censor, 

570],  ii.  4S7  ;  iii.  47  / 
L.  Valerius  Flaccus  [consul,  654],  iii.  467 

f. ;  iv.  72  n. 
L.  Valerius  Flaccus  [consul,  668],  iv.  40, 

43.  47.  7°>  72  «•>  98>  I02  «• 
L.  Valerius  Flaccus,  lieutenant  of  Pom- 

peius  in  Asia,  iv.  413 
L.    Valerius   Flaccus    [praetor,  691]    de- 

fended  by  Cicero,  iv,  73  «. 
M'.  Valerius  Maximus  [dictator,  260],  i. 

348 
M\  Valerius  Maximus  Messalla  [consul, 

491 ;    censor,   502],   ii.   170 ;    iii.  44  ». 

Orders  the  first  frescoes  to  be  painted 

in  Rome,  iii.  207 
M.  Valerius  Corvus  [consul,  406,  408,  411, 

4I9»   454>    455].    >-   4°3.   459  «•  i  «H.   17. 

Not  called  Calenus,  iii.  44  n. 
M.  Valerius   Laevinus   [consul,   544],   ii. 

3°5»  314.  317.  4r5 
P.  Valerius  Falto  [praetor,  513],  ii.  195 
P.  Valerius  Laevinus  [consul,  474].  ii.  19, 

2i>  23 
P.  Valerius  Poplicola,  ii.  105 
Q.  Valerius  Catullus,  v.  140  /.,  445,  481- 

483 

Vardaei.     See  Ardyaei 

P.  Varinius  [praetor,  681],  general  in 
Gladiatorial  war,  iv.  358,  359 

Q.  Varius  [pleb.  tribune,  663  ?],  iii.  503, 
516 ;  iv.  67 

Varro.     See  Terentius 

Vascones,  iv.  297 

Vates,  i.  286,  298  n. 

P.  Vatinius  [pleb.  tribune,  696],  iv.  519 ; 
v.  138,  285 

Vectigo.Ua,  i.  92 

Vediovis,  i.  137,  207,  212 

Veii,  i.  157.  Rome's  nearest  neighbour 
and  chief  opponent  in  Etruria,  i.  157  f. 
Contest  with  Rome,  i.  134.  Taken  by 
Rome,  i.  425-457.  Assignment  of  terri- 
tory, i.  378.  Colonized,  i.  432.  Art  at, 
i.  306 ;  ii.  126 

Velabrum,  i.  63 

Vclia,  ridge  between  Palatine  and  Esqui- 
line,  i.  63 

Velia  (Elea),  Phocaean  colony,  i.  166.  Itt 
old  relations  with  Rome,  i.  260 


INDEX 


587 


elino,  the,  widened,  ii.  85 
'elites,  i.  90  ».,  118 

elitrae,  a  Latin  colony,  i.  44s  n.  Op- 
position to  Rome,  i.  447.  About  370,  a 
member  of  the  Latin  league,  i.  448  *»., 
450.  Revolts  from  Rome,  i.  461.  Severe 
punishment,  i.  462.  Presumably  re- 
tained passive  burgess  -  rights,  iii.  23. 
Terra-cottas,  ii.  122.  Volscian  language 
maintains  itself  there,  ii.  122 
ellocassi,  iii.  444 

enafrum,  town  in  Samnium,  iii.  509 
eneti,  in  Italy,  i.  156,  434;  ii.  221,  224, 
228,  371  ;  iii.  424.     Veneti  in  Gaul,  v. 

15.  16.  55-57 
enus,  ii.  71 

enusia,  iii.  492 ;  iv.  166.  A  Latin  colony, 
i.  493.  Reinforced,  ii.  366.  Popular 
tribunes  at,  ii.  51.  Attitude  of,  in  Pyr- 
rhic war,  ii.  21.  In  second  Punic  war, 
ii.  190,  295,  343.     In  Social  war,  iii.  510, 

513.  523i  526 

ercellae,  near  the  scene  of  the  battle  of 

the  Raudine  Plain,  iii.  448  n. 

ercingetorix,  v.  75-91 

■.  Verginius,  i.  366 

'ermina,  son  of  Syphax,  ii.  383 

'erona,  i.  423 ;  iv.  167 

I.  Verres,  iv.  373 ;  v.  408 

reru,  ii.  76  ». 

rerulae,  i.  485 

esontio,  capital  of  Sequani,  v.  46  /. 

resta,  i.  26,  81,  209,  213,  216.    Temple  of, 

Servian,  i.  140.     After  Greek  model,  i. 

142 
'tstalia,  i.  209 

restals,  i.  106,  192,  217 ;  iv.  207 
restibulum,  i.  302 
restini,  i.  146,  482.     Share  in  Social  war, 

iii.  501,  512,  522 
resuvius,  battle  at,  i.  459  ft. 
'eterans  of  Marius,  allotments  of  land  to, 

iii.  468.     Of  Sulla,  iv.  108  /. 
'..  Vetilius,  against  Viriathus,  iii.  221 
>.  Vettius  Scato,  Italian  leader  in  Social 

war,  iii.  509,  512,  513 
\  Vettius,  at  the  head  of  a  slave-revolt, 

iii.  381 
rettones,  share  in  Lusitanian  war,  iii.  315, 

218,  225 
fetulonium,  one  of  the  twelve  Etruscan 

towns,  i.  161 
feturii,  clan-village,  i.  45 
r.  Veturius  Calvinus  [consul,  432J,  i.  470 
'ia  A  emilia,  from  Ariminum  to  Placentia, 

ii.  374 ;  iv.  167 
?ia  Aemilia  from  Luna  to  Genua,  ii. 

374 


Via  Appia,  i.  471.  Continued  to  Capua, 
i.  476.  To  Venusia,  i.  493.  To  the 
Ionian  Sea,  ii.  39  ;  iv.  166 

Via  Aurelia,  ii.  375  ;  iv.  167 

Via  Cassia,  i.  486  ft. ;  ii.  274,  374 ;  iv. 
167 

Via  Domitia,  iii.  416 ;  iv.  168 

Via  Egnatia,  iii.  263  ;  iv.  168 

Via  Flaminia,  i.  485 ;  ii.  274 ;  iv.  166, 
167 

Via  Gabinia,  iii.  427 ;  iv.  167 

Via  Postumia,  iv.  167 

Via  sacra,  i.  138  ft. 

Via  Valeria,  i.  485.     Compare  Road 

C  Vibius  Pansa  [pleb.  tribune,  703],  v. 
180 

Vibo  (Valentia),  a  Latin  colony,  ii.  52  «., 
365 ;  iii.  100 

L.  Vibullius  Rufus,  v.  209,  210 

Victor,  emendation  of,  iii.  428  n. 

Victoriatus,  iii.  87 

Victumulae,  gold  washings  at,  iii.  381,  415 

Vicus,  i.  45.     Tuscus,  L  159 

Vienna,  v.  8 

Vigiliae,  i.  255  ft. 

P.  Villius  [consul,  555],  ii.  428,  432.  451 

Vinalia,  i.  208 

Vindalium,  battle  of,  iii.  418,  419  *. 

Vindelici,  i.  423  m. 

V index,  i.  197 

Vindiciae,  i.  196 

Vindicius,  ii.  105 

Vine,  culture  of  the  :  its  original  home,  L 
38.  Very  ancient  in  Italy,  i.  23,  158, 
171.  Before  the  Greek  immigration,  L 
241.  Priestly  supervision,  i.  225,  241  /. 
Increase  of,  i.  80,  305  ;  iv.  172^  Man- 
agement, iii.  67  n.  Outlay  and  returns, 
iii.  80  ft.  Prohibited  to  the  Transalpines 
(round  Massilia),  iii.  415 ;  iv.  171  /. 

Virdumarus,  ii.  228 

Viriathus,  iii.  220-226,  267 

Vitruvius  Vaccus,  i.  463 

Caelius  Vivenna,  i.  158 

Voconius,  lieutenant  of  Lucullus  in  the 
Mithradatic  war,  iv.  329 

Vocontii,  iii.  417  ;  v.  8 

Volaterrae,  siege  by  Sulla,  iv.  91.  Con- 
fiscation, iv.  108,  265.  Obtains  from 
Sulla  the  ins  of  Ariminum,  ii.  52  «. 

Volcae-Arecomici,  iv.  293  ;  v.  8 

Volcanalia,  i.  209  ;  iii.  217 

Volcanus,  i.  209,  249 

Volci,  one  of  the  twelve  Etruscan  towns, 
L  161.  Sepulchral  chambers,  i.  25> 
Art,  i.  126 

Volsci,  their  settlements,  i.  444.  Their 
wars  with  Rome,  i.  135.     Clients  of  the 


588 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Etruscans,  i.  181.  Subdued  by  Rome, 
i.  444-446.  Revolt  against  Rome,  i. 
461.  Received,  in  great  part,  into  the 
Roman  burgess-union,  ii.  48 ;  iii.  33 

Volsinii,  chief  town  of  Etruria,  i.  161, 
250 ;  ii.  121.  Wars  with  Rome,  i.  426./C, 
400.  Roman  intervention  in  favour  of 
the  civic  aristocracy,  i.  436^ ;  ii.  57 

Voltinii,  clan-village,  i.  45 

Voltumna,  temple  of,  in  Etruria,  as- 
sembly and  fair  at,  L  350 

Volturnalia,  i.  208 

Volturnum,  ii.  337 

Volturnus,  i.  40 

Volux,  son  of  Bocchus,  iii.  408 

Vote  by  ballot,  iii.  73.  Controlled  by 
Marius,  iii.  198 

Vow,  i.  223 

Walls,  so-called  Cyclopean,  arose  under 
Greek  influence  in  Italy,  i.  302 

War,  declaration  of,  Roman,  i.  101.  Re- 
quired, in  the  case  of  aggressive  wars, 
the  consent  of  the  burgesses,  i.  96. 
Formula  of,  i.  202.  Commencement  of, 
signified  by  singed  bloody  staff,  i.  203. 

War-chariots,  i.  294./C,  296.  Celtic,  i.  431. 
Employed  against  Pyrrhus'  elephants, 
ii.  26 

Waxen  masks,  iii.  105 

Wealth,  Roman,  iii.  %%f. 

Week,  Roman,  i.  267 

Weights,  starting-point,  L  363 .A  Duo- 
decimal system,  i.  365.  Afterwards 
modelled  on  the  Attico-Sicilian,  i.  266 

Wheat,  cultivation  of,  in  Italy,  ii.  77 ;  iii. 
66 

Wild  animals,  fights  of,  in  Rome,  iii.  126  ; 
iv.  183,  184 

Wills,  foreign  to  the  primitive  law,  and 
requiring  sanction  by  decree  of  the 
people,  i.  95,  194.  Private,  arise  from 
the  transfer  of  all  property  to  a  friend 
during  the  owner's  lifetime,  L  198 ;  ii. 


Winds,  names  of  the,  how  far  borrowed, 

i.  254  n. 
Wine,  Greek,  imported  to  Rome,  iii  133. 

When  drunk  unmixed,  iii.  123 
Wine  presented  to  the  governor,  iii.  31 
Witness,  false,  i.  191 
Wolf,  She-,  of  the  Capitol,  ii.  93,  106,  133, 

128 
Woman,  position  of,  in  the  Roman  family, 

i.  73-77.    Her  emancipation,  iii.  131  f. 

Women  in  Caesar's  time,  v.  391./C    Act 

in  the  mimes,  v.  469,  516  n. 
Wonders  and  prodigies,  when  recorded 

in  the  Annals,  ii.  iosyC 
Wool-spinning  by  women,  L  73  f.    Men- 
tioned in  epitaphs,  i.  74  n. 
Words  borrowed  from  Greek  in  Latin,  i. 

342  «.,  1254, 366.    Bear  throughout  Doric 

forms,  i.  260 
Words  borrowed  from  Latin  in  Sicilian 

Greek,  i.  254,  359 
Words  borrowed  from  Oriental  languages 

reach    the    Latin    only    through    the 

medium  of  the  Greeks,  i.  260  ». 
Writing  materials,  oldest,  i.  280 

Xanthipfcs  of  Sparta,  ii.  18a  n.,  187 

Year,  oldest  Roman,  i.  *68.    Beginning 
of,  fixed  at  January  i,  iii.  3x5 

Zacynthus,  ii.  477,  478 

Zama  regia,   battle  of,  li.    359   «.,  36a 

Numidian,  iii.  359.    Siege  in  Jugurthine 

war,  iii.  398  ».,  401 
Zamolxis,  v.  105 
Zancle.    See  Messana 
Zariadrids,  iv.  5 
Zariadris,  ii.  473 
Zenicetes,  pirate  prince,  Iv.  313 
Zeno,  the  Stoic,  iv.  197,  198 
Zeus,  Venasian,  iv.  439 
Zeuxis  of  Lydia,  ii.  419 
Ziela,  battle  of,  v.  983 
Zygi,  iv.  41* 


COLLATION    OF   EDITIONS 

[It  is  hoped  that  this  collation  will  facilitate  the  use  of  the  present 
edition  for  the  verifying  of  references  made  to  the  last  form  of  the 
original,  or  to  the  earlier  English  and  American  forms  of  the  book.] 


Present 
Edition. 

Earlier 

American 

Edition. 

German 
(8th  edition.) 

First  English 

(Crown  8vo, 

1862-66). 

Second  English 

(Demy  8vo. 

1868). 

Vol.  I.  10 

Vol.  I.  30 

Vol.  I.  9 

Vol.I.  9 

Vol.  I.  9 

20 

39 

16 

17 

17 

30 

49 

24 

25 

26 

40 

58 

3i 

34 

35 

50 

67 

39 

41 

43 

60 

76 

47 

5o 

52 

70 

86 

55 

58 

60 

80 

95 

62 

66 

69 

90 

106 

69 

78 

79 

IOO 

117 

77 

82 

87 

no 

127 

85 

90 

96 

120 

138 

92 

IOO 

106 

130 

148 

IOI 

109 

H5 

140 

157 

108 

117 

123 

150 

166 

116 

125 

132 

160 

175 

123 

133 

140 

170 

184 

131 

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138 

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203 

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290 

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224 

233 

248 

300 

306 

231 

242 

256 

310 

317 

240 

250 

266 

320 

326 

248 

259 

275 

590 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Present 

Earlier 

German 

First  English 

Second  English 

Edition. 

American 
Edition. 

(8th  edition). 

(Crown  8vo, 
1862-66). 

(Demy  8vo, 
1868). 

Vol.  I.  330 

Vol.  I.  334 

Vol.  I.  256 

Vol.  I.  266 

Vol.  I.  283 

340 

344 

263 

272 

291 

35o 

353 

271 

281 

301 

360 

362 

278 

288 

308 

37o 

372 

287 

296 

317 

380 

382 

295 

304 

325 

390 

39i 

302 

3" 

334 

400 

401 

310 

320 

343 

410 

410 

3i8 

327 

351 

420 

420 

325 

335 

359 

43° 

430 

333 

343 

367 

440 

439 

34i 

35i 

376 

45o 

448 

349 

358 

383 

460 

458 

357 

367 

392 

470 

468 

365 

375 

400 

480 

478 

372 

383 

408 

490 

487 

380 

390 

417 

500 

— 

— 

— 

— 

Vol.  II.  10 

499 

390 

401 

428 

20 

509 

398 

409 

436 

30 

518 

405 

417 

444 

40 

528 

413 

425 

453 

5o 

536 

421 

432 

460 

60 

547 

429 

441 

470 

70 

557 

437 

451 

479 

80 

567 

445 

459 

487 

90 

576 

453 

467 

495 

100 

586 

461 

475 

504 

no 

595 

469 

483 

513 

120 

605 

476 

491 

521 

130 

Vol.  II.  8 

484 

Vol.  II.  2 

Vol.  II.  2 

140 

17 

492 

10 

n 

150 

27 

499 

18 

19 

160 

36 

507 

26 

28 

170 

46 

515 

35 

37 

180 

56 

522 

43 

45 

190 

65 

530 

51 

54 

200 

74 

537 

59 

62 

210 

84 

545 

68 

71 

220 

93 

553 

76 

79 

230 

102 

560 

83 

87 

240 

112 

568 

91 

96 

250 

121 

575 

99 

104 

260 

130 

583 

107 

"3 

270 

139 

590 

"5 

121 

280 

148 

598 

123 

130 

190 

157 

605 

131 

138 

300 

166 

613 

130 

146 

310 

175 

620 

147 

154 

320 

184 

628 

155 

163 

COLLATION  OF   EDITIONS  591 


P resent 

Earlier 

Gcrrnsn 

First  English 

Second  English 

Edition, 

American 
Edition. 

(8th  edition). 

(Crown  8vo, 
1862-66). 

(Demy  8vo, 
1868). 

Vol.  II.  330 

Vol.  II.  194 

Vol.  I.  636 

Vol.  II.  163 

Vol.  II.  171 

34° 

203 

643 

171 

180 

35o 

213 

651 

179 

1 88 

360 

222 

658 

187 

197 

37o 

231 

666 

195 

206 

380 

240 

673 

203 

214 

39o 

250 

681 

211 

223 

400 

258 

689 

218 

231 

410 

268 

696 

226 

240 

420 

277 

704 

234 

248 

430 

286 

711 

242 

257 

440 

296 

719 

250 

265 

450 

305 

727 

257 

274 

460 

3H 

735 

265 

282 

470 

323 

742 

273 

290 

480 

33i 

750 

280 

298 

490 

341 

758 

288 

306 

500 

35° 

765 

296 

314 

510 

359 

773 

304 

323 

520 

368 

780 

312 

331 

Vol.  III.  10 

380 

789 

321 

340 

20 

389 

796 

329 

348 

30 

398 

804 

337 

357 

40 

408 

811 

345 

365 

5o 

417 

819 

353 

374 

60 

427 

827 

359 

382 

70 

436 

835 

367 

390 

80 

446 

842 

375 

398 

90 

455 

850 

383 

406 

100 

465 

858 

39i 

415 

no 

473 

866 

399 

423 

120 

483 

873 

407 

43i 

130 

492 

881 

415 

440 

140 

502 

889 

423 

448 

150 

512 

897 

43i 

456 

160 

521 

905 

439 

464 

170 

531 

912 

447 

473 

180 

54i 

921 

455 

481 

190 

55° 

929 

464 

490 

200 

560 

937 

472 

498 

210 

Vol.111.  10 

944 

480 

507 

220 

19 

Vol.  II.  8 

Vol.  III.  8 

Vol.  III.  9 

230 

29 

15 

16 

17 

240 

38 

23 

25 

26 

250 

48 

31 

33 

34 

260 

57 

39 

4i 

43 

270 

66 

47 

49 

5i 

280 

76 

55 

57 

59 

290 

85 

62 

65 

68 

300 

95 

70 

73 

76 

592 


HISTORY  OF  ROME 


Present 

Earlier 

German 

First  English 

Second  English 

Edition. 

American 
Edition. 

(8th  edition). 

(Crown  8vo, 
1862-66). 

(Demy  8vo, 
1868). 

Voi.1n.310  ' 

i/ol.  III.  104 

Vol.  II.  78 

Vol.  III.  81 

Vol.  III.  85 

320 

114 

86 

90 

94 

330 

I23 

93 

98 

I02 

340 

132 

102 

106 

III 

350 

142 

109 

114 

I20 

360 

ISI 

117 

122 

128 

370 

l6o 

124 

130 

136 

380 

I70 

132 

138 

145 

390 

179 

140 

146 

153 

400 

188 

148 

155 

162 

410 

I98 

155 

162 

170 

420 

208 

164 

171 

179 

430 

2l6 

172 

178 

187 

440 

226 

179 

186 

I96 

450 

236 

187 

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204 

460 

245 

195 

202 

212 

470 

255 

203 

210 

220 

480 

264 

210 

218 

229 

490 

274 

218 

226 

237 

500 

284 

226 

234 

246 

510 

293 

234 

242 

254 

520 

302 

242 

250 

263 

530 

312 

249 

258 

27I 

540 

321 

257 

266 

280 

Vol.  IV.  10 

335 

268 

278 

292 

20 

344 

276 

285 

3OO 

30 

354 

284 

293 

308 

40 

363 

292 

301 

317 

5o 

373 

299 

309 

325 

60 

383 

307 

317 

333 

70 

392 

315 

325 

342 

80 

402 

322 

333 

35o 

90 

411 

33° 

341 

359 

100 

421 

338 

35° 

368 

110 

43i 

345 

358 

376 

120 

441 

353 

366 

385 

130 

45o 

361 

373 

392 

140 

458 

368 

38i 

401 

150 

468 

376 

389 

409 

1 60 

478 

384 

398 

418 

170 

487 

39 1 

406 

426 

180 

496 

499 

413 

435 

190 

506 

407 

422 

443 

200 

5i5 

415 

430 

45i 

210 

524 

422 

438 

460 

220 

534 

43° 

446 

469 

230 

543 

438 

454 

477 

240 

553 

446 

462 

485 

250 

562 

455 

470 

494 

260 

571 

463 

478 

502 

COLLATION  OF  EDITIONS  593 


Present 
Edition. 

Earlier 

American 

Edition. 

German 
(8th  edition). 

First  English 

(Crown  8vo, 

1862-66.) 

Second  English 

(Demy  8vo, 

1868.) 

Vol.  IV.  270 

Vol.  IV.  19 

Vol.  III.  9 

Vol.  IV.  9 

Vol.  IV.  9 

280 

30 

18 

17 

18 

29O 

39 

27 

25 

26 

3OO 

49 

35 

33 

35 

3IO 

57 

44 

41 

43 

320 

66 

53 

49 

5i 

33° 

76 

61 

57 

60 

340 

85 

70 

65 

68 

35° 

94 

78 

73 

77 

360 

104 

86 

81 

85 

37o 

"3 

94 

88 

93 

380 

122 

102 

96 

IOI 

390 

132 

in 

104 

no 

400 

142 

120 

"3 

118 

410 

151 

128 

121 

126 

420 

160 

137 

129 

135 

430 

169 

145 

137 

143 

440 

179 

154 

145 

151 

45o 

188 

162 

152 

160 

460 

198 

171 

161 

169 

470 

208 

180 

169 

177 

480 

217 

188 

176 

186 

490 

227 

196 

184 

194 

500 

237 

205 

193 

203 

510 

246 

213 

201 

211 

Vol.V.  10 

261 

226 

215 

225 

20 

271 

234 

223 

233 

3° 

281 

242 

231 

242 

40 

290 

251 

239 

250 

5° 

300 

259 

247 

259 

60 

309 

267 

255 

267 

70 

319 

275 

263 

275 

80 

329 

283 

271 

284 

90 

338 

291 

279 

292 

100 

347 

300 

287 

301 

no 

356 

307 

295 

309 

120 

366 

315 

303 

318 

130 

375 

324 

3" 

326 

140 

385 

332 

319 

334 

150 

395 

34i 

328 

344 

160 

404 

349 

336 

352 

170 

413 

356 

344 

361 

1 80 

422 

364 

351 

369 

190 

432 

372 

359 

378 

200 

440 

379 

367 

386 

210 

45° 

387 

375 

394 

220 

459 

395 

383 

402 

230 

468 

402 

39i 

411 

240 

478 

410 

399 

419 

250 

487 

418 

406 

427 

594  HISTORY  OF  ROME, 

German 
(8th  Edit 

Vol.  III. 


Present 

Earlier 

Edition. 

American 

Edition. 

Vol.  V.  260 

Vol.  IV.  496 

270 

506 

280 

515 

290 

524 

300 

533 

310 

542 

320 

552 

33° 

56i 

340 

57o 

35o 

579 

360 

588 

37° 

597 

380 

606 

390 

616 

400 

625 

410 

635 

420 

644 

43° 

654 

440 

666 

450 

672 

460 

682 

470 

692 

480 

701 

490 

710 

500 

720 

5io 

ro 

518 

738 

in 

First  English 

Second  English 

ion). 

(Crown  8vo, 

(Demy  8vo, 

1862-66). 

1868). 

426 

Vol.  IV.  415 

Vol.  IV.  436 

434 

422 

444 

441 

430 

453 

449 

438 

461 

457 

446 

469 

465 

454 

478 

473 

462 

486 

481 

469 

495 

489 

477 

503 

496 

485 

5ii 

504 

493 

520 

512 

50I 

528 

520 

509 

536 

528 

517 

545 

536 

525 

553 

544 

533 

562 

551 

54o 

57o 

559 

548 

578 

568 

556 

587 

575 

564 

596 

583 

573 

604 

591 

580 

612 

599 

589 

621 

608 

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630 

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605 

938 

624 

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646 

630 

619 

653 

THE  END. 


00205319099 


DG 
209 

1905 
v.5 


Mommsen ,   The  odor 

The  history  of  Rome 
A  new  ed,  rev. 


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